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Cheating scoundrels Datel have announced their latest gaming enhancement device, the Action Replay GBX. The AR plugs straight into the back of your GameBoy Advance along with your selected game and allows you to enter codes that enable cheats, hacks and easter eggs. The codes, a large number of which will ship with the AR itself, will be available "as they are discovered" on the Code Junkies website and hotline, and also in Datel's new GameBoy Advance magazine, GBX. Datel have also taken the opportunity to unveil Sakura, their new gaming mascot, supposedly a sassy girl gamer with attitude. Hrm. Sakura will also appear in the new magazine, and you can get an idea of what she looks like by the image up on my left shoulder. The magazine will be available on the 14th of June over here and on the 18th in Germany. The Action Replay cartridge will launch some time in July. Related Feature - Cheat!

Despite its relatively small size, Korea has one of the biggest online gaming populations in the world, with millions of people playing both locally developed games and foreign hits like Diablo and Starcraft. Recently some of Korea's games have been starting to seep out into the west, and the latest to emerge in Europe is Legend of Mir, a massively multiplayer role-playing game with more than a passing resemblance to Diablo.

It was announced yesterday that Nintendo and Rareware intend to release a Perfect Dark sequel in the fall of 2002. "Perfect Dark Zero", as Nintendo's online release radar briefly labelled it, may have been in development since August last year. The game is still draped in secrecy, and neither Rare nor Nintendo will give us any details on it. We hope to find out more about it at Space World and The Nintendo Show later this year. Related Feature - Perfect Dark N64 Review

- Creative LabsVideologic Sirocco Crossfire - Videologic Although we pay a lot of attention to the insides of our PCs, it's often forgotten just how important the interface elements; mouse, keyboard and monitor, really are. When buying a new PC, old timers will tell you that the monitor is the first and most important purchase decision. For gamers these days though, a good sound setup is just as important as a high resolution and refresh rate.

Funcom have announced that their massively multiplayer sci-fi role-playing game Anarchy Online has just gone gold and has now been sent off for duplication. The game's servers will be going live on June 27th, with the first copies of the game expected on shelves in Scandinavia and the USA ready for then. Unfortunately the rest of Europe will have to wait - Funcom PR manager Marit Lund told us that "we aim to release the game sometime later this fall in the rest of Europe". Meanwhile beta testing continues as the servers are stress tested by thousands of gamers around the world to make sure there are no last minute hitches when the game is switched on for the public.

Anne Robinson will be bursting on to computer screens across the country in October to ritually humiliate you as Activision unleash their game of the popular TV quiz show The Weakest Link. Although it will be initially available on PC, PlayStation and PlayStation 2, Activision also has the rights to develop the game for Xbox, GameCube and GameBoy, so come next year there may be nowhere to hide from Ms Robinson's scathing verbal assaults.

Microsoft may have chosen March 15th 2002 as the release date for its Xbox console in Europe, MCV is reporting. Although Microsoft had previously announced the console as due in Europe for "some time in 2002", this is the first time we've heard a date touted. The relaxed timing would allow Microsoft to judge reception of the console in Japan and the USA before throwing itself into a massive Spring launch campaign a few months later with whatever's left in the marketing kitty at that point. The pre-sale advertising for Europe will probably kick off in noteworthy retailers over here as early as Christmas if the date is correct.

Following on from Friday's report in C&VG of GameBoy Advance emulation, the originator of the story has come back with official word from Nintendo. Here, in full, is the statement from the Big N as printed by C&VG: "Game Boy Advance has been so widely anticipated that it is not surprising that these emulators and pirate games have already made their way on to the web. However, these downloadable games are illegal and, in the long run, are not good for the gamer or the games industry. "These copies are imitations and since they can only be played on a PC do not bring the uniqueness that GBA as a handheld console brings to the gameplay, which is the ability to enjoy console quality gaming anywhere." Clearly the issue we discussed, the one of publishers distributing ROMs and emulators to help publications screen capture the console, has not been given any consideration. Although here at EuroGamer we have strict non-negotiable rules about this sort of thing, if publishers have been distributing this (supposedly illicit if you agree with Nintendo) software to everyone who asks for it in the name of journalism, you can easily establish where the ROMs are coming from. And of course, we also told Nintendo where the average Joe would obtain the means to produce PC-readable ROMs (using devices easily obtained through importers and other gaming specialists), but that didn't seem to matter all that much either. We did send word of our findings to Nintendo at about the same time C&VG claim to have informed them... For their part though, C&VG do have something sensible to say about the whole topic of GBA emulation. "You should avoid these dodgy programs, not just because of the legal issues, but because it just ain't the same as playing on Nintendo's diminutive wonder machine." Never a truer word hath been spoke. Related Feature - Net rife with GBA emulation?

If you thought Tribes 2 was the hot news in online gaming this year, think again. Phantasy Star Online Version 2 is on the way on Dreamcast and GameCube, and we have the good and the bad news on how it's working out. Players of PSO who want to keep their character in the transition to the new game have a couple of points to come to terms with. The conversion process physically alters the data format so that it can be read only by PSO V.2, making nostalgic treks back into the original impossible. Also, diehard players who have built their character up to level 100 will lose any further experience points beyond that required for lvl100. Also, any hacked weaponry (such as the "hacked" Lavis Cannon +100) that may have been secretly accrued will be stripped from the inventory. Anyway, the good (well, pleasant) news is that to commemorate his 10th birthday, Sonic and friends will be parading around the PSO V.2 lobby from the 16th to 30th June, although developer Sonic Team hasn't announced what the youngster will be up to. We can't wait to find out, that's for sure. Further news on PSO V.2 affects the GameCube version. Sonic Team's Yuji Naka has spoken to Japanese website Akiba and revealed a number of details. According to Naka, possible additions and changes to PSO V.2 are not currently planned but may work their way in when the team reconvenes shortly. The hotly debated question of online play was also discussed, but unfortunately at this stage Naka isn't sure whether of not Nintendo will allow GameCube and Dreamcast owners to interact. The game will certainly not be Phantasy Star Offline as some have speculated, but Naka can't reveal any networking details until Nintendo say so. Space World looks to be the likely candidate for an announcement. The Nintendo Show in September will also no doubt reveal various aspects of PSO V.2 GameCube's genetic makeup. Until then, all we know is that apart from online play, the game will feature up to four-player split screen adventuring. Related Feature - Phantasy Star Online Dreamcast Review

For those of us old enough to have been there when the game was first released back in the 1980s, Elite remains one of the best-loved space sims of all time. With its vast game universe and free-form gameplay featuring a mixture of trading, fighting and exploration, it set a standard which few games have met since. Now you can get a taste of what all the fuss was about with the re-release of the sequels "Frontier : Elite II" and "Frontier : First Encounters", which are for the first time available to download through the Elite Club. The games are being released as shareware and are free to play for thirty days, after which you are encouraged to pay the modest $5 fee.

We got our first glimpse of Funcom's massively multiplayer role-playing game at ECTS last September and, once you got into the publisher's stand past the poor guy in the giant rubber Atrox suit, it was already looking promising. So when we got offered a place in a closed beta test of the game, we jumped at the chance.

When Electronic Arts cancelled their planned sequel to Ultima Online and all but closed down the Origin studio just days before former designer Richard Garriott's non-compete contract ran out, it was widely seen to be shooting itself in the foot. After all, they had handed Garriott an entire game design team on a silver plate just as he came out of a year-long rest from the gaming industry. And it gets worse - EA's decision directly led to a deal between Garriott's new Destination Games and Korean behemoth NCSoft, who run the biggest massively multiplayer role-playing game in the world.

While the rest of the country was glued to their televisions waiting to see just how badly the Conservatives would get owned in the general election, BritSoft developer Lionhead finally released an unsupported patch for Black & White after numerous delays. Problems which the patch is reported to fix include the curse bug on level five, losing control of your creature, over-eating villagers, the constant annoying "deeeaaath" moans, save game bugs, some miracle exploits / cheats, and at least some of the issues with your creature having a ten second attention span and forgetting things between levels.

Over the last decade Championship Manager has become one of the biggest sports franchises in Europe, giving millions of football fanatics across the continent the chance to take control of their favourite teams. The company behind this phenomenon is England's own Sports Interactive, and with a new version of the game in the works and the series also on its way to the Xbox next year, we caught up with co-founders Paul and Oliver Collyer to find out more...

It seems that every two-bit reporter working out of his bedroom wants to sink his teeth into NVIDIA these days, be it over driver leaks, unofficial marketing aids or their professional attitude to suppliers that stray from the fold and stock competing products. The latest rumour is that NVIDIA have put the heat on Hercules for launching Kyro II-based products licensed from ST Microelectronics. The most cutting report we've seen for some time comes from xbitlabs, who despite their manner have built themselves a sterling reputation amongst the hardware elite. "We have stated it many times that NVIDIA pursues a strong-hand policy to make the partners be loyal to its chips. That's one of the reasons why so few grand-scale manufacturers have decided to announce STM KYRO II graphics cards," the report complains. "Lately we have seen the deplorable fate of those who dare to violate the NVIDIA-only principle." At the core of this report is the news that "like a jealous wife, NVIDIA didn't forgive Hercules' flippancy and crossed it out of the partner list." By this they mean that NVIDIA ceased supply of vital components to Hercules, in effect punishing them for backing Kyro II. "Hercules gives no official confirmation to these rumours, though it can be merely for the company's apprehension to add oil to the burning conflict with NVIDIA. However, the fact is that Hercules risks greatly to lose the only product in its line which is targeted at high-performance gaming systems." The boys at xbitlabs clearly haven't seen this rebuttal from Shauna Hardy, Public Relations Manager for Hercules, over at 3DGPU.com: "I just wanted to address the rumours that have been circulating. Hercules has a working relationship with NVIDIA and is currently producing several boards based on their chipsets including the 3D Prophet III. Hercules' commitment is to its customers. Our main priority is to provide the best performing and most innovative solutions to our customers at a wide variety of price points. The Prophet III is available through CompUSA, Electronics Boutique, Babbages and Fry's and one major distributor - D & H. The reason the card is no longer available on the online store is because we have chosen to shift our stock and focus it exclusively on retailers and distributors to satisfy the customer demand." Shauna's not the only one concerned about the escalating rumours. The first person we spoke to when we read xbitlabs' report was Adrian Thompson, NVIDIA's Marketing Manager for Northern Europe and South Africa. "It's a pity that xbit don't follow up and do the research," he commented. In light of Shauna's public statement, we tend to agree with him. Related Feature - GeForce 3 Review

A former employee has confirmed that the entire Wireplay team was laid off today as part of the latest staff cuts at failed dot.com Gameplay PLC, which is currently in its death throes awaiting sale or dismemberment. But the team has promised to continue supporting the long-running online games service in their spare time "for the foreseeable future" to give it a stay of execution. In fact, the statement was surprisingly upbeat, saying that "although we will unlikely be able to offer the same levels of support as we currently do .. we expect to be able to give some positive information about our plans for the future by the end of the month".

European gamers who have patiently waited for the release of Take 2 Interactive's over-excited civilian flight sim "Fly! II" on this side of the pond are in for a treat next month, with the game set to ship with an exclusive bonus disc. This will contain European settings such as Paris and Frankfurt as well as San Francisco, along with extra aircraft in the form of the Pilatus PC-12 and two new versions of the Bell 407 helicopter - one for rescue work and one with floats for water landings. Look for the game appearing on shelves across Britain and the continent some time in July.

Electronic Arts was embarrassed this week after complaints from Muslims in Singapore over its first person shooter Clive Barker's Undying, when a series of pretty squiggles on the walls of a palace belonging to a "Satan-like character" turned out to be Islamic religious texts, including the line "there is no God except Allah". Unsurprisingly the locals were rather offended by this, resulting in some three hundred copies of the game being seized by the authorities. Electronic Arts have reportedly also withdrawn the game from sale in some other Asian territories, according to a story in Singapore's Electric New Paper.

Computer and Videogames has uncovered disturbing news regarding GameBoy Advance emulation. According to the web-based news report, illegal GBA emulation of software and hardware is already widespread in some areas of the Internet. Quick to rub noses with Nintendo on the issue, CVG say that the company was "shocked" and intends to issue a full statement shortly. If they're looking for a culprit however, perhaps they should be checking a little closer to home. Although CVG are quite right, it is shocking to discover so many emulators and ROMs already available, your humble correspondent has been offered ROMs from a very different source; a publisher. [Editor's note: ROMs are disk images of software interpreted by emulation programs, i.e. games] Thanks to the shortages of GameBoy Advance hardware and software cartridges, some publishers are resorting to ROM extraction and distribution in order to provide games to reviewers in time for the console's launch. In some cases there simply aren't enough physical games available and they have to be supplied on a Round Robin basis. Reviewing games based on a ROM is the easiest method for both publisher and reviewer, but of course, it's incredibly insecure. We spoke to one of the publishers (whom we shan't name since we didn't make them aware that we might quote them), and they told us that "it's just not feasible" to provide physical software to every journalist who wants it, so the ROM method is the best. Asked whether or not this is a new initiative, our contact responded; "nah, we've been doing this since monochrome GameBoy releases - how do you think most of these mags get their screenshots?" But how would a publisher - or a dodgy warez dealer - convert their cartridge from a piece of plastic into a distributable ROM? Unfortunately for Nintendo, and presumably unbeknownst to CVG, such devices are available from reputable importers and peripheral specialists such as Lik-Sang.com and Madeiragames.com, and have been for several weeks. Of course the ROM is only one half of the equation. In order to actually play the game you also need an emulator, which is far more difficult to come by. We don't know exactly where the emulators CVG uncovered originate from, but our publishing contact told us that all we would need to play the GBA ROMs he had for us would be a GameBoy Color emulator. We'd love to know if that's a fact - can anyone enlighten us? We're not sure what Nintendo's official statement (apparently due within 24 hours of yesterday's CVG report) will be, but if they aren't already aware of the "ROM for review" practice, I'm a monkey's uncle.

As of June 11th, Yoshio Sakai is to become President and Chief Operating Officer at Sega Europe, the company announced today. Sakai, along with his wife, will shortly be moving to London to take up the post at Sega's west London HQ. His predecessor, Kazutoshi Miyake, intends to move elsewhere in the industry, but will remain at Sega Europe as an advisory to Sakai in the short-term. Sakai is said to be "delighted" about the state of affairs, and who can blame him. "This is a challenging time for Sega Europe, the transition from a hardware business to a multi platform business continues and I have a great deal to do in restructuring Sega Europe for a profitable future," he said in a prepared statement. "My first task will be to develop a business model in line with our new multi platform strategy and I will be looking to ensure that our invaluable know-how is redirected in the most productive manner." Yoshio Sakai has been a main board director of Sega Enterprises for several years, and also occupies a place on the board as Isao, Sega's Japan based network company.

There was a glimmer of good news for failed dot.com Gameplay PLC today today, with news that they have successfully sold their Spanish boxed games division to high street chain Electronics Boutique for £3.4m. This is somewhat higher than the £1 (sic) that the UK boxed games division raised in a management buy-out that must have been paid for by hunting for loose change down the back of the sofa cushions.

Codemasters have announced that the eagerly anticipated Cold War action game Operation Flashpoint will feature the novel FADE anti-piracy system when it is released in Europe later this month. Inspired by the bizarre system they implemented in LMA Manager 2001 on the PlayStation earlier this year, FADE doesn't stop people from playing pirated games, but instead gradually degrades the gameplay the more you play it if the game detects that you have a counterfeit copy, presumably in the hope that you will become so pissed off with it that you go out and buy a legitimate copy.

While most real-time strategy games are set in some kind of bloody total war, Conflict Zone is a very different beast. In 2010 the International Corps for Peace (ICP) is struggling to keep warring factions apart and rescue innocent civilians caught up in the crossfire, while a shadowy organisation known as GHOST stirs up trouble behind the scenes.

In a recent interview with Ed Frieds and J Allard, Gamespot uncovered some information about the mysterious black and white buttons in awkward positions on the top of the Xbox controller's right hand side. According to Allard, these control the voice communication functions of the system, useful in online multiplayer battles. Black is for broadcast and white is for whisper. Broadcasting is presumably the equivalent of "say X" in current multiplayer games, while whisper sounds like the Xbox version of "say_team X". Sounds useful, although it will probably encourage rather a lot of smack talk. At least, that's what the B&W buttons could mean. Alternatively, there could be some sort of proximity system, where people within a certain range can hear you whisper, while everyone on the map can hear you broadcast over an open frequency. Useful if you ever get to play as a Predator online. Imagine sneaking up on some hapless human, whispering "any time" then wiping them out. Bliss. Built-in voice communication systems for PC games are virtually non-existent, but the one in Tribes 2 works quite well, and external programs like Roger Wilco are all the rage. In my opinion, voice communication built into online games is A Good Thing™ Related Feature - Out-boxed?

Remember the name "Pace"? Back at the beginning of February, when Sega first announced that they were pulling out of Dreamcast production, Pace emerged as the company that would build on the technology Sega left behind, incorporating it, they said, into a set-top "Home Gateway". Finally, in a press release this morning, Pace announced the unveiling of amongst others, the new "Pace's PVR Home Gateway With Integrated Games Technology". All the usual set-top box options for cable television are included along with the ability to "timeshift" television by pausing it then continuing from the same point (with the data just ahead recorded and streamed from a built in 40Gb hard disk). The other job for the hard disk is to store games, downloaded from the cable service on a pay-per-play or pay-per-time basis. The HDD acts as a "games jukebox" apparently, and could (in the future we'd guess) be "wirelessly downloaded to a portable, hand-held device for game playing". The box does not give Dreamcast owners the ability to insert GD-Roms and play all their old classics, but as it's built on the same technology, we can be assured that several things will be true: it will line the pockets of Sega, handsomely, it will line the pockets of PowerVR manufacturer Imagination Technologies handsomely, and games will be able to take advantage of Dreamcast-like graphic and gameplay options. We don't know anything about the controller yet, but presumably it's the same or at least similar to current Dreamcast tech. The Home Gateway will be on display at the Cable 2001 national cable show in Chicago, June 9-13, along with various other devices. See the full press release for details if it rocks your boat to do so. Related Feature - Sega to become platform-neutral, Team up with Palm

Despite recent reports that the footage of Return to Castle Wolfenstein shown at E3 last month wouldn't be released online due to an argument between Activision and Fox Interactive over a piece of music from Aliens used in the trailer, the footage was finally released on FilePlanet last night. And then promptly withdrawn at the request of Activision, who apparently hadn't approved it for release. A few hours later it popped up again, this time on GameSpot, where you can currently download the trailer as a 33Mb MPG, or get it in a variety of other formats from their download page.

Novalogic will be releasing their Jet Pack in the UK this Friday, featuring three of their flight sims from the tail-end of 1998 - MiG-29 Fulcrum, F-22 Raptor and F-16 Multirole Fighter. Being almost three years old now they don't exactly feature cutting edge graphics by today's standards, but between them they offer over a hundred single player missions to fly, as well as full online support via the NovaWorld "Integrated Battle Space", which allows you to fly against owners of all three games in a single massive air battle.

The physics engine will be tweaked ever so slightly, but on the whole there was very little at fault with it in the first place. The only additions in that respect are the new modes of transportation, including quad bikes and hummers (amongst other military vehicles). Vehicle damage is said to be even more extensive this time around, too. The most striking change throughout the rest of the game is its storyline. Smuggler's Run probably did have some sort of storyline, but we never noticed it. In Hostile Territory though, the plot and your missions are explained through professionally filmed full motion cut scenes, and the missions are slightly more involved with ongoing objectives and sub-objectives. There are 30 missions in all, set all over the USA as well as on the two aforementioned international maps, Afghanistan and Vietnam. As you can see from the screenshots, these new environments give Angel the excuse to craft palatial temples, ancient ruins and other relics of the past. No doubt they will have to be careful with their handling of the Vietnam scenarios though. Americans understandably have this thing about Vietnam. Apart from collecting contraband and smuggling it across the countryside in time-honoured fashion, our heroes (whomsoever they may turn out to be) need to pay some mind to the nature of their cargo. Some goods slow you down, others are liable to break and anything with a biohazard sticker on it will blow up if handled too roughly or when the timer expires. As some missions will take place in the dead of night, we expect some seriously covert intrusion and smuggling to take place, and with that comes the deadly threat of hostile fire.

We get some truly bizarre press releases and PR gimmicks across our desks here at EuroGamer, from mouldy petri dishes and toy soldiers to cigarette lighters and calculators. But the latest announcement for EON Digital's PlayStation 2 football game International League Soccer is certainly one of the more unusual ones we've had recently. Apparently "leading figures in soccer are so concerned with growing addiction amongst fans that they have commissioned an investigation to examine the effects" by "forcing them to watch a combination of adult video material and football footage". Of course, this non-existent study concluded that "footage from the forthcoming Playstation 2 game International League Soccer .. consistently generated the most intense reaction in the viewers", as determined by "their heart, respiratory rates and other bodily functions".

Nintendo's MD of sales and marketing David Gosen has told MCV that it will not be appearing at ECTS this year, and will instead showcase its talents at The Nintendo Show, at Westminster Central Hall, London on September 1st and 2nd. Far from working against ECTS though, Nintendo intend to allow anybody with a pass for the competing trade show to come along and have a browse on the second day of the event. The first will be invitation only and feature a strategic presentation and Q&A session. This will be the first time GameCube has been shown in Europe, along with a catalogue of new GameBoy Advance software. Nintendo say it will be a must-see, and we agree. Expect full coverage from EuroGamer representatives on the floor at The Nintendo Show and ECTS as always.