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ConsoleWire is reporting amongst others that the PlayStation 2 version of Remedy's Max Payne is due to ship to US retailers today, with the Xbox version following it later this week. We've been eager to get our hands on the much-vaunted PS2 conversion for several months now. The game was originally advertised for release in November, but has continually slipped. We contacted Take 2's UK PR Manager Nick Boulstridge about the UK release and he had some bad news for us: there is no firm release date yet. As far as the US versions go, Nick was mystified by the reports of games shipping this week. "As far as I'm concerned, [Max Payne on the PlayStation 2] is shipping in the US next weekend," he told us. As for the Xbox version, that's still up in the air, and Take 2 hasn't even confirmed a UK conversion yet. Related Feature - Max Payne review

We didn't think there would be enough Dreamcasts left to justify another round of price drops, but Dreamcast distributor Bigben Interactive has confirmed today a new price point of £69.99. The console will be bundled either with Virtua Fighter 3 or Jet Set Radio. A new "Ultimate Dreamcast Pack" will soon be on store shelves, too, made up of a Dreamcast, VMU and controller plus the two games mentioned above and Metropolis Street Racer. It seemed to work last time, so… we don't expect to see any more price drops in the UK. Here's hoping, you can get Dreamcast for $50 in the US at the moment. Related Feature - Dreamcast drops in the States

Sony and the broadband division Japanese telecoms carrier NTT will launch a PlayStation 2 online service in April of next year, the companies have announced today. SCE president Ken Kutaragi also specified that interactive services would join standards games and entertainment options. Internet access will also be a prominent feature. The partnership with NTT is not exclusive, Kutaragi continued, before commenting that "[Sony] would like to announce similar alliances in the United States and Europe next year," in a reference to the company's efforts with AOL and Telewest. Related Feature - Sony and AOL make a move

Half-Life is a seminal first person shooter, and a game that everybody should play, if by some miracle they haven't already done so. The various PC versions can be had for peanuts and run on anything upwards of an original 3dfx Voodoo graphics card, which means that, while the PlayStation 2 version is also excellent, it's probably not worth £40 to Half-Life die-hards. In fact, I can only really recommend it to people who have no PC or want to play Half-Life on a big-screen TV. Let's be frank. When this first landed on my doorstep, I had to motivate myself to play it again. I've been through Half-Life and it was a hell of a ride, but that was more than two years ago. I want something new! In retrospect, I'm glad I dragged myself out of bed one morning and settled down with it though. It's a wonderful game which invented FPS clichés all over the place and featured some really exceptional level design and presentation, however old it is now. Visually the game has always looked good, although the lower resolution and absence of anti-aliasing on the PlayStation 2 does it no favours, and there's no sign of a 60Hz option either. The PC version looks better and lacks the intermittent jerking that accompanies excessive on-screen detail, multiple nasties or big set pieces. By the time you get to the marine insertion forces later on, you find yourself playing at about 25 frames per second more or less constantly. There are some nice new touches that help ease the pain though, such as the health and energy stations, which now have movable handles, and each and every weapon has been spruced up to match those seen in recent PC patches. A lot of the spangly effects, such as the shiny guards' helmets, have been borrowed from the PC version, and the texturing is nicer than I had expected. As a PS2 conversion it's pretty solid, and load times are no more substantial than they were on the PC - about 20 seconds at the start of each enormous chapter, and 3-5 seconds for the small breaks during them.

Norwegian developers Funcom have laid off around 30 staff, many of them from the company's mobile games division, and suspended work on their promising next generation massively multiplayer game Midgard. All staff are now focusing on the ill-fated Anarchy Online, which was afflicted by bugs and performance issues when it was launched six months ago and failed to reach the kind of success enjoyed by the likes of Everquest. Now that the stability problems have been ironed out and the storyline is underway though, Funcom are hoping to attract more players to the game, and are also attempting to lure back the many people who have cancelled their accounts by offering them another free month's subscription. Whether this will be enough to save the company and its various projects remains to be seen, but thanks to Norway's odd social security system the transition shouldn't be too painful. According to a Funcom PR rep, the sacked staff are actually on "temporary leave", which means that they remain paid employees of Funcom but the government provides 80% of their salary. And if the number of Anarchy Online subscribers doesn't pick up within the next few months, the staff can be permanently laid off with all the usual severance packages. Hopefully it won't come to that though, and if everything goes to plan work will resume on Midgard once Anarchy Online has been rescued. Related Feature - Midgard preview

Sylum Entertainment have released a demo version of Curly's Adventure .. over three years after the game was canned. Although we'll never get to see the final product and the demo (which was originally created to show off the game to potential publishers) is rather rough round the edges, it's actually quite entertaining. Landing somewhere between Stupid Invaders and Gilbert Goodmate, it features a mixture of odd puzzles, amusing dialogue and more parodies than you can shake a chicken at. Settings including a Star Wars inspired bar, with an obese Elvis standing in for Jabba The Hutt, and a torture chamber featuring a vat of bubbling green acid and a scratchy blackboard. The fiends. You can download the demo, which weighs in at 100Mb, from Sylum's website.

While Sony have Europe more or less to themselves for the second Christmas running and build up an increasingly impressive looking headstart on their competitors, the console war is already well underway in America. Both Xbox and GameCube launched in the USA a few weeks ago, and first blood has gone to .. well, it's hard to say really.

PlayStation 2 mod chips like Messiah have overstepped the mark, Sony has explained. ChannelTechnology, the group behind the Messiah mod chip - which British games specialist Madeira Games started accepting pre-orders for recently - potentially breaches section 296 of the Copyrights, Designs and Patents Act UK. ChannelTechnology's claims of all-round compatibility with PlayStation and PlayStation 2 discs copied to CDR and DVD-R discs is the sticky point, and the company has ceased sales of the chip until its legal position can be confirmed. Ironically, ChannelTechnology's website currently charts the company's problems with NTL over another of its products. At the moment, the only mention of the Sony case is a brief "Messiah in Trouble!" snippet which announces the cessation of Messiah pre-orders. Related Feature - Messiah to the rescue

Business Week is reporting that Microsoft may attempt to buy out one of the Xbox's most popular third party developers; Take 2. Take 2 and its subsidiaries publish for a number of high profile developers including Angel Studios (Smuggler's Run 2), Rockstar (Grand Theft Auto III, State of Emergency) and GOD Games (which itself covers 3Drealms and a number of other companies, including Max Payne developer Remedy) to name a few. Buying out the gaming giant would surely strengthen the Xbox's 2002 line-up, something that many journalists have criticized. Redmond could also prevent high profile games reaching PlayStation 2 and GameCube. Take 2 is a compelling investment. Stock analysts rate Take 2 a buy, and its credentials are impeccable. However, whether Microsoft will make a move or not is hard to predict. Neither Take 2 or Microsoft were available for comment at the time of going to press. Related Feature - 2.4, children

Let's get one thing straight right at the start - I have watched various Pokemon episodes on television in the interests of education, and I have played through Pokemon Blue and Pokemon Gold for similar reasons. I am not some sort of 'Pokemaniac', but if you are, Pokemon Stadium 2 is just as exciting a proposition as its predecessor. On the other hand, if for some bizarre reason you want to join the ranks of the Pokemon-obsessed with no experience thus far, neither Stadium 2 nor its predecessor is the gateway. Pick up one of the recent GameBoy titles - Stadium is for vets. Pokemon Stadium 2 is a turn-based fighting game. You take your Pokemon and compete in a bunch of tournaments for various prizes. But it's not for beginners. For starters, you will need the Transfer Pak and a reasonably advanced copy of one of the GameBoy releases to get anything out of it at all. Into the Transfer Pak you will plug your copy of Pokemon Gold, Silver, Yellow, Blue, Red or Crystal, and at the start of a battle a little GB icon appears next to your controller so you can select and upload characters from the GameBoy cartridge if you so desire. Stadium 2 consists of a huge game world, featuring the Stadium, your house, the Pokemon Academy, the Pokemon Lab, Gym Leader Castle, GameBoy Tower and the mini-games area. At the Stadium there are four cups to compete in, with up to 251 Pokemon at your disposal, depending on your success in the GameBoy games. When you get bored of fighting, you can go and check out one of the game's other locations. Taking a breather at your House you will see all the details of your home in the relevant GameBoy game. If you have decorated, this will be obvious on the N64 too. If you fancy some adventuring, you can head up to GameBoy Tower, where you can play whichever Pokemon cartridge you have plugged into the Transfer Pak, in gloriously blocky detail on your television.

Devil May Cry is the latest game from Shinji Mikami, the designer behind the Resident Evil and Dino Crisis series. Devil May Cry is about as far from the horror survival genre as you can get though, with the focus firmly on over-the-top madcap action rather than shambling zombies. You play Dante, the son of a devil knight and a mortal woman. Setting the tone for the rest of the game, the opening cutscene sees a beautiful blonde in a revealing leather corset come crashing through your door on a motorcycle to impale you with a sword. Apparently this is just her way of being friendly though, because before you know it the pair of you are off to a mysterious castle on a distant island where the devil prince Mundus is preparing to invade the land of the living. The result is twenty five missions chock full of carnage as you guide Dante around the castle and the caves beneath it, with occasional field trips to nearby sites such as a mausoleum and a colosseum. Along the way you will be indulging in the wholesale slaughter of some of the most bizarre looking creatures you will find this side of American McGee's Alice. There are grim reaper phantoms with lethal scythes, fast-moving lizardmen warriors that burst out of the ground in a cloud of dust, cackling ghost witches with what look like giant shears, and life-size marionettes which drop down from their strings to attack you.

When Original War was released here in Europe during the summer it did exactly what it said on the tin, bringing a breath of fresh air and, dare I say it, originality to the real-time strategy genre. With the game about to get a long overdue release in the USA at a bargain $20 price point, we spoke to project manager Martin Klima from Altar Interactive to find out more about Original War and the company's next project, which today we can exclusively reveal to be .. well, read on to find out!

Following on from news last month that Novalogic would be publishing a new Delta Force game on the PSOne, today they have unveiled a PlayStation 2 outing for the million selling tactical combat series. Due for release next autumn, the game will feature a mixture of close quarters combat and massive outdoors environments for you to battle your way through, with settings including the now traditional desert, forest and arctic terrain. A wide range of realistic military weaponry will be available, including the ever-popular sniper rifle with adjustable zoom. "Developing for this powerful hardware is the perfect opportunity to create an action-packed Delta Force game for the console audience, while retaining the brand's true essence", according to Novalogic president Lee Milligan. Related Feature - Delta Force invades PlayStation

As with any good massively multiplayer role-playing game, Everquest's patches generally break as many things as they fix. The aftermath of a hurried upgrade to accommodate the Shadows of Luclin add-on pack has proven particularly entertaining though, as some players found themselves suddenly transported to a nudist colony. It seems that a bizarre bug which crept into the patch sometimes caused characters' clothing and armour to vanish, with amusing results. Rumours that this was an intentional "bug" to lure hormone-ridden gamers back from the table-dancing exploits of Anarchy Online remain unconfirmed. Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of the whole thing though is the revelation that Everquest characters have no nipples or genitalia. Freaky...

Guildford-based Lost Toys have unveiled Battle Engine Aquila, their latest project for PlayStation 2 and Xbox. Due out sometime next year, the game is a first-person futuristic shooter and is set in a world where a mixture of global warming and global warfare have forced sea level to new heights, making land a valuable commodity. Aquila gives you the role of Hawk, the pilot of the prototype Battle Engine, codenamed Aquila, and caught in a war between two feuding nations, the Forseti and the Muspell. The war will decide ownership of precious dry land, and you have singularly the most destructive unit on the battlefield. The screenshots we have seen clearly feature sprawling, intricately detailed vistas with lots of polygons all over the place. Lost Toys managing director Jeremy Longley told Computer Trade Weekly that his company is "working to bring a fresh angle to the console shoot-em-up genre, immersing the player in the middle of a huge war with literally thousands of units on each side fighting it out around you." Related Feature - Battle Engine Aquila screenshots

Sony has moved to allay fears that environmental problems with 1.3 million impounded PSone units in the Netherlands could cause supply problems for the rest of Europe this Christmas. As well as the 1.3m consoles, 800,000 accessory items were seized due to high levels of cadmium. It is thought that the problem lies within the cables supplied with PSone, and that Sony will release a new batch of consoles and cables by the middle of this month. It is not yet known what will become of the grounded consoles and accessories. Related Feature - PSone grounded

Ghost Recon is the latest in the series of Tom Clancy endorsed tactical-action games which started with the pioneering Rainbow Six. As such it's a rather touchy subject at the moment, and has come under the scrutiny of the over-sensitive since the terrorist attacks on America. Thankfully though it hasn't suffered the ridiculous levels of censorship currently being forced on many new releases. There is a story backing up the fifteen mission campaign, but as usual this takes a back seat to the action. Apparently Russia has fallen under the control of nationalistic leaders whose aim is to reinstate the communist regime. First up on their agenda is the capture of Georgia, and subsequently the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. The escalating war naturally leads to a conflict with the UN, and as a result you and your platoon of "Ghosts" (you know, another band of elite covert fighting machines trained in the arts of .. whatever) are sent in to whoop some Russian booty and rescue the princess. Okay, maybe the princess will come in the patch. So far, so familiar. But after the numerous Rainbow Six mission packs, rehashes, and re-rehashes, we were anxious to see whether or not Red Storm still had what it takes to excite and enthral, and if they could come up with something worthy of our attention. We've been spoiled over the last year or two with the likes of Operation Flashpoint and SWAT3, and we were looking to Ghost Recon to provide something new to grab our attention.

Have you been holding off getting your PlayStation 2 chipped for import copies and the like? With the proliferation of different kinds of modchip (Origa, NEO4 and more), it's been tough making a decision, but specialist e-tailer Madeira Games may just have the solution. Announced today, the Messiah PS2 modchip plays PlayStation and PlayStation 2 games from any region, PAL or NTSC, without the need for a disk-swap to start them up, along with all sorts of backups, including CDR, Silvers, DVDR and even Hong Kong Silvers. Although we don't condone that sort of thing, Messiah still stands out as the first chip to support proper multiregion gameplay. It costs £64 to pre-order the chip, or you can negotiate with them directly about fitting costs. There is bound to be a big queue of gamers eager to have their hardware hacked up for Messiah, so if you're interested, we suggest you get on with it.

EA Sports BIG have taken the wraps off their next big PlayStation 2 project after SSX Tricky, and naturally they are sticking to what they are best at: freestylin'. FreekStyle is "the most dangerous motocross game around", daring you to "harness the power of your bike while pulling off sick stunts in insane, over the top worlds." SSX fans rejoice; it looks as though the overpopulated motocross genre is going to get the BIG treatment. For those of you who haven't kept up with the SSX phenomenon; EA Sports BIG is a Canada-based team that has taken the snowboarding genre to new heights, with virtually every competitor's product now resembling SSX / Tricky in some way or other. EA expect FreekStyle to have the same effect, this time on the motocross genre. Rugged forest floors replace the snow-capped mountains, but hitting massive jumps at more than 70mph will still be the order of the day, "hitting a 40 foot jump at the ledge of a 200 foot cliff and pulling off a Superman Seat grab, a Saran-wrap and 360 all before you land." This time it's all about being fearless, and like Tricky before it, FreekStyle will feature eight colourful characters and a gentle reward structure. FreekStyle will arrive on PlayStation 2 in the Spring. In the meantime, check out our selection of screenshots. Related Feature - FreekStyle screenshots

Microsoft's plan to sell Xbox to Korean gamers next October has driven Sony to bring its own machines to the console-free country (officially, at any rate). Sony has said it will open a Korean office on 10 December which will prepare the ground for the launch of both the PSone and PlayStation 2 next February. By the end of June, the Japanese giant will have released the PlayStation 2 and 60 games. Some 40 more titles will ship during the second half of 2002. Sony's move follows extensive market research carried out a few months back. Console vendors have traditionally been wary of the Korean market, fearing that the levels of the software piracy there may seriously threaten their sales. As a result, the PC has established itself as Korea's main gaming platform, with online games, in particular, strongly appealing to Korean gamers. Korea has the world's highest penetration of broadband Internet access. The dominance of the PC has also further discouraged console vendors from trying to crack the market. Microsoft clearly reckons Xbox is a strong challenger to a cheap gaming PC - in many ways it is a cheap gaming PC, after all. And Sony doesn't want to give up a market to its arch-rival.

Although it may be highly amusing to see the Americans deprived of Shenmue II due to a management cock-up, it's a tremendous game - one for the fans - and we'd feel bad if they never got to play it. Fortunately, it looks as though a number of major retailers in the USA have banded together and agreed to import copies from Europe, selling at around $59.99. Some Electronics Boutique stores are bundling a DC-X boot disk to allow gamers to play the imported software. So, if you live in North America and would like nothing better than to deal with Ryu's father's killers once and for all (no guarantees, mind), then you could do a lot worse than hot-foot it to your local games emporium and ask what their plans are. Otherwise, a number of mail order companies (including National Console Support) will happily service your needs. Related Feature - Shenmue review

Squaresoft's PlayOnline gaming service has been trialling in Japan for a while now, in beta form, and The GIA has rounded up a number of screenshots and MP3 files from the system's interface. The shots come from the "PlayOnline Viewer" software supplied to testers, and we were immediately impressed by the swanky curves and flashing lights. The interface, which acts like an online desktop, seems to allow a degree of multitasking (or that could just be a lazy way of creating an options menu, who knows?) There are also some shots from the bundled multiplayer card game Tetra Master, used to help test the service. According to the screenshots, the software is at version beta 1.03.00. There are three downloadable MP3s; one from Tetra Master and two from the PlayOnline software. We haven't tried them, but if you are a fan of the works of Naoshi Mizuta and / or Noriko Matsueda, we're sure you will enjoy them! Related Feature - Final Fantasy X preview

Shiny, the Laguna Beach-based development studio made famous by MDK and subsequent action titles Messiah and Sacrifice, could be working on a port of their highly secretive licensed Matrix game for GameCube. A recent advert placed by Dave Perry's illustrious firm sought after experienced coders for an unspecified GameCube project. Cloudchaser Nintendo believes this is tantamount to proof of the existence of a GameCube project at Shiny.

The first World Cyber Games tournament is taking place in Seoul, Korea at the moment, with about 400 players in attendance. A couple of minutes browsing through the various holiday snaps at XSReality reveals plenty about the Korean capital, but next to nothing about the attendees. Given the falling numbers of participants and the apparent lack of spectators, it's perhaps surprising that the World Cyber Games organisation is going to so much expense. There were more players at the i8 LAN Party a couple of months ago at Newbury Racecourse, and the WCG is billed as the gaming Olympics… Official brackets, demos and results are available on the tournament status page, and the numbers speak for themselves. Counter-Strike is the most popular game, with 27 competing countries (each represented by a team of five), with Quake III Arena the most popular tournament for individuals with 60 players. StarCraft and Age of Empires II fall into step shortly behind with about 50 each. Further down is Unreal Tournament with 34 players, followed by a few others and at the bottom of the barrel; Adam Soft's unheard-of Crazy Soccer, with two players and a prize purse of some $10,000. Yes, you did read that right. The really striking thing about the WCG is the spoils. $40,000 for the winning Counter-Strike team, $40,000 for the winning Quake III duellist, and figures as high as $20,000 for runners-up and other tournament winners. The World Cyber Games tournament is receiving press attention from the likes of the BBC, but with attendance figures and prize money apparently heading towards opposite ends of the scale, you have to wonder how much longer professional gaming tournaments will be viable, if they ever were in the first place. At the moment, most of the press attention is either completely ignorant, or akin to rubbernecking at a car crash.

Never one to look a gift horse in the mouth, Capcom have signed a deal with THQ's Wireless division to distribute WAP and SMS games based on the Street Fighter brand. "Continual innovation has kept the franchise as fresh and relevant today as it was over a decade ago", THQ Wireless somehow managed to type while keeping a straight face. "The move to wireless platforms will continue this legacy". Quite how you turn a high octane beat 'em up into something that can be played with text messages isn't exactly clear at this stage, but the game is already in development at British company Warthog, and will apparently be available early next year. Rumours that the game's title will be Supr Strt Fitr Dlux Trbo SMS Edtn Gld have yet to be confirmed.

According to a report from trade magazine CTW, French publisher UbiSoft will be taking Take 2 to court in January as part of an on-going dispute over royalties allegedly owed to one of their development studios. Red Storm's games, including the popular Rainbow Six series, were distributed in Europe by Take 2 Interactive until the end of last year, but in the meantime the developer had been bought out by UbiSoft. They claim that Take 2 still owes them around £6.3m, and including interest and legal costs UbiSoft expect the total could reach £7.5m. No doubt we will be hearing more about this once the case gets underway next year...

Somewhere in the aeons dead docklands of eastern London it was lurking; an unnameable presence which spoke of strange gods lulled by the infernal piping of shapeless creatures in the dark voids between worlds. Having consulted the hideously ancient Pnakotic manuscripts, the suppressed Unaussprechlichen Kulten of von Junzt, the Necronomicon of the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred and the press releases of Fishtank Interactive, we had suspected what we might find. No mere words could prepare us for what we found that September day though, and only now can I bring myself to relate what we saw...

Wanadoo's already expansive release schedule looks set to stretch still further, with information and screenshots for three more games reaching us from their UK distributor Koch. First up is Inquisition, which follows the fortunes of the son of an impoverished noble in 14th century France. While in prison for attempted robbery he meets a former Knight Templar who has been tortured by the eponymous religious enforcers with the lovely red uniforms. This dying knight reveals to him the first clue towards the location of the Templar's legendary treasure, setting you on a quest which will apparently include a combination of combat, strategy and platform-inspired sections. Next on the list is Halloween, an off-the-wall platform game starring a pair of trick-or-treating kids dressed up as a witch and a devil. Cue all kinds of haunted house shenanigans as the children find themselves trying to find their way out of locations such as a mysterious mansion, cemetery, laboratory and even a pyramid. Developed for the PlayStation 2, GameCube and GameBoy Advance by Kalisto, the game is due out next autumn, presumably just in time for Halloween itself. Finally there is Curse, an action-adventure game set in Victorian London centering around a missing Egyptian statuette and the curse that surrounds it, causing "madness or violent death" in those who come into contact with it. Now it's up to you to recover the statuette, which was stolen from the British museum, and return it to the pyramid it was originally discovered in. Expect PC, PlayStation 2 and Xbox versions of the game to emerge in Q3 2002.

The NPD Group - a definitive source of market and sales data in the video game industry, according to IGN - has shown that Xbox has the highest game attach rate of any system to date. This means that more games are being bought with the system than the other systems at this point. Chief Xbox Officer Robbie Bach says he "understands why Xbox is the most sought-after gift for the holiday", and why gamers are buying a record 2.4 games with every console. PS2 was selling 1.9 games per console after its first two weeks of sales, and the GameCube is also managing 1.9. With so much bickering over the current sales leader in the States, we're comfortable with the notion that both are selling well, which means a very interesting console market for the next couple of years. Related Feature - Production begins on European Xboxes

The Magic Box is reporting that Sega's GameCube port of Sonic Adventure 2 Battle will feature various new mini games and stages. Sonic Adventure 2 Battle was originally thought to be a direct port of the Dreamcast version of Sonic Adventure 2, with added GameBoy Advance functionality for owners of the title on both systems. Now it has emerged that a stage called the High Speed Action Race will be added to the game, including Wagon Race and Chao Karate sub-games. The pictures of Chao Karate on The Magic Box are so cutesy it beggars belief. There will be a versus battle mode, with six characters to choose from: Metal Sonic, Amy, Tical, Chao Walker, Dark Walker and Chaos Zero. Related Feature - Sonic Adventure 2 Dreamcast review