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It's rare these days that we come across a title that makes us stop and actually watch, letting the game quench the thirst of our drinking eyes. Flight sims in particular have become rather stagnant in their progression, and it's easy to discard new sims with little regard for the wares they may be touting beneath their unimpressive facades. Not so with IL-2 Sturmovik. This is the most attention-grabbing flight sim we've clapped our eyes on in quite a while, and one that absolutely deserves to be called beautiful. The game features some thirty-one types of Russian, German and American planes dating from 1941 to 1945, each one featuring a different camouflage pattern depending on the time of year and environment. The attention to detail in all aspects of the game is staggering, especially when it comes to the intricate plane models. We wouldn't blame you for switching the autopilot on just to take the time to switch between camera angles and snoop around the lovingly modelled cockpits as your fighter swoops majestically over the landscape. Maddox Games have put a lot of effort into really suspending the player from reality. Dip into the clouds and condensation or rain will build up on your cockpit windows, and as the sun glints on lakes and rivers below and tiny buildings (all of which can be destroyed) dot into view between the clouds, the effect is breathtaking. A great deal of thought has gone into creating an inspiring environment for your battles, and an apparently small touch like the "real" clouds does wonders for altering the way you think about playing.

Mumbo Jumbo's Californian office, which was responsible for the recently released Myth III, has either been closed down or "consolidated" into the company's Texas headquarters, depending on who you ask. Either way though it means that the majority of the staff that worked on the game in California are now looking for a new job. According to designer Andrew Meggs, "there was no next project lined up and funded, nor was there expected to be in the near future, [and] it's expensive to keep a team of salaried people around doing nothing". As a result of the lay-offs, future support for Myth III is in doubt. A patch addressing some of the bugs and other issues that afflicted the original version of the game is apparently almost finished, but the team have spent most of the last two weeks looking for new jobs and clearing out their offices, so it's not clear when it will see the light of day. The fate of the game's ranking system and long-promised editing suite is also up in the air, with at least one of the game's programmers working on the tools from home. "I'm very proud of the work we've done as the game stands on its own, and even more so in light of the fact that we did it in only eleven months from start to finish", Andrew Meggs told fans. "Despite the somewhat unhappy conclusion, I don't think a single person from the Myth III team regrets their decision to be a part of bringing this game into existence."

Back in August Xavier Carrillo sent word that a trio of designers from the Severance : Blade of Darkness team were forming a new company called Digital Legends. At the time we were promised "a new and revolutionary engine" from Severance's lead programmer, which would be used to power a first person role-playing game. Now the company has launched its new website, which features the first concept art and renders from this debut project along with screenshots from the engine and some more solid information on what we can expect from the game. Nightfall Dragons is, like Severance, an action role-playing hybrid, but this time set in a world of "mythical creatures, legendary martial arts masters, invulnerable fortresses, secret monasteries and incredible natural landscapes". On the technology front, the engine offers weather effects and a full day and night cycle, as well as support for detailed character models and dynamic shadows. The first early images certainly look promising, but as yet there's no word on when the game will actually be released. Related Feature - Digital Legends emerge from Spain

Fishtank Interactive and Hungarian developers Storm Region have released a demo version of their off-the-wall real-time strategy game SWINE, which centers around a war between bloodthirsty pigs and rabbits. We warned you it was weird. The newly released demo, available in English rabbit stew, German schweineschnitzel and Hungarian spicy goulash flavours from Storm Region, weighs in at around 90Mb and features one of the single player missions from the rabbit campaign - Carrot City. If you have difficulty grabbing the files from the StormRegion website, Tiscali have the English demo here and other mirrors will no doubt be available soon. It's certainly worth a look if you fancy something a little .. different. Related Feature - SWINE preview

It's over four years now since French director Luc Besson's wild sci-fi movie The Fifth Element burst on to our screens, but with the release of New York Race next week on PC and PS2, gamers will be getting a second bite at the cherry. We spoke to the game's producer Jeôme Antona to find out more.

Are PC gamers forever destined to be shut away in their dingy corners playing RPG's and first-person shooters for the rest of gaming eternity? Time after time it has been proven that the PC doesn't really stand out as a bastion of varied thrills, despite the hapless efforts of many (I'm still trying to recover from Toon Car). Arcade racers on the home computer, especially, haven't exactly been known to push the envelope in terms of innovation, production values or, indeed, gameplay quality, not since Wipeout and its sibling arrived on the scene anyway. French developers Kalisto have set out to redress the balance with their Fifth Element-inspired racer, New York Race. It's important to take note of that word "inspired". Kalisto have taken the first few minutes of the film and managed to expand that into an entire game, which is quite a feat when you think about it, however this is where the similarities end. NY Race takes the form of a standard-fare futuristic racing game, and the options on offer from the start indicate that the game is disappointingly shallow. You can choose from championship, single race, multiplayer or time attack modes, all of which are pretty self-explanatory. The core of the game lies in the championship mode, and when you start out only the beginner portion of the game is unlocked for playing, along with one vehicle. This seemed like a rather steep level of limitation for a new player, forcing you to compete in the championship before you can enjoy the luxury of driving a decent vehicle on an interesting course. First impressions aren't terribly promising, as you slouch around the track in last place, bouncing off the walls of buildings and tunnels and wonder why everyone else is moving twice as fast as you. Eventually, however, you begin to get to grips with the nuances of controlling your free-floating car; you have the ability to strafe in all directions, as well as perform speed-building nose-dives and powerslide around sharp corners. The unpredictable nature of many of the tracks demand that you make the most of your control set, as opposed to holding down "accelerate" and turning every once in a while. Aiding in your progress during your races are the obligatory powerups of varying types, including fireballs to shoot up the behinds of your competitors, and huge blobs of weird glue stuff to slow down hapless tailgaters. The handling of your vehicle soon becomes second nature, and it's then that you can begin to appreciate the impressive amount of attention applied to the racing environments.

So the Xbox launched today, and with it we got our first glimpse of Microsoft's vision of console gaming for the next few years. Entertaining software like Halo and Project Gotham aside, we thought we would focus on the various things that are going to draw negative press attention in the next few days. At the end, we'll balance it with an anti-Sony comment so it looks as though we're not actually biased, but of course really we are! First up, there are some wonderful lines from the Xbox manual. According to buyers, there are warnings that if the Xbox falls and hits someone, especially a small child, it could cause serious injury! We don't have the exact wording, sadly, but as owners of several small children ourselves we are naturally both shocked and appalled. We will be taking these concerns to Microsoft towards the weekend. Probably via a mobile phone while at the pub, as it happens. There's also a note that if the Xbox is overheating for whatever reason, a little orange LED will flash to alert the user. Of course, this shouldn't happen unless you put it on top of a stove or something, or light campfires inside of it. The console will probably crash if it overheats though, but don't worry, if you (literally) fry your PS2 it will also crash. GameCube is resilient because it is from a higher plane of existence. Interestingly, someone has managed to produce an image of what (apparently) happens if your Xbox works out that it's busted. This is not - repeat: not - what happens when a game crashes, because they don't. Just as we said they wouldn't. This is what happens when your Xbox realises that something is wrong on the inside. Use it as wallpaper or something if you like. Of course it's actually a big conspiracy - you'll have spotted that that's a Sony Trinitron TV... Beyond that, apparently it's possible to reproduce a bug in DOA3 where a kick or punch can pass through a torso without doing any damage... Is that it? Really, we were expecting some more impressive bugs than that. If any of you have actually bought an Xbox, let's hear about your experience with it. We're eager to find out what others think, because at the moment we only have voice of Xbox fansites to go on, and as such we have to take what say with a pinch of salt. Oh, and by the way, apparently Metal Gear Solid 2 only takes a few hours to finish. Or something. You know. Whatever.

Sony may be fretting over the console market in the West, but in Japan they are on the verge of launching a new PS2 budget range to satisfy gamers picking up the console in the run up to 2002. The range will be marketed as 'Mega Hits' and is set to include games that have sold more than one million copies worldwide. The first titles will be Gran Turismo 3 A-Spec, Onimusha and Tekken Tag Tournament, and they will cost the equivalent of just under £25. We can expect to see the 'Mega Hits' range launch in the States - although presumably under a different moniker - early on in 2002. The thing here is, if they can afford to sell recently-released games for less, why can't they afford to lop $99 off the price of the console in the USA? Surely that would make more sense, chaps. You'd make it back in software sales... promise! As with all good things, Europe is The Third Place. Sony has been telling people that a budget range would be a "logical" move, at least in the UK. They don't know when they would do such a thing though, or how much the games will cost. Great. C&VG has managed to frighten somebody from Sony UK into admitting that the company is in talks to release a PS2 Platinum Range, which given the enormous success of the PSOne range would make perfect sense. They also suggest a price point - either £19.99 or £24.99. As far as we're concerned, that would be a shame. For PS2 to really hit home with the young 'uns, you need to go to £14.99. We also doubt we will see titles like Gran Turismo 3 and Onimusha on a PS2 Platinum range for a while. Not while there's still full-price takings to be had! Not in this country! Related Feature - Sony frets over PS2

Nordic developers Pan Interactive have announced a publishing deal with Mindscape UK which will see their offbeat rock 'n' roll business sim Rock Manager arriving on our shores in March. Pan's international sales manager Karin Björkin admitted that "we've been inundated with questions about when the game will finally be released", as originally it was expected to be out by now. The game was already looking promising when we saw it at ECTS a couple of months ago, with a healthy dose of coarse humour and swearing, and missions inspired by the likes of Oasis and Spinal Tap. Which has to be a good thing. Related Feature - Rock Manager screenshots

Microsoft's Xbox launched with a fanfare last night as the clocks ticked over into the morning of November 15th 2001 in New York City. Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates spearheaded a symbolic launch celebration at the Times Square, New York branch of Toys R Us, by handing out the very first Xbox to a gleeful customer. The fact that many stores (including some in New York) had been handing out pre-ordered Xboxes for several days is being conveniently swept under the carpet… Toys R Us in NYC is reported to have had 1,000 Xboxes, along with a 5,000 square foot billboard and various video screens showing off Xbox software. Several retailers across America also opened at midnight to satisfy pre-orders. All of the first day units have been sold by pre-order. Microsoft has repeatedly warned journalists off the topic of launch allocation, indicating plans to replenish the supply in retail channels where needed, but we learnt this morning that the actual number to ship on day one is around 300,000 - all pre-orders. The first re-supply is due on Monday, so we'll have a better picture of the console's launch shortly afterward. Microsoft will have to be extremely aggressive this Christmas in order to steal any market share at all from Sony, who have had things to themselves for several months. Sony has an incredible number of high quality titles on store shelves in the States now. Microsoft does not. It'll be interesting to see where this one goes.

and LAN Arena have teamed up with UbiSoft to run a nationwide Ghost Recon tournament, which is currently underway at their venues in London, Leicester, Newcastle, Nottingham, Bristol and Maidenhead. All you need to do to enter is show up at one of the LAN gaming centers between now and November 18th, where you will be given the chance to play the Ghost Recon demo. Bizarrely, although the competition is a four player team event, the first round results are determined by who scores the highest number of frags in a single player mission, and solo players can apparently go along and enter by themselves and then form a team later. The top eight teams from each venue will then go through to the second phase, taking place on the 19th, 20th or 21st of November, which will use fifteen minute search and rescue teamplay matches to find the best team. The final stage will consist of an online knock-out competition between the top teams from each venue, with the winning team taking home £1,000 in cash, the runners-up getting BB guns to terrorise the neighbours with, and the third place team walking off with copies of the game. For a full breakdown of the rules and addresses for all the venues, check the Ghost Recon tournament page on The Playing Fields website. Related Feature - Ghost Recon preview

CDV have announced that Imperium Galactica III : Genesis will be released in the UK, France, Germany and America in March 2002. Developed by Philos Labs, the Hungarian company behind last year's Aztec strategy game Theocracy, IG3 features a mix of stunning real-time space battles, empire-building and diplomacy as you take on a range of powerful alien races. "Having won the rights to publish IG3, we're going all-out to ensure this is the biggest in the series", CDV president Terry Malham declared. Accordingly the game will have a more tactical focus than previous installments, with gorgeous real-time 3D graphics throughout and a storyline from Hungarian sci-fi writer Zsolt Nyulaszi. It was certainly looking impressive when we saw the game in action at ECTS a couple of months ago, and if the gameplay can match the eye candy Philos could be on to a winner. Look for further details in the next few months, but in the meantime you can get a glimpse of what to expect on the newly launched IG3 website. Related Feature - Imperium Galactica 3 screenshots

Asheron's Call has always played second fiddle to Everquest, but the recent release of the Dark Majesty expansion pack in America has apparently given it a new lease of life, with the add-on going straight to the top of the PC charts, knocking the much vaunted Dark Age of Camelot off the top spot in the process. The pack adds a variety of new monsters to kill and new lands to explore, as well as the ability to own your own house, ranging from ramshackle cottages to vast sprawling mansions. And the good news for European fans is that the game is due out on this side of the pond on Friday. In related news, Microsoft have released a new teaser for the Asheron's Call sequel currently under development at Turbine. The short 35 second movie includes footage showing characters being animated and the map editor in action, as well as some impressive in-game shots which show a richly textured world of rolling hills, towering mountains, mist-shrouded jungles and bizarre looking monsters. You can view the streaming video on Microsoft's Asheron's Call website. Related Feature - The Dereth Diary

Sony is feeling the heat of competition breathing down its neck, if a report today at FT.com is to be believed. Kunitake Ando, Sony's president and COO, has told the FT that the presence of Xbox on the market could shorten console lifecycles. In other words Ando-san fears that the more powerful Xbox, which actually retails for the same price as PlayStation 2 in the States, will force Sony to manufacture the PlayStation 3 ahead of schedule. Ando-san also uses the opportunity to have a little pop at Nintendo, drawing attention to the disappointing sales of the console in Japan. At the moment, Sony's console is the only one on the market in the USA, but as of this time next week it will have two competitors to deal with. The PS2 has an awesome catalogue of titles at the moment, though, and not content with that, Konami has mysteriously decided to launch Metal Gear Solid 2 one day after the US Xbox launch. The news that Sony feels PS3 production may need to be ramped up sooner is slightly confusing, because the company isn't used to backing away from current formats as soon as something else hits the market. That was Sega's MO, and the last thing we want is Sony repeating their mistakes. If it's so worried about market share slipping through its fingers, why not hack another $100 off the price of PS2? Don't forget, while we pay £199, American consumers still having to pay $299 - a shade over £200 at current exchange rates. Under normal circumstances we would expect to pay as many pounds as the yanks pay dollars. Sony isn't exactly giving itself every break, which is why this PS3 message seems somewhat confused. The truth is, Sony may not be losing much money on PS2 units at the moment, but with another $100 off the price it would be, and in order to get PS3 production online early (which Ando-san believes his company may need to do) it needs to recoup a lot of its investment in chip manufacturing. Perhaps now it's regretting its decision not to farm out console production to another firm, as Microsoft have done with Xbox… If Sony is in that position, it's a no-winner. They can't afford to drop the price of PlayStation 2 because they need to recoup costs, but they certainly can't afford to let Microsoft steal their market share by undercutting them in the near future. So which is worse? Losing the ability to construct PlayStation 3 in time to deal with an Xbox successor (HomeStation is still happening, as far as we know), or losing market share? It's an unenviable position to be in. The one thing we would say, is that Microsoft has more of a fight on its hands than anybody else. They have no previous success in the games console sector upon which to base their promotions, few if any killer applications (Jet Set Radio Future isn't even out yet, so forget that), and they are opting for the higher price of $299. With things the way they are now, Sony's next move may decide whether Xbox is a success or a failure. Related Feature - The Console Wars

Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty will reach Europe on February 22nd 2002, Konami has revealed. The game, due out in America this Friday, is one of the most highly anticipated PlayStation 2 games ever, and in the present climate that's saying something. The game is already receiving monster reviews from the US sites. It looks like it's been - and in our case will continue to be - worth the wait.

In an unusual move which is not quite as "unprecendented" as they may like to think but still most welcome, UbiSoft have revealed that they will be launching the new Everquest : Shadows of Luclin expansion pack in Europe on Monday December 3rd as part of a simultaneous worldwide launch. This means the latest mission pack for the west's most popular massively multiplayer role-playing game will arrive on our shores a few days earlier than expected, as new games traditionally launch on Fridays in Europe for some reason.

Next time you make it in to work a few minutes late and your boss produces a newspaper to swat you round the head with, try telling him that you were having a Time Crisis at home. Henceforth he'll know not to bother you. A man that leaps around his own living room brandishing a couple of pistols and taking out the scourge of humanity with a wry grin and a schedule to keep isn't to be messed about. Your boss knows that. Time Crisis 2 is one of my all-time favourite arcade games. The pedal and gun system for ducking in and out of cover is the stuff of gaming legends, and Namco have successfully recreated the Time Crisis experience on PlayStation 2. The PS2 version has nicer visuals, more things to do and plays just as well as the arcade version. What more could a fan want? It also ships with the light gun - GunCon 2 - for £49.99. GunCon 2 is quite ingenious. It plugs into one of the PlayStation 2's USB slots (located just below the first controller port) and has a two-way cable bridge. You plug the composite video cable into one side and plug the other side into your TV. As a result the GunCon 2 is extremely accurate, right down to the pixel. You get a decent length of cable with it, and if you buy another GunCon 2 (or have an old GunCon from the original PSX) you can hook it up and play with a mate. Or, even better, play two-handed. You want the board's respect, right? First of all we should address the graphics. Namco always does a good job of arcade to console ports, and Time Crisis 2 is no exception. Granted, it isn't a patch on the likes of Gran Turismo, but it does still look pretty damn good and you can see where Namco have made an effort and spruced things up a bit. Additions include improved textures, higher polygon counts for the characters, backgrounds and such, and clouds of dust that I swear I didn't see in the arcade version.

Sony struck a deal with AOL a while back to help facilitate the widespread uptake of broadband-enabled PlayStation 2 consoles. Well, today it seems the two companies are finally making some headway with the collaboration. Sony and AOL are currently readying PlayStation 2 connectivity to the AOL network, the pair have announced. The collaboration will also result in the joint development of gateway technologies.

Digital Worldwide have revealed that they will be publishing GameBoy Advance versions of Grand Theft Auto 3, Smuggler's Run and Midnight Club. All three titles involve motorised mayhem and were originally released on PlayStation 2 by Take 2. Grand Theft Auto 3 clearly needs no introduction, having been released just a couple of weeks ago to critical acclaim and chart topping success. Smuggler's Run was one of the better games amongst the PS2 launch line-up, setting you the task of finding your way cross-country to pick up and drop off legally dubious packages while avoiding the attention of the police. Last and (in this case) least is Midnight Club, an entertaining but ultimately unremarkable street racer set in downtown New York and London. It's not clear how these games will be converted to the diminutive pocket gaming system, as no screenshots or detailed information is available yet, but we would hazard a guess that GTA3 at least will revert to the top-down view favoured by earlier games in the series. Further details will no doubt start to filter out soon though, as Midnight Club is currently aiming for a December release and the other two games should be available some time early next year. It's quite a coup for Digital Worldwide, a small publisher based in the industrial wastelands of the North (that'll be Sheffield then) which has only been around for a little over a year. It's also quite a change of pace from their debut GameBoy Advance title, Snood, which is due for release on November 30th. Based on the popular shareware puzzle game of the same name, which has been around on PC and Mac for the last five years, it looks suspiciously like Bust-A-Move, but without the cute cartoon characters and gaudy graphics we have all come to know and love. But with GTA3 under their belts and more high profile announcements being promised for next year, we will no doubt be hearing more from Digital Worldwide in the future. Related Feature - Snood press release

Xicat have announced that they will be publishing two new GameBoy Advance titles from Dutch developers Lost Boys early next year. First up will be Black Belt Challenge, a beat 'em up which allows you to choose between the paths of good and evil as you battle it out in an attempt to recover lost pages of the Book Of Zero, which will give its owner "ultimate powers". The result is inevitably cartoon mayhem as eleven big-headed characters fight over the missing pages, with Lost Boys promising a wide range of special moves, secret characters to unlock and a two player link mode. The second game is Invader, a shoot 'em up which sees you battling a seemingly unstoppable alien force called the Swarm which threatens your home planet. Cue multiple levels of carnage as you pilot your spacecraft over eight different worlds, each with its own end of level boss. With real-time lighting and weather effects, multi-layer parallax scrolling, a selection of eight weapons and two spacecraft to choose from, and the ability to team up with a friend using the link cable, it could prove to be a lot of fun. Related Features - Invader shots / Black Belt shots

With the arrival of a new generation of consoles, rumours are once again spreading of the imminent demise of the PC. But while shortsighted pundits will once again be amazed to discover in a few years time that the PC is still going strong, it has to be said that the beige box's continued survival as a gaming platform is frankly amazing given the sheer quantity of utter dross that arrives on our doormats every month.

Chris Deering, one of the Sony computing sector's three presidents, has given an interview to Computer & Videogames journalist Patrick Garratt after a break of some 18 months since his last interview with the specialist press. During the exchange, Deering tackles topics including the £199 price point, the ups and downs of PS2 development, market share, the competition and the effect of the September 11th attacks on SCE's business. It's an interesting interview - Deering seems to ramble a bit at times, but we figure the transcription is a bit lacking. Whoever did it managed to cut and paste the entire thing twice, so that the interview actually terminates after four and a half pages, but goes on for nine… One of the points that Deering can hardly avoid ramming home is that Microsoft and Nintendo are too late to the game, particularly in Europe. "Do you think you've won in Europe; you've won this generation of hardware? Do you think you'll be the number one seller?" Garratt asks at one point. "I think so." Deering responds categorically. A far cry from the answer Xbox supremo, Sandy Duncan, who seemed to think Microsoft should be the market leader in Xboxes at X01. Still, if you will fly all your friends in the press to France and douse them in alcohol, they will pressure you into saying silly things. It's worth noting that Deering feels Sony have won, but he's not about to take it for granted. It's also interesting to see just how much respect the man has for Sega's Dreamcast. "What Dreamcast did was 'low-tech and connect'. I highly respect what they were able to do." Of course, the fact that Sega are now one of Sony's biggest development partners has nothing to do with that. We're sure that he was playing a slightly different tune 12 months ago… At that point, everyone (including Sega) was starting to realise that someone had made a dreadful error, and this vision of a broadband userbase was still several years off. Although Deering wasn't questioned about frivolities like the PS2 Linux Kit, he did promise that the broadband / network adapter, modem and hard disk drive are just around the corner. Of course, as we revealed last week, a number of devices are on the market already that will work fine with the PS2's networked software, e.g. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3. These do not require the hard disk drive to be installed alongside, but Deering enthused that it was playing an important part in the Telewest trials, and that it should be available at "pretty much the same time as the network adapter for those people that have access to pipes that can make use of it." Hrm. The hard disk drive will not encourage sloppy coding though, although it doesn't sound like that would matter in any case. In answer to another of Garratt's queries Deering admitted that according to internal program analysers, even games like GT3 were only using about 25% of the console's overall capacity. We fancy it's a bit more complicated than he's implying, mind.

Take 2 and developers Firefly have released a patch for their medieval castle building game Stronghold, fixing a few of the flaws which afflicted the game on its initial release last month. For starters the bug in mission 13 of the military campaign which causes the game to crash to the desktop without warning if you build your walls too close to the edge of the map (in other words, build a proper castle) has now been fixed. Those of you trying to enjoy the game in multiplayer can also rejoice as various connection issues have apparently been solved, teamplay should now work properly and several of the maps have been rebalanced to make them fairer. In the original version of the game, if you built too close to the point at which enemy armies enter a map those parts of your castle wall would collapse without warning when a large enough force arrived. Now you are prevented from building anything within this area in the first place, which makes a lot more sense than allowing you to construct defences and then arbitrarily demolishing them for no apparent good reason. Other problems which have been dealt with include a crash caused by too many engineers spoiling the smelter, and issues with peasants and catapults getting stuck. Sadly though the suicidal peasant AI, which sends your workers running into burning buildings and marching through packs of wolves with gay abandon, is not amongst the list of fixes. There is, however, a new animation which will pop up whenever something catches fire in your castle. Along with two more new animations and fixes for unspecified "various other bugs", the patch comes in at just shy of 7Mb. You can only download it from FilePlanet at the moment, although more mirrors will no doubt be available soon. Related Feature - Stronghold review

Smuggler's Run 2: Hostile Territory is the sequel to one of the PlayStation 2's outstanding launch titles. You would have been hard pressed to justify the original as a killer application though, and in Hostile Territory the excitement is only a bit more feverish, the graphics are only a touch improved, and the FMV and storyline elements are fairly uninspired. The improvements made since the original are hardly groundbreaking, and the game is still ostensibly the same. But since last year the PlayStation 2 has found its way into several million homes in Europe alone, and there are better games on the market, including Rockstar's magnum opus Grand Theft Auto III. The sum of the game's parts is thoroughly enjoyable, but it's still not a killer application. Once again players take control of an anonymous smuggler who is learning the ropes from a grizzled veteran, and are employed to collect packages, make drops and elude law enforcement in all sorts of conditions and all over the world. The general narrative is sustained through a collection of average-to-amusing cutscenes deliberately filmed in a grainy B-movie style, and focus on your smuggling band's financial interests and the jobs they take. At the beck and call of your principal, your group has to infuse itself into various situations both civil and military and escape scot-free. Your adventures take you through exotic locations including Vietnam and southern Russia (instead of the previously proposed Afghanistan, for obvious reasons).

Novalogic announced earlier this week that their latest helicopter flight combat game Comanche 4 has gone gold, meaning that the game is complete and final code has been sent off for duplication. We now know that the game will be showing up on shelves in the UK on Friday December 7th, a couple of weeks later than expected but still just in time for the Christmas shopping spree. Described by Novalogic as "a fun game with broad appeal that offers fast and intense action gaming", the game is less of a serious sim and more of an airborne shooter, with a return to the pick-up-and-play gameplay and easy learning curve of earlier games in the million-selling series. We should know soon whether it can live up to its potential, but in the meantime we have a new batch of screenshots from Novalogic showing off some of the impressive graphics players can look forward to. Related Feature - Comanche 4 screenshots

It's less than a year since Serious Sam was released, and already Croatian developers Croteam are putting the finishing touches to a follow-up to the first person shooter. But this is no hurriedly thrown together Tomb Raider style cash-in, as we discovered when we took a beta copy of the game for a spin at publisher Take 2 Interactive's offices in Windsor yesterday.

NVIDIA reported record earnings this week, with revenues for the three months to October 28th coming in at $370m, up a staggering 87% on the same period the previous year. Profits were also up 60% to $45m. This is all the more impressive given that the terrorist attacks on America took place right in the middle of the financial quarter, not to mention the fact that the country's economy is sliding into recession at the moment. "Our third quarter results exemplify our continued technology leadership and the intense focus and relentless execution of our employees", President Jen-Hsun Huang declared, apparently confirming rumours of brutal beheadings at NVIDIA. "With the excellent success of leveraging the GeForce architecture into winning products for desktop PCs, laptops, workstations, Mac and Xbox, we now have multiple growth drivers that will accelerate our already strong momentum." Related Feature - GeForce 3 Titanium review

Ecks vs Sever is perhaps not the most obvious movie to base a game around. For starters, it isn't even in production yet, and isn't likely to arrive in cinemas until late next year or even some time in 2003. Secondly when you ask most people about it, they look at you all puzzled and say "Ecks vs Who"? Which was our own reaction when Bam! and Crawfish first announced they were making a game out of it. So to satisfy our curiosity we spoke to the game's producer Tim Mawson...

Bungie's Matt Soell, who recently spoke out against the wave of Xbox instability reports, has confirmed that Halo will in fact still be released on PC and Mac, just not immediately and perhaps not in the same form. "'Only on Xbox' means 'Not on any other console'", Soell chides on Bungie's Internet forum. "It does not mean 'Never coming to Mac or PC'. Halo will be coming to Mac and PC." Soell says that there are "a lot of questions that must be answered" before Halo can be released on those other formats, though. He then likens to journey towards Mac and PC versions of Halo to "driving across town to a friend's house" with all the detours and changes that the average driver wouldn't be aware of when he set out. Multiplayer and control systems will be the most important roadworks, we'd say. Halo has been hyped to death over the last year or so, and with the game now a week away, interest has peaked. Something tells me that at this point, the game's reception at launch may have more to do with whether or not it's converted than anything else… Related Feature - Halo screenshots

Now is definitely not a good time to be a terrorist, but there's no doubt that Osama and friends' job would be made even trickier with our old pals Rainbow Six on our side. And so with deft timing the great granddaddy of tactical action games has returned to rid the world of AK-47 toting scum once again, in the latest expansion to the ever-present series of games based on the novels of Tom Clancy. Black Thorn is effectively another mission pack for Rainbow Six sequel Rogue Spear, and it's priced accordingly. Confusingly though Red Storm have decided to release it as a stand-alone product, as well as being able to tack it onto the side of Rogue Spear. So is it a mission pack, or simply a straight-to-budget title? Whatever, the game offers more of the same for fans of the series, with additions including ten single player missions, thirteen new weapons, a few new multiplayer maps and a new multiplayer mode to round off the decidedly slim package. The story is based around a terrorist group led by a psychotic ex-member of the Rainbow team, who has taken it upon himself to re-enact famous terrorist activities of the past in order to lure Rainbow to its demise. Cue a cheery jaunt across the world for our stealthy chums to pop a cap in the ass of a few hundred dim-witted foot soldiers, in settings ranging from cruise ships to foreign embassies, and middle eastern villages to suburban train stations.