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Usually the cunning idea lying behind a cutesy cartoon arcade racer is the ability to present fun in its rawest form. Every gamer worth their salt knows that the genre has been defined and championed by Mario Kart, and few other games have come close to touching the sheer entertainment offered by it. Apparently Akaei thought they knew just how to inject this kind of hilarity into the PC with Toon Car. Oh how wrong they were... Under no circumstances should a game ever feel like it's a chore to play, yet Toon Car is like doing the washing up, ironing and hoovering, all rolled into one sickly mess. It's apparent from the very start that the proceedings could become extremely irritating extremely quickly, simply from the mannerisms of the grating host character. It's not often that you can form a grudge against a game simply by accessing the preliminary menu screens, but here at least Toon Car succeeds admirably. The game structure itself is exactly as you would expect from the genre, with single race, practice, championship and multiplayer modes on offer. However, in order to access even the first tiers of the championship, you must first earn a licence. To pick this up, you are presented with one of the game's tracks littered with giant traffic cones, all of which you must knock over whilst completing three laps within a time limit. This does little to prove your proficiency within the race environment though, simply because it's a completely different experience.

Jedi Starfighter is inspired by the success of its predecessor, and borrows its name from the Jedi's craft of choice; the Jedi Starfighter. In game terms, it's the same team and the same sort of premise, so I'm looking forward to playing it. The game will run parallel to the events of the new movie, but the game will actually be released several months prior to the film, so it won't give too much away. Fifteen story-based missions will be included for one or two players, borrowing worlds and environments from the film. The ships on offer will be the Jedi Starfighter itself, the Havoc from the original game, and the Zoomer and Freefall. These will skim along the surface of various planets and fight in enormous space battles with more than 40 types of starship and capital-class vessels, including some notable enemy craft from the upcoming Star Wars film. It will be our first taste of Attack of the Clones, so a lot rides on its success. The introduction of Jedi pilots for these ships means that various Force powers will be available, something lacking in the first game. Amongst the pilots' abilities will be Force lighting (which saps the power systems of enemy ships and renders their pilots unconscious), Force shield (which creates an energy-based deflector shield) and Force shockwave (which produces a powerful energy surge that radiates multi-directionally). My personal favourite though is Force reflex, which simulates the exaggerated reflexes and perception of the Jedi Knight pilot by shifting the world into slow motion, although whilst in slow-motion players will retain th normal turning and shooting abilities of their craft.

Swedish developers Grin have released a demo version of Ballistics, which we described as "the fastest racing game on the planet .. a game that makes Wipeout look like Driving Miss Daisy". Reaching speeds of upwards of 1000 mph as you streak through a magnetic tube on your futuristic hoverbike, it's certainly not for the faint hearted and should be steered well clear of by anyone with epilepsy. The rest of you can now head over to Grin's website and download the 107Mb demo, which features the opening SkyTown track and allows you to indulge in the appropriately named Speed Trials, playable on all three difficulty levels (Rookie, Pro and Ballistics). Grin recommend that you have at least a 400MHz CPU, 128Mb of RAM and a GeForce, Radeon or Voodoo 4 class card to get the most out of the game, and if like me you have a motherboard which uses a VIA chipset, make sure to install the latest 4-in-1 driver before playing the game to cure any possible AGP problems. Related Feature - Ballistics review

"Classic" footy title Kick Off is back courtesy of Acclaim, this time on PSOne, PlayStation 2 and the PC. The difference this time seems to be that publisher Acclaim recognizes the game's (ahem) worth, and is pricing it accordingly. Kick Off '2, which will be available exclusively from Electronics Boutique and Game, will cost £12.99 for the PSOne version, £19.99 for the PS2 version and a tiny £9.99 for the PC version, all of which are ostensibly the same. "The original qualities and simplicity that made Kick Off such a popular and endearing game have been maintained," a press spokesperson boasts, "and a whole host of new features have been added to please the football fans of 2002". What those need features amount to are a team editor, 204 international teams rated according to FIFA's rankings, and players with a unique combination of eight skills and physical attribute statistics to play with. Simplicity itself, and that's pretty much the design brief anyway. Related Features - Kick Off '02 screenshots

EA have announced in some detail the various features that make up their recently-announced PlayStation 2 racer Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit 2. Like the original, the game will boast a plethora of visually stunning environments, including river crossings, waterfalls, beach surf, dusty paths and brush fires. The game will feature over 12 courses, which introduce extreme weather conditions into the mix, animated drivers and cops give life to the driving challenges in the same. It says 'ere. Players will vie for the title of 'Ultimate Road Racer' by duking it out for numerous racing events, with a decent reward structure backing things up. The cars on display will include more than 20 of the most coveted licensed exotics rendered in awesome detail. Visual effects will include dynamic lighting and real world reflections, along with realistic, detailed environments that push the emotion engine by bringing to life elements from the real world - rain, blowing leaves, sun beams and dust storms. Let's hope they don't push it too hard, slowdown would kill a game like this. But EA is confident of a 60fps rate even when driving at upwards of 200mph in sumptuous detail. You can see for yourself just how beautiful the game is shaping up to be in the small selection of screenshots the company has released. The hotly awaited sequel is due out from Black Box and EA in the Spring of 2002, which will put it head to head with Gran Turismo Concept. Judging from the implied visual quality in the screenshots of both, we can hardly wait! Related Feature - Hot Pursuit 2 screenshots

French internet group Wanadoo is a newcomer to the gaming industry but they already have a hefty line-up, with more than a dozen games due for release in the last three months of 2001, spread across every platform from GameBoy to PC and PlayStation. One of the most interesting titles they're working on at the moment though is the gritty shooter IronStorm, developed by 4X and due out next autumn. We talked to Wanadoo's editorial manager Edouard Lussan to find out more...

THQ has signed itself up to a five-year exclusive deal to develop and publish games based on the 'Pride' Fighting Tournament. From next year we can expect to see a series of these games propagate across THQ's list of supported consoles, which includes the PlayStation 2, GameCube and Xbox. The first game based on the franchise is called simply, "Pride", and is due out on the PS2 some time in the second half of 2002 from WWF Raw developer Anchor. After the success of the WWF titles (particularly the Smackdown series), THQ will be hoping its own brand encourages sales of these games. If gamers can expect the same level of high quality fighting titles, they stand a good chance of succeeding. "WWF Smackdown!: Just Bring It", the company's flagship wrestling product, is due out on November 23rd along with a number of other impressive PS2 titles due in the run up to the festive season.

Sega, Acer and Softbank have joined forces to distribute video games over broadband. The partnership will result in a new company, Xsido Corp., which will develop the technology and games and make it available to ISPs in Japan, Taiwan and South Korea to offer to their customers regardless of platform. ISPs will charge their customers to play the games at their own discretion. It sounds like a good bet for the companies involved, and with the proliferation of various DSL and cable technologies in Japan, perhaps the timing is finally right for Sega, who jumped the gun by a mile with Dreamcast…

Nokia sent along a timely reminder that this week is your last chance to sign up for the Nokia Game, a massive multimedia affair which sets you a series of challenges and puzzles to complete over the next three weeks. The unique part of the Game is that clues and new tasks are provided by everything from SMS messages, e-mails, websites and mobile phone calls to adverts on television, radio, magazines and newspapers across 28 countries in Europe and the Middle East. Electronic Arts tried something vaguely similar in the US with Majestic, mixing phone calls, instant messages and e-mails, but the game promptly flopped, plunging their EA.com division even further into the red. By contrast, last year half a million people took part in the Nokia Game, and the Finns are hoping to do even better this year thanks to the addition of a points system which lets you keep track of your performance through the Nokia Game website. The top scoring players will go through to a grand final where you can win one of fifty brand new Nokia handsets. It's free to enter, and with the Game kicking off on Sunday you still have a couple of days to sign up if you fancy finding out what all the fuss is about. All you need to take part is an SMS-capable mobile phone and internet access. Head over to the Nokia Game website to find out more.

Way back in the mists of time there was a game called Castles which, funnily enough, revolved around building castles and then raining arrows and pouring boiling oil on anybody foolish enough to attack you. Flash forwards ten years and Stronghold has brought this wonderful concept up to date with a dose of real-time strategy and sim elements. Your castle is constructed by placing walls and prefab parts such as towers and gatehouses on the map, with optional extras such as moats, pitch ditches and spike traps also available. It's all very simple point-and-click stuff, and unlike in Castles your defences appear as soon as you place them, rather than having to wait for a peasant to come along and start shifting the stones. The game's isometric viewpoint can make accurate placing of objects awkward at times but luckily any trees, buildings and hills can be flattened by pressing the space bar, allowing you to get a clearer view of the ground plan of your fortification and see what's hidden behind your walls. You will also need plenty of peasants to support your castle building antics. Farms, hunters' posts, mills and bakeries will feed your growing population, woodcutters' huts, quarries and mines provide the raw materials you need, and various kinds of armourer and weaponsmith will provide equipment so that you can start hiring troops to defend your castle. You can also add churches, inns, gardens and maypoles to keep your people happy, and gallows, stocks and dungeons to keep them working hard. At first sight there's a lot to keep you occupied, and it's hard to see how the game could fail. But fail it does.

GameCube fans in the States can look forward to going home with more than they bargained for on launch day. The omnipotent Tony Hawk will be riding in style as his third game; Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 from Activision, launches with the GameCube on November 18. THPS3 joins a cast of 15 or so other titles launching on that date, including several exclusive titles. We can only assume the game will also launch on PS2 and Xbox that day. If not, it'd be quite a coup for Nintendo. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 was recently confirmed as the PlayStation 2's first online-enabled game, and will boast compatibility with PlayStation 2 USB modems and Ethernet adapters, the absence of which from the market apparently doesn't bother Activision too much... The GameCube version will not feature online play. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 on the PlayStation 2 is due out in Europe on the 23rd of this month. It won't be with us on the GameCube and Xbox until their respective European launch dates sometime in the Spring of 2002. Related Feature - US GameCube launch titles

UK-based games publisher and developer Rage Software has entered into a development agreement with Nintendo, which enables the company to develop a range of products for the Nintendo GameCube platform. Rage plans to exploit a number of its licensed franchises, including the official series of David Beckham games, which it will certainly be bringing to the console. The company expects to ship its first GameCube product in late 2002. Paul Finnegan, Managing Director of Rage, commented: "We are delighted to have secured this agreement with Nintendo as it gives Rage the opportunity to work with all three leading players in the console market. We look forward to bringing a range of high quality and compelling games to the Nintendo GameCube platform."

Codemasters have revealed that they have secured global publishing rights (with the exception of Scandinavia) for Innerloop's sequel to popular stealth shooter Project IGI, which was published last year by Eidos. Imaginatively titled IGI 2, the new game is due out next summer and will focus again on the career of former SAS soldier turned freelancer David Jones. Along the way you will get to visit Russia, China and Libya, infiltrating air bases, harbours and the ubiquitous secret government installations. "After the success of Operation Flashpoint, we're very excited to be working closely with such a creative team to produce a game that we're confident will be the most dramatic and entertaining first-person action adventure of 2002", Codemasters' Gary Rowe beamed, adding that "their ambitions for this new title impressed us greatly". Innerloop are promising "an enthralling story" and enhanced graphics with more water, weather effects and night time conditions. They have also pledged to fix one of the biggest shortcomings of the original game, the lacklustre AI. All-new artificial intelligence will apparently allow your opponents to work together more efficiently as a team, instead of standing scratching their heads as you pick their friends off one by one. Related Feature - Project IGI review

UbiSoft is developing Xbox versions of two of its forthcoming PlayStation 2 prospects, the company has revealed. Rayman M and Batman: Vengeance, the two games the company was pushing on PS2 at ECTS this year, will both be faithfully converted to the new format. Batman: Vengeance will remain more or less the same, while Rayman M will pick up "emphasized graphics and fluid action courtesy of [blah blah Xbox spiel] with 1500 faces per character, complex shadows, new lighting process and more." This sounds suspiciously similar to the promises made about the PS2 version, but we'll reserve judgement until we've played both. Both games are set to appear in Europe during 2002. Quelle surprise! Related Feature - Batman: Vengeance PS2 preview

Creature Labs have released a pair of new downloadable add-on packs for their artificial life series Creatures. Priced at £4.99 each from the Creature Labs Shopping Mall, the packs are compatible with Creatures 3, Creatures Docking Station and Creatures Internet Edition, adding new Norns to breed and new toys to play with. Toxic Norns features mutated creatures from "a world inhabited by a seething mass of organisms, all striving for existence, [where] the remains of the fallen accumulate to feed the needs of the living". As a result of their evolution in this "unsavoury" environment they have more powerful immune systems and can eat waste products. The pack also includes "horrendously smelly fruit", insect-attracting fungi, and a "novel toy" that hurls decaying plant matter around. Eugh, gross. More in keeping with the traditional cutesy atmosphere of Creatures is the appropriately titled Treehugger Norns pack, which adds a nature-loving breed which "enjoys interacting with plants, animals and insects instead of other creatures". The mind boggles. Bonus toys include a "Quirky Cookie Machine" which (as the name suggests) makes quirky cookies from bizarre ingredients gathered from the ark. Related Feature - Creatures breed online

Namco have revealed the various gameplay modes that will ship with the GameBoy Advance version of Tekken. According to the venerable beat 'em up designer, Tekken Advance will include Arcade, Vs. Battle, Survival, Time Attack and Practice modes as expected, along with 3 on 3 Arcade and 3 on 3 Battle. Namco has also confirmed that there will be at least one secret character. As you can see from this array of new screenshots, the game is coming on leaps and bounds, and looks strikingly detailed. Related Feature - Tekken Advance screenshots

Europe's top computer games retailer Electronics Boutique announced today that EuroGamer will be providing a slew of new online gaming systems for Barrysworld, the popular UK-based service provider which EB bought out earlier in the year. The technology allows players to launch both peer-to-peer and client-server games directly from the Barrysworld website, as well as including an online matchmaking lobby and systems to ensure that players have the correct game version and aren't using any cheats. EB Media's internet director David Evans told the press that "the EuroGamer technology plays an incremental role in making BarrysWorld more user friendly and approachable than ever before", allowing the company "to broaden the appeal of online gaming to a much wider audience than the existing community of gamers currently using BarrysWorld". Meanwhile our very own Rupert Loman was said to be "delighted" at the deal, adding that "this shows our ongoing commitment to making online gaming more accessible and fun for all". The new Barrysworld service will be going into an open beta test within the next few weeks. Related Feature - BarrysWorld saved from extinction

Super Smash Brothers, if you weren't already aware, is Nintendo's beat 'em up. The big cuddly N doesn't usually go in for violent games like Smash unless there's a twist of fun involved, and with Smash the idea was that to take a bunch of Nintendo's favourite franchises, pillage them for the best bits and assemble into a fighting game. And by God, it worked too! After the enormous success of Super Smash Brothers on the N64 (a console which didn't exactly entice beat 'em up fans with open arms), it's hardly surprising that Nintendo and HAL Laboratory have stuck so stringently to the original formula, with a jaw-drop-inducing revisions. For starters, you have your basic set of characters, around twenty including the secret ones, taken from games as diverse as Kirby, Donkey Kong, Zelda, Mario, Starfox, Metroid and Pokemon. You have totally new multiplayer levels for each individual character, which have been enhanced with some truly audacious new power-ups. Character design and visual quality has been enhanced, and there are plenty of new gameplay modes too, including a proper single player mode. This is the most drastic addition. Instead of simply fighting one character in a fairly drab arena, players actually have to work their way through entire levels of side-scrolling but beautifully 3D rendered and lavishly detailed graphics, filled with a host of nasty bad guys appropriate to that character (such as Redeads for Link). Locations have been hand-picked for each character and judging by the screenshots they will blow you away. We're certainly looking forward to them from a purely nostalgic point of view. And that is much of Super Smash Brothers Melee's appeal. It offers so much nostalgia that no Nintendo fan will want to be without it, beat 'em up fan or no. It's similar to Paper Mario in that respect.

Akaei have released demos for a trio of their latest releases. Top of the pile is Echelon, an entertaining sci-fi flight combat game that sports gorgeous graphics and refreshing arcade-style action. Next up is Killer Tank, another action game which (as the title suggests) puts you in charge of an upgradeable über-tank, working for an evil mastermind as you take on those pesky do-gooding heroes. Finally we come to Toon Car, a Mario Kart inspired motor-racing-with-giant-headed-cartoon-characters game. Nothing too deep then, but it's all good clean fun. You can grab the demos (which each weigh in at around 80Mb) from the Akaei website -

SNK has closed its doors for good. The company whose obscure £100 beat 'em ups sold a ridiculous arcade-orientated console called Neo Geo for years, and who most recently won the hearts of gaming fans everywhere with the Neo Geo Pocket Color handheld, is no more. Effectively, SNK are the victim of Nintendo's portable monopoly. The GameBoy Color crushed the Neo Geo Pocket Color, despite arguably superior software lines on the smaller console. Games like Metal Slug, SNK Versus Capcom and Evolution sold the console to thousands of hardcore gamers, but evidently not enough. It was bad enough when European and American NGPC operations were canned, but now the whole company… it's just too much to bear. This means the end of a number of great SNK series, including Metal Slug, King of the Fighters, Samurai Showdown, Fatal Fury and countless others. And what of the Capcom deal? We don't know yet. Capcom Versus SNK 2 has just been released on the PS2 in America and is due out on the 30th of November here, but what's next, Capcom Versus Receivers? We'll leave you with the (roughly translated) parting message from SNK to all of its fans and customers… "It is with deepest grief that In the Autumn of 2001, SNK will close the company history in its business. It was all of your favour and encouragement which made our passion running to make better games for SNK fans. We'd like to take this opportunity to thank every one of you for the continuous help and assistance rendered to SNK [by you] since its incorporation in Japan [in] July,1978. Without your support, SNK Corporation would not have been possible throughout 23 years of operation. With all our heart-felt gratitude, thank you once again!"

UbiSoft is celebrating a massive 72% rise in sales in the six months to September 30th compared to the same period last year. This is largely thanks to the purchase of companies such as Red Storm, TLC and Blue Byte, with Myst III (from TLC) shifting 750,000 copies worldwide and the Rainbow Six franchise (from Red Storm) selling 450,000 units. These acquisitions have also helped UbiSoft to expand into America, with sales on that side of the pond tripling over the last year. The launch of the GameBoy Advance gave the publisher another major boost, with GBA titles making up over a fifth of UbiSoft's sales this year and Rayman Advance alone selling 600,000 copies.

Just a week after we first reported on rumours of troubles at EON Digital, the small publisher has made another five staff at its London office redundant due to cash flow problems. According to reports in trade mag MCV, this leaves "only a core of management to keep the company ticking over", which has to be a bad sign for the company's future well-being. EON are supposed to be publishing Worms World Party on PlayStation and GameBoy Advance, as well as handling European distribution for the eagerly anticipated 3D role-playing game Morrowind next year, but this is beginning to look increasingly doubtful. Related Feature - EON in trouble

Sony Online Entertainment have officially announced that the first European servers for Everquest will finally be going live on November 1st. It's been a long time coming, but now players of the highly addictive massively multiplayer role-playing game who are based on this side of the pond will be able to take advantage of the lower pings that come from having a dedicated set of servers located here in the UK. No doubt SOE will also be hoping that this will help to lure even more people into its online world, especially with the new Shadows of Luclin add-on pack due for European release through UbiSoft later in the year. Luclin will also be the first of SOE's products to be localised, featuring in-game text in English, French, German, Japanese and Korean and automatically translating between them on the fly as you chat to players from other countries. The results are likely to be hilarious, especially as the "advanced translation software" has to handle the obscure terminology of role-playing games and the unintelligible ASCII ramblings of l337 sp34k, but it is at least a step in the right direction.

Capcom reckons Devil May Cry will barely make it in time for Christmas here in Europe. The highly anticipated genre-transcending festival of fantasy has suffered setbacks in the past, but we were hoping to see it emerge on November 23rd, along with a number of other heavy-hitting PlayStation 2 titles like Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3. Capcom may have shifted position on DMC's release date to give the game a more comfortable run. The game may now arrive as late as December 14th, or perhaps a week earlier on the 7th. Either way, it joins a massive roster of impressive games on sale in the run up to Christmas. Grand Theft Auto 3 is already leading the all format sales charts across the UK, and games like SSX Tricky, the phenomenal ICO and of course Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 are just around the corner. With no real console competition this festive period in Europe, the PlayStation 2 enjoys a unique dominance, and by the looks of things, it wants to get as far ahead of any pursuing pack as possible before Xbox and GameCube launch next Spring. Related Feature - Devil May Cry preview

Last year the American city of Indianapolis introduced a new law which required arcade owners to keep their most violent and sexually explicit games seperate from other machines, and to clearly label them as suitable for adults only. Any under-age children wanting to play one of these marked games would need parental consent. Bizarrely though an American court ruled that the law was unconstitutional on the grounds that kids have a First Amendment right to play these games. We're not quite sure how playing Mortal Kombat can be interpreted as free speech or freedom of expression, but there you go - America is weird like that.

Capcom has officially announced plans to release Genma Onimusha on Microsoft's Xbox, as we reported from the Tokyo Game Show earlier this month. The game is due out in early 2002, and builds on the award-winning Onimusha Warlords PS2 game, which sold more than two-million copies worldwide. Genma Onimusha "displays more enemies simultaneously due to its powerful graphic capabilities" and features a new attack system, new areas, visuals and costumes and a "new soul rope-pulling fighting system". Early reports cite Genma as a trumped up rehash of the original compared to the ever-evolving Onimusha 2, which is already gathering pace on PlayStation 2. Related Feature - Autumn TGS: Xbox

One of the more bizarre moments at the first European Game Developer's Conference a couple of months ago came during the keynote speech on the future of gaming by David Braben. While we were all waiting patiently for a new Elite sequel, Braben and the boys at Frontier Developments have instead been working on A Dog's Tale, a horrendously cute looking adventure game starring a lost dog. Aw, bless. Today Frontier have released a little demonstration of the animation system which David Braben was showcasing at GDC Europe, featuring a trio of dogs running around on a landscape of graph paper hills. Called R-TAG, it is described as being their own in-house "second generation Inverse Kinematics animation library", if that means anything to you. The upshot of all this is that as the dogs wander around your screen the animations of their various gaits are blended smoothly in real-time, meaning no skating, no feet hovering in mid-air, and no instant snapping between different animations. Occasionally if they make a sharp turn while running flat out one of their legs ends up in a rather odd position for a split second, but this could be the .. ahem .. "deliberate mistake" they mentioned in the press release. Overall the effect is certainly quite impressive though, especially as producing believable animations for creatures with more than two legs is harder than it sounds. You can download the strangely hypnotic 1.4Mb tech demo from Frontier's website. Related Feature - GDC Europe / ECTS 2001 coverage

IGN have gotten hold of a US GameCube package and a couple of launch titles - Luigi's Mansion and Wave Race: Blue Storm. According to the American website, the console packaging hasn't changed much from its original Japanese outfit, except the handle is missing from the top of the box, and there are lots of screenshots and peripheral images on the back and side. Inside the package, the console now comes with A/V cables as standard, as well as one controller and the power adapter. The interesting change is to the software packaging. We have grown quite fond of the GameCube software packages, but it doesn't surprise us to hear that Nintendo have upped the size to about that of a DVD case, which is of course what Sony and Microsoft will be using. Inside the box are slots for the optical discs and one memory card. The cases are apparently pretty basic, which we guess means they lack the little cardboard sleeves that make the Japanese cases ever so slightly more fragile. The biggest change though comes to Luigi's Mansion, which now features footage of Pikmin hidden in the options menu. Two minutes of it, although sadly nothing playable. You can read more about it at IGN's GameCube website. Related Feature - Hip to be Cube!

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 will be the PlayStation 2's first online game, publisher Activision has revealed. Larry Goldberg, executive VP of Activision Worldwide Studios said in a statement, that "By introducing an online component to the Tony Hawk's Pro Skater franchise, we are not only upping the ante in the action sports category but in console gaming on the whole". For once, we agree. The game will use GameSpy as its matchmaking service, and will support the Sony Ethernet/modem adapter when it launches, as well as "a number of third party peripherals including USB Ethernet Adapters and USB Modems". The game will use peer-to-peer networking rather than the popular client/dedicated server style of PC games like Quake. It's interesting to note that scant few details are included in this announcement of which ISP will be handling the modem dialup, or how much it will cost. We can only assume that it will be a non-subscription 0845 dialup service. The Ethernet situation is even less obvious, with no news whatsoever on when that adapter will launch in this country. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 is due out on November 23rd in the UK and Europe. Related Feature - Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 Dreamcast review

Upgrading your graphics card has never been so expensive. To pick up a cutting edge card based on NVIDIA's cracking Titanium 500 reference design could set you back upwards of £350. These days you could probably replace your monitor for less. If you have to buy NVIDIA though - and judging from the emails we've been getting that's a lot of you - then you probably want to know whether it's worth sifting through the various boards on the market, or whether you should simply go for the cheapest. It would be impossible for us to scrounge every single GeForce 3-derived card on the market, but by examining a cross-section of the products on offer we can establish whether any performance difference exists, or not... There are three categories; GeForce 3 Titanium 200, vanilla GeForce 3 and GeForce 3 Titanium 500. Our control for each category is the appropriate NVIDIA reference board. If you aren't familiar with GeForce 3 or GeForce 3 Titanium, we recommend you check out the respective reviews. Wherever a board varies from the reference design, it has been noted below.