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Following on from our report on ABit's 2001 Roadshow on Wednesday, we've learnt that the company is working on several products that deserve to be acknowledged. The Pentium 4 Socket 478 market will benefit from two DDR motherboards from ABit; the first will be based on i845 from Intel, and will launch in the first quarter of next year, and the second may well be based on VIA's extremely controversial P4X266 chipset, but that's subject to the resolution of legal conflicts between VIA and Intel. If all goes to plan, we could see that in this fourth quarter, however. Of course, we knew about the KR7-RAID, one of the company's very latest boards based on the VIA KT266 chipset. We have no learned that ABit plans to launch a successor, KR7A-RAID in late October, based on the VIA KT266A chipset. On a similar note, the company's nFORCE-based motherboard will apparently be called NV7, and is expected to join us later in the fourth quarter, as we learned over sausages and steak at the Kensington Roof Gardens on Tuesday. As far as Athlon multiprocessing is concerned, ABit are working closely with AMD and claim that their boards will be among the first few consumer boards validated by the chip giant. Related Feature - ABit Roadshow 2001 Report

Eircom has announced the launch of Ireland's first commercially available ADSL service. Branded "eircom i-stream", the incumbent Irish telco said it will invest more than €125 million (£77 million) over the next five years to fund the roll-out of the broadband service. The telco added that the service would initially be targeted at business and domestic users and should begin to be rolled out from the beginning of October in areas where exchanges have been upgraded.

Sports Interactive and publisher Eidos have announced a new game called Championship Manager Quiz, which will be released on PC and PlayStation just in time for Christmas. As the title suggests, the game is a multiple-choice quiz featuring over 11,000 questions to keep football fanatics happy, co-developed by Sports Interactive and King of the Jungle. The whole thing is focused on the domestic English and Scottish leagues, although there are some international questions included and localized versions are being planned for other "football mad territories" next spring. Lucky them.

Back in May Activision announced that they had secured the rights to develop and publish GameBoy titles based on the popular cartoon series Jackie Chan Adventures, itself based on the "amazing athleticism, humor and real life super hero qualities" of the famous martial arts actor. Today we have got our hands on some screenshots and concept art from the first game to emerge as part of this deal, which is being developed by Torus and is set to be released for the GameBoy Advance on Friday November 30th. In keeping with the slapstick nature of most Jackie Chan movies, the game appears to be a side-on actioneer in the vein of the classic Double Dragon, but with the ability to use unconventional weapons to dispatch your enemies with - the screenshots show Jackie wielding a vase and an umbrella. As you do.

The latest upgrade patch for Operation Flashpoint has been released today, adding the long-awaited Quake-style dedicated server support. Along with the release of the American version of the game, this should help give Operation Flashpoint's multiplayer support a welcome boost. Also added in this latest patch are a handful of new vehicles including AH-64 and Chinook helicopters, as well as improved force feedback support and a new mission creation wizard for online games.

Following the horrific events in New York and Washington DC earlier this week, the first inevitable news reports linking the terrorist attacks to computer games emerged yesterday afternoon, with Britain's Sky News suggesting that the terrorists could have used software such as Microsoft's Flight Simulator games to practice flying to other cities and crashing their planes into buildings. In a somewhat tasteless move, footage of a player flying planes towards the Pentagon and World Trade Center in the game was interspersed with actual video of the crashes in New York, while presenters and so called experts pontificated on the possibility that the terrorists may have been trained using the game.

When two unassailably divided continents first bridge the distance between them, the result of their diversity is all out war. The Fou Empire of the west and an alliance of counties in the east spend many years fighting over their irreconcilable differences, until both sides' military power is literally exhausted and a reluctant armistice is called. Before long though things start going wrong, and Princess Elena disappears. In order to maintain the peace accord the desperate efforts of forces in the east to send out large-scale search parties are thwarted, and it is left to the Princess' sister Nina to find out what has happened, on her own. Breath of Fire IV is the second game in the popular RPG series to make it to the PlayStation. Unlike Final Fantasy and other Japanese RPGs though, Capcom's Breath of Fire series takes a more practical approach, relying on enjoyable gameplay rather than a groundbreaking story or original characters. Throughout the series Capcom have recycled Ryu (no relation to the Street Fighter) and Nina, and for the fourth iteration they are joined by several new characters; the paranormally gifted Fou-Lu, responsible tribal leader Cray, paranoid armour-suited Ershin, mercenary soldier Scias and middle-class leader of the Fou Empire, Ursula. You start off with control of Nina, who discovers poor Ryu dazed and confused in a desert basin, and from there you join forces with various characters you bump into on a quest to unearth the plot behind Elena's peculiar disappearance. Initially fans of the game will probably find it quite tedious dealing with the relationship between Ryu and Nina for the fourth time, even though Ryu's powers of metamorphosis and other abilities are now far more exciting, but as players delve further and further into Capcom's latest RPG they will find something to excite them.

Codemasters have today confirmed that an all-new Colin McRae Rally game is in the works, giving the multi-million selling franchise its second full sequel. At present there is no word on which platforms the game will be developed for, but PC and PlayStation 2 look like fair bets with other next generation consoles a definite possibility. Apparently over 40 developers are already hard at work on the game, with the team set to expand further and a release tentatively set for some time next year.

Microsoft have strongly denied rumours printed in this month's PC Format about the alleged successor to Xbox, known as HomeStation. The console-cum-set-top box is not in development, a spokesman said, and there are no plans for Xbox games ever to work on set-top boxes according to Microsoft of Japan. Famously poor communication within Microsoft may be to blame for the fact that the rumours spread as far as they did, Computer Trade Weekly reports. Either way, the company claims a competitor may be to blame for their propagation. All that said, our chums at The Register are on a completely different tack, quoting "a source familiar with the machine's development" in bringing us news of the console's apparent hardware make up. "Microsoft's Xbox successor, tentatively dubbed the HomeStation, will indeed be based on Nvidia' nForce chipset and Intel's Pentium 4 processor," they claim. You can read more here. Related Feature - Son of X

Yesterday's terrorist attack on New York has shaken America, causing untold casualties and shocking the world. At this time our thoughts are with those who have lost friends and relatives in the disaster, and our best wishes go to all of our American readers at this difficult time.

Yesterday lunchtime, selected press assembled at the Kensington Roof Gardens to hear from the world's biggest manufacturer of motherboards; ABit. Amidst flamingos and a spectacular barbeque we were told about ABit's latest products and the things that make their motherboards, graphics cards and sound equipment so successful.

Pictures have emerged of an experimental Game Cube unit used in presentations that boasts a USA/Japan switching mechanism to allow interoperability between regions. Of course, in previous years Nintendo consoles from Japan and the States have been interoperable after tiny modifications. With the Super Nintendo, the consoles were technically capable of accepting one another's carts, but required physical modification or a bridge adapter to allow this. With the Nintendo 64, internal modifications were necessary, but nevertheless successful. This writer has both such Japanese consoles modified for use with American released games. With the Game Cube though, Nintendo have announced that it will not be possible to play American games on a Japanese console and vice versa. However, the unofficial consensus from the development community seems to be that the Japanese console will be able to play US software with scant few hardware modifications. If the modification seen in the image on the left is possible on Japanese units, one has to suspect that details of the procedure will be with the modders very soon. Related Feature - The Nintendo Show

Console manufacturer turned games developer Sega has announced today that its online RPG Phantasy Star Online Version 2 is being ported to Windows platforms for release on the PC. The new version will include original effects and other features that take advantage of PC hardware above and beyond the capabilities of the consoles the series has appeared on in the past. In terms of visuals, the PC version will include improved lighting and bump mapping effects, as well as increased polygon counts and draw distances. As a result, Sega is recommending a very beefy system to run the game. The reports, unearthed from this press announcement by Japanese Game Watch then further reported by The Gaming Intelligence Agency (GIA), also indicate that along with original effects and new features, the game will also include two additional languages, Chinese and Korean, which are being added to the in-game translator. Along with the original five languages; Japanese, English, French, German and Spanish, these will allow Sega to expand distribution of the title to new territories where it believes it will make an significant impact. Sega is dedicated to making PSO the "first worldwide network RPG," and the PC version of the game will include enhancements such as the ability to use any standard Windows internet connection - e.g. a broadband or ISDN connection if you have it. Presumably Sega will charge for the use of PSO V2 as they have started to do on the Dreamcast. The big question is of course whether owners of the PC version will be able to interact with Dreamcast and perhaps Game Cube owners. After Monday's comments from Sega director Yuji Naka though, this question is very difficult to answer one way or another. As you may recall, Naka is concerned that cheating in the Dreamcast version (brought about through the use of GameShark devices), could impair consumer's enjoyment of the Game Cube version. As a result he may veto the proposed link between the two. If he does, it stands to reason this decision will be standard policy, at least until the next game in the series arrives. Related Feature - PSO console crossover not to be

Codename : Outbreak, the futuristic squad shooter from Virgin Interactive and GSC GameWorld, will now be released in the UK on Friday October 12th. In the meantime a new demo version of the game has just been released on the official website, featuring both single and multiplayer missions to sink your teeth into. Formerly known as Venom, the game is set on an Earth devestated by a near-miss from a massive comet. As if that wasn't bad enough, the meteor impacts have brought with them alien spores, resulting in a Triffids-style invasion. As half of an elite two man strike force it is up to you to take on the hideous mutants created by these spores and wipe out the alien threat before humanity is lost. The game also features full co-operative support, allowing you to team up with a friend instead of relying on the AI to control your team-mate, as well as the usual deathmatch style online modes. To find out more, head over to the Codename Outbreak website.

Cipher, the cross-platform 3D game engine developed by the Evolva veterans at Synaptic Soup, has been updated to v1.1 with a number of new features including dynamic volumetric shadows (allowing characters to cast shadows on themselves, each other and the environment) as well as per-pixel bump-mapping and lighting effects using the new DirectX 8.0 shader system used by the GeForce 3 and forthcoming Radeon cards. Also added in the latest build is Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound support, improved development tools and a track rendering module designed specifically for racing games.

THQ have signed a deal with pop princess Britney Spears which gives them the exclusive rights to publish games based on the pop idol on PC, PlayStation 2 and GameBoy Advance through to 2005. The first Britney game will be inflicted on gamers around the world some time next year. "Britney's move into interactive entertainment is a natural extension for the Britney brand", according to co-manager Larry Rudolph. "The growth in the interactive category driven by new gaming technologies means fans can look forward to an ultra-realistic adventure through Britney's world."

UbiSoft have sent us some more information on the new Planet of the Apes game which they announced they would be publishing as part of a deal with Fox Interactive last week. Set between the original Planet Of The Apes movie and the sequel Beneath The Planet Of The Apes, the game offers an all-new storyline in which an astronaut sent by NASA to locate Charlton Heston's doomed mission crashes on the future ape-dominated Earth. With the rest of his crew dead following a crash landing, the astronaut must seek survivors of the previous mission in an attempt to get home.

As promised at ECTS, NVIDIA have released their latest Detonator unified driver for its family of 3D graphics processing units (GPUs), or so a press release today claims. The latest Detonator driver provides performance enhancements for Windows 98, Millennium, 2000 and now Windows XP. Of course, the new Detonator drivers arrive amidst rumours that NVIDIA has been holding back the true potential of its GeForce 3 to beat back the ATI Radeon 8500 with. When we spoke to Andrew Humber, NVIDIA's European PR Manager at ECTS though, he admitted to being quietly annoyed by the rumours, which he feels reflect badly on the NVIDIA driver development team. That said, it doesn't appear that they have arrived at all. When we arrived at www.nvidia.com in search of a download link, we were met with links to the Detonator3 v12.41 drivers, which we could have sworn we downloaded last week. The other link provided in the press release - www.nvidia.com/windowsxp - is curiously inactive. We can only assume that NVIDIA's press relations gurus Bastion were a bit quick off the mark and the drivers have yet to be posted. No matter, the performance claims are definitely interesting regardless, and testing the Detonators out on our dismantled GeForce testbed would be tedious at best, so we're not complaining! The Detonator XP will be available free of charge as usual the press release boasts, and contains the newly-patented Detonator XPress Link technology, apparently utilising the patented Direct Memory Access (DMA) found on all NVIDIA hardware. Detonator XPress Link provides a direct connection from the hardware to the operating system, and assists in accelerating the new optimisations made in the I/O Subsystem and Memory Management portions of Windows XP's core. NVIDIA believes this makes Detonator XP the fastest NVIDIA driver for the Windows XP platforms. Sounds a trifle contrived to us, this process of renaming old features for the purpose of press releases, but if Detonator XP produces the sort of performance benefits NVIDIA go on to claim, we'll let it slide. Detonator XP also features a complete OpenGL 1.3 ICD with NVIDIA extensions, they reveal, as well as custom DirectX pipelines. Detonator XP apparently delivers up to a 50% performance gain in Microsoft DirectX and SGI OpenGL applications. We'll bring you more on that when the drivers actually appear - needless to say it's an extraordinary claim. Detonator XP supports everything from the TNT2 to the GeForce 3 to the Quadro DCC and is based on NVIDIA's patented Unified Driver Architecture (UDA). When NVIDIA's techs get their act together, it will be available from here. Related Feature - GeForce 3 review

Microsoft of Japan has told journalists that it will be the Xbox, "not PlayStation or GameCube" that drives the world of online console gaming forward. A company spokesman told reporters on Friday that Microsoft is "drawing up a scheme to convince people that Xbox is the one". It seems a little strange that the company has yet to announce firm plans though, particularly with only two months remaining until launch.

Of all the GameCube titles on offer at the recent Nintendo Show in London, the one that caught my eye was Pikmin. Designed by the legendary Shigeru Miyamoto, at first sight it looks like just another zany kids game with its brightly coloured graphics and cartoonish characters. But dig a little deeper and you find one of the console's most innovative and downright fun games.

Game Cube owners may no longer be able to interact with their Dreamcast counterparts in the gaming world of Phantasy Star Online, because Sega is concerned about the inherent cheating problems that plague the Dreamcast version. Although Sega has demonstrated the ability of the consoles to interact, director Yuji Naka may veto the link anyway. The problem is the proliferation of cheat codes for the Dreamcast version of Phantasy Star Online Version 2. The original idea was that developer Sonic Team would plant a number of rare items in the Dreamcast and Game Cube versions, which would only be available to owners of the other via trade. It wasn't long after the game's release though that GameShark cheat codes capable of unlocking the entire roster of rare items (including those that cannot actually be found in the Dreamcast version) became available. In light of this discovery, Naka is concerned that cheaters would ruin the game for new players. In order to avoid this, he may push for the Dreamcast and Game Cube servers to be separated, effectively destroying one of the most popular console crossovers ever because of the actions of a minority. The difficulty for Naka is that these cheaters will sell their items, and an illicit trade in these items will grow that would spoil any crossover between the two games. His answer may be the only one that can help sterilise the PSO world for Game Cube owners.

JoWood will be publishing German third person role-playing game Gothic as part of their deal with Phenomedia. We already knew that a forthcoming sequel to Gothic would be amongst the dozen games included in the deal, but at the time it wasn't clear whether or not the original game (which has been available in Germany for several months now) was also going to be reaching the rest of Europe. Now JoWood have confirmed to us that they should be releasing Gothic in the UK some time during November.

UbiSoft last week announced that they will be publishing an action-adventure game based on the Planet of the Apes series. Developed by Visiware and Fox Interacctive, the game was originally due out last year and has had a low profile in recent months, perhaps not surprising given that the game is based on the original movies rather than the new Tim Burton effort, prompting fears that it had been cancelled entirely. As it turns out though the PC Ape game is now scheduled for release this month, with GameBoy Color and Advance versions in November. The Dreamcast and PlayStation ports seem to have been dropped though, as no mention is made of them in UbiSoft's press release.

Batman Vengeance was one of the games I was most looking forward to seeing at ECTS, and it didn't disappoint. Based on the animated New Adventures show rather than any of the live action series, the game adopts a third person perspective and follows the caped crusader through the sinister alleyways and silhouetted rooftops of Gotham City. An action-adventure title with driving, flying, running, jumping and shooting, it keeps you guessing as to what you're going to be doing next - leaping from platform to platform for dear life, trying desperately not to lose your footing lest you tumble to the ground below, fighting barefist, swooping down to surprise a wily crook or taking out enemies with your Batarang.

It started with karaoke. Then came dance mats and arcade classics like Dance Dance Revolution, giving you the chance to make yourself look really stupid. More recently things took a turn into the surreal with Dreamcast hit Samba De Amigo, the only game we can think of which is controlled by a pair of digital maracas. And now a South Korean company called Doogi Doogi Drm Co. is going one better by giving you an entire drum kit to embarrass yourself with.

One of the surprise hits of ECTS was Team Factor, a little known tactical combat game from Czech upstarts 7fx which seemed to be producing quite a buzz at the show. Following a tip from our friends at CTW, I dropped by the stand between meetings to take a half-hour look at the game and chat with one of the developers...

During the chaos of ECTS earlier this week we missed Peter Molyneux confirming what we all knew already - that a sequel to the million selling genre-bending god game Black & White is in the works. He also discussed some of the features that gamers might be able to look forward to in the sequel, although given his track record thus far we would take all of these with a healthy pinch of salt.

Fresh from a strong showing at ECTS this week, Wanadoo have announced another new game - SnowCross. As the title suggests, SnowCross is a ski-doo racing game which sees you driving through snowstorms and along icy tracks at break-neck speed, taking in tunnels, caves, glaciers and forests along the way. Ski jumps and other track scenery should allow for tricks and stunts to pick up bonus points, and both quick race and championship modes are on offer. Distributed in the UK by Koch Media's Virtuoso group, the game is going for a mid-range price of £19.99 and should be available in November on PC and GameBoy Color. In the meantime, enjoy the latest batch of screenshots.

Did you know Microsoft was working on a powerful PC hybrid digital gateway to form the centrepiece of everyone's home entertainment hub? Well, I'm not talking about the Xbox. Confused? You should be, we were. According to the chaps at PC Format, Microsoft is secretly working on a home entertainment device codenamed HomeStation. It's a PC/Xbox hybrid actually, and it will apparently go further toward the idea of 'digital convergence' than the Xbox has. It will be non-upgradeable, sealed set-top box, featuring a system board once again based on NVIDIA's nFORCE, meaning GeForce graphics, Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound and advanced networking. Apparently HomeStation will be one of those 'home gateways', that deals with plenty of online and offline activities, presumably driving digital media including music and video, not to mention web-surfing. It will include a sizeable hard drive to facilitate the above, broadband compatibility and a Media Player 8-derived compression technology. The Xbox will be an excellent litmus test for a lot of these ideas. PC Format's sources claim that a .NET server will allow HomeStation owners to stream movies, music, messaging, games and TV, so the hard drive will presumably function ala TiVo. Wireless interfacing via HomeRF or Bluetooth is expected, giving the device plenty of connectivity (digital cameras, PDAs, MP3 players, phones etc). The idea of 'home automation' has been mentioned again, too. HomeStation is expected to play PC and Xbox games, and the company is keeping the blighter tightly under wraps. That said, a lot of people we've spoken to seem to think it's the worst kept secret in the industry. Either way, Microsoft haven't said a word, preferring to keep schtum in order not to damage the Xbox's launch potential. Apparently Xbox isn't the critical move into the living room for Microsoft though, it's just a stepping stone to bigger and better things. It's all about convergence, and helping Microsoft to move away from its roots as a PC developer/supporter and onto bigger playing fields. Assuming this isn't just a competitor treading the rumour mill to spoil Xbox sales.

After a relatively quiet year which saw nine of the industry's top ten publishers staying away from Europe's biggest computer games trade show, speculation is rife that next year may see a radical change of direction for ECTS. Commenting in trade magazine CTW, event director Andy Lane said that "there's been a lot of talk about a consumer event, or maybe a mixture of the trade and consumer".