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French companies Kalisto and Wanadoo have formally announced their futuristic racing game NY Race, which is based on Luc Besson's surreal sci-fi movie The Fifth Element. Due for release in November, the game will let you step into the shoes of Korben Dallas and drive around the airways of New York City in a selection of over thirty flying cars, from Korben's yellow taxi to flying police cars.

According to The Sunday Times, David and Richard Darling, owners of Codemasters and valued at £400m between them, are in talks to sell part of their company because they can't afford to fund the costly stream of expansion. Codemasters is the biggest developer/publisher operating in the UK, formed by the two Darlings and their father. Although the company had demonstrated record profits growth for the UK gaming sector, it is now struggling and is expected to make a loss this year. Despite chart-topping successes like Operation Flashpoint and Severance, the company is ruefully having to admit that it doesn't take much to achieve that goal in the short term. Fronting development costs for services like the Codemasters Multiplayer Network has taken a lot out of the company, as have other, more ambitious expansion plans. At the present time, the Darlings are trying to sell a £25m stake in the company to venture capitalists in the city, a move which the Times comments comes only two years after they took a dividend of almost £10m out of the business. Although the Darlings will invest another £1m in the firm, of the £25m figure Richard points out that "we don't have that sort of money". "We have made presentations to a lot of venture capitalists," he told The Sunday Times. "We are expecting the process to come to a conclusion by the end of July or start of August."

TDK Mediactive has struck up a deal with DreamWorks to create a new Shrek game for Nintendo's Game Boy Advance. TDK, a company better known for its writeable CD media than its gaming connections, intends to turn the loveable cast of the hit movie into racing dynamos, using the tried and trusted "kart" formula. A little uninspiring to say the least, the racer will feature Shrek, Princess Fiona, Lord Farquaad, Donkey and other favourites (presumably numbering eight in total) spinning around a bunch of tracks based on themes from the film. The film, incidentally, has so far grossed over $240.6 million, so the license is nothing to be sniffed at. Piggy-backing the film's popularity and the trendy kart-racing template will no doubt generate a lot of sales, and since Nintendo's new portable itself is all the rage, we'd be surprised if TDK held this one back for long. One would expect to see the treadmarks of tiny wheels sometime early next year. The Shrek license that TDK has secured is a pretty all-encompassing one, spanning five years and allowing the company to develop for current and future generation videogaming platforms. Joining the GBA version of Shrek Kart (or whatever they deign to call it) will be the previously announced Xbox version of the game. Shrek on the Xbox by the way, will be a slightly more ambitious, original adventure game set in new areas with familiar faces dotted about. Microsoft's J Allard (the General Manager of the Xbox platform) said the team was making "amazing progress" on it last time he checked. Given that the team who did Shrek the movie are working on projects new (a CG animated film of Terry Pratchett's Norns series) rather than a sequel, we reckon Shrek Kart and the Xbox adventure will arrive sooner rather than later.

It all started last Wednesday, when id Software's PR company sent out a press release saying "NEW GAMES FROM ID SOFTWARE, QUAKECON 2001". And nothing more. On Monday they expanded on this, saying that Quakecon would include an "ANNOUNCEMENT OF NEW GAMES/Q&A SESSION". Which was equally helpful. In the meantime websites have been speculating as to what these mysterious "new games" will be.

Prince Charles, heir to the British throne, has weighed into the debate over children and video games, telling an audience at the British Museum that "one of the great battles we face today is to persuade our children away from the computer games towards what can only be described as worthwhile books". The call to arms came as part of a request for lottery money to be spent on encouraging children to take an interest in books and the performing arts. "None of us can underestimate the importance of books in an age dominated by the computer screen and the constant wish for immediate gratification."

While Gothic has already been released in its native Germany (and picked up a number of awards from local magazines and websites in the process), the third person action-adventure / role-playing hybrid has yet to see the light of day in the rest of Europe. We took an English language press demo of the game for a spin to see what we've been missing out on...

With Final Fantasy : The Spirits Within about to arrive in cinemas across America, animation director Andy Jones has dropped a hint that there may be more movies coming out of Square in future. "There's plans for things", he told About.com when asked if he would be working on a sequel. "Right now I'm currently attached to a project at Square. I can tell you that. I can't tell you what it is. Similar genre, animation. Along the same lines."

It's that time again. What time? CPL time. Yes, once again, Angel Munoz and his minions are running a high profile Quake 3 and Counter-Strike tournament, and right here in London to boot. The qualifiers have already begun, with Counter-Strike wrapped up on Sunday, and next weekend marks the Quake 3 qualifier, with most of the country's hottest talents promising to put on a show. As with the CPL Holland UK Qualifier a few months ago, the Counter-Strike matches are played using what is regarded as a "proper" scoring system. Teams have to try and win as many Terrorist rounds on DE maps (where the impetus is on them to win by bomb detonation or wiping out the other team), and Counter-Terrorist rounds on CS maps, (where hostages must be rescued or the other team wiped out). At the end of a set period, the two teams swap around and it's the team with the most rounds that wins. Last Sunday's qualifier featured a number of big talents, with two groups of eight clans; LCA, NoC, G&D and 820 in Group A, and # (numbers), 4K, cs0 and Q3P in Group B. As you can see on the qualifier results page, NoC were the team to beat, winning all of their group games and beating off the challenge of TPF die hards cs0 in the first semi-final. 4K, losers of the Holland qualifier final, also put on a tremendous display, beating off the challenge of LCA in the other semi. Unfortunately for 4Kings, they once again lost out, this time to Clan Nocturne. Better luck next time, perhaps. The cash prize of £2,500 courtesy of AMD will be split between the ranks of NoC and the clan will progress to the UK finals next month. To find out more details about next week's Quake 3 qualifier, click here. Related Feature - CPL Holland Counter-Strike Qualifier

A judge has granted Blizzard a preliminary injunction banning distributor New Line Cinema from using "Diablo" in the title of a forthcoming movie about drug cartels. With the film due for release some time later this year, New Line will now have to find a new title in a hurry, as the court case will no doubt drag on well past the film's projected release, and the injunction bans them from even advertising the movie as Diablo in the meantime.

A lot of people will probably disagree with me, but having played both Konami Krazy Racers and Super Mario Kart Advance at ECTS last year, I can honestly say that I thought Mario had the edge, in terms of sheer playability and heritage. That's not me trying to take something away from Krazy Racers, it's an opinion, and I also believe that I would be giving Krazy Racers a lower score if Nintendo hadn't delayed their showpiece racing extravaganza until Christmas. Still, in its own right Krazy Racers is a very good game. It pushes all the right buttons and uses a mostly familiar line up of Konami's stars. Amongst those eight names are Goemon of Mystical Ninja fame, Moai, the stone head from Gradius, Dracula from Castlevania and a host of others. The game features 16 tracks, link cable support for four players and battery backup, unlike GT Advance from THQ, which we chastised accordingly. Konami knows the score on these kart games, even if it's the first time they've bothered to do one. They've got the physics, the powerslides, even the tight track design with no room for error, and in terms of controls they've adopted the Nintendo (de facto) standard right down to the shoulder button mini-hops.

Over the last decade there have been numerous attempts to translate popular computer game franchises into movies, most of them ending in utter disaster. Indeed, until the arrival of Pokemon mania in 1999 the only computer game movie to enjoy any modicum of success was Mortal Kombat, a mediocre martial arts film starring Christopher "There Can Be Only One" Lambert, which somehow managed to pull in enough money to spawn a sequel and TV series.

Although obvious parallels exist between the Tomb Raider and Indiana Jones storylines, and the most recent videogames looked like mirror images of one another, comparing Tomb Raider: The Movie to any of the Indiana Jones films is like comparing a pennywhistle account of Happy Birthday to Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. For Director Simon West, the "Con Air" approach failed. With said film, he managed to create a ridiculous melody of action, violence and comedy, despite giving a bucketful of action movie clichés a decent workout. With Tomb Raider, he has a script ten times worse and a cast of sub-standard actors with a lone spotlight on Angelina Jolie. Jon Voight makes a fleeting appearance as Lara's Dad, but his job seems to involve putting the events of previous scenes into perspective rather than actually fulfilling a role. Whoever wrote this script clearly doesn't know how to tell a story. That's the most obvious problem with Tomb Raider besides its awful casting. There's no real flow to it, and things are overcomplicated. For an example of how to make an overcomplicated plot work, go see The Mummy Returns. Despite its absurd scale and twisty turny plot, it's a spotless example of non-stop family fun, with a self-referential script and a deeply entertaining cast of players. In contrast, Tomb Raider's action sequences are punctuated by boring sections of plot, and the film takes itself all too seriously. Although that said, its action sequences are basically just a series of seemingly unconnected stills of Angelina Jolie posing. For instance, atop the motorbike with guns in both hands, somewhat carelessly, or beneath the robot thing, chest stuck menacingly in the air. For the best laugh though, check out the end sequence when she's bouncing out of the tomb. West evidently wanted people to walk away with something to remember. Rather disappointingly, West didn't even see fit to include multiple shower scenes of the voluptuous young actress. The kicker is that halfway through, you think "Yes, she's in the shower again, second time lucky!" only to discover the cretinous Alex parading his masculinity. What a cop out. As for the storyline, it concerns an predictable trinket called the Clock of Ages, which must be unearthed once every 5,000 years for a dreadful action film. It's Jolie's job to pout about it with various convenient bad guys and singularly fail to hit it off with any of them. Foiled again. Unfortunately this puts Tomb Raider in something of a Catch 22 rut. People who appreciate films will find it unchallenging, and gamers who actually played the games and didn't simply scour the Internet for the nude hack will be disenchanted by West's direction. The only group I can really imagine enjoying it will be Jolie followers and stalkers… There was much potential here, at least before Simon West was signed up to direct it, but not even he could have turned the abysmal plot into an enjoyable film. One such example of this lunacy is the way that, uncertain of Jolie's appeal, writers decided that both she and virtually every other member of the cast would refer to her character as a "Tomb Raider" for the entirety of the production. This simply does not work, and as Ain't It Cool News observed in their review of the film, at no point did Vader turn round to Luke and say, "Luke, you don't understand the power, when the EMPIRE STRIKES BACK!" At the end of the day, Tomb Raider was never going to deliver. We can plot its failure back to the appointment of West as director, the choice of unproven acting talent for key character roles, and the obvious focus on breasts rather than storyline. It's a shame that Paramount didn't realise the game's potential in other areas and chose the easy way out. Despite the ridiculous box office take, Tomb Raider is a triumph of nothing over everything.

Compared to the Game Boy Color, Crawfish' Mike Merren said that "something like Street Fighter will appeal more to the people who buy the GBA". That was in March this year. When asked if his company was looking for another fighting game contract to follow up its hit GBC conversion of Street Fighter Alpha, Mike told us that "yes, a beat 'em up would be good to develop". Clearly, he meant it. As of Friday, Crawfish are working on Street Fighter Alpha 3 for Game Boy Advance. So impressed were they with the original SFA conversion, Capcom had no hesitation in handing the proven developer the contract, and the game is scheduled for release in October of this year, published by Ubi Soft was we reported last week. The other game on Ubi Soft's TBA list from Capcom is Super Street Fighter 2X Revival. One thing Mike Merren made very clear to us in his interview was that multiple teams working on multiple titles is the way his company works. "Why use the whole company's personnel on one title that takes two years to develop, when we can have six games all of different genres completed in half that time?" We'd be surprised if, given Capcom's insistence on Crawfish for SFA3, that there wasn't another little announcement around the corner. Related Feature - Interview with Mike Merren of Crawfish

When Infogrames bought Hasbro in January of this year, it also picked up the mothballed Atari name and lineage. True to form, the publisher has dragged a number of old classics out of the cupboard and slapped them on a 30th anniversary disc for PC and Dreamcast, reasonably priced (on the PC at least) at $15.00 in the States. The games in question (numbered 12), are Asteroids, Asteroids Deluxe, Battlezone, Centipede, Crystal Castles, Gravitar, Millipede, Missile Command, Pong, Super Breakout, Tempest, and Warlords, in emulated rather than revamped format. So don't expect Frogger-style remakes, despite Infogrames and Hasbro's propensity for that sort of thing. The PC version of the disc is packed out with desktop themes and wallpaper for going retro, and both versions are said to ship with a "collectible" Atari sticker. We're not sure how you collect a single sticker, but we'll go with them on this one. One source also claims that the game is due for PSOne shortly, but we can't confirm that at press time. The official Infogrames website doesn't mention the software at the present time.

According to a report in The Times this weekend, Eidos may never see a penny of the $300m in box office receipts that the Tomb Raider movie is expected to earn worldwide. Despite getting terrible reviews and decidely mixed word of mouth, the film has already notched up over $100m in the USA and is now opening in the UK. But, if The Times is to be believed, Eidos settled for a mere £1m licensing fee from Paramount Pictures and the promise of a cut of the merchandising profits, with no royalties expected from the movie itself. Given that most game-inspired movies in the past have flopped this was perhaps a sensible decision without the benefit of hindsight, although it doesn't show much confidence in the pulling power of the Tomb Raider franchise.

Lara Croft is one of the best known computer game characters of recent years, starring in a whole string of Tomb Raider games, advertising Lucozade, and spawning a comic book series and movie. She has appeared on the cover of countless magazines, and been portrayed at trade shows and press events by several different models over the years. Her rather ample assets are undoubtedly an important part of her success, but according to Toby Gard, the artist who designed the character in the first place, this isn't quite what he had in mind.

With id Software currently working on a brand new Doom title and a GameBoy Advance version of their classic first person shooter also under construction, Doom is very much back in the spotlight again. But according to the game's co-designer John "The Hair" Romero, who created the seminal Knee Deep In The Dead episode that appeared in the shareware version of Doom, things could have turned out very differently.

Virgin Interactive have announced that they will be publishing Codename : Outbreak, the new first person shooter from Cossacks developer GSC Game World. Outbreak is set in the now traditional post-apocalyptic world, with a little Day of the Triffids and Quatermass thrown in for good measure. A near miss with a comet has left the Earth devestated by meteor impacts, but a far greater threat comes from the alien spores which were scattered across the planet by the comet, and are now causing other organisms to mutate into "hideous and lethal creatures". Naturally it's up to you to fight back for humanity as half of a two man strike squad, with a mixture of single and multiplayer options on offer. Expect to see Codename : Outbreak in stores some time in September.

The CPL's European division has now opened the official website for its third event, which is taking place at a Novotel in London on the weekend of August 3rd to 5th. Both Counter-Strike and Quake 3 teamplay competitions will be hosted at the event, with €15,000 in prizes for each. Hardly a fortune, but better than the proverbial kick in the teeth. Registration will open on Tuesday, and in the meantime you can find out more about the event, the prizes, the venue and the various qualifier events, which will be taking place in the UK, Ireland, Austria and Russia over the next few weeks. Look out for full coverage of the CPL London event here on EuroGamer next month.

KuruKuru Kururin is one of a rare breed of modern games which manages to transport players back to when videogaming was about pure gameplay. There's nothing fancy about Kururin, it's just pure Japanese lunacy, and incredibly addictive with it. The developer has attempted something resembling a storyline, which has absolutely no bearing on the game and is just there for completeness' sake. Basically, a mother duck has lost her 10 baby ducklings (at least... I think they're ducks), and it's up to you as Kururin the swirly-headed duck to take flight in your curiously slow-moving helicopter and find each of your brothers and sisters. This all equates to a game which involves you piloting a spinning stick around narrow mazes trying to avoid the walls... like I said: lunacy. To liken it to something real world, you should think of those games at fairgrounds where you have to negotiate a metal wand around a curving metal bar without touching it, and it offers the same kind of adrenaline rush as people tend to duck and weave as they play. The main portion of the game is the Adventure mode which takes you on a linear route through 11 different "worlds" each comprised of several circuits to navigate. The journey begins in a short 5-level training section just to show you the ropes of controlling your stick, however you pick up extra tips during short mission briefings once you set out on your way. The task of finding your siblings isn't always as simple as passing through the level carefully, and as the mazes become far more complex and tricky to traverse you find yourself having to search hard for them. The learning curve from start to finish is a wonderfully crafted slope, with levels starting from the pitifully easy to the downright infuriating.

Frustrated geeks and soap opera fans everywhere will be happy to hear that Electronic Arts has announced another add-on pack for their best-selling family game The Sims. Hot Date will, as the title suggests, add the arcane art of dating to the game, along with new characters, interests and "romance objects" such as love tubs, couches, picnic baskets and marital aids. Maybe. There will also be a new downtown area where you can take your Sim's significant other for a romantic candle-lit meal, walk in the park or shopping spree. And according to the press release, your Sims will now be able to "flirt, play footsie [and] engage in a little tonsil hockey". Steady now!

The folks at Roweb have always done things a little differently, and the last time we heard from them they were giving away a full-size replica of Macleod's sword from Highlander as the top prize at their last LAN party. Now they are going one better, with their next event from July 27th to 29th giving budding terrorists the chance to win a genuine (but deactivated!) AK47 assault rifle. Once again the LAN will be taking place at Swindon FC, with room for up to one hundred players, and the focus this time is obviously on Counter-Strike. For more details, check the event website.

Hot on the heels of M : Alien Paranoia and The Grouch, Akaei have announced another new title. Killer Tank is a bizarre sounding arcade-style action game in which you pilot an upgradeable super-tank for a mad Russian scientist as part of his plans for global domination. Well, it makes a refreshing change from your traditional clean-cut do-gooding heroes. Although the game has a full campaign of twenty missions with a wide range of objectives and comic book style cutscenes, the focus is very on blowing stuff up. Akaei are promising us dozens of devestating weapons, with the ability to mar the scenery, run over pedestrians and incinerate passing wildlife.

German publisher Fishtank Interactive have added another game to their already impressive line-up, with the announcement of a first person shooter called Chaser. Set some time in the future and inspired by the classic Arnie sci-fi movie Total Recall (which was itself loosely based on a short story by Blade Runner scribe Philip K Dick), Chaser sees you taking on the role of an agent suffering from amnesia who finds himself attracting unwanted attention from both criminal gangs and the military. As you battle your way through this hostile world you will start to have flashbacks which will gradually reveal what is really going on and why everybody seems to have it in for you. It sounds like an interesting take on the first person genre, and certainly the first early screenshots of the game that we have seen look modestly impressive. Could Fishtank have another winner on their hands? Hopefully we will know more soon.

Earlier today trade magazine MCV reported that the European Leisure Software Publishers Association (ELSPA) was allegedly involved in a row with Sony over a recent study on the future of the console industry. The study, which was commissioned by ELSPA and compiled by analysts at Screen Digest, suggested that Sony's share of the European market would shrink to 47% by the end of 2004 as a result of the release of new systems from Microsoft and Nintendo next year.

Not satisfied with extending the world of Icewind Dale in the Heart of Winter mission pack, developer Black Isle Studios has now released a free add-on for their add-on. Weighing in at a hefty 71Mb, Trials of the Luremaster adds twenty new areas and a new quest to keep you busy, along with several new monsters, items and character portraits. Also included are "various bug fixes" for Heart of Winter, making this The Mother Of All Patches™. Currently you can only download Trials from FilePlanet, which involves signing up for a GameSpy ID if you don't already have one. You will also need both Icewind Dale and the Heart of Winter mission pack to play the new quest.

IDG is reporting that Sega will make one last run of Dreamcasts in Japan to clear its inventory, starting in September. The new look Dreamcast R7 will be identical to the original Dreamcast in every way except casing, which will be black with an R7 logo. Black; black like the Saturn and other Sega consoles before it that failed. Boohoo! The console will be priced at 9,900 yen, which IDG lovingly points out is $79, and we reckon is about £56. A Sega spokesman told the news service that although Sega halted production of the Dreamcast in February (although they seem to have told everyone else, March) and has been trying to dispose of inventories since then. Plans to ship devices to pachinko parlours as network terminals only went so far, when it emerged that many people still wanted a piece of the action. Whether the R7 will make its way outside of the Japan is presently unknown, but we doubt it. Related Feature - Dreamcast failure drives company to death

Infogrames has enlarged its list of Hollywood licenses with the addition of Terminator and Terminator 2: Judgement Day. In deals announced yesterday with the Creative Licensing Corporation and The Licensing Group, Ltd. respectively, Infogrames has secured the exclusive rights to develop and publish games worldwide for current and next-generation consoles as well as PC and Mac. According to the press release, the first game out of the stalls is due out in Spring of 2002, developed in-house, and four games in total are supposedly underway. Infogrames' games are expected to be consistent with the plot of the films, with action in past and future worlds, integrating the vision of a post apocalyptic society and time-travel etc. Infogrames also have the right to innovate within the Terminator world; introducing new characters and elements, etc. Infogrames is also the license-holder for Survivor, Mission: Impossible 2 and Men in Black. We hope they come up with something interesting for Survivor, because we've got this horrible vision of California Games 2001 with the heat turned up and challenges that involve holding the joystick still.

Imagine if the Death Star had been privatised, or if the jokers behind the Millenium Dome were let loose on Babylon 5. Add a cast of bizarre aliens, from your standard grey Reticulan to giant four-armed purple hippies and swimsuit-wearing sirens. Throw in a healthy dose of humour inspired by the late great Douglas Adams, and garnish with pop culture references to the likes of Star Wars and Plan 9 From Outer Space. Simmer gently for three years, et voila - Startopia!

A London company is under investigation by the police and Trading Standards over a PlayStation 2 offer that allegedly duped hundreds of British shoppers. The deal involved The Slammer, an outfit based in the city's Docklands area, which started offering PS2s in February for £150. Punters paid £300 up front, either by credit card, Switch or cheque. They were told they would get a £150 rebate after they had received the console and returned the company's questionnaire. The Slammer said the reason it offered a rebate and not a straight discount was because Sony would slap it for selling the consoles so cheaply. The Slammer advertised the offer on games sites such as Planetarion.com. Between February and May this year people paid their money and waited. According to Web site thescammer.com, where surfers have been venting their spleen about their Slammer experiences, the company took the £300 payments, and a few hundred PS2s were delivered. But no-one has yet received a rebate. Meanwhile, sources say The Slammer has quit its offices. And according to Companies House, The Slammer.com plc changed its name in May to TXTR plc, also registered to an address in the Docklands. This morning The Slammer phone number was not working, while there is no number available for TXTR. Southwark Trading Standards yesterday urged anyone who bought a PS2 from The Slammer to get in contact. Meanwhile, several people still waiting for rebates have contacted the police, and the Office of Fair Trading is also investigating The Slammer, according to thescammer.com site. Trading Standards believes that "well over a hundred" people bought the consoles, while thescammer.com says the figure is more likely to be around a thousand. Southwark Trading Standards, which says it will also advise Slammer shoppers on their rights regarding credit card refunds, can be contacted at tradingstandards@southwark.gov.uk. ®