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Less than a year after announcing a multi-million pound investment deal, Barrysworld today revealed that they have already burnt through all of their money and may be forced to shut down operations within days. In a statement earlier, Barrysworld's TedTheDog announced that the company "has gone into voluntary liquidation as we're running out of money and with the market in its current state we've not found anyone prepared to fund our 2nd round of investment".

Just what the heck is an "Action Replay 2" when it's at home, you may ask? If you haven't come across Datel's "game enhancement" devices before, this may come as something of a shock to you. It's a way of cheating.

Bloomberg is reporting that Sony's financial results are likely to be down nearly 22% for the fourth quarter last year due to problems with production for the PlayStation 2. The severe shortages in Emotion Engine chips may have been a key factor. At the same time, Sony are now reportedly examining the possibility of a PlayStation 3 some time in 2002, due to the lack of broadband connectivity at this time, something they had not counted on. When the PS2 was originally envisaged, Sony planned for a market dominated by broadband Internet connections, and while some of us already have such capabilities, the majority does not. Ken Kutaragi, boss of Sony Computer Entertainment, is already speaking out about the Emotion Engine 2 chip (which he claims is due in 2002), and is discussing post-games functionality in terms of the PS2's successor. In a recent interview with Scientific American, The Register writes, "Kutaragi re-iterates the old PlayStation 2 vision, but links it to PlayStation 3. When that console ships, we can expect it to hook up to email, online shopping and all the other broadband services Sony originally expected the PS2 would connect us to." In a perverse way, Sony is now in a race with Microsoft to get its next next-generation console ready for mass-market consumption in time to stand a chance against the Xbox's strategic living room placement. Of course, frowns will now permeate themselves on the faces of just about everyone who bought into the PS2 vision, and who can blame them? If this latest information is true, they have been burned. Related Feature - PlayStation 2 UK Launch Coverage

RPG behemoth Squaresoft have inked a lucrative distribution deal with Infogrames Entertainment for the publication of titles from Square Europe, FGN Online reports. Square Europe is a subsidiary of Square Co. Ltd. in Japan, and handles the UK / European releases of games like Final Fantasy VIII. The deal with Infogrames will give the French publisher the rights to distribute Final Fantasy IX on PlayStation, as well as back-catalogue titles like Front Mission 3, Parasite Eve 2 and the incredible Vagrant Story. Final Fantasy IX is already available in the States, and heralded as a return to great times of yore after the relative disappointment of FFVIII, which many considered too rash. Related Feature - Final Fantasy VIII Review

Sources at Electronics Boutique in the States have been quoted as saying that EBWorld (the company's online presence) will no longer be accepting pre-orders for the PC version of Halo, as they were informed by those in higher positions in the company that Halo would be an Xbox exclusive title. This is remarkable, since EBWorld are renowned for accepting pre-orders for just about everything. If Microsoft are making such a change, it may well prove a significant turning point in their Xbox battle plan. Previously Halo was due out on all formats with the Xbox first, but it is known that Microsoft are interested primarily in getting the Xbox version into the limelight. The word from VoodooExtreme today is that the PR representative for Halo only has information that the game is due out on PC, Mac and Xbox. We should receive an update later this week. But in the long term, if this is a legitimate change, what does it mean for the PC platform? It could well mean that any company under Microsoft's ownership or supervision develops first and foremost for the Xbox with no pre-requisite for a PC version. This has of course been a worry all along, but it looks like we now have cause to take it more seriously. Related Feature - Thinking About The Box

Rick Goodman is no stranger to epic historical strategy games, having acted as lead designer on the first of the popular "Age of Empires" game. Today he is heading up the team at Stainless Steel Studios which is working on "Empire Earth", which takes its inspiration from his previous project but aims to take its blend of real-time strategy and historical settings to the next level with an even broader scope.

Judging by the imported copy we've been playing for the last week or two, Guilty Gear X is just such a breed of fighter. Upon sticking it into the VGA box and outputting it to our 19" monitor, it was fairly obvious that it is far more "VGA compatible" than any of the games Capcom claims are. Running at a crystal clear 640x480, it resembles a living, choreographed martial arts flick, with anime overtones. It really has to be seen in motion; the tiniest details in the background can be made out, with high res character models capturing the essence of the game beautifully. The level of animation is just right - a major problem in games of its ilk. Capcom in particular are often guilty of going over the top with animation - Guilty Gear X offers a pleasant go-between. Actually once you've witnessed the game first hand, the only thing you are liable to find slightly annoying is the over-exaggeration of detail in some of the backdrops, presenting a bit of a muddle.

- Edward Zwick Producer - Freddie Fields Starring -   Matthew Broderick   Denzel Washington   Morgan Freeman Filmed - America, 1989 DVD by - Columbia Tri-Star

One of the more ambitious massively multiplayer games under construction at the moment is "3rd World", a free-form space sim inspired by "Elite" which is being developed in eastern Europe. Designer Vitomir Jevremovic describes it as "more like an online world than a game", because rather than the dull repetitive quests found in most massively multiplayer games at the moment, it instead relies on players to provide the gameplay. "We put the basic regulations, we put the objects and game system, and everything else is up to the players".

PlayStation 2 owners may finally have something to shout about with the release of "Evergrace," "Armored Core 2," "Driving Emotion Type-S," "Skysurfer" and "Tokyo Extreme Racer 2" this week. The slew of new games includes three titles from UbiSoft alone, with EA and Virgin making up the numbers. We are taking particular interest in Evergrace, which met with our approval when we took a look at its development in the latter stages of last year. On the Dreamcast front it's actually quite a slow week. "Vanishing Point" is Acclaim's new racing title but upon tracking down a copy recently we weren't all that impressed by it. Elsewhere, the PSOne welcomes "Rainbow Six: Rogue Spear," which should be a remarkable conversion, going head-to-head with next week's Dreamcast release of the original "Rainbow Six", as well as "Ultimate Fighting Championship". The N64 is nowhere to be seen, but the GameBoy Color is still pootling along with several new releases; "Batman - Chaos in Gotham," "Land Before Time," and "Godzilla 2". Of course, here at EuroGamer we're most looking forward to a copy of the new Harvest Moon RPG, due out next week on PlayStation. Hold me back!

Last summer the lead designer, lead programmer and lead artist behind the innovative third person action game "Evolva" left Computer Artworks to form a new company called Synaptic Soup. We caught up with them a few months later to chat about their impressive looking new 3D game engine Cipher, but at the time they couldn't tell us about any of the games which would use the engine.

Virgin's latest release schedule has just arrived here at EuroGamer, with most of their first quarter titles slipping. Role-players will be sad to hear that the Icewind Dale add-on "Heart of Winter" and the DVD edition of "Baldur's Gate II" have both slipped to March 9th, missing out on cashing in on the UK cinematic release of the Dungeons and Dragons movie. Given the rather negative reports on the film following its American release though, this might be no bad thing.

Colin McRae Rally suffered from one identifiable flaw; it was basically tunnel racing with textures painted on the inside. There was no sense of scale, of going anywhere. All that and more is set to change in CM Mk. 2.0, the sequel and arguably the best Rally driving game out there. For starters, the game has one of the most streamlined controller calibration systems I've yet encountered. Ever since playing Grand Prix 3 with a steering wheel and foot pedals I've tried to do the same with every driving game I pick up, and unlike many others (notably 1nsane, the Codies' other recent racing release), sorting this out took about five seconds. Once I was set up and ready to go, I fired up the game proper and jumped into one of the full championship modes. The full season features loads of locations and stages for each of them, against 16 drivers in total. Messrs McRae and Grist (Nicky), his pace notes partner are of course the centre of attention and it makes perfect sense to pick up with them and a lovely looking Ford Focus, faithfully bedecked with all manner of advertising. You can also choose to go at it using a tight-looking Peugeot 206, or a Toyota Corolla WRC amongst others. FIA rules have been followed to a letter and each car shares the same power, transmission type and approximate weight to keep performance levels in check.

A black day for the Daily Radar and its owners Imagine Media is expressed via a letter from Consoles Editor Michael Wolf to its readers - you can read it here - about the lawsuit Nintendo is currently bringing against the company. It alleges that Imagine Media has been illegally using screenshots of the Pokemon games to produce its strategy guides. In short, it's no different to what anybody else on the Internet does, but it fell into discord with Nintendo, who don't like being tipped, so to speak. The letter makes for grim reading, and we fully support the sentiments and echo them here - if a company like Nintendo can't take the bad with the good, it shouldn't expect any publicity at all. We will obviously be watching the case with interest, until then we wish Imagine the best of luck.

If your wife / girlfriend / mother keeps telling you to get out from behind your PC and get some exercise, RoWeb UK may just have the perfect solution. Taking place over the weekend of February 2nd to 4th in Andover, their next event will combine a Counter-Strike focused LAN party with the rather more energetic game of paintballing "to see if people are as good on the ground as they are in the game". As with all of RoWeb's events the focus is on putting the party back into LAN party, with a resident DJ, light shows, cinema visits and the consumption of copious amounts of alcohol all on the menu.

If you use the Utopia Dreamcast Boot Disk to power pirated games, Sega have a plan to stop you. Its latest run of games use an enforced software method of anti-piracy, preventing games from working under any circumstances other than legitimate ones. The move will bring an end to its MIL-CD plan however, which was to bring encoded music and more Internet features to the console. Pirates have proved pretty tough nuts to crack, and the Dreamcast warez scene in America is immense. Over here the problem isn't as big, with only a few small pockets of piracy existing. Sega are nonetheless determined to put a stop to it - we shall have to wait and see what the pirates say to that.

This eagle-eyed writer was busy wittering away the early hours of the morning by taking stock of the local net-based hardware vendors in the area, when in a drunken haze his eyes stumbled upon the Scan Processors Page, and a 1.2GHz Athlon, which had finally been priced by the Bolton firm. Now, in normal circumstances, when Scan opt to put a price up, it means they have stock. If this were the case here, they would be the only place in the UK to have one, full stop.

People on the other side of the Atlantic seem to have a strange obsession with big-wheeled all-terrain vehicles, or "Sports Utility Vehicles" as the Americans quaintly call them. This fascination with gas-guzzling behemoths has given rise to a whole string of off-road racing games over the years, including Terminal Reality's "4x4 Evolution", one of the better efforts of recent times. Featuring literally dozens of real-life 4x4 vehicles to drive and a range of freeform courses to race them around, the game proved popular even on this side of the pond.

Gaming giant Nintendo has started production of its next generation handheld console, the GameBoy Advance, ahead of its March 21st launch date. The handheld, which is expected to steal the crown of the GameBoy Color is projected to sell in bulk during the first year as the take-up increases. The American launch will follow the Japanese one fairly closely, and the UK / Europe should get it in Autumn-time - in all likelihood this will be the present to have in your stocking come December 25th 2001. As we know, the GBA features a 32-bit processor, colour LCD screen, and of course compatibility with all old GameBoy / Color games. Nintendo aims to produce 24 million units before March 2001 - the original GameBoy and GameBoy Color have in total sold over 100 million units.

Do you remember the Nintendo 64 version of Earthworm Jim 3D? Allow me to refresh your memory; the conversion was carried out by Scottish dwellers VIS Entertainment, who subsequently worked on an N64 version of Tom & Jerry, and it was really rather good. So good in fact, that the news of their intentions to develop titles for Nintendo on the GameCube met with rapturous reception in some circles. Speaking to IGN, a spoksperson for the company said that "With news just out on GameCube, VIS entertainment will aim to capitalize on its existing experience with Nintendo to offer innovative product for the new plat". Of course, they aren't yet announcing which titles will be developed, but it seems likely some form of Earthworm Jim game would not be unlikely.

If you were in the market for something to download today, then you might do a lot worse than to shoot over to one of the download sites below to pick up the new Monolith-endorsed demonstration video of the Lithtech engine on PlayStation 2. The engine sports all the big-named features; environmental lighting and effects, breath-taking character animation, sublime graphics, and with any luck should produce a rather good game at the end of the day, if "No One Lives Forever" is anything to go by. The 27Mb demo features footage of some Deus Ex-like futuristic action / adventure title, but Monolith claim that despite the competance of this demo, the PlayStation 2 version of "No One Lives Forever" and Irrational Games' "The Lost," which will also be based on Lithtech, will use a decidedly more advanced version of the technology. The Lithtech engine receives major updates once every few months, CEO Jason Hall has told reporters, so whatever happens the new PS2 titles will measure up to the PC titles of that period, and then some. Jason also hinted that other games will be announced shortly based on the engine. You can download the demo from any of the following locations:-

Russian developer Nival Interactive are probably best known for the "Rage of Mages" games published by Monolith, which met with mixed reviews thanks to a mish-mash of real-time strategy and role-playing elements which didn't quite gel and some rather uninspiring graphics. No such accusations could be levelled at their new game though...

It's been a pretty tough few days to swallow for paying customers of doomed service provider RedHotAnt. After receiving a disturbing blanket email on Monday announcing the closure of the service, the word today is that some users may be able to look forward to refunds. Leading UK Internet website ISP Review, has been following the case of a young man called Neil, who signed up on the very day the service closed, as unbeknownst to him, RHA were still taking one or two registrations despite being unable to honour them. After speaking to Trading Standards and other authorities, Neil seems to be getting somewhere. "[Trading Standards] have called Clive Allon (RHA) and it now appears the RHA are doing something towards refunds," he told ISP Review. "It looks like they are being done on a pro-rata basis, and depend on how long each user has been with them and length of line usage." "This seems to leave me in a very strong position, and also may give some hope to everybody else in this matter." We would advise anyone who feels hard done by in light of the closure to contact local authorities and Trading Standards about the case, as although refunds were initially denied, the argument does seem to be getting through. Related Feature - RedHotAnt goes off the boil

Frederic Diot of Datamonitor, a gaming industry analyst has aired his predictions on the state of gaming over the next few years. According to Diot, the PlayStation 2 will be the most popular console followed closely by the Xbox. He doesn't hold much hope for Nintendo's GameCube after the firm's failure with the Nintendo 64, nor for Sega, who will have been fed to the dogs by that time.

According to this story at ZDNet, video game sales declined in 2000, presumably due to the introduction of the Dreamcast at the end of 1999, the subsequent release of the Neo Geo Pocket Color a few months later and the PSOne / PlayStation 2 making it onto store shelves in the Autumn / Winter shopping season. After what is described as five years of "explosive growth," analysts are reporting a drop in sales, and blaming the consoles themselves. Another culprit is apparently the "wait-and-see" attitude adopted by some gamers in light of the new console releases. Many people feel uncomfortable buying both the Dreamcast and its new rival, and would rather wait to see who comes out on top before committing. With new consoles hitting the ground at £300 or more a pop, this proves unsurprising. The NPD Group Inc., have conducted a study of the market, released today, which claims that sales of consoles, games and accessories fell from $6.9 billion in 1999 to some $6.5 billion in 2000, a 5.8% drop. With the Xbox, GameCube and GameBoy Advance on the horizon, the trend may well continue.

"Whistler" is an unlikely name for Microsoft's new operating system. "Windows 2K1" or something like that would have seemed a more likely candidate, but as we close in on the product's final stages of development, it seems ever more likely with each passing day that Microsoft will be keeping the nonsensical codename. Beyond the name, Whistler is Microsoft's next generation kernel, which will supposedly unite NT levels of stability with 9x levels of performance. That sounds remarkably familiar, does it not? Ah well, if you were actually wondering what the company intended to do with the operating system besides rehash Windows 2000 ad campaigns, then you ought to weave your way over to an article on this website, "Paul Thurrott's SuperSite for Windows." The article, which is entitled "Whistler Build 2410: On the Road to Beta 2," features up to date information on the new system and the advanced, simplified menu system which has been integrated into it. There are of course plenty of new screenshots of the system in action as well. It all looks very smooth, with some interested new additions, like a bastardized verison of EZ CD Creator so that anyone with a CD writer can drag and drop items to disc using Explorer, and personalised network protocols, aimed at mobile users, so that you can move your machine between home and work networks without reconfiguring. Read the full article here.

One of Pro Rally 2001's biggest selling points is that it is at the pinnacle of realism. Having watched the game in early form at ECTS last year, we thought they might actually have a point, but having played the thing we now firmly contest their claims. Ho-hum. The whole game is basically an exercise in tedium. Everything is vaguely acceptable and very little stands out. For starters, the Driving School that sets out to teach you how to play. It's a poor copy of the same thing from Gran Turismo, and despite the years' gap in between, it's much less fun. The tasks set are far too difficult, with very little leeway. Hitting the time limits dead on is about as close to overcoming them as you get. Not content with that, if you take even the tiniest nick of damage you fail, despite the fact that there is no mention of this in the manual or within the game. When you eventually fail, there's no incentive to start again, and thanks to the stodgy interface it isn't exactly an intuitive process anyway. Several menus have to drone past before you can get back into the action. It actually takes less effort to quit the game and uninstall it than to get back into the action. Um.

The last year has seen a rapid boom in the number of ISPs offering unmetered internet access in the UK, followed predictably enough by a rapid collapse in the market as they all realised they didn't have a clue how to make any money from such services. It didn't help that BT continued to drag their heels over introducing free internet access packages for them to use, with some services going bust and others (such as AltaVista's much hyped deal) simply failing to materialise.

If you, like us, thought Homeworld: Cataclysm was a rather excellent adaptation of the Homeworld formula, then you are in all likelihood also still playing it, online and off. The patch fixes problems with recorded game playback, AI consistency, cheating through modified data support and other small bugs. Other issues the patch aims to overcome involve the game's balance. To this end, EMP stun time has been increased for most capital ships amongst other things, and there is a huge list of minor statistical changes. The patch weighs in at about 2.67Mb. You can download it from the following locations:-

If you've never owned an Action Replay cartridge for one of your consoles, here's where that ought to change. The Action Replay 2 for PlayStation 2 is going to feature all kinds of abilities. Here's an ever-so-brief rundown. Click the link just back there for the extensive press release:-