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If your vision of LAN parties in the future is 100 gamers traipsing in, each with a laptop slung under their arm, then you may not be too far off. NVIDIA's decision to enter the mobile arena with the GeForce Go graphics chipset may well be one of the defining moments. Up until now, laptops have had a hard time of it with gaming. They can handle things reasonably well, but in order to even verge on decent levels of performance, slider bars have had to be moved almost completely to the left and options unticked. The GeForce Go though, will meet with some very hefty processors, like 850MHz mobile Pentium IIIs, so just what is the point? The solution to all this may well be to couple it with a cheap mobile processor, and as of today, just such a thing will hit the market, the mobile Duron. AMD have today announced that they can ship 600MHz Duron parts in bulk to any notebook manufacturer. NEC has subsequently announced a new "LaVie U" series of notebooks, using a 700MHz Duron CPU, designed for consumers who need portability and price assurance, apparently. Available in Japan on the 25th of this month, the notebooks will also include a 13"/14" TFT display, 20Gb of storage and depending on the model, a CD-R/RW or DVD-Rom drive. The latter will include a connector allowing you to hook it up to a television. So when will we get a Duron / GeForce Go powered notebook? Sometime this year, if all goes well. We anticipate the notebook market doing rather well this year...

The VIA KT133A motherboard chipset is an unlikely creature. It offers a higher system bus, ergo improved performance on bandwidth-heavy tasks, yet does not require the user to spend copious amounts of money on expensive DDR memory. In short, it's a go-between for users of the KT133 not so eager to upgrade to the AMD 760. If you are starting to feel the pain of an outdated setup, a KT133A-based product may be the motherboard that sets you up for the next few years.

In the huge expanse that is space, you would think that all of its species could find a little room for peace and tranquillity. But as is always the case in any space epic, everyone wants to rule the universe! I guess it would make for a pretty miserable and boring computer game if all of the different lifeforms exchanged polite chatter and sipped tea together.

If the "Age of Empires" series is your idea of heaven and you are getting desperate for another fix of historical real-time strategy, German publisher CDV might have just the thing for you. "Cossacks : European Wars" from Ukrainian developer GSC Game World spans three centuries of warfare in Europe, including the English Civil War and Thirty Years War, and at first sight it looks strangely familiar. Then you realise that the game's epic battles can comfortably accommodate literally thousands of units, with vast maps to fight over and sixteen nations to choose from. Add an expansive technology tree to research your way through, reconstructions of real historical battles and seven player online modes, and you begin to realise the sheer scope of the game.

With the game reaching the final stages of development, a demo has been produced for consumption alongside Sega releases in Japan, a tactic similar to the one Konami are going to use to introduce Metal Gear Solid 2 to the market in playable form. We tracked down a copy and gripping the young hedgehog by the tassels, attempted to find out just what Sega have been up to for all this time. Story-wise, the main protagonists are Sonic, Tails and Knuckles, with a liberal sprinkling of Dr. Robotnik along the way. Interestingly though, Sega have introduced a new bad guy into the mix, a little fella who appears to be an evil, psychotic manifestation of Sonic with a ruthless snarl and darker skin than our hero. Although neither the demo or the movie we have seen show anything more than a couple of facial close-ups, it's fairly certain he will be the major opposition when the time comes. Sega have had nothing to say about him… However, they have been telling anyone who will listen about the scope of the game. Despite the name, Adventure 2 will stray from the original's roots and opt for more of the fast-paced "classic Sonic" action we came to know and love on the Mega Drive. Adventure fields may be limited if they do indeed appear at all, but on the whole the game will be made up of self-contained action areas.

- Michael Mann Producer - Michael Mann / Pieter Jan Brugge Starring -   Al Pacino   Russell Crowe   Christopher Plummer Filmed - America, 1999 DVD by - Touchstone Home Video

When the Babbages CPL event ended in Dallas last month, problems with the software running the Quake 3 tournament were the main topic of discussion. But now even more bizarre reports are emerging, with Mark "Twillight" Henry and his sponsors PC Ambulance claiming that the player was physically assaulted by CPL Commissioner Mike Wardwell at the event. What we know for sure is that Mark was removed from the building for "rude and disruptive" behaviour, and during the argument Mike Wardwell placed his hand on Mark, who later called the Dallas police and is trying to get a warrant issued for Mike's arrest!

If you think that first person shooters are solely the domain of hormone-ridden geek boys, think again. Award-winning porn star Asia Carrera is a self-confessed Unreal Tournament addict, who spends the day "looking forward to unwinding with a good frag". She's very much in the minority though. "My pornoland compadres like to drink, do drugs, party, and other equally unconstructive pastimes that just don't interest me. Yeah, I'm a geek, what can I say. But when my porno pals and I all turn 50, let's take a survey and see how many of us have sucessful non-porn careers and a financially secure future..."

Computer games and dolls action figures seem to go hand in hand, with a whole range of merchandising tat available. Everything from Starcraft and Diablo to Quake and Duke Nukem have given rise to action figures of varying quality, and now German publisher Blue Byte are getting in on the act with a fearsome foursome of "collectible figures" representing characters from their Settlers series. Apparently the series has shifted some 2.7 million units worldwide over the years, and from January 19th lucky Europeans will have the chance to get their mits on Roman, Asian, Egyptian and Amazon characters from the games, with the full collection of four figures setting you back £15 in the UK. Meanwhile American and Canadian gamers can pre-order the figures for $20 from the Blue Byte DIRECT online store. The fourth installment in the Settlers series, imaginatively titled "The Settlers IV", is due for release in February.

Importing Dreamcast titles can have its benefits, aptly proven here by the Sonic Adventure 2 Demo, which secreted its way into the packaging of a recent title we brought back from the land of the rising sun. It's shaping up very nicely by all accounts, and looks delicious. We have posted six exclusive screenshots to keep you happy; check them out!

Amongst the horde of Tomb Raider clones, first person shooters, real-time strategy games and sport sims that weigh down shelves across the nation, every now and then a truly unique game emerges. And Sheep is one of them. Let's face it, how many computer games can you think of which involve herding sheep through 28 levels of ovine-shredding, bale bundling, flossy flattening obstacles of the kind that would make your average sheepdog run off with its tail between its legs?

The dark side has today twinged Lego, the toy that every youngster grew up with, as it joins force in a strategic alliance with Microsoft. The two will team up to create Lego-based products; presumably games for the moment, but we're hoping some sort of remote control Windows app for tinkering with Lego Teknics will follow. The deal is unnecessarily complex going by the text of the press release (which is... mind-numbingly boring), and it's difficult to say just what it actually means for anybody involved, but one thing's for sure, our little Scandinavian friends will never be the same again.

As well as being the name of ex-Beatle Paul McCartney's backing band, "Wings" was also the title of a World War One arcade-style flight sim from Cinemaware released back in the late 1980s (That was atrocious -Ed). Now British developer Crawfish have announced that they are teaming up with the recently re-formed Cinemaware to bring the classic game to the GameBoy Advance. Given that there were pictures of a bi-plane flying over fields and hedges amongst the screenshots of the tech demos that Crawfish created for Nintendo's new hand-held gaming system last year, the announcement that they are working on Wings doesn't come as a huge surprise, but we do now know a little more about what they have in store for us...

One of the more bizarre games under development at the moment is "Super Bubble Pop", an arcade-style puzzle game which appears to be a mix of Tetris and Bust A Move, all lovingly rendered in glorious 3D. The catch is that the game is "inspired by 'Candy Raver' dance culture". Candy who? "Candy Ravers are teen to twenty club kids that turn out in neon colored, Anime-inspired, rave wear that often includes candy necklaces, bracelets, and pacifiers. Very J-Pop. Very fun."

While a lot of the attention surrounding Sierra's line-up at the ECTS 2000 trade show was focused on the first person shooters "Tribes 2" and "Gunman Chronicles", one of the most interesting titles in attendance was "Warrior Kings", a brand new 3D fantasy strategy game which made its debut at the show. Developed by Black Cactus, a new developer based in the south of London, it made such an impression on us that we spent the next few months hassling the Sierra PR team trying to get hold of more information and some screenshots...

Who would have thought Monolith could come so far in just a year. After the atrocities of Blood 2 and the rather short-lived Shogo, the Lithtech engine seemed to be marked for mediocrity, but a year on, and No One Lives Forever is one of the best single player first person shooters since Half-Life. Enjoyable on so many levels, and stunningly attractive, it shows just what the technology is really capable of. Although at times rather too linear for its own good, NOLF has a pleasantly paced momentum to it, and the plot, which centres around swinging 60's UNITY agent Cate Archer, is fairly plausible, if a little too Austin Powers-ish. You start out on a fairly routine mission providing protection for the American Ambassador to Morocco, by picking off moustachioed assassins who dash from their trench coat-shrouded holes to try and pick him off. After the mission goes pear-shaped and your fellow agent is lost, you are reassigned on a mission to uncover his murderer, a nasty chap by the name of Volkov, part of an international terrorist organisation called HARM. Your search takes you to the darkened doorways of Berlin, and several infiltration missions later you have more clues. From here on, the game accelerates toward its explosive ending, stopping off in the Caribbean and the Alps en-route for some impressive James Bond-esque action, including sky-diving battles ala the intro to "Moonraker," and some snowmobile rides through the snowy Alps, ala "On Her Majesty's Secret Service."

Xbox fansite MSXbox.com has spotted a tantalising snippet on the Lucasarts website in the form of a job ad, which searches for a senior console programmer. The description of said programmer's duties is to "'Provide games programming expertise to develop games for the PlayStation2, Xbox, and/or Gamecube". Conclusive proof that Lucasarts intend to be developing for the Xbox? Looks that way.

As reported by Daily Radar this morning, many people who have bought THQ's latest title, WWF No Mercy, are experiencing problems with save games being wiped for no apparent reason, and to this end the company has issued an official statement. On the subject of the bug, they say that they are "aware of the problem and are currently investigating the cause." "The best course of action at this time is either to take the game back to the place you purchased the game from and ask for a refund, or hold on to the game for now and wait for us to contact you when we know what is causing the problem. In this case, please send an e-mail with the heading "No Mercy Details" to eursupport@thq.com, with your name, address and a contact telephone number. We will be in touch with everyone when we have details on how you should proceed." Hopefully the problem will be resolved soon and anyone unfortunate enough to have experienced the problem will have it remedied. It sounds like THQ are doing a good job of supporting their customers though, and that's always good to see.

On Monday, AMD launched the Duron 850MHz in America, and as usual, the reviews have already started to hit the Net. Dr. Tom at Tom's Hardware has given it his once over, asking some very fetching questions of the little processor, such as whether the Duron can be classed as a success or a failure. For AMD's part, it hasn't sold as well as they would have liked, but as Tom says, purely on a cost/performance ratio, it's faultless. The reason it doesn't sell, one must conclude, is the lack of integrated chipsets, something that PC Chips and others are now rectifying. Another question many have asked is how does the Duron 850 shape up to Intel's recently released 800MHz Celeron. The answer is rather well, as it stomps on the new Celeron in virtually every test anyone has thrown at it. The Duron overclocks better too, with some punters running it at nearly 1.1GHz. Other tests, run by the likes of Sharky Extreme, demonstrate the same trends, with the Duron outpacing the Celeron in 3D benchmarks and to a lesser extent in cache-heavy applications. The only downside to the 850 seems to be that an old, overclockered Duron performs exactly the same, and for less. Although that said, your mileage may vary. Pricewise, the 850 cannot be faulted, falling into line at £82.00 before VAT. The nearest thing is the Celeron 733, which costs £89.00 before VAT. The lowest speed product in the Duron line, the Duron 700, costs £45.00 + VAT. At the time of writing, AMD have yet to get back to us about the Duron's release in the United Kingdom. We expect to have more information on the timing of it shortly. Related Feature - AMD Duron Review

According to sources close to ST Media in Korea/Japan, the company has almost finished a PC port of its incredible RPG title Grandia II, which has been doing monster sales in both the US and Japan. The port is apparently 80% complete, and should go into Beta in Korean and Japanese languages sometime this month. The company is talking to GameArts and UbiSoft about a possible worldwide distribution deal. Grandia II, in case you weren't aware, is a traditional RPG, centring around the plight of bouty hunter Ryudo, and his eagle sidekick Skye. Eons ago the world was terrorized by the war of the Gods, when Granas gave the world holy Light, and his enemy Valmer attempted to destroy it and plunge the world into darkness. The war was eventually won by the Sword of Granas, which shattered Valmer and created a chasm on the planet's surface that came to be known as Granacliff. Soon enough history eroded this into mystical belief and religion. As usual, something starts to happen, and our hero is unwittingly turned into the planet's saviour. Grandia II on the Dreamcast isn't quite out over here yet, but we are told its close. An UbiSoft representative that we spoke to yesterday said the game should be with the press in about two weeks, and available all over Europe shortly afterward.

Skies of Arcadia is, in many ways, something of a landmark title: the first Dreamcast RPG to really shine and show what the next-generation formats are capable of. Whilst titles like Soul Calibur long ago relegated the Playstation to the bin as a beat-em-up platform for discerning players, until very recently the best RPGs were almost exclusively found on Sony's old grey box. Skies of Arcadia is set in a somewhat unique, Laputa-inspired world, in which there is no "solid ground", only islands (some larger than others) which float in the endless sky. This world is, unusually, orbited by no less that five (arguably six) moons, each of which takes the place of an element in the world of Arcadia, conferring certain powers. Two of the three central characters are air pirates, or, more specifically, "Blue Rogues" - the flying equivalent of Robin Hood. These two, Vyse and Aika, are thrown into a struggle to locate five crystals that control giant war machines that could destroy the world by the arrival of the third - Fina, a mysterious girl on a mission to prevent the coming destruction. Both the world and the characters are extremely well-defined, and deep. By keeping the number of playable characters small the game is able to devote a lot of time to their personalities, really bringing them to life. This task is made easier by the graphics, which are extremely detailed, and allow the characters to show a wide range of expressions and emotions during cutscenes. The world is also commendably large, and in a twist facilitated by the setting, remarkably three-dimensional; you must frequently go both over and under obstacles to progress. The skies are not in the least bit empty, either, there are natural hazards such as floating rocks(!) and vortices, as well as a myriad of other ships, including traders, other pirates and suchlike.

It's always nice to get what you want, and what the world wants right now is more of Tony Hawk, on whatever format they can. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 has done startling business on PlayStation, Dreamcast and PC, with no sign of its popularity letting up, so it's no surprise that publishers Activision are eager to seize on a good thing. Ron Doornink, Activision CEO, had this to say. "Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2x will set the standard for sports gaming on the Xbox with its stunning graphics, smooth animations, and refined gameplay. The online capabilities that we are including in the product will introduce the social aspects of skateboarding to the brand for the first time." The company has apparently been working closely with Microsoft since the console's inception to make sure Tony Hawk was one of the first games out of the door, alongside killer apps like Halo. A Microsoft spokesperson said they it was "incredibly exciting" to be working with Activision on Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2x.

Major server administrators Wireplay today introduced Punkbuster to their arsenal of anti-cheating tools. Counter-Strike, the ever popular team-based first person shooter from Valve and Barking Dog, has been plagued by cheaters and hackers since its earliest releases, and despite extensive reprogramming, development-lead "Gooseman" has been unable to plug all of the holes. PunkBuster is just one of a vast array of third party tools used to help prevent cheating. Amateur programmers at NextWish have been producing small bug fixes that expose cheaters for some time now, but PB is the first tool that requires the client to run an application outside of Half-Life in order to help prevent cheating. By requiring people to use such a tool, Wireplay hopes it will remove the dishonest contingent from its servers. But just what the heck is "PunkBuster"? According to the developers, "PunkBuster is one-of-a-kind unique. Other Anti-Cheat methods fall into 3 broad categories: Built-in to the game, Third-party server based, and blind luck. When a game has Anti-Cheat code built in to it, it can be very solid until it is cracked; however, game developers have not historically been swift at patching those cracks and by the time a fix is out, there are usually worse cheats or new holes caused by the patch." PunkBuster acts as a form of middleware between Counter-Strike and the server itself. It authenticates the client, then allows them to play. If a client forgets to run PunkBuster and the server requries authentication, they will be informed whilst ingame and asked to do so within a certain amount of time before being removed. Servers can be set up to require authentication, or to make it optional. If optional, other players will be informed who is not using it. A radical move though this is, PunkBuster is expected to marginalise the cheating element on Wireplay's servers, which currently spoils plenty of public games where no administrator is present. Other server operators, such as Jolt and Barry's World, will no doubt be watching carefully to see how this addition is received. More information on PunkBuster can be found at the official website.

Crystal Interactive, a publisher of budget and commercial PC games, has launched its new website, Crystal-Interactive.com, which highlights the release of its new freeware Asteroids-style title, "Galaxy Blasters!" (shown left). The move also helps to emphasize the recent release of its graphically-intensive strategy title, State of War. At the present time there are three freeware titles available; "Galaxy Blasters!", "Santa in Trouble" and "Christmas Games." The former is by far the most entertaining, featuring decent graphics and repetitive though addictive Asteroids-style gameplay. Also included on the new website is lots of information on the company's flagship game, State of War. Plenty of other games are available for as little as $9.95, some $19.95. They are even developing a couple of new titles for the Amiga. The site also features a fair amount of indie developer games and tools for sale. Check it out at http://www.crystal-interactive.com.

A new server update for Quake III Arena was released early this morning to plug some holes and fix some bugs that were still outstanding after the release of 1.27g. The new version, 1.27h helps fix the "handicap exploit," which some unruly tricksters were using to disrupt games last week. Also, a problem with the bot routing (presumably in light of the radical changes in the recent official updates), has been sorted out, and thanks to some creative reprogramming, Id claim users may experience anything up to a 20 frames per second improvement over the old patches. Make that "very creative". Id's Robert Duffy updated his plan on the subject, pointing out that they have "put up 1.27h as a BETA". After some previous confusion, this clarification is welcomed. "It is a .exe only release primarily intended for server administrators but it should be OK for client use as well." The message seems to be "update if you want to, there should be no harm in it," but Id are of course covering their bases. Finally, he urges users to "forward any issues or problems to bugs@idsoftware.com." You can download the patch from the following locations:-

While the quality of the games released for the western launch of Sony's new PlayStation 2 at the end of last year was somewhat less than impressive, the next generation of games for the system looks set to make better use of the console's capabilities. Amongst this second batch of releases will be Volition's third person role-playing game "Summoner", which features sumptuous graphics and an epic fantasy storyline, with around 40 hours worth of gameplay being promised. The game is now set for a March 23rd release on PlayStation 2 in the UK, with a PC version expected to follow later in the year, and to celebrate we got our hands on seven brand new shots of the game. Feast your eyes on these...

Formed last year by core members of the team at Computer Artworks responsible for organic action-strategy game "Evolva", Synaptic Soup announced their impressive looking new "Cipher" technology early on but remained quiet about the games they would be using it for. Now the veil of secrecy has slipped to reveal a peek at "Crazy Car Championship", the first game to use the company's cross-platform engine.

According to a press release that we just received from Havas Interactive UK, the company's Half-Life franchise has now provided the publisher with a massive 300,000 sales within the UK alone. These figures include Valve's "Half-Life" itself in all its various incarnations, as well as the official add-on pack "Opposing Force" and multiplayer version "Counter-Strike". With both Dreamcast and PlayStation 2 versions of the game already announced and due for release this year, it seems that the game (now over two years old) still has lot of life in it. Whether they can keep the old warhorse warm long enough to keep us busy until the arrival of "Team Fortress" remains to be seen, but don't be too surprised if you see "Half-Life : Diamond Edition" and an enhanced Xbox version of the game appearing over the next year or two...

1995: As the increasingly lucrative console market gears up for the next generation of hardware, a new pretender to the throne arises. Already a massive, powerful corporation in their own right, the entrance of this new competitor radically changes the face of the market, shaking the very foundations of the old guard.

Microsoft has topped off a week they would probably rather forget about with the public unveiling of the Xbox. Earlier in the week, someone associated with Ziff Davis' publication EGM leaked scans of several pages from the coming issue which contained images and other information on the console. Despite this breach of security, and the company's attempts to get offending sites to remove the materials, they are still available from a plethora of different sources. It is no accident that the unveiling of the Xbox to the public coincides with the CES trade show this weekend, and as if to prove this, much of the "official unveiling" documented on the Microsoft Xbox website is actually streaming video footage of the console from the event. Also available is a new Flash movie on the Xbox website with relatively detailed close-ups of the machine's moulded casing and controller. If you can handle the streaming data, then we recommend you opt for that however.