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There's only one new release for PC gamers in the UK this week, but what a game it is - Ion Storm Austin's magnificent Unreal-engined first person role-playing / shooter hybrid "Deus Ex"! Set in a desolate near-future world of rampant terrorism, shadowy conspiracies and nano-tech implants, this could well be the game which turns things around for ailing publisher Eidos, as well as being the first good game to come out of the overhyped and overbudget Texan developer Ion Storm since its founding four years ago.

Of all the gaming platforms out there today, consoles have the most unparalleled usability for gamers. After all you simply have to plug them into the TV, bung in a disc or cartridge and get going! Unlike developing a game for the PC though, those that choose to create console games use development tools that can interface with the console, a much more complex process than simply compiling and running the game on your PC.. Every console manufacturer has software development kits (SDK), which usually consist of software and a developmental version of the console hardware, either via a console itself or a interface card for the host development computer. The software comes in several parts; the compiler, the debugger and ideally games libraries and sample code to assist development and give the developer an idea of the hardware's capabilities. SDK's play an important part in the success or otherwise of a videogame console. Make it too hard to learn or too difficult to get results with and watch the developers flock to your competitor. SEGA learned this harsh lesson with the Saturn, a technically complex beast, with two processors at its heart running in a symmetric multi-processing configuration, something that the developers had trouble harnessing the abilities of. Despite its popularity with the general public, there is an increasing shift away from the industry's reliance on Microsoft Windows, and Sony illustrated this well with the news that it's PlayStation 2 development kits would be released for Linux. This relationship between the development community and Linux goes back further than the PS2. The original PlayStation kits use the "Cygnus C compiler" (a program indigenous to the *nix platform), as does a large proportion of the development community. Further back still is the relationship with the GNU and their various tools ("make", "GCC" etc.).

Italian developer Insidia, who were working on a first person role-playing adventure game called "Malleus", have sent word that the engine which was previously powering the game is now available for licensing, and that they are instead working on a new cutting-edge 3D engine called "Vulcan".

Due for release around the end of the year, "Survivor of the Ages" is an innovative looking 3D isometric role-playing game from Alien Logic. One of the things which looks set to make it stand out from the crowd is the game's combat system, which lead programmer Jason Richardson describes as a "cross between the intricate combat systems commonly used in fighter games, and the simple point-and-click interface common to Diablo-like RPGs".

Why exactly is EuroGamer reviewing a golf game that was first released more than a year ago? Because Sierra have recently re-released it on their budget label "Sierra Originals", meaning that you can now pick it up for less than the cost of a pint at your local golf course's clubhouse. Allegedly. Is it worth a look at this low, low price, or should you go and get some cans and play a round of mini-golf for your money instead? Read our review to find out!

- Sierra

Today's visual treat for you here on EuroGamer is a set of four new screenshots of Sudden Strike, a stunning looking real-time strategy game set during World War II. Developed by Fireglow, the game is due for release in the UK through German publisher CDV at the end of September, and should turn heads judging from what we have seen so far. To see some house demolishing, bridge blowing, paratrooping strategy action, check out our new screenshots of Sudden Strike!

Rowan's Mark Shaw has spoken to SimHQ about the company's next game, the World War II flight sim / strategy game "Battle of Britain". The game will feature a dynamic campaign, with "the whole battle played out in real-time (don't worry, we have an accelerate feature!) minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day".

Sierra have just sent word that "Homeworld : Cataclysm", the semi-sequel to last year's stunning 3D accelerated space-bound strategy game, will be released in the UK on Friday September 15th. The new game will now hit shelves almost exactly a year after the original "Homeworld" was released to critical acclaim.

Since it was released last year, one of the main criticisms of the highly addictive massively multiplayer role-playing game "EverQuest" has been the shoddy customer service and poor technical support offered for the game. Recently George Scotto was given the unenviable task of "rebuilding the customer service department at Verant" to answer those criticisms, and in an interview on CorpNews he explains the changes that are underway. "We're increasing staff, we're increasing coverage for our European users, and also trying to help out our Asian and Australian groups".

Gamers.nl previews the Counter-Strike bot for Half-Life

The latest UK release information has arrived from Electronic Arts and UbiSoft, with several notable changes. UbiSoft's vehicle-based action game "Infestation" has slipped a couple of weeks to an August 18th release, while EA Sport's latest round of soccer games ("FA Premier League Stars 2001" and "Football Manager 2001") have both slipped a week to August 25th.

Today's preview here on EuroGamer takes a look at "Baldur's Gate II : Shadows Of Amn", the sequel to the hit role-playing game "Baldur's Gate". With more monsters, more spells, more character classes, more items, higher resolution graphics, an all-new plot carrying on from the original game, and the return of Minsc and his miniature giant space hamster Boo, what more could you want from a sequel? To find out more, read our preview, which also includes two exclusive new screenshots from the game.

, the company behind classic games like "Dagger Fall" and "Terminator : Future Shock", is currently hard at work on the latest installment of their "Elder Scrolls" RPG series - "Morrowind". But the release of the game won't mark the end of its development, as Bethesda will be releasing a "Construction Set" for the game, allowing players to create "plug-ins" to add their own content to the game.

One of the surprise hits of 1998 was "Baldur's Gate", a decidedly old school isometric role-playing game based on the paper and pencil game "Advanced Dungeons & Dragons" and its popular Forgotten Realms campaign setting.

Iceland is probably better known for its volcanoes and Björk than for its computer games, but an Icelandic company called CCP is currently hard at work on their debut game, an online Elite-style space combat / trading game called "EVE". In an interview on RPGVault, designer Thorolfur Beck mastered the art of understatement by describing the game world as "quite large".

The official Dungeon Keeper 3 website has been updated with news that the third installment in Bullfrog's classic strategy game series has now been "put on hold" indefinitely. "A third episode of the Dungeon Keeper saga was underway, but opportunities to develop new intellectual properties on new platforms such as PlayStation 2 have meant that DK3 has been put on hold", according to the update. "There are currently no plans for another Dungeon Keeper game, however it remains an important franchise and there may be opportunities for us to pursue that direction in the future".

Although the Unreal-engined role-playing / first person shooter hybrid "Deus Ex" has been available in the US for quite a while now, it is only this Friday that the game finally makes it appearance on this side of the Atlantic. To celebrate the game's long awaited European release, EuroGamer has today posted its review of Deus Ex.

German publisher BlueByte have announced their first online-only title, "Battle Isle : DarkSpace. Being developed by a Texas-based company called Palestar, this latest installment in the long-running Battle Isle series will be a break from tradition, taking the franchise into orbit for a 3D accelerated space-bound action-strategy game.

The Strike Force team have posted six new shots of grenades in action from their Unreal Tournament mod

Basing a computer game on the cult TV series "Dukes of Hazzard" was perhaps an obvious choice, given that almost every episode involved racing up and down dirt tracks in a brightly painted American muscle car, leaping over hedges and bridges, and making the local law enforcement officers look like idiots. The $64,000 question is, was that really enough of a concept to base an entire game around, or is it all just a little too repetitive? Read our review of "Dukes of Hazzard : Racing For Home" to find out!

Publisher Mattel Interactive has sent us their latest UK release schedule, which includes news that the promising looking real-time strategy game "Warlords Battlecry" has slipped to an August 25th release, while "Reach For The Stars" is now due for September 29th, and the latest installment of the Close Combat series has been renamed "Close Combat : Overlord". For all the latest information, check EuroGamer's UK release date list, now tracking over 100 games due for release in the UK over the next year.

One of the big aims of DirectX 8 is to make Windows a more user-friendly operating system for gamers, and an important part of that is detecting and configuring controllers - flight sticks, joypads, steering wheels and so on.

It has been announced that Pan Interactive will be publishing Simon & Schuster Interactive's games based on the long-running Star Trek TV series "Deep Space Nine" here in Europe.

Our competition to give away five copies of Microsoft's "Flight Simulator 2000 Professional Edition" is now over! For the last week people have been e-mailing us to complete the sentence "Flying a jumbo jet is fun, because...", with somewhat mixed results. Our team of trained monkeys spent all this morning sifting through the entries to weed out the Americans who had entered the competition (what was the first rule?), and then we selected the five best entries, which you can now find on the competition page for your entertainment and edification.

More and more developers are licensing other companies' game engines these days rather than developing their own from scratch, and one of the most popular at the moment is the LithTech engine. Monolith's CEO, Jason Hall, has explained in an interview just why engine licensing is becoming so common, and unsurprisingly it all comes down to money and the relationship between publisher and developer...

Quake3Mods.net reviews the Rocket Arena 3 mod

The "Heroes of Might & Magic" series is something of an enigma - despite an increasingly outdated graphics engine, sticking resolutely to its turn-based roots in this age of real time strategy, and being based in a distinctly unfashionable fantasy world of elves, dwarves and dragons, somehow the yearly additions to the series still manage to sell by the bucket-of-never-ending-water full.

In this age of real time 3D graphics, the "Heroes of Might & Magic" series has stuck resolutely to 2D sprites and epic turn-based strategy with strong role-playing elements. In November, publisher 3DO will try to bring the addictive gameplay of the long-running series to a wider audience with the release of "Heroes Chronicles", four new "episodic" games to be released simultaneously at a budget price of just £15 a piece. Read our preview to find out more...

One of the biggest criticisms of Quake 3 Arena when it was first released last year was its lack of variety, as the game only featured deathmatch and a handful of CTF maps out of the box. The "Quake 3 : Team Arena" add-on pack should fix this, adding several new team-oriented multiplayer modes as well as new weapons, models and maps. In an interview on CorpNews, id Software designer and resident Brit Graeme Devine talks about some of the changes the developers have made to the game to improve its teamplay features, including the ability "to define your own clan, your own clan colors".