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If you've ever stood in front of a stand in WH Smith and scratched your head over whether or not to buy a GameBoy game, you're not alone. Beyond magazine reviews, there is no way to check out a game before you buy it, other than downloading an emulator and 'warezing' the game's ROM image from a dodgy website. Not any longer, say Simon & Schuster, who are now proudly offering their latest title for download, or at least the first level of it, in ROM image form, alongside a GameBoy emulator. The question is, does this sort of move encourage piracy of GameBoy games, and what right does Simon & Schuster have to do this? The ROM works just great on their emulator, and we can confirm that so does just about every ROM we could track down via popular search engines MetaCrawler and Google. The emulator is called "Virtual Gameboy" and can clearly be used for running illegally obtained copies of Nintendo games, yet S&S have no qualms about offering a direct link to it and encouraging you to use it. Fair enough this is a legitimate use of the system, but how far away from this is offering someone a car with no tyres and hiding the keys to the local Kwik-Fit under the passenger seat? People will find out, and will take advantage. On the other hand though, this is an interesting experiment. Will the game's sales be noticeably larger because of the free one-level demo, or will they suffer because people download the ROM, enjoy it and download the full version from a slightly more nefarious outfit? It could open the doors for more interesting possibilities, like web-based demos of GameBoy games. Something along the lines of the WildTangent setup would work perfectly.

Of all the things we were expecting to hear about the PlayStation 2, discovering that some people's machines overheat and crash due to faulty fans was not one of them. The PlayStation 2 in Japan was notorious for overheating, crashing DVDs mid-showing and the like, and there is noticeably more ventilation on the UK unit, especially at the front. The fan is louder too, although in the words of a GameSpot reader, "it's knackered". Sony aren't saying anything. Related Feature - PlayStation 2 Launch Index

It's the Monday morning after the first weekend of PlayStation 2 gaming, and everyone who got one now has an opinion. Those who didn't manage to get one also have some interesting comments on the matter too, so I suppose that's where we shall begin.

Stunning photo-realistic skies are nothing new in computer games, and recent hits from Unreal Tournament to Sacrifice have all sported impressive skylines. Even day and night cycles are old hat, with online games like Asheron's Call sporting some spectacular sunsets, and even spawning an amateur astronomy website from a fan who took it all a little too seriously. But now Ultima Worlds Online is set to take this .. um .. important aspect of massively multiplayer role-playing games to a whole new level.

Pro-gaming tournament organisers The CPL have moved into a swanky new residence in Dallas, taking over part of the Ion Storm offices at the top of the impressive Chase Tower, which is the fourth tallest building in the Texas city. Well, renting out their office space to another company is certainly one way for Ion Storm to make back some of the money that they burnt on multi-million dollar flops Daikatana and Dominion.

- Robert Wise Screenplay - Nelson Gidding / Michael Crichton Starring -   Arthur Hill   David Wayne   James Olson   Kate Reid Rating - 12 Filmed - USA, 1971 DVD by - Universal

John Romero might have failed to "make you his bitch" with Daikatana, and Dominion may have been a decidely mediocre real-time strategy game, but Ion Storm seems to be putting its catalogue of costly failures and PR disasters behind it. The recently released Deus Ex was arguably one of the best games of the year, and Ion Storm's next game is looking rather promising as well.

One of the more off-the-wall web games that we have come across this year is Banja, in which you play a "little peace-loving Rastafarian" called Banja who lives on an island called Itland. Featuring cute cartoon graphics, bizarre characters, and a damn funky soundtrack, it's certainly well worth a look if you want something completely different.

The politicians in The Hague may have failed to come up with a solution to the problem of global warming, but we have the answer, courtesy of Activision's newly released turn-based strategy game "Call To Power II" and its wonderful new improved diplomacy system. While the European Union was unable to convince the Americans to reduce their pollution levels to avoid destroying half the planet, EuroGamer may just have found the perfect way to save the world -

All classic games are based on a simple concept, and the multi-million selling "Civilization" franchise was no exception. The classic turn-based strategy game started you off in 4000 BC with a small group of primitive settlers, and then gave you the next six thousand odd years to lead them to global domination by whatever means necessary.

When I think of the "Links" series I picture the very early days of my first job in computers, where I assembled PCs and then installed all the software as per customer requirements. No such thing as pre-installed software in those days! Many hours were misspent at the back of the room playing an old DOS golf game, boasting some of the most gorgeous graphics to date.

If you go to eBay UK today and search "PlayStation 2", you meet with some 100 auctions, most of which bear the slogan "PlayStation 2 guaranteed November 24th!" or similar. The highest an auction on eBay has reached so far is £500, whereas searching on Yahoo reveals £400 auctions. It certainly isn't as ridiculous as the £600-1000 bids we were expecting, but it's a stab in the wrong direction. You'll remember that we reported on the PS2 going for nearly $1000 in some auctions in America last month. It's not quite up to those levels yet, but in the next few days you can expect panicked parents eager to secure a unit for Christmas diving on to the Internet in search of festive bliss. Aiming to create a gaping hole in your wallet? Our advice : do it quick, these deals won't be around for long, and may be your last chance until next year.

We're not the only ones rushed off our feet with news about Sony's latest console. All over the web people have been bursting to get their hands on the machine, and now they finally have, they're letting people know what they think. First up is GameLoft with a slightly pessimistic look at the machine, including comments from unnamed developers, and likewise, Daily Radar compare and contrast the PS2 and Dreamcast with a sarcastic "we told you so" undertone, and, er, 10 reasons why Zelda is better than anything on the PS2. Journalistic integrity; ya can't beat it.

It's been a good few hours since a lot of people picked up their brand new PlayStation 2 consoles, and a lot of people are now dashing home in their lunch hour to deposit the machine and even check it out. We spoke to a few of the people whom we met picking up their consoles this morning in Watford. John, who it turns out is a busy executive for a major telesales company told me that he'd been "toying with it all morning" after setting it up in his office at work. "It beats the hell out of the ITN news," he told me, "although the BBC gives it a run for its money [laugh]." When asked what he thought of the games, John commented that "SSX is the most exciting," but that Ridge Racer V "was a big let down. There's nothing new here that I didn't get to play with in Type 4. What are they playing at?" Did he buy anything else? "Yep, an 8Mb memory card and another controller. I just ordered another mem card on the Internet as well as FIFA 2001, the demo of which is fantastic." Bethan, supposedly a mother from Hemel was eager to speak to me. "It's actually really good. I hadn't expected that I would enjoy it, but I thought I'd try it out before Nathan got home from School." The games, then? "Well they aren't very easy to control, but that hockey game [NHL 2001 -Ed] is good fun!" So even busy housewives can take time out to play with the new console. Reckon Nathan will be happy then? "He doesn't even know I've got one for him, he'll be thrilled when he opens it on Christmas morning." Christmas morning? Poor lad. The others were unfortunately a little pre-occupied. We know the feeling, time for another go on SSX.

If you don't own a PlayStation 2 and you don't own a Dreamcast, Sega are out today to try and convince you to go against the grain and opt for one of its new offers instead of rival Sony's. Their latest offerings include tantalising festive deals from the likes of HMV, Dixons, EB, Game, Woolworths, Comet and Gameplay. Deals range from £150 to £170 and include as many as a couple of games (quite a killer deal for the price), selected from a range of recent titles like Tomb Raider Chronicles (out today), MSR and older classics like Sonic Adventure. And of course a free copy of ChuChu Rocket! Offer of the week is from Toys 'R' Us, and costs £250. It really has to be seen to be believed. Not only do you get a Dreamcast, ChuChu Rocket and Sonic Adventure, but also a DVD of Lethal Weapon 3 and a DVD player. Talk about sale of the century. Sure beats the hell out of a little black box with no frills for £300, wouldn't you say? Well if you do say that, beat your way over to the respective Toys 'R' Us webpage and snag yourself this wonderful opportunity.

If you've bought your PS2 today but aren't impressed with much outside of SSX (like most of the EuroGamer editorial staff who actually have consoles) then you will be pleased to learn that next week not only heralds the release of Swing Away Golf, but also Digital Leisure's Dragon's Lair. Also due out are Sega GT and Shenmue on the Dreamcast, two games set to steal the new console's thunder in one fell swoop. Looking at this week, we've got the much-spoken-about Dino Crisis 2 on the PlayStation, and GameBoy fans can look forward to a racing weekend with Micro Machines V3 and TOCA. We've already mentioned Tomb Raider Chronicles today, but the Dreamcast also manages to pull in F1 World Grand Prix 2 and Super Runabout. Tomb Raider Chronicles is the much awaited sequel of sequels to Tomb Raider, where you take on the guise of Lara Croft as you run around in her past adventures as they are being told by her friends after her memorial service. Is the little lass dead or alive? We don't know, but if you've long fanced the chance to check out Eidos' biggest earner in spandex and pigtails amongst other things, this is presumably the opportunity you've been looking for. The bad news for people this week who have not managed to secure a PlayStation 2 though, is that next the earliest you can expect yours in the second allocation is in two week's time, and possibly anything up for four weeks.

The build-up leading to the launch of the PlayStation 2 in the UK has been phenomenal. From the five minute segments on major TV channels to Sony's own bizarre yet lovable TV advertising. Almost every national newspaper in the United Kingdom carried news on the subject yesterday, most of them focusing on the fact that with the allocation here now limited to some 165,000 plenty of the original pre-orders will have not been fulfilled until the second batch, which according to a firm in Kingston may take anything from a fortnight to four weeks to appear.

It's true that a lot of people still don't own the capability to playback their own DVD movies, or rely on their PC's DVD-Rom drive to manage for them, but with the release of the PlayStation 2 gamers can become movie buffs overnight with the help of their trusty black box. We decided the best test of the PS2's DVD playback was to subject it to one of the most difficult DVDs there is, The Matrix. Many units, including ones from leading manufacturers still have trouble with the disc, so it seemed like the perfect choice. And of course it doesn't take much to get us to watch The Matrix, you know. First impressions were good; it loaded smoothly and the opening of the film was fine. Occasionally there was a slight drop in framerate, but it was almost imperceptible. However after a couple of stop-starts, and especially as the movie was tailing off, we could just about notice a slight inconsistency in the lip-sync between the soundtrack and the characters on screen. This was particularly noticeable as Neo was thrusting his rather unpleasant nemesis Agent Smith against the roof of the subway station. "My name.. is Neo" started out all right, but as Reeves' mouth started to shape the word "Neo" , there was a definite gap. Still, on the whole the playback of the world's most nefarious DVD proved a successful learning experience. The young lass whom I watched it with said she could notice nothing wrong and thought the picture quality was excellent. I, too, thought it was pretty good, despite the aforementioned framerate dodginess at one point. Being limited to Region 2 after having used my universal player for so long though would be impossible though, so I think I'll stick to a dedicated solution. Should the technology to unlock all of the other regions become available however, I will certainly have no qualms about recommending the machine to friends looking for an "all-in-one" solution.

At £300 for the console itself, you may be a little disappointed at only receiving one controller and a Demo Disc, and buyers who haven't picked up any games to speak of will certainly be feeling the boredom setting in about now. After all there's only so much fun you can have sticking PlayStation 1 titles into the new machine and seeing how they have been affected. Of course it's not hard to understand why people are unwilling to fork out for the likes of Wild Wild Racing and Wetrix 2, but peripheral sales have been quite impressive we're led to understand. We took a little time out to find out just what you can get your hands on today in the UK. The most popular purchase seems to be an additional controller or an 8Mb Memory Card, but third party peripherals including a "Jolt" controller from Joytech and a Thrustmaster 360 Modena steering wheel for racing sims have also reared their heads. Other things you could pick up include a vertical stand (this at least has a genuine use), a horizontal stand (a bit like putting your car on a trolley), a DVD/CD remote control and the slightly more practical multitap. Whether many gamers can justify spending £25 on this along with £20 times however many controllers extra they want is questionable. I would think it difficult. One of the most pointless things you can do though, if you can be bothered, is create your own vertical stand! It'll save you £10, so don't knock it. Luckily, all you need is the original box your PS2 came in. Unfasten it all and flatten the box out. The shape is somewhat odd, but don't let that perturb you. Rip off (odd turn of phrase, yet strangely appropriate.. hrm) both of the side panels (the ones with the PS2 logo on them), and crease them carefully after measuring them around the PS2's base itself. Using sellotape, complete the Blue Peter esque cardboard stand by fastening your little bracket down onto one of the remaining flat panels of the box. Now estimate carefully where the controller slots / memory card slots sit and using scissors cut out a hole large enough for both, or if you're a real perfectionist two holes! Done that? Then you really have wasted ten minutes. But have no fear, you will be admired up and down the land, and if you get bored of it, it makes a superb bed for the cat.

Ah, the humble PlayStation. By tomorrow it will be a mark on history's wall, and what a mark. For all Sony's dilly-dallying around with the PSOne, everybody knows that it's pretty much finished, and a lot of people will be sad to see it go. But of course, the death knell isn't sounding for its gaming catalogue just yet. Thanks to the advanced graphical options available to gamers using PSX games on the next-generation Sony PlayStation 2, we should see some interesting improvements. And Dino Crisis 2, it seems, is one. Playing DC2, a game we've been awaiting for quite some time now with baited breath, is something of a let-down at first. Graphically the PlayStation is behind the times, and the jagged lines around the models accentuate them against the pre-rendered backdrops. The underground cave areas of the game are appalling bad, and a perfect example of this at its worst. The stark contrast between the nicely modelled dinosaurs and the cheesy cartoon-like lava backdrops is jaw dropping; you wonder how they can get away with it. For the rest of the game things do look almost passable, but this technique clearly doesn't work if your characters don't share common characteristics with their surroundings, and your background artists are having a snooze. This is something of a shame, because as far as PlayStation games go, Dino Crisis 2 is quite an achievement, releasing the survival horror genre from its slow, plodding temperament and acquiring a sort of furious, panicky disposition. The game, set a year after the arrest and imprisonment of time-hole-dinosaur-unleashing Dr. Kirk, focuses on another experiment gone wrong, this time at the behest of the very government that sent you to mop up after Kirk. Logically Regina, lead character from the first game, is chosen to head off to Edward City, the unfortunate victim of this tragedy, along with two members of the TRAT (Tactical Reconnoitering and Acquisition Team), Dylan Morton and David Folk. Crucial research data must be recovered, and a mystery uncovered.

It was about 10am yesterday morning when I was jolted upright at my desk by the thunderous racket of my phone bleating at me from the other side of the room. On the other end, it turned out, was a Gameplay representative, asking if I wouldn't awfully mind confirming the delivery and payment details for my shiny PlayStation 2, due to arrive on Friday morning. After replacing the receiver, I went back to sleep.. until now. Cue a similar sort of occurence about five minutes ago, only this time it was the doorbell that awoke me from my mid-morning slumber. A nicely dressed Parcel Force fellow handed me a parcel, and I honestly had no idea what it was. Tearing the cardboard away I froze, looked at the clock on the mantelpiece. Yep, today is the 23rd of November, and yes, I am a customer in the United Kingdom with a PlayStation 2. Talk about jumping the gun, eh? Congratulations to Gameplay for managing to cope with the demand, and lets hope they aren't the subject of some ungodly legal ramifications for getting the machine to some customers a day early.. An interesting point that you might like to make a note of is a little black CD sleeve included with the machine, containing a Demo Disc, the very disc we've all been bemoaning the lack of. There's only one way to answer your critics I suppose. Playable demos include Wild Wild Racing, FIFA 2001 and SSX Snowboarding, with videos of Fantavision, Dead or Alive 2, ISS Pro and Ridge Racer V. Also included is Find My Own Way, allegedly a graphical technology demo and Yabasic, a bit of programming software. So there you have it, the PlayStation 2, in consumers' hands, and a day early to boot. What is the world coming to?

Although "Quake III : Arena" was arguably the best deathmatch game released to date, there was very little else to it apart from your basic toe-to-toe free-for-all fragging. A few unremarkable Capture The Flag maps rounded out the package, and compared to the excellent "Unreal Tournament" (which was released just a week or two earlier) it all felt rather hollow. But since then developers id Software have been hard at work on a teamplay add-on for Quake 3, imaginatively titled "Quake III : Team Arena", and last night the demo was released.

Canadian developer Bioware Corp have been making something of a name for themselves over the last couple of years as purveyors of quality role-playing games. Their breakthrough title "Baldurs Gate" helped to rejuvenate the entire genre, and its recently released sequel proved equally popular with critics and role-players alike.

This is the third time I have reviewed a Grand Theft Auto title, being a huge fan of the game on the PC platform. This time it is the GBC's turn to take your one man/woman crime machine onto the streets.

If you're a busy executive who's always on the move (shyeah) then the chances are you have a Palm Pilot to help you keep track of your daily schedule and all those fiddly addresses you can never remember; it's a fairly common office supplement these days. But of course, in reality when you're on your own in the back of a taxi or your luxurious leather-clad office on the fifth floor, you check that the coast is clear and fire up Asteroids, or Tetris, or something else you managed to download behind the backs of your technical staff. Gaming on the Palm Pilot is an industry unto itself, but it's a joy since everything's free. Most of the games are only a few Kilobytes so you can fit loads of them onto a single Palm device, which is why everyone has them. But if you've been a follower of this noble art for some time you'll know that although the games can be very entertaining for short periods of time, the controls can be a dreadful hindrance for the majority of it. With the aid of Worldwide Widget Works (an American company, incidentally), the PDA is about to become usable. Their adapter, which slots onto the bottom of your Palm Pilot, acts like the controls of a GameBoy and allows you to play games like Asteroids the way they were gloriously intended. At least, that's what we'd like to happen. In reality the situation is unfortunately a little less pleasing. Creators WWW are charging a rather unfriendly $90 for an SDK and an early Game Pad so that developers can equip their software with compatability, and while this may not seem much to you or I, the people who code these games do so in their spare time, for no return. The slightly more commercial outfits like the famous Dreadling (formerly Doomling) are indeed likely to cough up to ensure compliance, but the bedroom programmer hacking away at his Palm compilation software isn't going to want to bother. So the jury's out on WWW's new toy - there's definitely a market for it, but perhaps it's not yet ready for such a device.

Virgin's latest release schedule just arrived in the mail this morning, with more delays for the British publisher's impressive line-up of games. First past the post is "Gunlok", which isn't expected in stores until December 8th now, despite the fact that we were told that the game was complete and a gold master on its way to the factory two weeks ago. The game was certainly looking like a winner when we last saw it though, and hopefully there will be no more delays now that is finished...

Yesterday CPU giant and motherboard chipset manufacturer Intel proudly unveiled its draft spec for AGP 8x (you will need Acrobat installed to read that file), which has caused quite a noticeable stir amongst those in the know, using all sorts of new techniques to increase the bandwidth of the port. However, we would be naive to suspect that amidst all the oo'ing and aar'ing there weren't a number of people scratching their chins and wondering, just what the heck is AGP anyway? And from a gamer's point of view, why should I be interested? You no doubt realise that AGP stands for Advanced Graphics Port, and comes in several flavours, AGP 1x (or just AGP), AGP 2x, AGP 4x and AGP Pro. The concept is thus; back in the day, all graphics cards were either ISA or PCI, PCI being the more up to date and common. A PCI graphics card though, was restrained in its performance by several factors. Not only the data transfer rate between the PCI Bus and the CPU (which was an incredibly limiting factor by today's standards), but also the problem that a lot of cards were trying to share that narrow pathway of data. So when the AGP port was created, it was heralded as a chariot of gold so to speak for all the lovely data your graphics card wanted to push back and forth between it, the processor and other areas of your computer. By using this new, isolated transfer mechanism running at 66MHz independant of the PCI bus, the amount of bandwidth allocated to the graphics card became ludicrously big, and AGP was clearly here to stay. With the introduction of AGP 2x, the bandwidth doubled, and 2x is where a lot of people using the BX chipset (Intel's most widespread desktop motherboard chip) still are today. Newer motherboards have now supported AGP 4x for quite some time, but there were cries about its stability at first, and as it doesn't actually improve performance over AGP 2x by that much in a handful of the top-selling graphics cards, not too many people are all that bothered by it. AGP Pro is, well, an experimental technology you could say, which hasn't really been put to good use just yet. So AGP 8x (which may not be with us until 2003 at this rate) once again improves the situation for this ham-fisted graphics card producers. Of some interest is that the new bus will also support Intel's 64-bit processor Itanium and its successors, but more importantly, thanks to a technique similar to that of the Athlon's DDR front side bus, the 66MHz bus frequency is to be effectively doubled by using of the rising and falling edge of the clock signal. Confused? Well, currently, a clock signal is sent at 66MHz, and the card occupying the AGP slot can use one side of the clock signal (which rises and falls) to transfer data. The Athlon introduced a new technique which allowed motherboard manufacturers to utilize the rising and falling edge of the clock signal as well, doubling the transfer throughput as a result. Intel will now take advantage of a similar technique to allow its AGP 8x spec to double throughput. All this along with a proposed bandwidth of 2Gb/second means AGP 8x will be a force to be reckoned with when the time comes. For gamers, this means more high resolution graphics at faster speeds and with less jerking. With a high enough speed processor and an AGP 8x graphics card, you could expect performance far in excess of anything we can imagine today.

Star Wars : Episode I Obi-Wan for the PC has been canceled today by developers Lucasarts, who issued a concise statement that "Following an extensive review of the project and a great deal of deliberation, LucasArts Entertainment Company has ceased development of Star Wars: Obi-Wan for the PC". But on the bright side, they are "now planning to bring the game and its assets to a next-generation console platform", and apparently further announcements are due in the new year. This behaviour certainly comes as something of a surprise. Lucasarts were once very shrewd about allowing substandard Star Wars titles onto the market, but in recent years one would consider that reputation somewhat tarnished by the likes of the Episode I adventure game and the rather boring Racer of last Summer. It looks more likely in this case that due to the massive scope of the project, demands on the team were just too great, and development on a smaller more restricted platform such as the PlayStation 2 is a far more reasonable proposition. Nonetheless, this cancelation marks a big disappointment for the Star Wars community, to whom this game had been heralded as the sequel to the infinitely successful Jedi Knight.

Despite claims previously that there would be around 30 titles available at launch, the number has now been wittled down to a more realistic 16. So without further ado, here is the definitive list of games that you will be able to buy in stores as of Friday.

Those of you who were around in the days of the Voodoo 2 may well remember a company named Obsidian, who won some press attention by developing an enormously powerful quad Voodoo 2, which retailed at around £500 in the States. Of course nobody in the gaming sector bought it, but it was one of the first truly powerful 3D graphics cards available to industry. I personally sat there long and hard peering into my PC screen at the images of this beast, wondering whether power like that would ever be available to consumers like us. But like the Voodoo 2 itself, with the advent of the Voodoo 3 and the TNT2, it was quickly forgotten.. Forgotten, that is, until last week at Comdex, when we spied the latest creation from Obsidian, an eight-way SLI VSA-100 graphics card. The pictures are at HardOCP, here and here. Just to give you an idea of what this sort of card would be capable of, a Voodoo 5 5500 is a little way behind current technology in terms of performance, but it has two chips and 64Mb of VRAM. This board has eight chips, and god knows how much memory - to the Voodoo 5 5500 it's the equivalent of a Ferrari to a Fiesta. If only, eh?