Latest Articles (Page 3603)

Today marks the latest GLSetup release (Build 1.0.0.116) and new drivers for Matrox video cards. The latter comes in several versions for various incarnations of Windows, including the recent Windows Millenium, while GLSetup is unilaterally available in a single executable that suits each Win9x OS for various video cards. Matrox' graphics cards are of course most famed for their DualHead technology, which allows users to output graphics to two monitors simultaneously. We polled a few gamers on QuakeNet IRC about the new drivers; one commented that "the improvement is marginal but you might as well grab them" while another remarked "who cares, they haven't got any petrol". GLSetup first made its name when it was released alongside the Quake III Arena demo test. The premise is that it checks which graphics card you're in possession of then installs appropriate drivers to run OpenGL optimally. The latest release is still very much unfinished with lots of known issues, but for gamers who own one of the selected video cards it takes a lot of the confusion out of upgrading the drivers.

E-commerce outfit Gameplay will today announce a PlayStation 2 pre-order deal, which was unexpectedly announced on their PS2 mailing list early this morning. Lucky gamers who have managed to get in there early will have forms despatched to them today and once returned will be put on the list for Sony's next-generation console, with guaranteed delivery on the morning of November 26th, the day the console hits stores in this country. Delighted representatives of Gameplay happily informed readers that Sony have come through with the goods, and that there will be plenty of units available for the launch, hinting at the fact that many are already in place from the production lines and ready to ship. At the time of writing there is no mention of the deal on Gameplay's online store page, but with the PS2 mailing list announcement arriving at Inboxes the world over, the public web announcement can't be far behind.

Barely a month after big-hype "free" ISP Altavista admitted its incapability to provide an 0800 service, Cable & Wireless has pulled the plug on World CallNet, one of the first ISPs ever to offer the service (albeit to very limited numbers). According to the Telco they were "in serious financial difficulties" and unable to pay enormous bills to C&W. Unconfirmed reports state that Worldcom has also withdrawn its support for the ISP due to similar financial problems. Obviously no-one from CallNet was available as all their lines are now down. Only last week The Register voiced concerns that the company was clinging onto a slippery financial precipice with extreme danger of plummeting to the ground, but Gerard Farley, company president firmly denied rumours about cash problems and laying off staff. "The 0845 business is as strong as it has ever been and we're delighted with its performance," he reportedly said. In fact it was only last week that he used rumours of a destructive whispering campaign against his company to try and win sympathy from the press. He also went on record as saying that he was not running the company into the ground. After today's announcement, he ain't foolin' nobody.

Model airplanes, eh? The rattle of plastic kits and the pungent aroma of specialist paints. Sticking the whole lot together, only to discover that the bloody cat has swallowed a vital part of the landing gear of your pint-sized Spitfire. And then you either re-enact the Battle of Britain in your back garden with the acne infested kid from next door, or your plane just sits on a shelf in your bedroom and gathers dust.

The Olympic Games are perhaps the most celebrated of all the sporting events in the world. There is something about the entire procession that captures even those not usually interested in athletics.

In the run up to any major sporting event, we always see a rash of titles released on all formats clamouring to be the armchair enthusiasts favourite way of escaping into their chosen sports world. The ludicrous re-hashing of old ideas is synonymous with this tradition, especially with athletics games and Olympics tie-ins, with usually the only real change being the gaming hardware and the graphical capabilities available. So.. the year 2000 sees another Olympic games, with only one licensee (this year it went to Attention to Detail) and another parade of titles coincidentally being released at the same time, all clamouring for the ultimate recreation of this glorious sporting occasion. Sega are a bunch who have come to be known as game creators who set standards, and they certainly haven't shied away from this trend with their Sega Sports titles on Dreamcast. The most recently notable of these obviously being Virtua Tennis - an outstanding piece of work by anyone's standards, it even made EuroGamer editor Tom Bramwell want to get up and play tennis.. anyone who's met him will know that's no mean feat. (Fired -Ed) And so it is with great pleasure and anticipation I picked up Virtua Athlete 2K, looking forward to a repeat of the kind of quality and sheer gameplay on show in VT. Back in days of yore, a game by Konami called International Track & Field (the Dreamcast update will be upon us very soon) heralded a control method in which the players could physically exert themselves in a manner only superseded by the real-world competitors. This method involved bashing two buttons as fast as physically possible without breaking your fingers and/or the game cabinet. I was expecting more of the same frenetic fun from VA2K. But, to my immense surprise, it proved to be possibly the worst execution of this formula I've yet played.

In an interview with WarcraftIII.net, Blizzard's Bill Roper explains that "we want to do the story like we did in StarCraft, as opposed to how we did it in WarCraft II", with a central storyline common to all of the races in the game rather than entirely seperate campaigns for each. "As you go through the game it's one large storyline, but you pick it up in different places through the course of the storyline. Kind of like getting your side of the story depending on what race you're playing at that point in the storyline."

Those of you who have played Aliens Versus Predator on the PC will know what it's like to be scared by a PC game. The effect Alien-based games have on people is truly hilarious. The funniest thing I've seen this year was EuroGamer's Marketing Manager Mat Bettinson leaping out of his skin at the i5 LAN Party while playing the thing. He was literally reduced to a quivering wreck enduring fits of giggles on the floor. Not pretty. If you want to share his condition, you'll be pleased to hear that Fox Interactive are poised to release Alien Resurrection on the PlayStation in a month's time. The press release indicates that it will take the form of a Resident Evil-like survival horror title, and developer Argonaut is allegedly using the next month or so to adjust the game's difficulty in certain levels, which has been described by some as impenetrable. It is thought that the game will be available toward the end of October to fans everywhere. Very little preview information seems to be available on the title, but it's a safe assumption that dangerous levels of firepower will intersect with startling aliens and there will be lots of death and ruckus as a result.

Satoru Okada, co-developer of the original Game Boy and now a chief designer in the development of the GameBoy Advance recently voiced his thoughts on the new Nintendo handheld to Nintendo Online Magazine, and IGN have fully translated it for us. Okada's banter centres around the beginnings of the GBA and how it came about. It turns out that it really started out in earnest back in the days when Okada and Gunpei Yokoi were working on the internal workings of the GameBoy Color, which the two regarded as a stop-gap in between the original cost-limited GameBoy and something bigger and better. Okada justifies this by pointing out that the GBA was always going to have backwards compatibility, something he later describes as "one of the duties of developers". Another interesting morsel is that the Nintendo-released specifications for the unit (and those still available at GameBoy.com, Nintendo's official site) are actually innaccurate due to post publicity decisions that Okada made about the design. In order to increase the memory capacity, the amount of possible colours decreases from the originally touted 65,535 back to 32,000, the same as the GBC. Those of you who saw the GameBoy Advance are ECTS or Spaceworld will be aware of two indentations on the top surface. According to Okada these are for securing peripherals, something he's wanted in place since the original GameBoy. Obviously this is very revealing information, but at the end of the day Okada is keen to point out that it will be the software that makes and sells the system. Ease of development is paramount. That said, judging by the software on display at ECTS, developers are getting the idea quickly.

One of the things that has been causing a bit of a stir of late is the new UT technology. With demos showing off 3700 polygon models and rolling landscapes it's been whipping up interest all over the industry. Thanks to the incredible developer support Tim Sweeney and the guys at Epic provide to their customers we can expect to see this in UT engine games as early as Spring 2001. There's even the danger that it might run well on average computers, something that UT has gained something of a reputation for not being able to do. The main question from the perspective of console gamers is will Xbox developers (seemingly the most likely non-PC group to use it) using the UT engine be able to take advantage of it. Well according to this interview at VoodooExtreme, yes they will! One of the first things Tim Sweeney mentions is that the really exciting application of this tech will come when "DirectX8/X-Box hardware starts to make its way into developers' hands". Despite this revelation, Tim's remarkably tight-lipped throughout the short interview.

While not wholly related to gaming, it must be said that we at EuroGamer can't get enough Napster controversy. The latest (and possibly greatest) coup for the North American music distribution service is the official release of The Smashing Pumpkins' new album Machina II: The Friends and Enemies of Modern Music exclusively on MP3. Described as a "final 'f**k you'" to record label Virgin, the album can be downloaded over Napster and on several selected music websites. According to CNet, there are only 25 Vinyl copies in existance. The Reg' believes this to be a sign of the times, stating that it's a new trend for disgruntled musicians to release their wares via MP3, but a forum post on the Smashing Pumpkins' UBB states that "the band instructed some of the recipients to circulate and distribute the material," and that they describe it as "an official bootleg". The big question on everyone's lips must be where do Virgin stand on this. It seems like they don't care. According to the FAQ again, "Virgin was not interested in releasing a followup to Machina, so rather than pack up their gear and go home, they recorded and released it themselves." As such it's less of a "f**k you" and more of a "I told you so" to the label, who presumably believed that the album would be unpopular if ever released. If you want the album, look it up on Napster, and you can take a look at the artwork that would accompany it here, in high quality PDF form. Grab this while you can, because as far as The Smashing Pumpkins are concerned, that's it.

Last time we saw the trilogy of games based on the infamous horror movie "The Blair Witch Project", there was very little actual gameplay in evidence, and only the first of the three games ("The Rustin Parr Investigation") was very far into development. What we did see was surprisingly promising though - after all, you wouldn't think that a low budget movie about a bunch of students running around in a forest screaming and bawling their eyes out would make a very good basis for a computer game. Since then a lot has happened though, so at the recent ECTS 2000 trade show in London we took the chance to catch up with developers Human Head and find out more about their work on the second of the Blair Witch games, "The Legend of Coffin Rock"...

The latest UK release schedule has just arrived from Take 2 Europe, with several notable changes since last month. Several key titles have slipped, with the third of the "Blair Witch" games now delayed from the end of November to early next year, and "Oni" following suit - hardly surprising given the state the game was apparently in when we saw it at ECTS recently. Caribbean dictator sim "Tropico" has been pushed back from first quarter to second quarter 2001, and "Max Payne" has been delayed yet again, this time slipping from second quarter to third quarter 2001.

One of the more bizarre features of the forthcoming turn-based strategy game "Squad Leader" is that the men in your squad sometimes get letters from home. In an interview with Strategy Gaming Online, producer Andy Mazurek explains that "the letters from home represent a life-altering event for the soldier - it could be a letter informing him of his parents' death or a letter telling the soldier that he is about to be a father".

"Blair Witch Volume 1 : The Rustin Parr Investigation" has now "gone gold", meaning that the game is complete and has been sent off for duplication. It is expected on shelves in both the USA and UK on September 27th, and the recommended US retail price is confirmed as $19.99, which is likely to equate to somewhere between £15 and £20 in the UK. For those of you living out in the woods, Rustin Parr is the first of three Blair Witch games to be released this year, all based on the engine which powered last year's spooky action-adventure game "Nocturne" but all designed by different developers. This first one is by Terminal Reality ("Nocturne"), while Human Head ("Rune") are creating the second, and Ritual ("FAKK2") the third.

The latest Half-Life add-on from Neil Manke, "They Hunger 2", is now available for download

- GuillemotPrice - £130

Bruce Campbell is probably best known for his role as Ash in the Evil Dead movies, but he has also become involved in the gaming industry, most recently providing the voice of your character in "Tachyon : The Fringe". Soon he will combine the two with the release of "Evil Dead : Hail To The King", a zombie blaster based on the cult movie series and featuring Bruce's voice. Speaking in an interview with Games Mania, Bruce points out that "computer games have already become more movie-like and movies have become more game-like", and predicts that "in time they will be one and the same".

What is it about flying cars? People have been predicting we would all be buzzing around in the skies for decades, and yet here we are in the 21st century and we're still rooted to the ground with all four wheels sticking solidly to the tarmac. But although flying cars are common in the movies (Bladerunner, Back To The Future, Fifth Element etc), they are rather less abundant in computer games. Polish developers Techland are looking to change all that with Crime Cities, a kind of airborne 3D accelerated Grand Theft Auto for the new millenium...

Heading East? Singapore Airlines have just the thing to stop you losing your sanity.. As you may or may not know Singapore Airlines and Nintendo have had the "Super NES Gateway" in place on flights since 1994, allowing people on the go to relax with a selection of SNES games. As of November, passengers on 747-400 airliners will be able to make use of a GameBoy as part of the MAS System 3000 In-Flight Entertainment, with a large selection of games available for use. All of the usual titles including Zelda, Mario, Pokemon and others will be available. What puzzles me about this deal is that GameBoys (and the forthcoming GameBoy Advance) are at the height of portability - with battery life that lasts for quite some time. Surely the point of them is to have to take onboard aircraft and the like..

After their event at the Millenium Dome in London last weekend, Battletop have another tournament taking place this weekend, this time in New York. The Battletop NYC Challenge will again feature large cash prizes for competitions ranging across FIFA 2000, Age of Empires II, Starcraft, Quake 3 and Unreal Tournament, with a couple of hundred contestants expected to take part in the event. EuroGamer will be flying out to the big apple to manage the Age of Empires II and Quake 3 clan competitions, and will also be providing full coverage of the event afterwards. In the meantime you can find out more about these competitions on EuroGamer's NYC Challenge forums.

Cube.IGN have updated with a bunch of interesting news stories fresh from the Japanese press. For one they have news of a Famitsu Weekly poll that questioned 60 Japanese game developers about the next generation console. The results are interesting rather than revealing, with a lot of people who think the technical design, aesthetics and gimmick will sell the unit. Only two developers out of the 60 were willing to say they will not be developing for it. Also from IGN comes pictures of the external V90 56k modem built by Conexant and how it will be attached to the unit. The Hi-Speed Port and the Serial Port 2 haven't been spoken about, but users will be able to choose between a modem adapter and a broadband device for Serial Port 1, both built by Conexant. They will be sold separately. Nintendo has yet to announce its complete online strategy, although judging by Sega's difficulties with their online infrastructure it will be playing its cards close to its chest. Finally, they wrap up with a video reel of Spaceworld 2000 footage.

Somebody has finally found something useful to do with the Millenium Dome, the now infamous giant tent which has hoovered up vast quantities of government funding and corporate investment here in the UK, and the sole redeeming quality of which so far was its brief appearance in the intro sequence of the last James Bond movie. Korean based company BattleTop chose the Dome as the venue for their debut British event, running a large computer games tournament there which covered the usual Quake 3, Unreal Tournament and StarCraft, as well as Age of Empires II and soccer game FIFA 2000. Up for grabs was a total of around £30,000 in prize money, making this the largest event of its kind held in the UK so far.

According to Camille Scaysbrook, lead writer on the massively multiplayer role-playing game "BigWorld", "the mission generation system is one of the defining features of the game", giving players a wide range of interesting things to do instead of relying on a limited number of pre-scripted missions. Speaking in an interview with fan site BigWorld Vault, Camille revealed that "the system allows us to generate an interesting and diverse range of tasks on the fly, taking into account character abilities, personal history, and current game events".

3dfx have announced that they will be demonstrating their VoodooMAC 5500 PCI graphics card at the Apple Expo 2000 trade show in Paris this week. Described as the company's "first Apple Macintosh-dedicated Voodoo card", it will bring the Voodoo 5's full-scene anti-aliasing support and fast frame rates to the Mac. 3dfx's Luciano Alibrandi is quoted as saying that "the best computer platform deserves the best graphics accelerator solutions", which should go down well with the Mac community (all five of them). "Apple Expo is a great event for showcasing our new cards and we're confident that once people have seen just how good graphics can look on their Mac systems, they won't want anything else in there". For the full story, read the press release.

Barking Dog Studios are currently hard at work putting the finishing touches to "Homeworld : Cataclysm", a stand-alone expansion on last year's hit space-bound real-time strategy game. Featuring a whole new storyline, an enhanced engine and new ships and technology, it has become more than a mission pack but is also not a full sequel. In an interview with GameSpy.com, designer Chris Stewart explains that "a traditional sequel is something we felt was Relic's prerogative, not ours".

Ever since I reviewed Magical Racing Tour on the PlayStation I've been itching to see what a little extra time and effort could do for the Dreamcast incarnation. It's been quite a while in the coming for some reason, but now it's here.. and very little has changed. For those of you who cannot be bothered to go and read my original review (shame on you!), MRT is a racing title inspired by the Mario Kart generation. In other words the story is irrelevant to the action, the action itself is frenetic and half of the challenge is to make cunning use of the powerups and shoulder-button-jump powerslides. What is gained by adding a third dimension to the Mario Kart formula however is also lost against the often insurmountable challenge and the glitchy graphics. MRT places you in the shoes of Chip and Dale, the Chipmunks (although you can play as other Disney characters too), and unfortunately for Disneyland you have accidentally dropped some acorns into the "magic machine" that deals with the fireworks display. As such it has vomitously discharged its electrical innards and expects you to go and find them again in time for tonight's show! This is all lovingly explained to you by Mr. Jiminy Cricket, who appears in beautifully rendered cutscenes and provides hints in reconstructing the machine on the status page. We still don't understand why this collecting of pieces takes the form of a series of races against other Disneyland occupants nor why some of the races take place at night despite the "before tonight's show" emphasis. It's all in the name of fun for the children though, so we won't knock it. What we will knock however, is the graphics, sound, gameplay and challenge, in that order.

SimHQ have posted several new missions for tank sim "Steel Beasts"

Up until now the massively multiplayer role-playing game genre has been dominated by tree huggers, with all of the leading games (Ultima Online, Everquest and Asheron's Call) based in fantasy settings, and most of them featuring more than their fair share of elves, trolls and dragons. All that is about to change though, and one of the first science fiction inspired online role-playing games to be released is "Anarchy Online", an ambitious game which is currently entering its first round of beta testing.

The Quake 3 competitions ended somewhat later than expected at Battletop's big tournament at the Millenium Dome in London last night, but for those of you following the competition, here are the last results of the evening... The Quake 3 duel competition came down to a hard fought three map match between Timber and Blokey, who had previously faced off against each other at the UK's CPL-Europe qualifier earlier in the summer. In the end it was Timber who again emerged victorious, winning on Q3Tourney2, losing out to Blokey's rail on Q3Tourney, and finally taking the win on Q3DM13. Both players will represent the UK in Korea at the World Cyber Games Challenge.