- Eco Fighters (US 940215)
- Mega Man: The Power Battle (CPS2, USA 951006)
- Rockman: The Power Battle (CPS2, Japan 950922)
- Dimahoo (Euro 000121)
- Street Fighter Alpha 3 (Euro 980904)
- 19XX: The War Against Destiny (Brazil 951218)
- Night Warriors: Darkstalkers Revenge (Euro 950316)
- X-Men: Children of the Atom (Japan 941222)
- Real Bout Fatal Fury (set 2)
- The King of Fighters 2003 (set 2)
- Metal Slug 5 (set 2)
- Soccer Brawl (alternate set)
* Fixed currupted graphics in progeara.
* Changed some NeoGeo M ROM sizes in to match MAME (.122).
* Changed some NeoGeo ROM names to match MAME (.122).
New update of this frontend for MAME for Windows 98SE, 2000 and XP.
Changelog:
* Fixed crash when using joystick select with no sets in view.
* Fixed crash when using joystick select when a dialog is open.
* Search text is no longer cleared when opening Default Options.
You won't need to delete your existing mp.ini if upgrading from 1.8.2
Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed has finished 2007 at the top of the UK's all formats charts with a drop of only 7 per cent in sales.
Electronic Arts' FIFA 08 missed out on the top spot by around 1000 sales, for the week ended December 31.
The Christmas number one, Activision's Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, has slipped down the charts to number three with a 37 per cent decline in sales.
Sales of EA's The Simpsons Game fell by 24 per cent as it dropped one place to number four, while Need for Speed Pro Street stays at number five, with sales down 23 per cent.
The only game in the top ten to see sales increase for the period was Konami's Pro Evolution Soccer 2008, as the game moved up the charts from number 13 to number six.
THQ's WWE Smackdown Vs Raw 2008 is at seven, Nintendo's More Brain Training is at eight, Activision's Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock at nine and Sega's The Golden Compass enters the top ten at ten.
The latest sales charts for Spain and Germany show strong support for the Nintendo platforms, with DS titles Dr Kawashima's Brain Training and More Brain Training coming in the top two in both countries.
The charts, compiled by Media-Control GfK International for the sales week ending December 23, also show Nintendo featuring in all top five positions in Germany, and eight of the top ten in Spain.
Wii Play, Super Mario Galaxy and Mario & Sonic at the Olympics rounded out the German top five, with Need for Speed Pro Street, FIFA 08 and High School Musical taking the next three places for the PlayStation 2.
The only other format represented was Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare for the Xbox 360 - meaning that neither Sony's nor Microsoft's next-gen platforms were represented at all.
That was also true in Spain, although WWE Smackdown! vs Raw 2008 and Pro Evolution Soccer 2008 were third and fourth on the PS2.
The rest of the top ten was all Nintendo, however, with four more DS titles and two Wii games.
The full charts are as follows:
Germany
1. More Brain Training with Dr Kawashima (DS)
2. Dr Kawashima's Brain Training (DS)
3. Wii Play (Wii)
4. Super Mario Galaxy (Wii)
5. Mario & Sonic at the Olympics (Wii)
6. Need for Speed Pro Street (PS2)
7. FIFA 08 (PS2)
8. High School Musical: Sing It (PS2)
9. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (PC)
10. New Super Mario Bros (DS)
Spain
1. More Brain Training with Dr Kawashima (DS)
2. Dr Kawashima's Brain Training (DS)
3. WWE Smackdown! vs Raw 2008 (PS2)
4. Pro Evolution Soccer 2008 (PS2)
5. Eye Training (DS)
6. Wii Play (Wii)
7. Mario Party DS (DS)
8. Triiviial (Wii)
9. Imagine Babyz (DS)
10. Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass (DS)
We're all well aware of the scams that sometimes happen in online games like Eve Online. But despite this looking primarily like a problem with Eve Online, the MIT Technology Review brings us stories from Second Life and the very real $700,000 (USD) in Linden Dollars that has recently disappeared in what is appearing to be a classic ponzi scheme by a company named Ginko Banking. Unbelievably high interest rates coupled with some shady withdrawal limits leads to classic epic losses to investors. Eve Online was merely virtual currency but Second Life has a real monetary value associated with Linden Dollars & therefore is certain to see more and more scams pop up like this. How can Linden Labs set up a safety net to catch things like this?
Fireglow's recently released World War II RTS sequel Sudden Strike 3 is now the proud owner of new free content, hot from the developer's coding shop.
The new content consists of three maps collected in one pack, two of the maps being multiplayer while the third is a single-player mission. On top of that, the pack features "a patch with numerous improvements and bug fixes".
Here's the scoop on each map from Fireglow:
Tongs: This peculiar map contains a large island in the middle. It can be played by 2 up to 6 people. There are 5 bridges on the map and a lot of flags to fight for. Elimination: This map features kill-em-all style on a flat map. Untermehmen VII "C": This hardcore single mission features the old good Sudden Strike play. You have limited amount of reinforcements ... and the enemy has much more. You will like it.
In related news, Fireglow's already working on a first expansion for Sudden Strike 3 that focuses on the Ardennes Offensive. It's due out April, and confirmed so far are three new campaigns, new multiplayer maps, "the new option of playing for France" and a map editor.
- The play processing of ADPCM sound source has been improved. In the visual scene of "Lodoss Tou Senki", the problem that the voice became interrupted on the way occasionally was solved.
- The access processing of CD-ROM was brought close to the movement of a real machine. In "Kabuki Ittou Ryoudan", the problem that had been occasionally freezed was solved.
- Additionally, a detailed part has been improved and corrected.
New version of this japanese frontend for Windows. It supports Game Boy, Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance, Game Gear, Neo Geo Pocket, WonderSwan, Lynx and Super Famicom emulators.
via WorthPlaying (There are many screens for every platform, click now!)
SEGA Superstars Tennis has over 15 playable SEGA idols including Sonic the Hedgehog, AiAi from Super Monkeyball fame, Ulala of Space Channel 5 and Amigo from Samba De Amigo. In addition to their own unique attributes, each character will also come equipped with their own superstar tennis skills, putting a whole new spin on each match played!
Exhibition mode offers the chance to challenge Sonic, or the character or your choice, to a match on one of many courts, including Sonic’s home court of Green Hill Zone, or Amigo’s Carnival Park court. Wherever you play there will be a host of SEGA celebrities cheering you on from courtside and by partaking in crazy doubles matches with your choice of partner, you could end up playing against some pretty unusual couples! Prove your SEGA hero is the shining star of SEGA Superstars Tennis by collecting silverware in the Tournament Mode. There will also be the opportunity to unlock a host of exciting extras which will be announced in the near future!
Complementing the Exhibition and Tournament modes, there will also be new and innovative ways of enjoying some of SEGA’s classic titles, plus platform exclusive ways to play the game, including online modes for X360 and PS3 versions!
“SEGA Superstars Tennis has the potential to be one of the most fun and accessible sports games ever.” commented Gary Knight, European Marketing Director. “The fantastic Sumo Digital team has had access to a wealth of SEGA IP and you’ll be surprised at the gaming icons that will be making an appearance!”
Available on the PS3, PS2, X360, NDS, and Wii, SEGA Superstars Tennis will release in early 2008.
Kohjinsha's UMPCs might have gotten a little overshadowed by the Eee, but the company is making a renewed push with two new models. The new L series replaces the SA series, retaining the aging AMD Geode chipset but upgrading the keyboard and bumping the touchscreen resolution to 1024x600, while the V series replaces the K series, keeping the Intel A110 chipset but adding GPS and a 7-inch optical drive. Both models should be shipping in the middle of the month, but there's no word on pricing -- we'll let you know if we hear any numbers at CES.
Welcome to this week's Games & Toys update, our weekly summary featuring all new product arrivals from the last seven days.
Following the busy Christmas season, the year has as usually started very slow, this time with just one new Japanese video game release. Japanese suppliers are on their New Year holidays, closing down for the first week of the year. Just like every year, we are trying to keep additional buffers on hot selling items but there are unavoidably slight delays for items that are not in stock until suppliers return back to work coming week.
Here is a quick summary of what's been new in stock this week, followed by a quick preview of what is expected next week.
Nintendo DS™:
Rune Factory 2 JPN US$ 48.90
Books & Magazines:
Arcadia Magazine [February 2008] JPN US$ 12.90
Famitsu Wave DVD [February 2008] JPN US$ 16.50
Xbox 360 Achievements: Unlocked US US$ 9.99
Toys & More:
.hack//Sign Lovable Collection Vol. 2 Pre-Painted PVC Figure: Black Rose JPN US$ 12.49
.hack//Sign Lovable Collection Vol. 2 Pre-Painted PVC Figure: Sabaru JPN US$ 12.49
Armored Troops Votoms 1/12 Scale Pre-painted PVC Figure: Brutishdog & Fyana JPN US$ 179.90
Bleach Characters 5 Non Scale Pre-Painted PVC Trading Figure JPN US$ 5.90
Burst Angel 1/8 Scale Pre-Painted PVC Figure: Sei JPN US$ 29.90
Burst Angel 1/8 Scale Pre-Painted PVC Figure: Sei (Limited Version) JPN US$ 29.90
Creator's Labo #015 Neon Genesis Evangelion 1/6 Scale Pre-Painted PVC Figure: Rei Ayanami JPN US$ 59.90
Dragon Ball Z Non Scale Pre-Painted Gashapon: Neo Super-soldier of Legend Version JPN US$ 5.90
Dragon Quest Chapter of Heaven Vol.1 Collection - Pre-Painted PVC Trading Figure JPN US$ 4.90
Eushully's Meishoku no Reiki 1/6 Scale Pre-Painted PVC Figure: Silfietta Luashia JPN US$ 74.90
Feyenoord Rotterdam 14 Pre-Painted Mini Figure: Shinji Ono JPN US$ 9.90
Final Fantasy VII Advent Children Play Arts Pre-Painted Action Figure: Sephiroth JPN US$ 38.90
Final Fantasy X Play Arts Pre-Painted Action Figure: Tidus JPN US$ 38.90
Gradius Sky Girls 1/60 Scale Model-Kit: Vic Viper (Sky Girls Version) JPN US$ 39.90
Hamburger SV 32 Pre-Painted Mini Figure: Naohiro Takahara JPN US$ 9.90
Ikkitousen 1/6 Scale Pre-Painted Figure: Ryomou Shimei JPN US$ 59.90
Ikkitousen 1/7 Scale Painted Figure: Ryomou Shimei (Black Nurse Ver.) JPN N/A
Ikkitousen Scale 1/7 Pre-Painted PVC Figure: Kanu Gothic Lolita Dress (Black Version) JPN US$ 49.90
Ikkitousen Scale 1/8 Pre-Painted PVC Figure: Sonsaku Hakufu Maid Fighter (Black Version) JPN US$ 49.90
Kasutama P Yoake Mae yori Ruri Iro na Non Scale Pre-Painted PVC Figure: Estel Freesia JPN US$ 64.90
Kasutama P Yoake Mae yori Ruri Iro na Non Scale Pre-Painted PVC Figure: Feena Fam Earthlight JPN US$ 74.90
MM Train No.44 Pre-Painted Gashapon JPN US$ 1.90
Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS 1/6 Scale Pre-Painted PVC Figure: Takamachi Nanoha JPN US$ 159.90
Masterpiece of Shunya Yamashita 1/7 Scale Pre-Painted PVC Figure: Shoko-San (Repainted Version) JPN US$ 59.90
Neon Genesis Evangelion 1/7 Scale Metallic Pre-Painted Action Figure: EVA-00 Prototype JPN US$ 19.90
Neon Genesis Evangelion 1/7 Scale Metallic Pre-Painted Action Figure: EVA-01 Test Type JPN US$ 19.90
Neon Genesis Evangelion 1/7 Scale Metallic Pre-Painted Action Figure: EVA-02 Production Model JPN US$ 19.90
Raki Suta Collection Non Scale Pre-Painted PVC Trading Figure JPN N/A
Robot Mini Figure Collection Vol.1 Pre-Painted Trading Figure JPN US$ 3.49
SIF EX The Onee Chanbara 1/6 Scale Pre-Painted PVC Figure: Aya (Special color Ver) JPN US$ 54.90
SR Super Sea Story Figure Collection Gashapon JPN US$ 3.49
Sake Cellar Tour Cup Series Non Scale Pre-Painted Trading Figure JPN US$ 2.90
Samurai Spirits: Iroha 1/6 Scale Prepainted PVC Figure JPN US$ 59.90
Sound Pot Yamanote & Osaka Loop Line Gashapon JPN US$ 2.90
Tokustsu Daihyakka Gamera Pre-Painted Mini Figure Collection Trading Figure JPN US$ 1.90
Unisonshift Collection Pre-Painted PVC Trading Figure JPN US$ 4.90
Zero no Tsukaima - 1/8 Scale Pre-Painted PVC Figure: Louise (Kneeling ver.) JPN N/A
Zoids Command Geno Saurer 1/72 Plastic Model Kit JPN N/A
Video Game Soundtracks:
Guilty Gear 2 Overture Original Soundtrack Vol.2 JPN US$ 27.90
Honeycoming - One More Chime! JPN US$ 29.90
A separate Video/Music update containing Japanese releases from this week, including new Anime, J-Pop and Movie releases will follow prior end of the week.
It's going to remain relatively calm next week, with just eight new releases in Japan, most of them budget reprints. Expected to be among the better selling releases are Kateikyoushi Hitman Reborn! Dream Hyper Battle! Wii for Nintendo Wii™ and the Asian release version of Wipeout Pulse for PSP™.
Forbes business magazine has chosen Nvidia as its "Company of the Year" for 2007.
The publication noted that, in the past four years, Nvidia has come from a trailing position to dominate the "breakneck, highly lucrative graphics-chip business."
Nvidia GPUs were used in the original Xbox and are being used in Sony's PlayStation 3. As bandwidth becomes cheaper and ubiquitous, with consumers wanting 3D power for online applications as much as for gaming, the demand for graphics processors is expected to grow.
"The more content there is, the more visual interest there can be, the more processing horsepower people need," said Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang.
Nvidia owns 62 per cent of the market for desktop PC graphics cards, up from 57 per cent a year ago, according to Mercury Research. The company has also increased its gross margin from 29 per cent in 2004 to a current 46 per cent.
In the fiscal year ending in a few weeks, Nvidia will gross USD 4 billion, up 33 per cent, and net USD 900 million, up 50 per cent, according to Forbes. Since the company went public in 1999, Nvidia's shares have risen 21-fold, edging out even Apple over the same time period.
Forbes pointed to all of these accomplishments as the basis for awarding Nvidia the "Company of the Year" title.
Nine new screenshots from GSC's new S.T.A.L.K.E.R. project, Clear Sky, have bombed onto the internet. Take a look.
Clear Sky kicks off a year before events portrayed in Shadow Of Chernobyl. Imagine, if you will, that the Chernobyl exclusion zone is a very big pie with the power plant at its centre.
It's not a particularly nice pie - the folks at Fray Bentos shouldn't be unduly concerned - but the original game covers what's essentially a southerly slice of it.
The prequel, meanwhile, gives you an extra slice of this metaphorical pie at the same time as covering some noteworthy changes within what we've played through already. So much so that the game is 50 percent new areas, and 50 percent twisted renditions of what you've played before.
3000AD's war game Universal Combat is now available to download for free, following word from the developer in December that such a plan was in the pipeline.
"Once again, our freeware game is released with no advertising, no nag screens, no expiration date, nothing. Just the full (and patched) single player game as was commercially released in Feb 2004, but with fewer music tracks (the game FAQ shows how players can add their own MP3 tracks) and no multiplayer", 3000AD has explained.
Universal Combat is technically an instalment in the long-running Battlecruiser series, but underwent a name change prior to release and was more action-focussed than previous entries in the franchise. You can download the free game here.
- analog controls now working (tested with an Xbox 360 pad controller)
- added Dynamite Deka 2 (Model 2B)
- added ManxTT Superbike (sound is still broken)
- added Dynamite Cop 2 (Model 2C)
- removed graphic garbage at the right and bottom of the screen
- removed some lighting bugs
- SCSP bugs removed that caused the game Pilot Kids to sound bad
- fixed a color display problem (e.g. the font on the Pilot Kids title)
- fixed fullscreen rendering bug when using graphics filters which led to some disappearing pixels (e.g. the "Rolling Start" in Daytona USA)
- added the enhancements which where introduced in the CPS3 emulator (V-Sync, custom fullscreen resolutions, ...)
This release is all about fixes to the NES code. I've made some structural changes to the 6502 which corrected a bunch of problems (e.g. Battletoads) and added a few mappers. A bunch of the fixes are due to removing some unsafe speed optimizations. The overall speed is still plenty fast, so it was worth doing. The new code now supports the following mappers: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 9, 10, 11, 16, 19, 33, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 87, 93, 160, 180. Mappers 64, 65, 66, 232, and 116 appear to be supported as well. I've also fixed the NES load/save code, but the fix required that I change the SAV files. Please delete all of your old SAV files (the BAK files haven't changed, you can still use the old ones).
According to analyst Shaw Wu, Apple has plans to start selling computers with Blu-ray drives built-in. It'll announce this at Macworld, and immediately thereafter the HD DVD camp will gulp audibly. That is, if it's merely a Blu-ray drive. Wu covers his ass by also saying that there's "a smaller chance Apple may use a combo Blu-ray/HD DVD drive to ensure full compatibility and not get involved in the format wars." Or, heck, they might not do either.
I guarantee one of those three things will happen at Macworld. I feel like an analyst! If Apple does go with Blu-ray (or combo drives, for that matter), look for them to first go in overhauled Mac Pros, which are sure to be bananas-expensive. What do you think, would you spring for a high-def disc drive if it was offered?
THQ will be making a videogame version of Pixar's latest offering, WALL•E, and should be releasing it this summer to coincide with the launch of the film.
Well, Heavy Iron Studios, which is part of THQ, will be the ones actually making it, and those clever men and women will be assembling it for Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, PS2, DS, PSP, PC, Mac and mobile.
WALL•E is the typically comedic Pixar tale of the last robot on earth, who seems to have been left to run around doing what he's meant for while humanity's scarpered, and what happens when he bands together with some malfunctioning fellow robots on a journey across the universe to do something and so on.
The game features ten worlds, with storyline, characters and locations from the film, plus some new bits, and head-to-head multiplayer challenges. It all adds up to a "fast-paced adventure game" according to THQ.
German PC gamers are being invited to try Team Fortress 2 out for free this weekend.
The free weekend is open to all confirmed German Steam users from 4th to 6th January, and if you want to get involved you can even pre-load it in advance.
Meanwhile, Valve continues to support the online multiplayer component of The Orange Box with Steam patches, the latest of which crushes an exploit and fixes that "CUtlLinkedList overflow!" crash. Phew.
As everyone knows, not least because we said so in paragraph three, Team Fortress 2 is part of The Orange Box, which also includes the Half-Life 2 games and Portal.
And as you know, because you pay attention, TF2 and Portal also featured prominently in our end of year Top 50 Games - in the top ten in fact.
* Fixed corrupted line in the about dialog when displaying it for the 2nd time
* Allow the sfx volume and music volume to be set to more than 100% (until 200%) for games with too quiet samples.
* fixed crash in last resort (at start)
* games which upload to the pcm area can also use savegames now (previously trying to save such a game exited neoraine)
* startup.bin becomes obsolete and is removed
* last blade 2 had lost its title screen because it was trying to use dma for its uploads, it's now supported.
* Pulstar gains a speed hack too.
* Fixed the huge bug with the sfx sound only on the left side, it's now stereo, sorry !!!
* Added a new menu item 'CPS-III Settings -> 'Enable FastBoot' & 'Enable SpeedHacks'. These options make it posible to use or not use the features. They don't affect gameplay and they don't cause any type of guru meditation.
* I Verified & Updated latest CPS3 driver with all CPS3 romsets, DIPs, CleanUp and the region patching code. Now every game is playable and there are no guru meditations of any kind.
!* Added OopsWare latest update to the CPS-3 driver, it includes sound & more speed.
* Added update made by IQ_132 to his 'Quiz Olympic' driver. [ThanX to IQ_132].
!* New Feature: "View Romset Information" - it will let you see all the selected driver roms, crc32, size and type of rom. It display the romset name, total size in different ways (Bytes, KB & MB) and the number of files in the romset ^^.
* Added Update made by BisonSAS to the 'Quiz Olympic' driver originally made by IQ_132 [ThanX to BisonSAS]
Good news for Sega fans: the UK release date for NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams has been confirmed as Jan. 18, so anyone looking to spend some leftover Christmas money has just two weeks to wait (see our preview for a quick look).
The release date for Condemned 2 has also been set in stone, arriving on our shores on the 14th March for the PS3 and Xbox 360. The 'Bloodshot' tagline has also been dropped.
Here's Sega's full list for the next couple of months:
Jan. 25
Phantasy Star Ambition of the Illuminus, PC, PS2
Universe at War: Earth Assault, PC
Jan. 18
NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams, Wii
Ghost Squad, Wii
Feb. 8
The Club, PS3, PC, Xbox 360
Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games, DS
Feb. 14
Condemned 2, Xbox 360, PS3
Feb. 22
Sonic Riders Zero Gravity, PS2, Wii
Feb. 29
Bleach, DS, Wii
March 7
Universe at War: Earth Assault, Xbox 360
March 28
Sega Superstars Tennis, Wii, PS3, DS, PS2, Xbox 360
Viking: Battle of Asgard, PS3, Xbox 360
As if we needed another display standard, along comes DisplayPort, approved last year and just about to sally forth on graphics cards and monitors everywhere. WTF do we need another standard for, anyway? Bandwidth, that's why. DisplayPort (plug pictured above at left, next to a Dual-link DVI cable) can handle a maximum 10.8Gb per second, carries 8 channels of digital audio as well as all that video, and has a bidirectional auxiliary channel that can also handle 1Mb per second. That's a lot of data. It could turn out to be a reliable, fast and easy-to-use bridge between computers and home theater displays. But DisplayPort is not all sweetness and light.
A touted aspect of DisplayPort is its "security," comforting to those who create content but an unwelcome guest for those who can't stand even the thought of DRM (digital rights management). Carrying HDCP along with it, the standard is designed to protect content from those free-copying, eyepatch-wearing pirates. In addition to that, it also carries an additional DRM can of worms, DPCP (DisplayPort Content Protection).
That gives the standard an advantage over DVI in the eyes of content creators, who have sometimes been known to arm-twist various hardware manufacturers. Speaking of which, the standard has gotten rousing support from many of the usual suspects, including Dell, HP, Philips, Samsung, Intel and Lenovo, and also graphics cards manufacturers AMD and NVIDIA.
Those companies might like this standard better than HDMI for another reason, too: Unlike HDMI, DisplayPort's an open standard with no fees required to those who invented it. Other than that, besides the slight bandwidth advantage of DisplayPort, the two are almost the same and will be interchangable in some cases with an adapter. But not all cases. Such as...
What do we like about it? You can daisy chain multiple 2560x1600 monitors together, and the standard also supports fiber optic cable, able to blast tons of serious bandwidth for longer distances. It also has an advantage over DVI with its 15-meter spec length, compared with DVI's measly 5-meter recommended distance. We're also quite fond of that ability to support 16-bit color for each component, and hey, the damn thing is easier to connect than a DVI or VGA cable. With Dell and ATI first out of the gate, expect graphics cards and monitors to jump on board any day now.
* File "\arcade\system_name.el" not updated correctly when doing a single game scan
* Left panel custom background color not being set (same as games list)
* Scan results was not checking for merged sets and adding all those games to its list
* ZiNc games showing when using "Vector" filter
* History label (top game documents panel) was bugged
* Bad treeview colors in "check for missing images" and "check for missing MAMu_ icons"
* Executing games with "Run Custom Game Settings By Default" enabled was searching only for game custom command lines
* Setting / deleting "debug.ini" for MAME was not working correctly
Changed
* Scan results changed to not include games where "gamename.zip" is not found (for both master and clone sets
Improved
* Emulators setup screen UI updated for easier access
* Fixed appearance of ListView lists in several screens (for Windows Vista)
* Multi-selection enabled for the left panel filters. Select a bunch of filters and all games from those filters combined will be displayed in the list
* Single selection is still supported... of course
* Left panel now use the main filter "Have / Miss". Note that selecting this main filter will overwrite the select filters from the left panel!
* Columns editor UI improved a little bit for easier maintenance
* Minor improvements to the left panel
* More optimizations for easier maintenance (no speed improvements)
* Reduced to 10 tries the "Random Game" feature so the front-end does not fall into an endless loop. Useful if you are viewing a list where most games are hidden
Removed
* Games list icons are not validated anymore. If there is one or more files missing, the icons in the games list will be messed up
Added
* Support for MARP data file (http://marp.retrogames.com)... game documents feature
File is updated daily. Download it from this link: http://marp.retrogames.com/marp.dat
Place it in "[frontend]\ini_files\" folder or MAME root folder.
* New main menu: "Left Panel"
This menu will have some special options. One of them, create special filters using Emu Loader's internal database, to be used with the left panel
Menu Items so far:
"Create Control Types File" -> create a "controltype.ini" with a list of all MAME control types and its games. Some users might want to use this filter instead of the one from "Games Filters" main menu
More improvements to the left panel:
-> Left panel popup menu:
"Apply Selected Filters" -> use this menu item to enforce the left panel to apply its selected filters (useful when multiple filters are selected and you used the main filters and want to revert to the left panel)
"Collapse / Expand Tree" -> collapse or expand all items in the tree
"Reload TreeView" -> reload all .ini files into the treeview (no filters are applied!)
"Default Panel Size" -> restore the default width of the left panel
New files: -> folder: "\resources\main_icons\"
"leftpanel_root.ico"
-> folder: "\resources\gameslist_icons\"
"MAMEParent.ico"
"MAMEClone.ico"
"MAMEBios.ico"
"UnMAMEParent.ico"
"UnMAMEClone.ico"
"UnMAMEBios.ico"
* MameTunes is a launcher application of SDLMAME / MAME OS X / MacMAME.
* It is an application only for Mac OS X.
* It is a universal binary application corresponding to PowerPC/Intel® processor. (Maybe)
* It runs on Mac OS X 10.4.2 or higher. It doesn't guarantee to running on Mac OS X 10.5. (It doesn't confirm it.)
* It is a freeware
Remember that curious Noahpad UMPC we peeked just as 2007 was coming to a close? Turns out, E-Lead Electronics has finally gotten around to making an official announcement about it, and it will unsurprisingly be debuting at CES. This 7-inch UMPC will indeed utilize the firm's own human machine interface (HMI), and while pricing wasn't provided down to the penny or anything, it will be "within range" of Asus' Eee PC for obvious reasons. Oh, and E-Lead apparently recommends hanging it around your neck while jogging -- now there's a concept.
New version of the multi-system emulator for PC. It emulates The Atari Lynx, GameBoy (Color), GameBoy Advance, NES, PC Engine(TurboGrafx 16), SuperGrafx, Neo Geo Pocket (Color), PC-FX, and WonderSwan (Color).
Changelog:
GBA: DMA registers were being saved as 32-bit arrays instead of 16-bit arrays in save states, potentially causing memory corruption, and broken save states on big endian platforms. Fixed.
NES: Removed the AltiVec resampling code, as it causes problems on the PS3, and possibly other PPC chips, and I don't have a PowerPC machine to test it on. The NES sound filtering code will be rewritten in 0.9.0, anyway.
GBA: Fixed a startup crashing bug on big-endian platforms.
Changed instances of fprintf() in mempatcher.cpp to trio_fprintf() to work around major issues with pre-C99 standard C libraries.
GBA: The Load() function was returning a largeish integer, instead of 1, after successfully loading a ROM image. Fixed.
• Fonts were badly rendered when forcing normal blits (instead of yuv overlays)
• From the raine engine : fix a crash when choosing to change the video mode to the game resolution with scale 2x enabled.
• Added a new speed hack for last resort.
• now supports wav in cue files, and neocheats.cfg is the right version, not the test version as before !
Targ is a one or two player shooter game released by Exidy in 1980. Your town is invaded by Targ riders, you must manouvre the heroic vehicle Whummel to destroy them. From time to time, a Spectar comes into screen, and can be destroyed for extra bonus.
Action takes place into a 9x9 grid, "Crystal City", where the player's vehicle must avoid and chase down 10 enemy wedge-shaped vehicles. When all enemies are destroyed, you are awarded an extra bonus and can access the following level. Two players can alternate in the game. You use a 4 way joystick to control the Whummel, and a pushbutton to fire at enemies. Progressing in the gameplay causes the Targs to become faster and smarter, for a fast and furious gameplay.
A small trivia on the game and characters name: apparently, Targ stands for Target, Spectar stands for Special Target.
While in that period many western companies licensed games from japanese developers (Exidy itself licensed Nintendo's Sheriff as Bandido) targ is one of the few western games that made it in the opposite way, being licensed by Sega for japanese distribution.
This game has a sequel, always released in 1980, Spectar.
Thanks to the kind generosity of H.R. Kaufmann, president of Xidy, the original ROM images for Targ have been made available for free, non-commercial use. http://mamedev.org/roms/targ/
Spectar, released by Exidy in 1980, is the follow-up of Targ. Gameplay is apparently unchanged, you control a vehicle called Whummel into a 9x9 grid maze, chasing down, and being chased by, the alien invaders. Targs have evolved into the more dangerous Rammers, and Spectars appears more often, shooting at player's ship.
You use a 4 way joystick to guide your vehicle in the maze, and a pushbutton to shoot at enemies. Up to two players can alternate in gameplay.
The most noticeable difference from his predecessor is that to complete a level you must now collect all the gems in the maze, in a Pacman-like game. Rammers and Spectars continue to appear from flashing pods, so you cannot rest and plan your course easily, or you will be overwhelmed by the alien force.
Graphic is highly improved compared to his predecessor: the maze now has barricades that must be avoided or can be used as a shielding against the enemies, and has ten environement settings, changing from the "square-block town" of Targ to a city, a forest, a lunar landscape and many more. The enemies too are smarter and faster, and the fact that they go on spawning from the pods makes the game a even more frenzy challenge.
Thanks to the kind generosity of H.R. Kaufmann, president of Xidy, the original ROM images for Spectar have been made available for free, non-commercial use. http://mamedev.org/roms/spectar/
Square Enix has today announced details of its schedule for the fresh end of 2008, with Final Fantasy I and II on the PSP and Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings on the DS both being given firm street dates.
Details of the release dates for other UK-bound Square Enix titles are somewhat more vague, with DS titles Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates and The World Ends With You due as the leaves begin to sprout, while we can expect Odin Sphere on PS2 and Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker on DS sometime before said leaves turn brown.
The full list follows:
8 February 2008
Final Fantasy I & Final Fantasy II (PSP)
15 February 2008
Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings (Nintendo DS)
Spring 2008
Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates (Nintendo DS)
The World Ends With You (Nintendo DS)
Dragon Quest Swords: The Masked Queen and the Tower of Mirrors (Nintendo Wii)
Nintendo ended 2007 on a high across mainland Europe, with DS titles topping the Spanish chart and Wii games heading the German list for software sales in the week ending December 30.
According to the data from Media-Control GfK International, More Brain Training and the original Brain Training took the top two places in Spain, followed by Pro Evolution Soccer 2008 for the PlayStation 2.
Super Mario Galaxy was fourth while WWE Smackdown! vs Raw 2008 took fifth place, with Assassin's Creed for the PlayStation 3 in sixth. Other PS2 and DS titles rounded off the top ten.
Meanwhile in Germany Super Mario Galaxy was top, followed by Mario & Sonic at the Olympics, with More Brain Training in third.
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare took fourth place, with the original Brain Training and New Super Mario Bros in fifth and sixth respectively.
The full charts are as follows:
Spain
1. More Brain Training with Dr Kawashima (DS)
2. Dr Kawashima's Brain Training (DS)
3. Pro Evolution Soccer 2008 (PS2)
4. Super Mario Galaxy (Wii)
5. WWE Smackdown! vs Raw 2008 (PS2)
6. Assassin's Creed (PS3)
7. SingStar Latino (PS2)
8. Imagine Babyz (DS)
9. Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass (DS)
10. FIFA 08 (PS2)
Germany
1. Super Mario Galaxy (Wii)
2. Mario & Sonic at the Olympics (Wii)
3. More Brain Training with Dr Kawashima (DS)
4. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (PC)
5. Dr Kawashima's Brain Training (DS)
6. New Super Mario Bros (DS)
7. Need for Speed ProStreet (PS2)
8. SingStar: Apres Ski (PS2)
9. Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass (DS)
10. FIFA 08 (PS2)
Codemasters Online Gaming has said it will be showing its existing and top secret wares at a public event in March.
Connect 2008 will take place at the flashy new Omega Sektor gaming palace house structure in Birmingham on 14th and 15th March. Good for a guild meet, if you, er, want.
Among those on display will be acclaimed MMORPG Lord of the Rings Online, as well as the struggling Dungeons & Dragons Online, ArchLord and RF Online.
We're also promised revelations of new persistent worlds, as well as lots of freebies and one-off merchandise. No fancy dress? Shame. Better scratch it off calendar.
Tickets will go on sale soon, so keep an eye on the official Connect 2008 site for the green light.
Ubisoft's upcoming first-person shooters Far Cry 2 and Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway for PC will be compatible with Philips' amBX's environmental immersion system.
amBX uses fans, special lights and rumble in conjunction with on-screen actions in a effort to immerse the user in the gaming experience.
For example, in Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway, a fan might simulate the burst from an explosion or object collision. Rumble will simulate the bumpiness associated with riding in a vehicle, while directional light will indicate "danger, bullet and shrapnel impact and simulate everything from the use of torches in dark environments to full-on explosions."
A new patch for the acclaimed original Far Cry from 2004 will make the game compatible with amBX. Other patches for undisclosed Ubisoft games will also allow for amBX compatibility in the future.
The system is on display at this week's Consumer Electronics Show.
Other game firms that have implemented amBX technology include Codemasters, THQ, Introversion, Gearbox Software, Gas Powered Games, Zombie, Riot Games, Brain in a Jar, Invictus Games, Instinct Technology, Kuju, Revolution, Sumo Digital and Rivers Run Red.
It's the week before Macworld 2008, and Apple's updated the Mac Pro with Intel's new 45nm quad-core Penryn Xeon 5400 (Stoakley) CPUs at up to 3.2GHz. The new 8-core config is $2,800, and Apple's Phil Schiller is calling these machines the "fastest Mac we've ever made" (not that we'd expect the newest machine would be anything but).
Standard options:
2GB of 800MHz DDR2 RAM
ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT (256MB)
320GB drive, 16x DVDRW
Bluetooth 2.0+EDR, (2) PCI Express 2.0, (2) PCI Express slots
That fancy new Apple keyboard they've been shipping with iMacs
No Blu-ray, as rumored, but it can be configured with plenty of hard drives (as usual), RAID, NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT or NVIDIA Quadro FX 5600 graphics cards, and 802.11n. Why do we feel like Apple threw these up today just to screw with everyone at CES? (Actually, it's because Intel is announcing all those new chips -- we get that.)
For the second year in a row, the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences has honoured Nintendo with an Emmy Award for excellence in engineering creativity.
The Academy recognised the Wii for its innovative motion-sensing controls and the Nintendo DS for its touch-screen control scheme and distinctive dual-screen display.
Atari and Mattel were also honoured alongside the DS for Handheld Game Device Display Screen Innovation, for the Lynx (Atari) and Football and Auto Race (Mattel).
The awards were presented in Las Vegas at the 59th annual Technological and Engineering Emmy Awards on January 7. This is the second year that the awards show was held during the International CES.
"The pioneering interfaces for Wii and Nintendo DS reflect our long tradition of seeking new ways to enhance the gaming experience for users at every level," said Don James, Nintendo of America's executive vice president of operations.
"We're grateful for this award and thank the academy for honoring us a second time."
Last year, Nintendo received an Emmy for the development of the D-pad and Sony was recognised for the XMB (Cross media bar) and DualShock controller.
Other game-related 2008 Emmy award winners included:
Development of MMO graphical role playing games:
Sony Online Entertainment for Everquest
Blizzard for World of Warcraft
AOL/Time Warner, Stormfront, Ubisoft and TSR-Wizards of the Coast for Neverwinter Nights
User Generated Content/Game Modification:
EA for Pinball Construction
Id Software for Quake
Linden Labs for Second Life
We're not saying we didn't believe Asus when they said they'd be rolling out 8 and 8.9-inch Eee PCs in Q2 (in multiple colors no less!) but it's always reassuring to see pictures. Spotted on a Chinese website, these side-by-sides show the two models to be nearly identical outside of the obvious bezel-reduction and plastic-lightening cosmetic work; even the resolution on both models is fixed at 800 x 480. Another pic after the break.
Brain Training titles and Wii Play demonstrate the new importance of casual
Electronic Arts has at least one reason to be cheerful heading into 2008, with the news that the best-selling game of 2007 was FIFA 08.
According to Chart-Track numbers the title sold over 25 per cent more copies than the second-placed game, Dr Kawashima's Brain Training, one of three casual Nintendo titles that made the list, demonstrating clearly the effects that a wider casual audience is having on the games industry.
In fact Nintendo will be pleased because it ranked as the top developer in the top ten, and the only one with three titles represented - Wii Play and the two Brain Training titles.
Activision's Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare took third place, with Pro Evolution Soccer 2008 in fourth.
Undoubtedly the most-hyped game of the year, Halo 3, was sixth selling around half the copies of FIFA 08, while EA's The Simpsons Game sold just under that.
The figures mean that Nintendo sold the most titles just based on the top ten list alone, with EA coming second on around 16 per cent less - although of course those bare numbers would be boosted significantly when all of the other titles outside the top ten are taken into account.
The full list is as follows:
1. FIFA 08 (EA)
2. Dr Kawashima's Brain Training (Nintendo)
3. Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (Activision)
4. Pro Evolution Soccer 2008 (Konami)
5. More Brain Training from Dr Kawashima (Nintendo)
6. Halo 3 (Microsoft)
7. The Simpsons Game (EA)
8. Wii Play (Nintendo)
9. Assassin's Creed (Ubisoft)
10. WWE Smackdown VS Raw 2008 (THQ)
The top ten titles sell over 1 million units in the last week of the year
Nintendo platforms ended the year in Japan in the same kind of dominant software sales position that they've enjoyed for most of the rest of it as seven of the top ten in the chart in the last week of December were Wii or DS games.
But they did fail to land the last number one of 2007 - that honour went instead to new entry Super Robot Wars OG Gaiden for the PlayStation 2, selling just under 200,000 copies according to data from Media Create.
Wii Fit, Mario Party DS and Final Fantasy IV followed, all selling more than 125,000 units each, while new entry Star Ocean 1: First Departure sold just over 105,000 copies for the PlayStation Portable.
Wii Sports and Super Mario Galaxy also featured in the top ten, while Dragon Quest IV for the DS broke through the 1 million mark in that week, and ensured a good week for Square Enix.
The full chart for the week ending December 30 was as follows:
1. Super Robot Wars OG Gaiden (PS2)
2. Wii Fit (Wii)
3. Mario Party DS (DS)
4. Final Fantasy IV (DS)
5. Star Ocean 1: First Departure (PSP)
6. Wii Sports (Wii)
7. Haruhi Suzumiya's Promise (PSP)
8. Prof Layton and Pandora's Box (DS)
9. Dragon Quest IV (DS)
10. Super Mario Galaxy (Wii)
We already knew Microsoft was at least toying around with putting Windows on the OLPC XO, but it looks like things have just gotten quite a bit more serious, with the OLPC folks now saying that they're working "very closely" with Microsoft to develop a dual-boot Windows / Linux system for the laptop. What's more, Nick Neg himself reportedly said that the version of Windows that's now up and running on on the XO is "very fast" and "very, very successful." There's no word just yet as to when we might actually see such a system be released, however, but OLPC is apparently now talking with Microsoft and "possibly" the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation about putting the XO to use in some of the education programs Microsoft runs in developing countries, a possibility that Negroponte says is "really cooking at the moment."
This 5 Way Tilt Laser Mouse has 5 way tilt key and laser,using Avago original sensor to precision positioning;adopting a high-performance MCU,can fly through long documents at hyperspeed.Shift to precise-click scrolling,to navigate lists,slides and image collections. It has a good compatibility,can support vertical and horizontal scrolling,more convenient.
Ergonomically designed for both left and right hands and windows vista system can be used directly.
The Nintendo DS capped an excellent year in Japan with a strong flourish in the last two weeks of 2007, with sales of the hardware falling just shy of 500,000 units.
That compares, according to the latest data from Media Create, with the Wii which sold 385,000 and the PlayStation Portable which sold 332,000 in the same time frame.
While sales overall slowed from the previous week, the week ending December 30 still saw above average sales of consoles, with the PlayStation 3 now firmly outselling the PlayStation 2 - albeit with numbers around a third that of the Wii.
The Xbox 360 continued to lag far behind its rivals, despite picking up moderately in recent months, and broke the 500,000 units barrier right at the end of 2007.
Hardware sales for the week ending December 30 are as follows:
1. Nintendo DS: 218,894
2. PlayStation Portable: 161,370
3. Nintendo Wii: 152,209
4. PlayStation 3: 52,706
5. PlayStation 2: 25,569
6. Xbox 360: 8,304
According to a report in the New York Times today, a spin-off of OLPC is planning to launch a competitor to the company's $200 XO laptop. Mary Lou Jepsen, former CTO of the Nicholas Negroponte-led company, claims that her new organization, Pixel Qi, can do it cheaper and better.
"Spinning out from OLPC enables the development of a new machine, beyond the XO [laptop], while leveraging a larger market for new technologies," Jepsen wrote on the company's website, adding, "Besides, I need that extra $25 for laundry and stuff."
Jepsen claims that the cost of a device like the XO can be reduced by, "Allowing multiple uses of key technology advances." If you'll recall, the original target price for the XO was $100, back in the hazy, optimistic days of 2005. Using an advanced abacus coupled with a complex system of levers and pulleys, we've determined that when and if the Pixel Qi laptop makes it to market, the cost will be no less than $150, and Nicholas Negroponte will say something crazy about it.
Former Civilization IV designer Soren Johnson, currently hard at work on Spore, reckons PC gaming "should be like Punk Rock" for developers - rich with variety.
"The PC market is no one thing any more," he told Eurogamer pals Rock, Paper, Shotgun. "There's no sales figures you can look at. The question is simply is 'What is the variety coming through? What are the different options available we didn't have three or four years ago?'
"For me, PC gaming should be like Punk Rock - being able to do whatever you want. And people are forgetting that the Punk period isn't just the Ramones and the Sex Pistols... it's Talking Heads, Televisions, Patti Smith, Pere Ubu, Gang of Four... this huge variety of stuff because people were making it up as they were going along.
"It was easy enough to make music that people did what they wanted to. And that'll always be the advantage of PCs."
Johnson's belief that PC game trends are poorly represented through publicly available stats certainly holds true if you look, for instance, at the UK Chart-Track statistics, which suggest a console market in the ascendancy and a PC market in steady decline.
On the other hand, you have companies like Valve boasting of 13 million PC users around the world for Steam, and World of Warcraft alone having attracted over 9.3 million subscribers - despite the fact the latter's "Battle Chest" is its only presence in the UK charts, and at ninth in the PC-only Top 20 at that.
Clearly a match made in heaven, the doomed-but-beloved Amiga OS has been made to run on the maybe-doomed-but-beloved OLPC. It's not running natively, sadly, so the real hack here is getting the Amiga Forever emulator running on NickNeg's baby, but still, this combination is just beautifully tragic.
The Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association (or ELSPA to us plebs) and Chart-Track announced today that the UK saw record-breaking "interactive entertainment software" sales in 2007 of £1.72 billion ($3.37 billion), a 26% increase over the record previously broken in 2006.
The DS topped devices in number of software units sold and nearly one-third of software sales were on handhelds, a 45% increase showing how much the UK loves their DS and sees the value in the PSP. The top three games sold across the board were FIFA '08, Dr. Kawashima's Brain Training and Call of Duty 4. Director General of ELSPA, Paul Jackson, took the opportunity of the strong sales to remind anyone who would listen that despite the UK's obvious game-lust, there are still problems for UK developers in terms of tax incentives and the threat of international competition.
Welcome to this week's Games & Toys update, our weekly summary featuring all new product arrivals from the last seven days.
It remains expectedly calm during the first weeks of the year, just seven new games were published this week in Japan.
Highlights have been the Asian version game releases Wipeout Pulse (PSP™) and Dance Dance Revolution Universe 2 (Xbox360™), followed by Kateikyoushi Hitman Reborn! Dream Hyper Battle! Wii for Nintendo Wii™.
There's not much more to say, so check out the complete summary of this week's new arrivals, followed by once again a rather short preview of what is expected next week.
Xbox360™:
Armored Core 4 (Platinum Collection) JPN US$ 34.90
Dance Dance Revolution Universe 2 ASIA US$ 49.90
Super Robot Taisen XO (Platinum Collection) JPN US$ 39.90
Table Tennis (Platinum Collection) JPN US$ 29.90
Xbox 360 Messenger Kit JPN US$ 34.90
PlayStation3™:
Armored Core 4 (The Best Collection) JPN US$ 34.90
Nintendo DS™:
Chishiki-Ou Series: Train Master JPN US$ 39.90
Sony PSP™:
Wipeout Pulse ASIA US$ 39.90
Zero Shiki Kanjou Sentouki Ni JPN US$ 48.90
PC Games:
Neon Genesis Evangelion: Koutetsu no Girlfriend Special Edition ASIA US$ 21.90
Toys & More:
Bleach EX 3 Phone Strap Gashapon JPN US$ 2.90
Diamond & Pearl Pokemon Pocket Monsters Mega Collection: Mega Colosseum JPN US$ 59.90
Dragon Ball GT Super Saiyan 4 Pre-painted PVC Figure: Son Gokou JPN US$ 17.90
Dragon Ball GT Super Saiyan 4 Pre-painted PVC Figure: Vegeta JPN N/A
Excellent Model Core Queen's Blade P-4 1/8 Scale Pre-painted PVC Figure: Nix JPN N/A
Ikkitousen - Dragon Destiny 1/6 Scale Prepainted PVC Figure: Kanu Unchou (Chinese Dress Version) JPN US$ 74.90
Neon Genesis Evangelion Extra Tokyo Police Figure: Rei Ayanami JPN US$ 17.90
Neon Genesis Evangelion Extra Tokyo Police Figure: Sohryu Asuka Langley JPN US$ 17.90
Nohohon Grapefruit Type US$ 9.90
Nohohon Lettuce Type US$ 9.90
Nohohon Strawberry Type US$ 9.90
One Piece Collection Grand Pirate Non Scale Pre-Painted Trading Figure JPN US$ 2.90
Persona 3 1/10 Scale Pre-Painted PVC Figure: Akihiko Sanada JPN US$ 64.90
Picoo Z Infrared Control Sidewinder (Blue) US$ 29.90
Picoo Z Infrared Control Sidewinder (Green) US$ 29.90
Picoo Z Infrared Control Sidewinder (Red) US$ 29.90
Super Robot Taisen: Original Generations Scale 1/144 Fine Model Kit: PTX-003C Alteisen (Re-run) JPN US$ 29.90
Togai no Chi: True Blood - One Coin Figures JPN US$ 5.90
Video Game related Soundtracks:
Hikari (Prism Arc: Awake Theme Song) (~Ayumi Murata) JPN US$ 11.90
Hikari (Prism Arc: Awake Theme Song) [CD+DVD Limited Edition] (~Ayumi Murata) JPN US$ 17.90
Windows Game Honey Coming Original Soundtrack Character Song Album JPN US$ 28.90
A separate Video/Music update containing Japanese releases from this week, including new Anime, J-Pop and Movie releases will follow prior end of the week.
It remains rather quiet next week, once again with less than ten new Japanese game releases. Here is a short preview of what you can expect during the next couple of days.
Nintendo Wii™:
Caduceus: New Blood / Trauma Center: New Blood JPN US$ 59.90
Sonic Riders: Shooting Star Story JPN US$ 59.90
Nintendo DS™:
Jackass: The Game US US$ 34.90
Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games JPN US$ 48.90
The situation of console sales last week in Japan are below as thus:
Nintendo DS Lite: 266,568
Playstation Portable: 218,234
Nintendo Wii: 207,797
Playstation 3: 64,183
Playstation 2: 32,010
Xbox 360: 9,763
The DS lite tops the list as usual while the PSP trails just behind it, beating the Wii by about 11,000. Lagging beind is the PS3, PS2 and Xbox 360, faring the worst out of all on the list. No sign of Game Boy Micro, Game Boy Advance SP/Original, Nintendo Gamecube or the original Xbox.
Blizzard's next big update for World of Warcraft - 2.4 - will include major new raid instance Sunwell Plateau.
"The raid aspect of it is definitely a progression from Black Temple. We're tuning it for people in Tier 6 gear, however there's not an attunement on the front door. The first three bosses are accessible by everybody however they will be tuned for Tier 6", Lead designer Jeff Kaplan has explained in the developer's first ever podcast.
Obviously, if you don't play WoW, that will all sound like complete gibberish.
Kaplan went on to reveal that the update will also feature a new five-man instance, which in terms of difficulty level will be on a par with the game's existing instances Shadow Labyrinth or Shattered Halls.
"We realize because this dungeon is coming later in the sort of Burning Crusade cycle it's very important that the loot be relevant to people who are playing the game now," he said on the new five-man dungeon.
"...and for people who came into Burning Crusade late, this will give them the opportunity to have a little bit of a catch-up to all the players who have been doing the Arena or participating in our PvE content, so it's kind of win-win, or if people want to gear up an alt really quickly this will be a good place to do that."
On top of that, Blizzard will be making small tweaks in the 2.4 update, such as increasing the daily quest limit from 10 to 25, Kaplan revealed. He added that character class changes can also be expected.
The full transcript of Blizzard's first podcast can be read here. In addition to the interview with Kaplan, it includes a chat with art director Sam Didier.
Eidos parent SCi has decided to hold the new Tomb Raider game back until the fourth calendar quarter of 2008.
But when Underworld does come out it will be on six platforms instead of three, adding Wii, DS, and PS2 offerings to the existing PC, PS3 and 360 versions.
Three other undisclosed titles will follow it into Q4, prompting SCi to warn its investors they might see some red numbers for this financial year that ends in June.
Still, SCi has also revealed it is no longer selling itself to the highest bidder, because apparently no one made a formal offer within a "timeframe requested".
Perhaps this has alleviated pressure to present a healthy financial report to potential buyers and rush games to launch, but the publisher admits it might need a little more pocket money to help it through this now barren patch of releases.
Titles like Conflict: Denied Ops and casual outings Looney Toons and Wacky Races should help limit the damage, plus strong performances from Kane & Lynch - apparently selling over a million copies - and its casual games like Pony Friends has made board members crack a smile.
Tomb Raider: Underworld is one of our picks for 2008 in the action adventure genre. To find out the others, keep your eyes peeled on Eurogamer "going forward".
Love Fords? Love budget racing games? Well lucky you, as this morning Xplosiv announced the next instalment in their ongoing Ford series, Off Road.
Coming to the PS2, PSP, PC and Wii, Off Road is also bringing the Land Rover brand into the mix, so expect a multi-marque mash-up. There's the requisite selection of tracks, with desert, water and ice environments to pit your off-roader against, and there will also be 18 officially licensed vehicles. Hit the gallery below for a fresh batch of screens.
The game is coming to the PSP, PS2 and PC on 21 March with a reasonable price tag of GBP 19.99, and the Wii version is expected soon after.
Asus promised us long ago that their Eee PCs would be available in a variety of colors, but for whatever reason (we're guessing that reason is the Eee PC's successful sales) Asus has taken their time colorizing the $399 Eee PC that most of us want, instead offering us only the $299 and $350 Surf models in more colors. But fret no more, as Asus has just announced that their $399 version is getting released in "Pure White, Galaxy Black, Blush Pink, Lush Green and Sky Blue." Do those adjectcolors look familiar? They should, since they are exactly the same as what's available on the Surf. Expect them in stores any day now.
New version of the multi-system emulator for PC. It emulates the Emerson Arcadia 2001 (Bandai, Emerson, Grandstand, Intervision, Leisure-Vision, Leonardo, MPT-03, Ormatu, Palladium, Poppy, Robdajet, Tele-Fever, Tempest, Tryom, Tunix, etc.) and Interton VC 4000 (Acetronic, Fountain, Interton, Prinztronic, Rowtron, Voltmace, Waddington, etc.) console families, and the Elektor TV Games Computer.
Changelog:
. "Save screenshot as IFF ACBM..." command.
. "Autofire requires holding firebutton?" option.
. Miscellaneous improvements and bug fixes.
- "Window TopMost" menu was added to "Screen" menu.
- The access processing of CD-ROM was brought close to the movement of a real machine. The problem that "L-Dis" did not operate (generated from v1.32) was solved.
- In "Momotarou Katsugeki", when falling in water, the problem that overlapping the character display might be not correct was solved.
- Additionally, a detailed part has been improved and corrected.
- small fix for CPS3 driver (gfx, zoom). [OopsWare]
- added 2xPM filter from MAME Plus!. (Thanks to Emuman)
- fixed Super2xSaI filter (some color error). (source from Zsnes, thanks to Emuman)
- added system filtered option will be saved in config file.
- changed not allow to open DIP switch dialog when netplay.
- updated some misc drivers (news, wc90, biomtoy). [BisonSAS]
The public beta for WeGame is currently under way, and they're looking for testers to put it through its paces.
Before you ask, it's a YouTube-like service that lets you capture PC game footage and upload it without faffing around.
Simply play your WeGame-compatible title (there are 28 so far, including World of Warcraft and Call of Duty 4) and hit a key to begin recording. Gameplay is captured directly from your graphics card then automatically converted into Internet-friendly Flash and uploaded to the website, where you can sift through and publish your best bits.
High-definition recording is supported if you so wish, and it's all completely free.
The online presence of UK specialist retailer Game has opened the voting for this year's People's Choice Award.
Game.co.uk has listed 43 titles for members of the public to choose from, including big-sellers such as FIFA 08, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare and More Brain Training with Dr Kawashima, and some cult favourites like Okami and Super Paper Mario.
Voting for the award is open now and closes at 11:30pm on Thursday January 17, with the winner announcement expected on the web site on Friday January 18.
Other awards being contested include Best Publisher and Best Developer, which have already been won by Nintendo and Bungie respectively, with Best Console, Best Value for Money and Game of the Year yet to be announced.
The full People's Choice shortlist is as follows:
Super Mario Galaxy (Wii)
Final Fantasy XII (various)
Resident Evil 4 – Wii Edition (Wii)
Tiger Woods 08 (various)
Football Manager 2008 (various)
Mass Effect (360)
Assassin's Creed (various)
Need for Speed: ProStreet (various)
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (various)
Uncharted: Drake's Fortune (PS3)
God of War II (PS2)
Tomb Raider: Anniversary (various)
Forza Motorsport 2 (360)
Project Gotham Racing 4 (360)
The Darkness (various)
John Woo Presents Stranglehold (various)
Virtua Tennis 3 (various)
Big Brain Academy: Wii Degree (Wii)
Rainbow Six Vegas (various)
Guitar Hero III (various)
Pokemon Diamond / Pearl (DS)
Singstar PS3 (PS3)
Pro Evolution Soccer 2008 (various)
FIFA 08 (various)
Super Paper Mario (Wii)
Mario Vs Sonic at the Olympics (Wii)
Enemy Territory: Quake Wars (various)
Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions (PSP)
The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass (DS)
Half-Life 2: The Orange Box (various)
Metroid Prime III: Corruption (Wii)
Okami (PS2)
The Simpsons Game (various)
Skate (various)
More Brain Training By Dr. Kawashima (DS)
WWE SmackDown Vs Raw 2008 (various)
LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga (various)
Crysis (PC)
Cooking Mama (various)
Wario Ware: Smooth Moves (Wii)
World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade (PC)
Halo 3 (360)
Bioshock (360)
Spacetime, an Austin, Texas-based studio, has announced that NCsoft will no longer be funding the company's MMO project.
NCsoft signed a publishing deal with Spacetime two years ago for the development of Blackstar - an original IP space combat MMO.
According to a Spacetime blog entry, the developer "...won’t be entering production in the immediate future, so we are retrenching and unfortunately had to let 12 folks go."
Nevertheless, the company said that it remained committed to the IP and was exploring other options. It also indicated that it did not bear any ill-will against NCsoft for the decision.
"There is a tremendous amount of mutual respect between our companies. They have conducted themselves with honor and integrity, and we would work with them again in an instant," the blog statement read.
A 1.12GB Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War - Soulstorm demo is out, allowing you to dip a toe into the latest expansion for the RTS game.
Soulstorm's a collaboration between Relic and Titan Quest dev Iron Lore, and includes two new races and a new interplanetary campaign spanning an entire star system. On top of that, existing races are receiving new units - including air units - and multiplayer is getting boosted.
It's looking a bit dated these days, but Dawn of War's massive fanbase are bound to go loopy for it anyway.
Codemasters has announced plans to unveil its brand new MMO at Connect 2008, an online gaming event taking place in March.
The game will be playable at the event for the first time ever. There's no word on a title or even what it's about, but a release date of "late 2008" has been suggested.
Connect 2008 will run from 14th - 15th March. There will be plenty to see and do for fans of all Codemasters Online's titles, which include Lord of the Rings Online, ArchLord, RF Online and Dungeons and Dragons: Stormreach.
Tickets are yet to go on sale, but you can keep updated by signing your email address over to Codemasters via the Connect 2008 website.
At CES, SSD drives were a plenty on the show floor. "Some companies said we could see 250GB SSD units by the end of this year, while others predicted it could take up to a couple of years for them to become mainstream. None of the companies promised mainstream adoption, but they promised a bright future and we are inclined to believe them. High capacity drives are going to be expensive due to their very nature of early technology and gradual adoption rate.
Alone in the Dark has not been delayed until September, according to Atari.
A spokesperson for the publisher claimed Games for Windows magazine was spouting a rumour, so presumably everything is on track for PC and 360 versions to appear in March.
Atari recently launched the official site for the game, which has some viral marketing based around Central Park and the scary things that lurk within it.
Interestingly it appears to be based around real-life occurrences like the you-must-know-about-it insect invasion of 1888, where nine different families of spider were taken from a single tree and a meaty five pounds of caterpillars taken from another.
Less interestingly Atari added PS2 and Wii versions of its survival-horror game to its schedule last November. As with the PS3 offering, no dates have been mentioned.
Not content with slapping us with ten new Age of Conan screenshots last week, Funcom's gone and spoiled us with a further three new in-game images from its MMO.
Uploaded here, the screenshots show mounted combat, and ice demon and a fight on a suspension bridge.
The developer's recently confirmed the Age of Conan collector's edition, which will include the likes of an exclusive in-game item, a leather map, bonus DVD, soundtrack and art book (full details on the special edition here).
* misc: main button bar remembers focus
* misc: set information -> 'unload' (set list) button added
* misc: set information -> you can use '%h=1' in 'select sets' to select sets with chds
* misc: set information -> you can use '%p=1' in 'select sets' to select sets with samples
* misc: set information -> split 'mark parent/clones' to two separated checkboxes
* misc: set information -> mark parent/clones checkboxes also affect loading of set lists
* misc: don't show warning for clones where all not-parent roms are nodumps
* misc: introducing datfile header switch "forcenodump" which can be 'obsolete', 'ignore' and 'required': obsolete = default (nodumps are marked as unneeded, missing ones are not shown); ignore = existing nodumps are not marked as unneeded, missing ones are ignored; required = existing nodumps are not marked as unneeded, missing ones are shown
* misc: dir2dat->nodump header options available
* misc: allowing empty set definitions (theoretically this allows using of pseudo parents)
Following yesterday's report by UK tabloid The Sun, in which Prime Minister Gordon Brown was quoted talking about knife crime and associating it with videogames, the government has moved to dispel concerns that any new crackdown is imminent.
A Department for Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR) spokesperson has told GamesIndustry.biz that the report didn't highlight any change in policy, nor did it add anything to the debate.
"The Prime Minister has previously expressed concern about the content of computer games, and their effect on young people, which is why he commissioned the Byron Report.
"We're aware that the games industry is working with the Byron Report to address those concerns."
Paul Jackson, director general of publisher association ELSPA, added:
"We were obviously concerned by the Prime Minister's comments yesterday on knife crime and computer games.
"Since this time we have been reassured by BERR that the government's position in this area has not altered; the Prime Minister remains concerned about the protection of children from access to certain new technologies which is why the government commissioned the Byron Review.
"We have been further reassured that there will be no changes to government policy in this area until Dr Byron publishes her findings at the end of March."
Activision's Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare has climbed back up to the number one position in the UK all formats charts, as sales across retail continue to fall following the Christmas period.
Sales for the acclaimed first-person shooter were only down 21 per cent, compared to EA's FIFA 2008 which slipped to number two with a sales drop of 50 per cent, and Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed which suffered a 43 per cent fall in sales, although it managed to move up the charts to number three.
EA's The Simpsons Game drops to number four this week with a 53 per cent decline in sales, while Activision's Guitar Hero III manages it's highest chart position at number five, despite sales dropping 30 per cent.
At number six this week is Konami's Pro Evolution Soccer 2008 with sales down 42 per cent, and EA's Need for Speed: Pro Street is at seven with a fall in sales of 46 per cent.
Position's eight and nine are occupied by Dr Kawashima's Brain Training and More Brain Training from Dr Kawashima (sales down 26 per cent and 39 per cent, respectively), with Sega's The Golden Compass at ten with a drop in sales of 51 per cent.
No new releases have entered the entire top 40 this week, with the decline in sales across the board a reflection of the traditionally quiet January sales month.
Such has been the blasting of the hardware requirements to run Crysis, Crytek has set out to offer recommendations on required spec to handle the game on High settings.
Say hello to the "Crysis Hardware Experiment".
"Over Christmas we took the time for a little in-house experiment. With only a limited budget of around US $900 we wanted to set up a brand new machine that can handle Crysis on High settings. We should note that Very High settings are reserved to keep Crysis future-proofed, just like Ultra was in Far Cry", the developer's said.
In a nutshell, it went hardware shopping and built a PC from scratch, and wanted to ensure that the machine "would have top-notch hardware such as a multicore processor or a DirectX10 graphics card".
Here's what it ended up with:
CPU - Intel Core2Duo E6750
GPU - GeForce 8800GT 512MB
Motherboard - NVIDIA nForce 650i Socket 775
PSU - 600W ATX12V
RAM - 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit
HDD- SATA 250GB 7200RPM
DVD - 20x DVDR Burner
Case - ATX Midi Tower Computer Case
OS - Microsoft Windows XP Home with SP2
Crytek then went about capturing video of the game running on the resulting rig, saying "As you'll see... Crysis looks absolute fabulous on High settings with this configuration and runs very smoothly on a 1280x720 resolution."
We guess you'll want to see the videos then. Here are direct download links (potential spoilers ahead!):
It's speculated - and we'll lend you our wide-brimmed hat of speculation for this one - that the three screenshots that you see here are from Crysis 2.
The screenshots appeared on Czech website www.incrysis.cz/, and if only we could read the language we might have more to tell you. But we can't. And neither can Google.
Have they really leaked from Crytek HQ? Who knows. Have a look for yourself and make up your own mind.
In November last year, Crytek boss Cevat Yerli revealed that Crysis is planned as a trilogy.
Quickly following this were reports on the developer explaining that it'll focus even greater attention on graphics for the second game, and that the sequel will concentrate on more than battles with aliens and Korean military.
Quite easy to put a release date in a quarter. You get three months to fart around with and it sounds closer than "2008". Seasons are even worse; no one knows when they begin or end. Yes really. The result is now, in the dreary, dark, damp and depressing months of calendar quarter number one, publishers need to own up and tell us if their game is actually soon to be released or if they were just telling porky pies to look better.
SEGA looks ever so confident with its first quarter stable of contenders, though, brazenly branding 7th March on Condemned 2 and 14th March on Viking: Battle of Asgard - so excited cannot sleep. Others got the same sort of treatment - NiGHTS and Ghost Squad moved forward to this week. Oh, not to forget Football Manager 2008 on Xbox 360, which finally hopped out of the closet with a 28th March tag.
Ubisoft looked a bit bolshy to begin with as well, revealing to everyone that Assassin's Creed was making lots of money so it would push Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway, Far Cry 2 and Tom Clancy's EndWar into its next fiscal year (starting in April). Still, there's Dark Messiah of Might & Magic: Elements (360) on 8th February, apparently.
From one eagerly awaited port to another then, as Bully (aka Canis Canem Edit) on 360 and Wii will now be with us on 7th March. Got 9/10 on PS2. One to look forward to while moaning lustily at GTA IV.
Closer still is the PS3 version of Lost Planet, which you may not be too excited about as it is the third version and over two years after the first. But, it will be with us on 29th February. Bet you didn't know that. Did you? We didn't.
Neither did Square Enix, which has absolutely nothing to do with it dating Dragon Quest: Jokers (DS) for release on 14th March. Nothing to do with Atari saying Beautiful Katamari will be out in February, either.
On the darker side of happy we heard Nintendo date Wii Chess for 18th January - we're not sure if we knew that or not - before rousing Internet anger by delaying Super Smash Bros. Brawl by a month in the US. Still no date for Europe. Incidentally, we won't usually cover US dates, but this is quite big news or something.
Frustrating that LittleBigPlanet has been held back until September, too, and that Tomb Raider: Underworld has been manhandled back to Q4. Evil quarters. Get out of my head.
But every cloud has a silver lining, as Konami remains confident Metal Gear Solid 4 will be out in Q2 and the Sin City game shapes up for next year.
We know that Nintendo dominated 2007, with a constant, reliable stream of good news and strong sales. But how did the rest of the competition stack up? We've decided to look back at a full year of sales data from Japanese analyst outlet Media Create, whose sales data we regularly feature in the Simple 2000 Japanese Sales Chart series.
With a license to seemingly print money, Nintendo took 2007 by storm, establishing console and handheld dominance with its two casual friendly game devices. Nintendo DS and Wii dominated software and hardware charts, seeing a steady flow of week to week sales for both platforms, appearing to only weaken when supply was constrained.
Sony's offerings, the PSP, PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 2, had a solid (if not spectacular) year. The PS3 didn't make any waves, but the PSP did. The PS2, now seven years long in the tooth, still had a bit of life in it.
The Xbox 360? Well, we don't have nice things to say about its Japanese performance, so we'll just let the charts do the talking.
When units of each platform are presented side by side, the stranglehold the Nintendo DS has on the Japanese market becomes apparent. Its weekly sales outpaced every other console's and handheld's performance for nearly the entirety of the year. The only platform to outperform the DS at any point was Sony's PlayStation Portable, aided by a pair of marquee releases (plus a hardware redesign) in the first and third quarters of 2007.
The Nintendo DS saw its largest weekly period sales alongside a few high-profile software releases and in time with holidays, but was less dependent on individual software releases to pull in big numbers. Media Create software sales charts were regularly heavy on DS software, and it wasn't uncommon to see weekly charts feature nothing but DS and Wii software in the top ten—see Dragon Quest Swords and Final Fantasy XII Revenant Wings launch weeks and this past week for examples.
In general, however, Nintendo DS sales trends tended not to spike as severely as other platforms did, with sales of older titles such as New Super Mario Bros. and Animal Crossing Wild World still doing solid business for Nintendo, many months after their respective release dates.
When we look at year-to-date sales in handy bar graph form, we get a much better perspective on the share of the Japanese market that Nintendo carved out for itself in 2007. This was the year that Nintendo DS hardware sales surpassed those of the PlayStation 2, with each at about 21 million consoles sold in the nation, lifetime to date. It's an impressive feat for the handheld, as it surpassed that figure in almost exactly 3 years, compared to a 7 year shelf life for Sony's console.
The DS pushed some 7 million-plus units into the hands of Japanese consumers, a third of its total sales. Not a bad year for the platform widely considered a gimmick before its launch.
On Sony's side, 2007 saw the PlayStation 3 outsell the PlayStation 2 in its first full year on the market, with the PSP achieving just shy of one-half of the DS's sales, a similarly impressive feat for a non-Nintendo portable device.
The Xbox 360, despite seeing a handful of video game releases that sold admirably over the year, continued to be a non-factor in the console war overseas. Its annual sales were about a quarter-million, something the Nintendo DS accomplished on a weekly basis multiple times in 2007. Sure, it's a bit apples to oranges, considering the price differences in hardware and software, but its illustrative of consumer tastes in Japan. Microsoft's efforts to appeal to Eastern gaming tastes with a pair of Mistwalker games, hardware bundles and a few exclusives from Namco Bandai were met with flat sales in the nation.
Mac gaming will become less of a punchline and more of a reality this year, as EA plans to ship the Will Wright-helmed Spore for both Windows and Mac OS X in 2008. That's dependent, of course, on Spore shipping for any platform this year, something that we don't exactly have the highest confidence in. The EA published Spore will come to the Mac platform courtesy of TransGaming Technologies, whose graphics wrapper is reported to make the transition from PC to Mac wicked easy.
EA, who shipped a number of PC games for the Mac last year, plans to have Spore on hand at MacWorld 08, going on right now.
Continuing its Mac OS X relationship with Activision, Aspyr has announced they'll be publishing Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare for Mac OS, available this May for the regular asking price of $49.95. The press release doesn't mention whether the Mac OS release will be a native port of the PC release or wrapped in Transgaming's Cider technology (similar to EA's just announced Spore release). We'll check in with Aspyr at Macworld and get some more details for y'all.
ScummVM is an interpreter and emulator for several classic graphic point-and-click adventure games. Available for many Operative Systems, check the downloads sections from the link I posted.
Changelog:
New Games:
- Added support for Elvira: Mistress of the Dark.
- Added support for Elvira 2: The Jaws of Cerberus.
- Added support for I Have no Mouth, and I Must Scream (demo and full game).
- Added support for preAGI game Mickey's Space Adventure.
- Added support for preAGI game Troll's Tale.
- Added support for preAGI game Winnie the Pooh in the Hundred Acre Wood.
- Added support for Amiga version of Waxworks.
- Added support for Lure of the Temptress.
New Ports:
- Added iPhone port.
- Added Maemo port for Nokia Internet tablets.
General:
- Added ARM assembly routines for code in the sound mixer and SCUMM video playback, resulting in some nice speedups on several ports.
- Improved the way keyboard input is handled internally, resolving some odd quirks in some game / port combinations.
- Added optional 'confirm exit' dialog to the SDL backend.
- Added support for TiMidity++ MIDI server.
- Added DMedia MIDI driver for IRIX.
- Improved detection of new game variants and localized versions.
- Completely reworked internal access to files. (GSoC Task)
- Added option to delete games from the list with Del key.
- Added support for "~/" prefix being substituted by $HOME in paths on POSIX systems (Linux, Mac OS X etc.).
AGI:
- Added support for AGI256 and AGI256-2 hacks (GSoC Task)
- Added support for Amiga menus and palettes (GSoC Task)
- Better support for early Sierra AGI titles
AGOS:
- Fixed crashes related to OmniTV playback in The Feeble Files.
- Improved work on 64-bit systems.
Broken Sword 1:
- Added support for FLAC encoded music.
Kyrandia:
- Added support for Macintosh version.
Parallaction:
- Added support for Amiga version of Nippon Safes, Inc.
- Many bugfixes
Queen:
- Added support for Adlib music.
- Added missing music patterns playback in Amiga version.
SCUMM:
- Added subtitle skipping (via '.' key) in older games which didn't have this feature so far (e.g. Zak, MM, Indy3, Loom).
- Added support for Chinese COMI.
- Better support for eastern versions of games.
- Various fixes for COMI and other games.
- Added support for original save menus (browse only). Use Alt-F5 to activate.
- Added support for Spanish version of NES Maniac Mansion.
- Better support for German version of C64 Maniac Mansion.
- Fixed bug with cursors in Windows versions of Humongous Entertainment games.
SAGA:
- Added support for compressed sound effects, voices and music.
Touche:
- Added workarounds for some glitches/issues present in the original game.
WinCE Port:
- Switched compilers again. Now using cegcc (http://cegcc.sourceforge.net/).
- Plugins now supported for WinCE (but not used in this release).
- Redesigned 'Free Look' action, mainly for the lure engine's requirements.
- Smaller optimization setting to counteract the growth of the executable.
- Various bug fixes.
GP2X Port:
- Support F200 Touchscreen
- Various fixes to input code
ith the post-Christmas lull in new key title releases, the charts across Europe are showing no sign of real change, and Nintendo continues to fill the majority of the top ten chart slots in both Spain and Germany.
More Brain Training actually sat top of both charts in the data provided by Media-Control GfK International for the week ending January 6, with Germany putting Super Mario Galaxy in second and Mario & Sonic at the Olympics in third.
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare was fourth, with Eye Training, Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass and Mario Party DS following.
Need for Speed ProStreet took eighth, while the original Brain Training was ninth and World of Warcraft made a surprise re-entry to the top ten in tenth place.
Spain's top three also consisted of Nintendo platform titles, with both Brain Training titles in the top two, followed by Super Mario Galaxy in third.
Pro Evolution Soccer 2008 took fourth place, with Imagine Babyz, WWE Smackdown! vs Raw 2008 and SingStar Latino next in the list.
Assassin's Creed for the PlayStation 3 was in eighth with Need for Speed ProStreet and New Super Mario Bros rounding off the top ten.
The full charts are as follows:
Germany:
1. More Brain Training with Dr Kawashima (DS)
2. Super Mario Galaxy (Wii)
3. Mario & Sonic at the Olympics (Wii)
4. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (PC)
5. Eye Training (DS)
6. The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass (DS)
7. Mario Party DS (DS)
8. Need for Speed ProStreet (PS2)
9. Dr Kawashima's Brain Training (DS)
10. World of Warcraft
Spain:
1. More Brain Training with Dr Kawashima (DS)
2. Dr Kawashima's Brain Training (DS)
3. Super Mario Galaxy (Wii)
4. Pro Evolution Soccer 2008 (PS2)
5. Imagine Babyz (DS)
6. WWE Smackdown! vs Raw 2008 (PS2)
7. SingStar Latino (PS2)
8. Assassin's Creed (PS3)
9. Need for Speed ProStreet (PS2)
10. New Super Mario Bros (DS)
The ad for the 18-rated third-person action game featured a prolonged shoot-out between four men. During the gunfight a voiceover stated, "Honour is his code. Vengeance is his mission. Violence is his only option. John Woo presents Stranglehold. The next generation of action gaming has arrived."
The ASA received complaints about the advertisement from at least two viewers. One argued that the commercial “glorified violence and gun crime and that it was a dangerous incitement to susceptible people”, while another challenged whether it was acceptable for transmission before the 9pm watershed.
The agency responsible for the commercial, Picture Production Company, said that it had edited the footage to ensure bullets were seen to be fired into mid-air and did not result in any character or person being shot. It also argued that it was clear to viewers that the ad featured animated game play and not real-life violence.
In its assessment of the advert the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) said that that the shooting was almost continuous throughout, and noted the realistic appearance of the violence, even though it was computer-generated.
“We considered the voice-over… suggested that it was honorable to seek revenge and that violence was an acceptable solution to a situation,” said the watchdog.
“We considered the ad was likely to be seen as encouraging and condoning violence. Because the issues raised by the ad could not be addressed with a timing restriction, we considered the only solution was to withdraw the ad from transmission completely.”
Midway declined to comment on the ban when contacted by Next-Gen.
If the idea of a $40 [£20] Plus! Pack gets your Vista-loin in a sweat then listen up. It appears that Microsoft might be launching a Microsoft Plus! Pack on February 15th. This according to that box art above discovered on the Canadian Future Shop site. However, the text found describing the Plus Pack appears to be describing Vista Ultimate which makes the whole thing a tad, shall we say, suspect. Hey, who needs Vista Ultimate Extras anyway when you can have "4 Games in one!"?
The Serial ATA Standards guys just approved a bus-powered eSATA spec that may see the light of day as early as late summer or early fall. This comes as a relief since eSATA is making its way into the mainstream via the home-theater realm (as DVR add-ons), where demands for the power brick to just go the hell away are higher than ever. I'm thinking of all those home-theater beauty shots that feature a thin, wall-mounted plasma and the single surround-sound bar, but always leave out the growing rat's nest on the floor directly below. Thanks, eSATA, for doing your part! Now let's see if TiVo and others buy in.
Game Genie, Game Shark, plus clasical cheats for Sega, Nintendo, Sony PS, XBox, PC/MAC games, and much more. All in a single CHM file with full text search.
Is Acer prepping to go head-to-head with ASUS in the surprisingly hot low-cost laptop market? A Chinese-language Commercial Times report says so. The laptops are expected to carry 8- and 9-inch displays when launched "late in the first quarter or early second quarter" and priced to compete directly with the Eee. Of course, ASUS is planning their own refresh about that time so Acer (and Everex) had better keep on its toes.
Will wonders never cease? In one week, Alone in the Dark went from being released in March to being released in September to "not delayed until September, but we're not saying when it's actually coming out." Now, according to CVG, the survival horror title will drop on the Xbox 360, Wii, PC and PS2 in May of 2008. As you may have noticed, the PS3 is absent from that list, and with good reason: That version is now due "sometime in 2008." That's especially interesting to those who have been following the AITD release drama, as Atari previously said that the PS3 version would arrive day-and-date with its brethren on other consoles.
We have to admit that we're still looking forward to getting our hands on the game, if only to see if all the delays were time well spent. If we could be so bold though, could we suggest that the game ship with a special bonus copy of Chinese Democracy?
Hewlett-Packard sold more personal computers than Dell in 2007, after the two companies split the market the prior year.
According to Stamford, Connecticut-based research firm Gartner Inc., Hewlett-Packard had 18.2 per cent of the market compared with Dell's 14.3 per cent. Im 2006, each company had 15.9 per cent of the market.
"HP established a solid number one position in 2007,'' Gartner analyst Mikako Kitagawa told Bloomberg. "Robust consumer and mobile PC sales across all regions were two main drivers of HP's overall growth.''
Another research firm, IDC, has released PC figures showing Hewlett-Packard with a market share of 18.8 per cent compared to a 14.9 per cent share for Dell.
Taiwan's Acer, which bought Gateway last year, beat out Lenovo Group Ltd. for third place, with Toshiba in the fifth position.
Gartner said that HP's PC shipments climbed 30 per cent last year; Dell's 1.7 per cent increase was the lowest rate among the top five PC manufacturers.
Online multiplayer game Savage 2: A Tortured Soul is available to download now from the official website.
You can grab the client for free and play LAN matches indefinitely, or try online battles for five hours before being asked to fork out USD 29.99 for the full package.
For those unfamiliar with it, and you probably are, Savage pits two teams of five-to-17 of you against each other in a genre-bending battle. FPS fans will like the Battlefield-like action; RTS fans will like the base-building and idea of one person overseeing everything as a general; and RPG fans will like levelling up (each game from 1-10) and getting persistent items to carry across battles.
The original Savage from 2004 earned itself 8/10 on Eurogamer. "Given the right people and the right attitude, this is one of the finest multiplayer games of the year," concluded Tom.
Creator S2 Games is calling the sequel a labour of love, and we can't really see a reason not to give a shot. Apart from that it has savage torture in the title. Which I hate, by the way.
In further Age of Conan news today, Funcom has told us that its MMO Age of Conan is set for release on March 25.
Previously the game had the loose March-May 2008 as its latest release date.
Originally Funcom had hoped to get Age of Conan out at the end of last year, but the developer pushed it back to this year following the decision to make alterations to the game's combat system.
It's primarily the game's real-time dynamic combat system that caused a stir in the MMO community when Age of Conan was first announced.
We found it too fiddly during a first hands-on, but the system's subsequent definite and deliberate revisions have improved the feel of the game immensely.
An open beta for the MMO is planned closer to launch.
You can read more about the game and the impact of changes Funcom has made in this recent hands-on preview.
Source Changes
-----------------------------
Swinging Singles cleanup: [Tomasz Slanina]
- hooked up crt6845
- converted to tilemaps
- simplified protection(?) emulation
- removed tilemap, a bit more low level video hw emulation
- fake colors
Lowerd FPS in lasso.c to avoid corrupting Chameleon's high score table. [Zsolt Vasvari]
Removed obsolete uitext.c and all references to it. [Aaron Giles]
Some more modernization/clean-up in the exidy driver. [Zsolt Vasvari]
Added VIDEO_ALWAYS_UPDATED for reliable collision detection in the CVS driver. [Zsolt Vasvari]
Cleaned up astinvad driver: [Aaron Giles]
* Proper video timing
* Hooked up 8255 PPIs
* Correct interrupt timing
* Consolidated code into single file
i8039.c/mario.c updates: [couriersud]
* fixed movd instructions
* add MB8884 and M58715 cpu types
* moved timer hack to M58715
* added ram_mask for internal ram access
* added R.A11 as 'M' to dasm flags
* added EA "IO" port
* mario now uses M58715 as sound cpu
* hooked up EA line for M58715
* fixed portA startup value
* documented hardware changes to use a I8039 on a mario board
sauro.c: [couriersud]
* revert promsize to 256 for trckydoc
Added XTAL clocks to zaxxon.c. [Aaron Giles]
Cleaned up cojag/jaguar driver: [Aaron Giles]
* proper video timing, configured by the chipset
* 32-bit rendering, removing 16bpp hacks
* support for borders
* proper object processor timing, including multiple passes per line
* added R3041 as a clone of the R3000
* fixed XTALs based on documentation
Consolidated exidy and victory drivers. Removed complicated dirty tracking from victory.c. Reorganized the exidy audio hardware code. Changed Targ to use a loaded PROM instead of a hard-coded one. Renamed Side Trak to Side Track as per the title screen. [Zsolt Vasvari]
6821 PIA changes: [Zsolt Vasvari]
- Added orthogonal accessors
- Removed hacky update_shared_irq_handler(), now the same IRQ callback maybe called multiple times, but this shouldn't be a problem
- IRQ lines are cleared on a reset
Disabled code in the TMS5220 that set the Buffer Empty flag after a stop frame. This fixes Victory. This might be the incorrect fix but the old code wasn't working either. [Zsolt Vasvari]
Hooked up revx dcs reset line. Signaled IRQ on correct CPU when DCS sends data back (duh). [Aaron Giles]
Removed unnecessary check that could cause SCSP hangs in grdforce. [kingshriek]
Tweaked deco156 clock speed to be 28 to prevent the games from running in slow motion. I suspect the 156 chip has an internal multiplier, the usual input pin is 7Mhz IIRC. [David Haywood]
dkong.c changes: [couriersud]
* added equivalence circuit for Sanyo EZV audio amplifier
* Set DK_C159 = 0 to avoid over-aggressive high-pass filter. Solely based on observations.
* added comment on above to source
* Added define DK_NO_FILTERS to turn of DAC filters and post-mixer filters for debugging
Adds dips for Water Balls. Adds dip port locations to all dips. [Brian Troha]
Added CPUINFO_INT_CLOCK_MULTIPLIER to support CPU clock multipliers. Updated all CPU cores to return a CPUINFO_INT_CLOCK_MULTIPLIER of 1. Changed the core to actually respect both CPUINFO_INT_CLOCK_MULTIPLIER and CPUINFO_INT_CLOCK_DIVIDER. Updated a number of drivers to use cpunum_get_clock() instead of Machine->drv->cpu[x].clock. Raw input clock speeds should now be specified for all CPUs in the MACHINE_DRIVER. [Aaron Giles]
Changed TLC43076 and games using it to RGB32. Removed global Machine variable where possible. [Zsolt Vasvari]
Removed dirtybuffer from video/generic.c and all drivers still using it. Good riddance... Removed videoram_w, colorram_w and spriteram_w and changed all drivers using it to access RAM directly. Removed videoram_r, colorram_r, spriteram_r, spriteram16_r and spriteram16_w from video/generic.c and changed all games to use (possibly shared) RAM. [Zsolt Vasvari]
Cleaned up memory maps in the seibu sound interfaces. Changed to use shared sound configs instead of statically copying them in each driver. [Aaron Giles]
Verified and changed cpu frequencies and oki m6295 pin 7 on the following pcbs: Asuka&Asuka, Cadash, Equites h/w games and sound board, F1GP, Super Formula, Gladiator, Ping Pong king, Great Swordsman, Irem m52 sound board, Tropical Angel, Explosive Breakers, Magical Crystal, Mad Gear, Roller Aces, Chinese Hero, Simpsons, Golfing Greats, Time Pilot 84. [Corrado Tomaselli]
Added some more static qualifiers on recent new/changed code. [Atari Ace]
Fixed dbreed72 crash introduced in 0.122u5. [Mamesick]
Fixed HuC6280 low-speed mode so it uses 4 cycles instead of 3. [Charles MacDonald]
Hand fixed Road Runner's corrupted ROM. We are 99.99% sure that the bad bytes are the same as the Desert Gun ones. [Zsolt Vasvari]
Cleaned up leland clocks a little. Made the i186 divide-by-2 clock internal. [Aaron Giles]
Added clocks to the MCR sound boards and some of the MCR games. Added TMS5220 variants TMS5200 and TMC0285 as proper chips. Changed MCR squawk & talk to use the TMS5200 as documented. [Aaron Giles]
Cleaned up Crazy Baloon driver: proper memory maps, crystals, etc. Implemented the missing features of the collision detector custom IC. [Zsolt Vasvari]
First pass at fixing the cpu clock speeds on the playstation based hardware. The system 10 & 12 clock speeds have been raised as they run on an upgraded chipset. The internal divide in the CPU core has been set to 4 as we have no wait states, incorrect dma timing, no gpu timing, no dma bus stealing and no gte timing. [smf]
Fixed RET instruction on the i960 core. [Ernesto Corvi, ElSemi]
Removed speedups in the gstream and limenko drivers which were breaking the games. [David Haywood]
Fixed regression on i8039 T1 counter mode. [couriersud]
Added CUSTOM_INPUT macro for defining input port callbacks. Pushed its usage throughout the code. [Aaron Giles]
phoenix and clones: [couriersud]
* video timing from schematics
* palette from schematics (resnet.h)
* no more colortable
* added save state
Minor RSP fixes: [SGINut]
- Fixed accumulator state on powerup by testing against real hardware
- Fixed single-step behavior by testing against real hardware
Added save state support to atetris.c. [Svante Gerhard]
Fixed up atetris memory maps and clocks according to schematics. [Aaron Giles]
Added targ and spectar to TinyMAME. [neoforma]
New games added or promoted from NOT_WORKING status
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ripper Ribbit [Aaron Giles]
Chicken Farm [Aaron Giles]
Crazzy Clownz [Aaron Giles]
Space Fighter Mark II [Zsolt Vasvari, Guru]
New clones added
---------------------------------------
Heated Barrel (US set 2) [Corrado Tomaselli]
Player's Edge Plus (XMP00006) Multi-Poker [Jim Stolis]
New games marked as GAME_NOT_WORKING
------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Toote (Germany) [Luca Elia]
Dodge City [Roberto Fresca]
◇ Plug and Play, driver FREE
◇ Support all operate system
◇ 9in1 intelligent design,build in LED display
◇ Support SD / TF / SD-HC / MMC / RS-MMC / MMC-Mobile / MMC-Plus directly
◇ Support Mini-SD & MMC-Micro through the convertor
◇ Very fast USB2.0 accessing speed
Welcome to this week's Games & Toys update, our weekly summary featuring all new product arrivals from the last seven days.
It's been another rather calm release week, with just eight (+one Limited Edition) releases in Japan as well as a few new US version game arrivals. Highlights this week have been EA's NFL Tour (PlayStation3™ / Xbox360™), Sonic Riders: Zero Gravity (Wii™ Japanese / Wii™ US / PS2™ US) and Capcom's multi platform Harvey Birdman: Attorney At Law.
As usually, here's a summary of all new releases from this week, followed by a quick preview of what is expected to be hot next week.
Xbox360™:
Juiced 2: Hot Import Nights JPN US$ 64.90
Kingdom Under Fire: Circle of Doom US US$ 64.90
NFL Tour US US$ 54.90
PlayStation3™:
NFL Tour US US$ 59.90
Nintendo Wii™:
Harvey Birdman: Attorney At Law US US$ 49.90
Luxor: Pharaoh's Challenge US US$ 44.90
Sonic Riders: Shooting Star Story JPN US$ 59.90
Sonic Riders: Zero Gravity US US$ 49.90
PlayStation2™:
Dance Dance Revolution: Disney Channel US US$ 39.90
Dance Dance Revolution: Disney Channel Bundle US US$ 59.90
Harvey Birdman: Attorney At Law US US$ 39.90
Juiced 2: Hot Import Nights JPN US$ 49.90
School Days LxH JPN US$ 64.90
School Days LxH [First Print Limited Edition] JPN N/A
Sonic Riders: Zero Gravity US US$ 44.90
World Champion Paintball US US$ 24.90
Yu-Gi-Oh! The Beginning of Destiny US US$ 34.90
Nintendo DS™:
Brain Challenge US US$ 24.90
Code Geass System Carrying Case (Blue) JPN N/A
Code Geass System Carrying Case (Brown) JPN US$ 14.90
Dragon Ball Z Carrying Case - Goku JPN US$ 12.90
Dragon Ball Z Carrying Case - Shinryu JPN US$ 12.90
Elements of Destruction US US$ 24.90
From the Abyss JPN US$ 48.90
Jackass: The Game US US$ 34.90
Touch de Zuno! DS JPN US$ 39.90
Sony PSP™:
Harvey Birdman: Attorney At Law US US$ 34.90
Medal of Honor: Heroes 2 ASIA US$ 42.90
PC Games (Adult):
Discipline: The Record of the Crusade US US$ 26.90
Toys & More:
Devil May Cry 3 NoScale ArtFx Statue - Vergil JPN N/A
Dragon Ball Z Flash Key Ring JPN US$ 5.90
Dragon Ball Z Non Scale Pre-Painted Candy Toy JPN US$ 2.49
Fist of the North Star Non Scale Final Ulitmate Box Set Pre-Painted: Raoh & Kokuoh-Go 200X JPN US$ 139.90
Hot Gimmick 3 Digital Surfing 1/7 Scale Pre-Painted PVC Figure: Novia (Pink Hair Version) JPN US$ 59.90
Monster Hunter - Pinky P-Chara Bone Hunter: Poon (Equipment Vers) JPN US$ 19.90
Monster Hunter - Pinky P-Chara Kosu Hunter: Monchan JPN N/A
Monster Hunter - Pinky P-Chara Sword Hunter: Leia (Equipment Vers.) JPN N/A
Nohohon Cherry Pink Type US$ 9.90
Nohohon Honey White Type US$ 9.90
Player Select Soul Reaver Pre-Painted Action Figure: Material World Raziel US US$ 15.90
Player Select Soul Reaver Pre-Painted Action Figure: Spirit World Raziel US US$ 15.90
Revoltech Yamaguchi Series No.043 Ironman 28 Non Scale Pre-Painted PVC Figure: Ironman 28 JPN N/A
Rio Calendar 2007 Super Black Jack - 1/7 Scale Pre-Painted PVC Figure: Rio JPN N/A
Shakugan no Shana 1/8 Scale Pre-painted PVC Figure - Shana (Himitsu Ver.) JPN US$ 59.90
Shakugan no Shana 1/8 Scale Pre-painted PVC Figure - Shana (Nekomimi Ver.) JPN US$ 59.90
Shinkyoku Soukai Polyphonica 1/8 Scale Painted PVC Figure: Koutikarute Apa Raguranjesu JPN N/A
Shuraki Trinity Box 3 1/8 Scale Pre-Painted PVC Figure: Char Rhousemann JPN N/A
Tales of Phantasia One Coin Figures JPN US$ 5.90
Togainu's Blood - PS2 Soft Sale commemoration Non Scale Pre-Painted Soft Vinyl Figure: Arubidoro JPN US$ 29.90
Video Game Soundtracks:
Fairchild GM Original Soundtrack JPN US$ 33.90
Nights-Hoshi Furu Yoru No Monogatari-Original Soundtrack JPN US$ 36.90
Ryusei No Rockman 1&2 Original Soundtrack JPN US$ 31.90
Here is a quick preview of what is expected to be hot. Please note that Nintendo's Dairantou Smash Brothers X / Super Smash Bros. Brawl has been pushed back for one week, now shipping January 31st.
Xbox360™:
Lost Odyssey (English language Version) ASIA US$ 49.90
PlayStation2™:
Lucky * Star JPN US$ 64.90
Lucky * Star [DX Pack] JPN US$ 89.90
Nintendo DS™:
Hijouguchi: Exit DS JPN US$ 48.90
The Prince of Tennis: Driving Smash! Side King JPN US$ 48.90
The Prince of Tennis: Driving Smash! Side King [Konamistyle Part.12 Special Edition] JPN US$ 139.90
Sony PSP™:
Winning Eleven Ubiquitous Evolution 2008 ASIA US$ 42.90
Winning Eleven Ubiquitous Evolution 2008 JPN US$ 48.90
Yggdra Union JPN US$ 48.90
Yggdra Union ASIA US$ 42.90
Just a quick release before my life's greatest emulator project kicks in. This version adds preliminary support for some effects that double the vertical resolution of the plus/4 by scanline interleaving. While the effect itself has been considered possible since around 1993, it has not been explored further until recently. Here's the - very short - list of changes:
• support for true interlace
• more new icons from Chronos
• couple of bugfixes
Obviously, true interlace will only work properly on the 'Very high accuracy' emulation level and in double sized window modes.
• misc: first compile in new VS2008 environment with some minor code cleanup
• misc: 0-byte rom files are not handled as nodumps anymore
• misc: fix dat header includes xmlheader statements (if available in the original dat)
• fixed: dat export failed for roms with a not specified crc32
Wii Fit sat top of the latest Japanese software chart in a quiet week for sales as the end of year rush fell away.
There were no new entries in the top twenty, and Nintendo's activity title sold just 90,000 units compared to the previous week's number one seller which sold over twice that number.
Nintendo platform titles continued to dominate in the sales week ending January 13 according to Media Create data, taking nine of the top ten positions and 16 of the top 20, as Mario Party DS and Wii Sports rounded out the top three.
Final Fantasy IV was fourth, while the lone non-Nintendo platform game - Monster Hunter Portable 2nd for the PlayStation Portable - was fifth.
Most of the rest of the top ten was taken up with top Nintendo-based franchises, while the week's highest new entry was Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare for the Xbox 360 at number 22 - two places above the next highest new entry, Mario Strikers Charged for the Wii.
The full top ten follows:
1. Wii Fit (Wii)
2. Mario Party DS (DS)
3. Wii Sports (Wii)
4. Final Fantasy IV (DS)
5. Monster Hunter Portable 2nd (PSP)
6. Prof Layton and Pandora's Box (DS)
7. Dragon Quest IV (DS)
8. Wii Play (Wii)
9. Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games (Wii)
10. Mario Kart DS (DS)
The NPD Group has released its US hardware and software sales data for the month of December, bringing the year's total sales to USD 18 billion.
That figure represents a 43 per cent increase over 2006's total sales of USD 12.5 billion.
On the hardware side, NPD estimates that 8.5 million DS handhelds were sold in 2007, more than twice the 3.82 million PSP handhelds sold by Sony.
Nintendo sold 6.29 million Wii consoles, Microsoft sold 4.62 million Xbox 360 consoles, and Sony sold 2.56 million PS3 consoles during the year.
Sony also sold 3.97 million PS2 consoles in 2007, bringing its life-to-date sales to 41.12 million.
The year's Top Ten best-selling games in the US were:
1. Halo 3 (360) - 4.82 million
2. Wii Play w/ remote (Wii) - 4.12 million
3. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (360) - 3.04 million
4. Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (PS2) - 2.72 million
5. Super Mario Galaxy (Wii) - 2.52 million
6. Pokemon Diamond (DS) - 2.48 million
7. Madden NFL 08 (PS2) - 1.90 million
8. Guitar Hero 2 (PS2) - 1.89 million
9. Assassin's Creed (360) - 1.87 million
10. Mario Party 8 (Wii) - 1.82 million
Mark Rein has described Unreal Tournament III on PC as not "doing so badly" in response to a question on the game's retail performance in launch month.
More than a few surprised eyebrows were raised when data released by NPD Group put the sequel at 33,995 unit sales in November 2007 in the US, which seemed very low for such a high-profile game.
Crysis, which launched in the same month, shifted just under 87,000 units.
"It is amazing how people can look at two weeks of sales (in our case) in one single territory in the busiest Xmas sales season the industry has ever seen and come to the conclusion these titles are doing 'badly'", Rein has said in a fan-led interview on Guardian Unlimited's games blog.
"I don't think either title [UTIII and Crysis] is doing so badly", he continued.
"Crysis probably has 3-4x the marketing budget of UTIII and more mindshare because it is a PC-only, high-end, single-player oriented game", he added.
Rein admitted that Unreal Tournament III isn't the fastest selling game in the series ever "but it's doing pretty well and we're going to support it with some pretty cool things to help it keep selling over time".
A mysterious gamer from Germany has hit the World of Warcraft gold limit.
The incredible figure is now known to stand at 217, 748 gold, 36 silver and 48 copper. According to programming boffins he is awfully lucky, too, because had Blizzard not included a cap or limit, then he could have ploughed over and dramatically reversed his fortune into negative numbers. Something to do with a database and multicoloured giraffes.
For those unfamiliar with World of Warcraft riches, consider that buying 1000 gold from a third-party source might possibly (covering bases) cost around USD 30. Then, simply pop the sums into a calculator and his mountain of gold is worth roughly USD 6450. Goodness.
Apparently this is not the first time the limit has been hit, either. According to MMO Champion a US character reached it a few months ago, verifying the numerical cap. Shots of the various bank balances can be found there too.
In both cases Game Masters (in-game helpers) were flummoxed and could only suggest spreading the wealth to the banks of other characters as a solution.
As to how the number got so high. Well, official World of Warcraft forum members point this character out as leader of the largest guild on the server and top ten in the world.
The benefits of being so powerful mean you can literally run others through difficult dungeons for a cost and sell all the benefits from your fast raiding to the highest bidders, apparently netting this bank character an absolute fortune.
In Japan, all listed consoles have sales slashed back to normal levels. Seems like the excitement has gone away I guess. The figures are displayed as follows below:
Nintendo DS Lite: 97,369
PSP: 96,159
Wii: 84,530
PS3: 38,907
PS2: 14,499
Xbox 360: 4,690
All console maintain the same positions as last weeks' reading. PSP just some 1,300 behind the DS Lite while the Xbox 360 still fares badly.
Will Wright has admitted The Sims might never have happened had it not been for his persistence.
Speaking to Rock, Paper, Shotgun, he said getting suits at developer Maxis keen on the idea was a "battle" from the start, with early testing groups ending in disaster and eventually forcing him to abandon the project.
"It was a battle, the first few years, inside Maxis," said Wright. "It was referred to as 'The Toilet game'. It was the game where you clean the toilet.
"We had a product review meeting at Maxis where we had to decide whether we'd publish this thing or not...and the executive said 'No, let's do [something else]'."
So he decided to work on it in secret, the cheeky risk taker. And it was only after he and a tools programmer introduced the open-ended object and character interaction that things began to take off.
Then eventually it got the go-ahead, and apparently we could have even seen it a year or two earlier. But Wright wanted to make it expandable, and a good job he did, given the 29 million worldwide sales for The Sims series and add-ons to date.
"I thought the game would either do a million units or... 50," Wright bashfully admitted. "I thought a million would be a hit. It would be a hit or a total dog."
Will Wright is currently masterminding evolution-inspired simulation Spore, which should be out sometime this year. Ambitious? Check. Elongated development? Check. Worried? Not on your life.
"If you really believe in what you're doing, don't be discouraged easily," concludes Wright. "Otherwise you're in the wrong industry".
It looks like Mac Pro users wanting to get in on some of the latest and greatest action without ditching their old system altogether are still out of luck, despite a recently released "upgrade kit" from Apple that got some of their hopes up, and caused some consternation for anyone that actually took the plunge on one.
As a number of users have reported on various discussion forums (one of which is linked below), the $349 [£180] GeForce 8800 GT upgrade kit only works in the newest Mac Pros, and not the older models, due to their lack of support for PCI-Express 2.0. That little detail was indicated as requirement by Apple, although many apparently assumed the cards would work because of the inherent backwards compatibility in PCIe 2.0.
As you might expect, many users are none to pleased with Apple actions on the matter, with some claiming that the company's interested only in getting customers to buy a new system instead of prolonging the life of their old one. Shocking, we know.
3.0 could take off fast. We believe that the connectors were shown for the first time publicly at this year's CES, and at least one manufacturer is already working the spec into their laptops. Eagle-eyed scouts at The Register spotted two USB 3.0-like ports in the Asus' M50 laptop.
But it's sort of complicated. The transition of USB 2.0 to USB 3.0 will increase the number of wire contacts from 4 to 5. The Register spotted ports that made room for the fifth wire contact but still sported only four, meaning that Asus was framing their system for USB 3.0 even though they weren't technically adopting the spec just yet. Given that USB 3.0 will bring data transfers up to 4.7GB/sec, we're fine with companies pushing this technology onto us.
Though info on EA's Command & Conquer FPS, Tiberium, was dropped in last month's Game Informer we were left staring at press images (like the one you see above) that did little to explain the game's aesthetic, not to mention the "blend of first-person shooting and tactical squad combat" gameplay the press material's promise. Cue the debut trailer, just gone live at GameTrailers, which doesn't help so much in the latter category – it's all CGI, no gameplay here – but we're liking the aesthetic (hey, did you borrow that helmet from the Dead Space guys down the hall?).
The Asus Eee PC will get a touchscreen later this year, our favorite rumormongering Taiwanese paper says. "The second generation Eee PC will support 8-, 9- and 10-inch panels. The 9-inch panel versions will feature a touch panel," said Digitimes' sources, pointing at total added costs of under $15 per laptop. Looking at their sources lousy track record, we can't be sure of this, although it sounds good and it may make His Walterness happy. Hopefuly, their source is now a reliable one and not the same drunk dude guy with two teeth sleeping in that fridge box next to that alley noodles bar in Chittagong.
Baroque, a role-playing game on the way for the Wii and PlayStation 2 from Japanese developer Sting, has been pushed back a month, according to the game's publisher, Atlus.
Here's what Atlus had to say when they announced the game back in December:
"You awaken to find the world in ruin, your heart beset with unexplained guilt. A cataclysm has destroyed the cities and empires of men and disfigured the spirit of humanity. In this nightmare, it falls to you to descend a mysterious tower in search of absolution. Battle merciless foes through treacherous dungeons, scour for new items to aid you in your travels, and unlock the secrets of a devastated land. You will find death in the depths, yet learn that death is not the end of the story; in the twisted world of Baroque, it is only the beginning."
Dark stuff, that.
Atlus has also released new details about the Wii version of Baroque:
- 16:9 widescreen support
- Progressive scan support
- "Subtle" motion control integration for power attacks
- "Intuitive" controls using Wii Remote and nunchuk
- Classic Controller support for traditional play
Here are some of the items and weapons that will be available in the game, with descriptions by Atlus, followed by our thoughts in italics:
Angelic Rifle - A uniquely shaped rifle that can annihilate any meta-being with one shot. However, its specialized ammunition is very limited.
Sword - A melee weapon to attack the enemy. There are swords that will possess enhanced attributes and added effects.
Coat - Protective gear to resist attacks. There are some coats that will have other effects besides just raising defense.
Torturer - Item that causes a variety of area effects depending on the type of Torturer. They can be combined with others to enhance their effects.
Parasite - It can grant a variety of effects by fusing it with the protagonist or equipment. You can also fuse a parasite with another parasite.
Wings - Imitation wings that provide the protagonist with special abilities
Flesh - Eat this to restore HP. Rotten flesh will cause stomachaches.
Heart - Eat this to restore VT. Rotten hearts will cause stomachaches.
Bone - Bite on it to restore HP or VT or throw it at the enemy to deal damage. Because they are small in size, the protagonist can hold quite a few of these
Fluid - Liquid that gives an instantaneous effect by injecting it into the protagonist. Most of them can heal status ailments and raise stats.
Box - An item is usually in the box and it can be obtained by opening it successfully. If the box explodes while opening it, the item is destroyed and you will take damage.
Brand - Special statuses can be obtained by using brands. It cannot be removed unless an Unbrand Brand is used.
Disk - Item that activates by stepping on it. It can be set anywhere. The effect varies depending on if it is placed face up or face down.
Idea Sephirah - The purified, crystallized form of one's true self. Information about the being prior to its crystallization can be gleaned if the crystal is formed from a living specimen
Baroque is set in a near future in which the world has been destroyed by a cataclysmic "Blaze" that has shifted the laws of nature and given rise to twisted "Meta-Beings." In order to stay sane, the population clings to delusions, called Baroques.
Crystallized selves, weaponized bones, torture devices and rotten flesh? Count us in.
Forget the talk of which secret characters will be making an appearance in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, because surely this revelation is more significant: SEGA’s Alex Kidd will be appearing in the upcoming SEGA Superstar Tennis, his first videogaming outing for over 17 years.
The news comes plucked from the latest issue of Game Informer magazine and the beady eyes of Seganerds. The article writes:
In addition to featuring Sega’s top roster of talent like Sonic, Dr. Eggman, and Aiai, the game will include some of the company’s cooler, albeit bearly-forgotten characters. We’re happy to see Space Channel 5’s Ulala, Jet Set Radio’s Beat and Sega’s defunct mascot Alex Kidd from Alex Kidd in Miracle World back in action.
Alex Kidd, with his ape-like ears and bright red attire was SEGA’s primary mascot between 1986 and 1990, when the firm dropped him in favour of Sonic the Hedgehog.
SEGA Superstar Tennis will be released for the Nintendo Wii and Nintendo DS this March.
* Added -DisMenu command line option to disable the menus.
* Fixed issue where sound output stops after about 10 mins.
* Corrected the fix in v3.8 for sound artifacts. Sampled sound works correctly again.
* Added periodic noise emulation tweak from Rich Talbot-Watkins.
* Updated instructions for defining user keyboard mappings (thanks to Jonathan Bluestone).
* Bug fix - Cursor position wrong when in column 1 in editing mode.
Merged sets being added more than once in "\arcade\mame_merged.ini" file
MAME ROMs folder selection was auto-sorting the list
Scan games function now search all MAME folders for .chd files
System node were counting as games when using system view mode
All system nodes were visible when selecting one system (system view mode)
Random game button was bugged again (this feature is very slow when just a fewer games are visible)
Files renamed:
-> folder: "\resources\main_icons\"
"image_12_gameartwork.ico" to "image_07_gameartwork.ico"
"image_13_maws.ico" to "image_08_maws.ico"
Moved "number of screens" from main tool bar buttons to "Games Filters" main menu
Hot-key for "previous image type" is now F9 and for "next image type" is F10
Status bar "standard" size changed to 16x16 icons. 24x24 icons were removed
Image type #1 (game snapshot) cannot be disabled anymore (preferences screen)
Moved screenshots "stretch" and "display parent images" settings back to screenshots popup menu and removed the "settings and special effects" button from the tool bar
Added a "ClrMAMEPro Data File" edit box in "Emulator Setup" screen so you can define a .dat file for all systems that need it to create the games list. There is no need to put a "SEGAModel2Emulator.dat" in "\ini_files\" folder anymore
If the file is not found or not defined, when creating the games list you will be prompted to select one
Read/write resolution settings for "SEGA Model 2 Emulator" was bugged
Also, added support for custom resolutions
Remove "Show expanded Items" menu option from "View" main menu and added a new "Collapse Tree" / "Expand Tree" to toggle between collapse and expanded
Merged sets are a MAME exclusive feature from now on. This front-end will not support merged sets for any other system, including MAME based ones (AGEMAME, PinMAME, HazeMD, etc...)
The follwing options are now MAME exclusive features (games popup menu):
-> "Run Game and Playback Input"
-> "Run Game Game and Record Input"
-> "Run Game and Load a Save State"
-> "Run Game and Record Wave Output"
-> "Run Game and Record MNG Output"
Game documents feature is a MAME only feature now (it always was)
Moved "Auto Previous/Next Image Type" from main menu "Images" to images popup menu
Audio samples, main chip, display, sound, input, driver status and savestate info are now extracted from MAME's "-listxml" output... for bios entries
Read/write columns profiles were adding the full path twice on the filename string, preventing the profile to be read/written
Improved
More code optimizations (again, no speed gains)
Display game screenshots is a little faster (not noticeable for most of you)
Support for "filter / Mature" entries in .ini files (left panel)
Only available systems can be selected when scanning the games list (games popup menu)
Removed the "Delete Selected Games Files" option from games popup menu ("Delete" menu item), and changed the "Delete "gamename.zip" menu option so it can handle multiple selected games as well, using the same "Delete" keyboard hot-key
Treeview's FullExpand() command used instead of a loop (don't know why I never used this command before...)
You can delete files in the "Select File" screen using the "Delete" keyboard hot-key
Centralized all the calls for the "\ini_files\" folder and its sub-folders into one function
Updated the function that create games lists based on ClrMAMEPro .dat files so other emulators can also use it
Removed
DOS box run mode. Games run with DOS box in normal state and extract games list / emulator version minimized
The following image types are gone: "Select"; "Versus"; "Wallpaper"; "Hardware"; "PCB"
Go to MAWS to check on these images...
Files deleted:
-> folder: "\resources\main_icons\"
"filter6_numscreens_all.ico"; "filter6_numscreens_1.ico"; "filter6_numscreens_2.ico";
"filter6_numscreens_3.ico"; "filter6_numscreens_4.ico"; "mamu_scanmiss.ico";
"mamu_scannotneeded.ico"; "binary.ico"; "statusbar_total_games.ico";
"create_gameslist.ico"; "emu_extrafiles.ico"; "image_07_select.ico";
"image_08_versus.ico"; "image_09_wallpaper.ico"; "image_10_hardware.ico"
"image_11_pcb.ico"; "image_nextno.ico"; "image_prevno.ico"
Support for zipped images is gone... for good this time
Customize images tool bar. You can only show or hide this bar from now on
Image type button from main tool bar button. Now only available in images tool bar
Option: "Use MAME Games Info" for ZiNc system. If a MAME games list already exists, EL will get all extra info from it automatically
Option: "Delete All Visible Games" from favorites popup menu. If you want to delete all games from a favorites list, enable "Multiple Section", select all games and use "Delete / Delete All Selected Games Files" (games popup menu)
Several menu items from games popup menu "Delete" (sorry but you're gonna have to delete files manually from now on)
-> "Config File"
-> "Nvram File"
-> "Input File"
-> "Save State File"
Number of screens column from the main games list... you still have the filter in the "Games Filters" main menu
Added
Support for a new emulator: "AAE - Another Arcade Emulator"
New emulator that run vector games using OpenGL width hardware acceleration, adding some cool effects. A ClrMAMEPro .dat file is required for this system (go to "Logiqx")
Note: this system support only full split ROMs (no parent/clone relationships)!
Main filter "Parent/Clone" is also applied in the left panel
New left panel popup items:
-> "Apply Main Tool Bar Filters": Use this option to re-apply main filters from the tool bar buttons
-> "Export Games List": Export the current games list to a .ini file so you can use it as a new filter for the left panel
New button for the MAWS web browser tool bar: "Exit MAWS", to exit the browser and load the game snapshot image type
New feature: "Left Panel Editor" (main menu "Left Panel" / left panel popup menu)
This is what you've been waiting for. A complete editor for all your custom filter needs
You can even edit existing filters like "catlist.ini", "artwork.ini", "series.ini" and others. Read "docs\el-leftpanel.txt" file for a user guide
There are 2 possible options:
-> "Create a New Filter": the editor will open with a new filter already initialized waiting for your input
-> "Edit a Filter": after selecting a .ini from the list, the editor will open and load the filter so you can add/remove folders or games
The editor is very easy to use and visualize. See the "help" button at the editor's tool bar for a small tutorial
Warning: only MAME is supported by the editor. Even if you select games from other systems, they will not be added
New files:
-> folder: "\resources\images\topbars\"
"filters.png"; "emu_aae.png"
-> folder: '\resources\main_icons\"
"emu_aae.ico"; "filterarcade_10_aae.ico";
"leftpanel_btn_add.ico"; "leftpanel_btn_delete.ico"; "leftpanel_btn_save.ico";
"leftpanel_btn_help.ico"; "leftpanel_btn_addgame.ico"; "leftpanel_btn_deletegame.ico";
"search.ico"
-> folder: "\resources\gameslist_icons\"
"AAEParent.ico"; "AAEClone.ico"; "UnAAEParent.ico"; "UnAAEClone.ico"
Detection of available screen resolutions, based on your video card+monitor
Used in ZiNc settings screen, SEGA Model 2 settings screen, AAE settings screen
New filter: "Save State" in "Games Filters" main menu
* fixed the second player problem in Battle Heat
* fixed a few bugs in the MJPEG emulation, this fixes glitches in 'Chip-chan Kick', 'All Japan Female Pro Wrestling', 'Return to Zork', and may be a few other games
* fixed the missing layer in 'Princess Rolfee'
* fixed the darker screen problem in 'Miraculum'
* removed a change introduced in v1.0.1, this fixes 'Last Imperial Prince' and 'Nirgends' crashing bug
* improved the OpenGL driver, the 'ARB_render_texture' extension is not required anymore, if it's present it will be used but if this extension is not available a work-around will be used instead
* rewritten the CD-ROM driver, now both SPTI and ASPI are supported at the same time allowing more drives to be recognized
* improved the 'boot CD' menu, games titles are now displayed directly in the menu when a game is recognized
* added an eject button in the 'boot CD' menu
* fixed a memory bug that could crash the emulator
* added more resolution choices for the fullscreen mode, low resolutions are now supported too
implemented back the custom resolution modes, you can choose them from the pcfx.ini file
* improved program startup, the emulator will now starts directly in the selected screen mode, it won't display a blank startup window anymore
New version of the multi-system emulator for PC. It emulates the Emerson Arcadia 2001 (Bandai, Emerson, Grandstand, Intervision, Leisure-Vision, Leonardo, MPT-03, Ormatu, Palladium, Poppy, Robdajet, Tele-Fever, Tempest, Tryom, Tunix, etc.) and Interton VC 4000 (Acetronic, Fountain, Interton, Prinztronic, Rowtron, Voltmace, Waddington, etc.) console families, and the Elektor TV Games Computer.
Changelog:
. ARexx port (AmiArcadia only).
. Support for analog joysticks on host (WinArcadia only).
. "Save screenshot as BMP..." command.
. Miscellaneous improvements and bug fixes.
Blizzard apparently used signed integers for their World of Warcraft gold values as some people have recently hit the limit of 2^31. "Apparently that amount is 214,748 gold, 36 silver, 48 copper. After you reach that lofty sum, you'll no longer be able to receive money from any source in the game. While some responses to the original posts claim that this exact limit had previously been theorized to exist, there have been no reports of anyone in the game actually achieving this amount via legal means.". I guess Blizzard didn't expect anyone to ever get close to that much gold in game
Portable gaming is on the rise according to the 2007 NPD numbers issued this week. While the increase in handheld hardware and software didn't make quite as significant a leap in 2007 over the previous year as the console market, the spike was still significant.
Handheld systems, which includes the Nintendo DS, PlayStation Portable, and Game Boy Advance, bumped up about 7% in 2007 over 2006. Portable software sales showed a slightly higher spike, showing an 11% increase in sales last year compared to the same time frame in 2006.
In the system battle between the Nintendo DS and Sony's PSP, Nintendo clearly came out on top in 2007. Nintendo sold through more than 8.5 million DS units, more than a third of those systems (2.47 million) came from holiday sales in December. All told, the Nintendo DS has sold through more than 17.65 million system since the debut in November 2005.
PSP system sales were nothing to scoff at however; in 2007, Sony sold more than 3.82 million handheld systems, with just over one million sold in the month of December. Combine that with 2006 sales and Sony has put its system in the hands of more than 10.5 million gamers.
There are plenty of hacks out there for the Asus Eee PC, but now someone has brought it all together in a glorious amalgam of hackery. This here exposed, but proud, Eee holds within it add-ons for GPS, Bluetooth, 802.11n, FM transmitting and SDHC card reading, plus a modem, USB hub and 2GB of RAM just for good measure. Total cost of the upgrades is $454.38, so this is clearly a labor of love -- too bad all the radios in the world could never teach this little 7-inch beauty the joys of human emotion.
We don't keep you updated with every Wii sold like our friends at Kotaku, but the NPD's 2007 sales numbers have been released, so we thought that the occasion merited a rundown to fuel your fanboy flame wars. Here are the total consoles sold in the United States during 2007:
Nintendo DS - 8,500,000
Wii - 6,290,000
Xbox 360 - 4,620,000
PlayStation 2 - 3,970,000
PSP - 3,820,000
PlayStation 3 - 2,560,000
So what about the total cumulative US sales numbers to date? Those numbers paint a slightly different picture:
PlayStation 2 - 41,120,000 Nintendo DS - 17,650,000 PSP - 10,470,000 Xbox 360 - 9,150,000 Wii - 7,380,000 PlayStation 3 - 3,250,000
Our reaction: it's so easy to underestimate the success of the PSP hardware (and it's currently selling like hotcakes in Japan).
We've all faced off against some frustrating adversary in an online game; be it a sword-hogging, trash-talking, rabid teabagger on Halo 3; or a cocky member of a rival faction in an MMORPG. However, the boundaries established between virtual enemies are never impermeable, and when online rivals decide to settle their differences in a real world context, the result is almost always tragic -- as was the case for Albert, a 33-year-old Lineage II player who was allegedly beaten to death by a vindictive member of an opposing clan.
Albert is survived by his sister Albina, a fellow member of Albert's Platanium clan, who reports that she's received a number of death threats from members of her brother's alleged murderer's guild, the Coo-clocks clan. Considering this is Russia's second Lineage II related murder in one year, perhaps warring clans and other sparring members of the gaming community should momentarily cool their jets and firmly reestablish those necessary borders between video games and reality.
You may remember last year's April issue of EGM particularly well, as it included the breaking news on a hot new title making its way onto the Nintendo Wii: Mushroom Kingdom Hearts. Then again, you might remember the chorus of angry Nintendo/Disney/Square Enix fanboys screaming when they realized that the announcement was one of EGM's annual April Fools' Day pranks. If you also smacked your head in realization when the initial excitement subsided, we've got great news for you (and this time, it's on the level).
JudgeSpear has lovingly crafted his take on the game-that-never-was, titling it Super Mario Fusion: Mushroom Kingdom Hearts. Much like the legit Square Enix franchise, Fusion features a dimension-hopping Mario, and worlds based off of other video game franchises, including Halo, Sonic, Doom, Castlevania, Ghouls and Ghosts, Mega Man, and a handful of other Nintendo titles. Using familiar controls similar to those of Super Mario World, and a new gunplay mechanic using Covenant weaponry, this programmer has created a Frankengame that is definitely worth checking out.
A demo for the game is available on his site. Sure, it's still a tad buggy, but it's free, and it's probably the only time you'll see Mario packin' heat. We hope.
Despite the fact it's already been sitting on the shelves for over a year on PS2, another ruckus is being kicked off over Rockstar's Bully, reignited thanks to the upcoming release of Xbox 360 and Wii versions of the game.
The Daily Telegraph describes the updated version, Scholarship Edition, as an "even more realistic" take on the 2006 original, which "encourages players to act out assaults on pupils and teachers." Beating a dead horse much?
The game's also sparked additional rows by changing its name from Canis Canem Edit back to Bully, which in itself is enough to get Daily Mail readers all riled up.
Niall Cowley, of the charity BeatBullying, said: "We're disappointed this game was created in the first place. Some mindless people thought this was a fun, interesting piece of software to create, but it undermines all the hard work that organisations like ours are seeking to do."
Cowley said that when the original was launched last year, Rockstar tried to persuade his group to back Canis by offering a donation. "It was the most distasteful thing in the world - the idea that we could be bought off like that," he said.
"We have the interests of the children of this country in our mind, not of the shareholders of this company."
PC World and Currys have already refused to stock the Xbox 360 and Wii updates, as they did with the PS2 original. The National Union of Teachers meanwhile has called for a wider ban on the game.
In a statement, a Rockstar spokesperson said: "It is a comedic romp. The last game sold fabulously in the UK and was critically acclaimed.
"It is not a game about playing a bully. It is about the trials and tribulations of a boy in his first year at school. He protects children against other characters. People have to be able to make their own decisions and to judge for themselves, with an open mind."
Is it really worth wasting our words over this anymore? Anyone who's actually played the game will realise it's a very tongue-in-cheek action game which mostly has you protecting people from bullies rather than picking on pip-squeaks at random.
It's one of Rockstar's better games in recent times, so we definitely recommend a look when it arrives in the UK this March.
Funcom has announced a further delay to its MMO Age of Conan – Hyborian Adventures, with the title now due May 20.
The game was originally due last year, but Funcom announced back in August that the game would need more time, pencilling in a March 2008 release date.
"The companies standing apart in the gaming market today are those with a relentless drive to achieve quality. Even though we regret delaying the launch, I am certain we made the right choice. I hope that our followers and fans will support our decision, and respect our commitment to quality," said Gaute Godager, producer and game director on Age of Conan.
The title is currently in development for the PC, with an Xbox 360 version also planned. The MMO has proved popular with critics and a steady hype builds around the title, which has secured more than 20 magazine covers since it was first announced.
Funcom is currently running a beta testing program for Age of Conan, and has prepared pre-order programs and a Collector's Edition of the retail boxed game.
Bad news for Counter-Strike and EverQuest players living in Brazil - both games have been banned after a judge ruled they are "harmful to consumers' health".
As reported by AFP the judge, Carlos Alberto Simoes, made his ruling in October 2007 - but the ban is only coming into effect now. Simoes stated the games encouraged "the subversion of public order". He also ruled they were "an attack against the democratic state and the law and against public security".
Counter-Strike and EverQuest were first released in 1999. One modded map for the former game saw players taking on the role of either a police officer or drug dealer in the slums of Rio de Janeiro.
According to Brazilian readers of Kotaku, the game has been accused of teaching players war strategies.
It's alleged EverQuest is harmful because players are asked to accept both "good" and "bad" quests, the psychological burden of which is said to cause problems. The game was never officially released in Brazil.
A major subscriber-only content update for Flagship's RPG Hellgate: London is due to release today.
The update is the first of a number of planned instalments coming under the umbrella name Hellgate Chronicles, and introduces UK tourist hotspot, druid shindig place and general stone mystery Stonehenge.
Stonehenge, as it appears in Hellgate, is an outdoor hub - accessed via a special portal in Templar Base, apparently - that Flagship explains connects player to a number of new quests.
"Heroes will find themselves in completely new open, outdoor wilderness areas unlike anything seen within the city limits of London, battling terrifying new demons and bosses and finding new items very distinct in their appearance."
On top of that, the update features a handful of new dungeons and mini-raid areas and introduces a PvP duelling arena along with general gameplay tweaks.
Further details on the update can be found on the official Hellgate: London website.
And of course we have more on Hellgate: London - including a review - on our dedicated game homepage.
EA has announced it will be releasing a free Battlefield Heroes game in the summer.
Developed by series veteran DICE, it will be a cartoon-inspired war game powered by advertising and micro transactions. This is known as "Play 4 Free".
Aimed at the mass market, the game will offer a downloadable client, lots of character customisation and hours of shooting madness.
Its fresh art direction will help it stand out, too, just like Team Fortress 2 did last year. Oh, it looks quite similar. Perhaps it's just a coincidence like the Burnout Paradise cover image.
"There's something here for all types of players - be it our core Battlefield fans or casual gamers," said Ben Cousins, big cheese at DICE.
"With the new online model we will continually add new content to keep the game fresh and keep players engaged, while integrating player feedback in real time. As a game developer, it is such a cool new way to make games."
Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games has returned to the number one position in the UK's All Formats Top 40 chart according to data released by Chart Track.
It is the third different title to reach the top spot so far this year in as many weeks, as Activision's Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare dropped to second place.
Nintendo exclusives - either for Wii or DS - made up over half of the All Formats Top 10 charts for the first time since September 2007.
With the exception of The Simpsons Game, which moved up one place, every multi-format game in the top 10 lost sales. Sega's Ghost Squad and Capcom's Zack & Wiki debuted in the Top 40 charts at number 20 and 25, respectively.
For the week ended January 19, the top selling games in the UK were:
1. Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games
2. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
3. The Simpsons Game
4. Dr. Kawashima's Brain Training
5. More Brain Training from Dr. Kawashima
6. Assassin's Creed
7. FIFA 08
8. Super Mario Galaxy
9. Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock
10. Wii Play
* fixed: dat export exports 'flags baddump' in a wrong way which get reloaded as crc 0xf
* misc: main window can be put to 0/0
* misc: profiler's create doesn't care anymore about exe sharing access issues
* misc: minimum OS requirement is now W2k and higher
Games for Sony's PlayStation 3 have surged into the Spanish software sales chart top ten, finally ending a lengthy run at the top for various Nintendo platform games, according to sales data from Media Control GfK International for the week ending January 13.
Pro Evolution Soccer 2008 for Sony's next-gen console topped the chart, with Uncharted: Drake's Fortune coming in third and Assassin's Creed taking seventh - the most titles that the PS3 has had in the top ten for many months.
Titles for the DS and Wii were still well represented, with More Brain Training in second, Super Mario Galaxy in fifth, the original Brain Training in sixth and other titles in the last three positions.
Meanwhile in Germany Nintendo continued to dominate the software sales top ten, with More Brain Training leading the way, followed by Wii Play in second.
PC titles Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, World of Warcraft and its expansion The Burning Crusade took third, fourth and seventh places respectively, while Sony could only muster one game for its consoles - SingStar: Apres Ski in eighth place.
The full charts are as follows:
Spain
1. Pro Evolution Soccer 2008 (PS3)
2. More Brain Training with Dr Kawashima (DS)
3. Uncharted: Drake's Fortune (PS3)
4. Pro Evolution Soccer 2008 (PS2)
5. Super Mario Galaxy (Wii)
6. Dr Kawashima's Brain Training (DS)
7. Assassin's Creed (PS3)
8. New Super Mario Bros (DS)
9. Big Brain Academy (Wii)
10. Practice English (DS)
Germany
1. More Brain Training with Dr Kawashima (DS)
2. Wii Play (Wii)
3. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (PC)
4. World of Warcraft (PC)
5. Mario Party DS (DS)
6. Super Mario Galaxy (Wii)
7. World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade (PC)
8. SingStar: Apres Ski (PS2)
9. Mario & Sonic at the Olympics (Wii)
10. Eye Training (DS)
The Interactive Entertainment Association of Australia (IEAA) today announced that sales for the videogame industry in Australia reached $1.3 billion dollars in 2007. That's a new record for the industry, and an increase of 43.6% on the $925 million sales figure in 2006. It's also much stronger growth than the 7% rise in sales the industry achieved from 2005 to 2006.
The Australian figures come hot on the heels of a bumper year in the United States as well. The U.S. market saw a similar upturn – a 43% increase from the year before, with total sales of US $17.94 billion.
So how many games were sold in 2007? According to independent market research group GfK Australia, Australian gamers purchased 15.4 million games, with more than one third of those titles – close to 6 million – sold in the final quarter of the year. It's also worth bearing in mind that these figures don't take into account games purchased via digital distribution, and with high profile releases such as The Orange Box on Steam, and the ever-growing market for new and classic titles through the PS3, Xbox 360 and Wii online services, the true figure is even higher.
"Last year, Australians welcomed the arrival of the PS3 and marked a full year since the release of the Xbox 360 and Nintendo Wii," Ron Curry, the CEO of the IEAA, commented. "The launch of highly anticipated next generation gaming drove console sales to almost $500 million, nearly double the $270 million sold in 2006. Sales figures also indicate a resurging popularity in handheld consoles with 2.3 million units of software for the Nintendo DS system purchased last year compared to the 840,000 purchased in 2006."
"The gaming industry is no longer a niche market appealing only to traditional gamers," he continued. "With a wide variety of games available, interactive entertainment is attracting people from all ages and all walks of life. It is interesting to note that as more Australians embrace the most advanced gaming innovations and purchase the latest games, the average age of gamers has risen to 28 years old."
We asked each of the platform holders for comment on the figures. Nintendo Australia's PR coordinator Heather Murphy told us that "It's exciting that Australia's gaming industry nearly doubled its sales in 2007. From Nintendo's point of view, we're finding a broad range of people playing our games. We have games for everyone, which is evident from something as addictive as Brain Training and More Brain Training, to the popular Super Mario Galaxy. We've even seen seniors in nursing homes embracing Wii, particularly Wii Sports; and schools using the Nintendo DS as part of the curriculum.
"What Ron Curry said is spot on," Murphy continued, "the gaming industry is no longer a niche market; the market has broadened. Nintendo has such a wide variety of games available to cater for everyone - games for the family, core gamers, young females, even seniors."
Adrian Christie, the Communications Manager of Sony Computer Entertainment Australia, believes that the boom is a good thing for everyone, telling us: "As a member of the IEAA we're extremely pleased with the collective success of the interactive entertainment category in 2007. Everyone (all manufacturers and publishers) can claim a 'win' or 'best of' in one category or another. This means the industry is strong and healthy, a great platform to build strong game titles and innovative technology applications. Bring on '08."
Last but not least, Jeremy Hinton, the Xbox Product Manager, commented that: "In 2007 the interactive entertainment industry went from strength-to-strength with Australian consumers delivering a record-breaking year for the whole industry. The Xbox 360 platform remains at the heart of that success, generating more revenue across the board than both our next-gen competitors. It's this kind of momentum – spurred on by major releases such as GTA IV, Rock Band and Halo Wars – that will ensure another great year of gaming ahead for all of us in 2008."
Subscriptions to the World of Warcraft persistent online role-playing game have surpassed the 10 million subscriber mark worldwide, according to Blizzard Entertainment.
The game, now more than three years old, has become the most popular massively-multiplayer online role-playing game, taking the top sales spot among PC games around the world in 2005 and 2006. WoW was only outsold in 2007 by its expansion pack – World of Warcraft: Burning Crusade. A second WoW expansion, World of Warcraft: The Rise of the Lich King, is in development.
"It's very gratifying to see gamers around the world continuing to show such enthusiasm and support for World of Warcraft," said Mike Morhaime, CEO and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment. "We're always pleased to welcome new players to the game, and we're looking forward to sharing the next major content update with the entire community in the months ahead."
The company counts more than 2 million subscribers in Europe, more than 2.5 million in North America, and about 5.5 million in Asia. Blizzard said it includes as subscribers not only active, long-term members but also prepaid subscription cardholders and players who recently bought the game and are within their first free month of service.
According to figures release by the NPD Group today, World of Warcraft and two related expansions – Burning Crusade and Battle Chest – held three of the top five sales slots among U.S. PC game sales last week.
All three titles were topped by Activision's Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, which sold more than twice as many copies last week than the World of Warcraft standalone game.
A survey by the Data Center of the China Internet and Internet Society of China expects the number of online gamers in that country to surpass 59 million in 2008, GamesIndustry.biz reports.
The projection is a 20 percent increase from the estimated 48 million online gamers last year, according to a China View news story.
The survey began in January 2007 and polled more than 300 websites, 270 enterprises, and 50,786 persons around the country.
Free-to-play online games services are expected to continue to dominate the market with an estimated 80 per cent market share. The Chinese online gaming market value in 2007 increased 57 per cent from its value of 9.36 billion yuan (USD 1.2 billion) in 2006.
Shanda and Netease, both listed on Nasdaq, were the lead online gaming companies in terms of revenue and the number of subscribers. Giant Interactive, a Shanghai-based company, controls 14 percent of the market.
Kingsoft and Perfect World are two game developers that recently went public, which the director of the research department conducting the survey refers to as a trend for 2008.
Last we heard, Apple had some 76 fixes in store for the now-imminent 10.5.2 update of Mac OS X, otherwise known as Leopard. Of course, that was more than a month ago, and Apple seems to have found plenty more room for improvement since then. According to AppleInsider, "people familiar with the software" are now saying that the update will pack "nearly 100 code corrections and enhancements," including twenty fixes that were turned up in the short time since Mac OS X 10.5.2 build 9C16 was released to developers during Macworld. All told, that should bring the latest update in just over the 450MB mark which, as AppleInsider points out, should make it the biggest "dot release" of Mac OS X yet.
EA Games recently announced they are to release a free online version of their PC game 'Battlefield Heroes', supported by in game adverts and micro payments. EA hopes the model of a free game as a download that is supported by advertising could be applied to other franchises it owns. For this particular title, no adverts will appear in the game itself due to incompatibility with the game's fictional world. Instead, adverts will appear on the website and the 'front-end' of the game. But many other titles can and do provide for product placement during game play itself. How long before improvements in video graphics, combined with dynamic, and perhaps even interactive in-game advertising, start to generate revenue increases that enable publishers to substantially reduce the price of their games?"
Already a very common model for Eastern online titles, and being adapted here in the states by a number of companies.
ban on the sale of Counter-Strike and EverQuest in Brazil has gone into effect. According to AFP, the ban was ordered by federal court in October 2007 but is just now being imposed. Said judge Carlos Alberto Simoes, the titles encouraged "the subversion of public order, were an attack against the democratic state and the law and against public security." (Just so you're clear: EverQuest is an attack on democracy, but censorship isn't.)
Of course, the ban is just on the sale of the two games. Each title is about nine years old, with their latest respective sequels (EverQuest 2 and CS: Source) released in 2004 - not exactly the most timely censorship. By that timeframe, World of Warcraft has about five years left before Brazil drops the banhammer. Let's hope Blizzard can get out Wrath of the Lich King before 2014.
The PSO: Blue Burst servers are up, running, and now FREE!* As reported back in November, Blue Burst players with who had an active subscription past December 9th will be allowed to enjoy the online service at no additional cost until March 31, 2008. At that time, the Blue Burst servers will be taken offline forever.
New version of the frontend for MAME, for Windows 98SE, 2000 and XP.
Changelog:
* Added video 'none' to the video dropdown. The console will always be visible in this mode.
* Added the option to keep the console open. MAME Player won't return until this is closed.
* Added 'Seconds to run' to misc. options.
* Fixed last selected set not moving to the setlist's visible area immediately after loading the application. This only happened in 'List' mode, e.g. not 'Details' or 'Icons'.
* Removed double clicking flyer to play as it sometimes unselected the selected game.
* Fixed joystick select being enabled after closing dialogs, whoops.
* Fixed history.dat data not updating until next run, when selecting a new MAME executable.
* Added driver options to set menu.
* Changed error message when a startup video can't be played, e.g. missing codec.
* Fixed above error message showing again on restart of MAME Player.
* Added 'Ghost clone set icons' to preferences.
* History, picture and statusbar info now change when scrolling through the list with joystick.
* Fixed issues with running on Windows with anything other than English language (double whoops - thanks smoke-x for pointing this out and testing).
* Added dropdown to select your joypad's joyid for joystick selecting.
• General
+ENHANCE: Simplified audio system, converted to 16bits and better sample system.
+BUG: M6809 - Fixed a bug on indexed mode. SonSon works again.
+NEW: At last, a real YM2203 emulator!!!
+ENHANCE: Updated to Zip forge 4.0
+ENHANCE: Updated to SDL v1.37 library
+ENHANCE: General code clean and external objects used.
• Spectrum
+ENHANCE: Enhanced contended memory on 48k, 128k y +3 (or not!).
• Black Tiger
+NEW: Implemented sound
• Ghost'n'Goblins
+NEW: Sound, added Z80 cpu.
• SonSon:
+BUG: Corrected sound speed.
• Commando:
+NEW: FM sound and corrected audio speed.
Welcome to this week's Games & Toys update, our weekly summary featuring all new product arrivals from the last seven days.
After a relatively calm period of about three weeks, we've finally received the first 2008 gaming hits. EA's Burnout: Paradise (PlayStation3™ / Xbox360™) and an English/Chinese language edition of Mistwalker's RPG hit Lost Odyssey have been the most popular next gen console sellers.
Popular PlayStation2™ release has been the anime based girl advanture game Lucky * Star (also available as DX Pack).
Excellent handheld gaming refill has also arrived with Nintendo's Advance Wars: Days of Ruin and Konami's The Prince of Tennis: Driving Smash! Side King for Nintendo DS™ as well as Winning Eleven Ubiquitous Evolution 2008 (Japanese / Asia) and Yggdra Union for PSP™.
It's also been a fantastic week for toy statues collectors with arrival of First4Figures' long-awaited Metroid Prime Samus - Varia Suit Statue and The Legend of Zelda - Skull Kid Collectible Statue as well as Gaya's Virtual Legends Resident Evil - The Umbrella Chronicles Pre-Painted 1/6 Scale Statue: Tyrant.
Last but not least some interesting gaming soundtracks have arrived this week, including Lost Odyssey Original Soundtrack, No More Heros Original Soundtrack and Naruto Shippuuden: Narutimate Accel Best Sound [CD+DVD Limited Release].
As usually, here's a summary of all new releases from this week, followed by a quick preview of what is expected to be hot next week.
Xbox360™:
Burnout: Paradise ASIA US$ 44.90
Lost Odyssey (English language Version) ASIA US$ 49.90
PlayStation3™:
Burnout: Paradise ASIA US$ 49.90
Juiced 2: Hot Import Nights JPN US$ 64.90
Shin Sangoku Musou 5 KOR US$ 79.90
Nintendo Wii™:
CSI: Hard Evidence US US$ 44.90
Furu Furu Park US US$ 24.90
Indianapolis 500 Legends US US$ 44.90
Nitrobike US US$ 49.90
PlayStation2™:
Lucky * Star JPN US$ 64.90
Lucky * Star [DX Pack] JPN US$ 89.90
TOCA Race Driver 3: Ultimate Racing Simulator JPN US$ 64.90
Nintendo DS™:
Advance Wars: Days of Ruin US US$ 39.90
Daikoukai Jidai IV: Rota Nova (Koei the Best) JPN US$ 29.90
Hijouguchi: Exit DS JPN US$ 48.90
Kawaii Koneko DS JPN US$ 48.90
Mahjong Taikai (Koei the Best) JPN US$ 28.90
Miami Nights: Singles in the City US US$ 34.90
SuperLite 2500 Brickdown JPN US$ 25.90
SuperLite 2500 Joshikousei Nigeru! Shinrei Puzzle Gakuen JPN US$ 25.90
Takahashi Shoten Kanshuu: Saihinshutsu! SPI Perfect Mondaishuu JPN US$ 29.90
The Prince of Tennis: Driving Smash! Side King JPN US$ 48.90
The Prince of Tennis: Driving Smash! Side King [Konamistyle Part.12 Special Edition] JPN US$ 139.90
The Sims 2: Castaway JPN US$ 48.90
Sony PSP™:
Clear Case Portable (Crystal) JPN US$ 9.90
Clear Case Portable (Graphite) JPN US$ 9.90
Lumines II (The Best Collection) JPN US$ 29.90
Winning Eleven Ubiquitous Evolution 2008 ASIA US$ 46.90
Winning Eleven Ubiquitous Evolution 2008 JPN US$ 48.90
Yggdra Union JPN US$ 48.90
Toys & More:
Amaha Collection No.3 1/6 Scale Pre-Painted PVC Figure: Wild Cat Anna (Limited Edition) JPN N/A
Another Days To Heart 2 1/8 Scale Pre-Painted PVC Figure: Yamada Michiru JPN US$ 39.90
Another Days To Heart 2 1/8 Scale Pre-Painted PVC Figure: Yuzuhara Konomi (Maid Version) JPN US$ 44.90
Dead or Alive Xtreme 2 1/6 Scale Pre-Painted PVC Figure: Lei Fang on the beach JPN US$ 64.90
Doubutu Nechan Series Tandem Twin Animal Girl 1/6 Scale Pre-Pianted PVC Figure: Panther MOMO JPN US$ 69.90
Dr. Slump Collection Pre-Painted PVC Mini Figure: Gacchan JPN US$ 6.90
El Cazador Scale 1/8 Pre-Painted PVC Figure: Nadie JPN N/A
Fate/Zero 1/8 Scale Pre-painted PVC Figure: Emiya Kiritsugu JPN US$ 59.90
Final Fantasy VIII Play Arts Pre-Painted Action Figure: Squall Leonhart JPN US$ 38.90
Fist of the North Star 200 X 1/8 Scale Pre-Painted PVC Figure: Kenshiro and Kokuoh JPN US$ 189.90
Guilty Gear XX 1/7 Scale Pre-Painted PVC Figure: I-No JPN N/A
Gun x Sword 1/8 Scale Pre-Painted Figure: Wendy Garret (Removable Cloth Vers.) JPN US$ 54.99
Jingai Makyo Chaos Gate Non Scale Pre-Painted PVC Figure: Makimoto Misae Fantastica Version JPN US$ 49.90
Metroid Prime Samus - Varia Suit Statue US$ 79.90
Naruto Shippuuden Phone Strap Gashapon Vol.2 JPN US$ 2.49
Nohohon Dancing (Green) US$ 9.90
Nohohon Dancing (Orange) US$ 9.90
Nohohon Dancing (Pink) US$ 9.90
Nohohon Dancing (Yellow) US$ 9.90
Original Generation Super Robot Taisen: Super Robot Wars 1/144 Scale Pre-Painted Model Kit: Real Personal Trooper R-1 (Re-Run) JPN US$ 34.90
Original Generation Super Robot Wars Non Scale Pre-Painted Model Kit: DGG-XAM1 Dygenguar (Re-Run) JPN US$ 34.90
The Legend of Zelda - Skull Kid Collectible Statue US$ 79.90
Togainu's Blood - PS2 Soft Sale commemoration Non Scale Pre-Painted PVC Figure: Shiki JPN US$ 29.90
Treasure Figure Collection Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuutsu 1/10 Scale Pre-Painted PVC Figure Set: Tsuruya-san & Kyon's sister JPN US$ 49.90
Ultimate Transformers Pre-Painted PVC Figure: Bumblebee JPN N/A
Virtual Legends Resident Evil - The Umbrella Chronicles Pre-Painted 1/6 Scale Statue: Tyrant Europe US$ 199.90
WagaMama Capriccio 1/8 Scale Pre-Painted PVC Figure: Melissa Seraphy JPN N/A
Zero no Tsukaima 1/8 Scale Pre-Painted PVC Figure: Louise (Bustier Version) JPN N/A
Video Game related Soundtracks:
Chocobo's Mystery Dungeon: The Labyrinth Of Lost Time Original Soundtrack JPN US$ 19.90
Forest of Glass JPN US$ 29.90
Jikkyo Powerful Pro Yakyu Power Pro Ongakukan 4 JPN US$ 33.90
L.II remixes JPN US$ 19.90
Lost Odyssey Original Soundtrack JPN US$ 34.90
Minna No Golf Portable 1 & 2 Perfect Sound Collection JPN US$ 31.90
Naruto Radio Shippu Jinrai 2 JPN US$ 24.90
Naruto Shippuuden: Narutimate Accel Best Sound [CD+DVD Limited Edition] JPN US$ 34.90
Neo Romance Stage Haruka naru Toki No Naka De Maihitoyo Stage Music Shu JPN US$ 28.90
Neo Romance Stage Harukanaru Toki No Nakade Maihitoyo Stage Music Shu JPN US$ 28.90
No More Heros Original Soundtrack JPN US$ 34.90
Sekai Ga Yume Miru Yume No Naka (Suzumiya Haruhi No Yakusoku Outro Theme) JPN US$ 19.90
Shining Wind Drama CD Vol.2 JPN US$ 27.90
Super Eurobeat Presents Initial D Special Stage Non-Stop Mega Mix JPN US$ 29.90
True Blue: The Best of Sonic the Hedgehog JPN US$ 23.90
Here is a preview of what is expected to be hot next week. Please note that due to a huge supply cut of Dairantou Smash Brothers X / Super Smash Bros. Brawl, we are only expecting to fill around 10-20% of all preorders coming week. We will post an update and notify all customers that have preordered this title on its release date.
PlayStation3™:
Devil May Cry 4 JPN US$ 72.90
Devil May Cry 4 ASIA US$ 59.90
Disgaea: Hour of Darkness 3 ASIA US$ 59.90
Disgaea: Hour of Darkness 3 JPN US$ 64.90
Disgaea: Hour of Darkness 3 [Limited Edition] ASIA US$ 79.90
Disgaea: Hour of Darkness 3 [Limited Edition] JPN US$ 89.90
Xbox360™:
Devil May Cry 4 JPN US$ 72.90
Nintendo Wii™:
Dairantou Smash Brothers X / Super Smash Bros. Brawl (shipping date unconfirmed) JPN US$ 64.90
Family Ski JPN US$ 64.90
PlayStation2™:
Suzumiya Haruhi no Tomadoi JPN US$ 64.90
Suzumiya Haruhi no Tomadoi [Limited Edition] JPN N/A
Tales of Destiny Director's Cut JPN US$ 59.90
Tales of Destiny Director's Cut ASIA US$ 54.90
Tales of Destiny Director's Cut [Premium Box] ASIA N/A
Tales of Destiny Director's Cut [Premium Box] JPN N/A
Xyanide JPN US$ 59.90
- compiled with vs2008.
- changed some preliminary drive label to not working.
- minor changes to improve netplay sync. (Kaillera p2p client is recommended: http://kaillera.movsq.net)
- updated CPS3 driver sound. [OopsWare]
- updated Route 16 driver. [iq_132]
- added Genesis Driver port from PicoDrive WIP. [OopsWare]
- added Arkanoid driver. [iq_132]
- added Jack the Giantkiller driver. [iq_132]
- added Wall Crash driver. [iq_132]
- added CPS1 The King of Dragons (hack). (Thanks to NEOGEO)
- added neogeo Metal Slug 5 (set 2, decrypted C)
- added neogeo The King of Fighters 2003 (set 2, decrypted C)
As part of its recently-announced effort to trim the fat from its production pipeline, THQ has announced that it will cancel some upcoming games, kill two of its franchises and close a studio.
As part of an updated financial outlook the company released today, THQ said it has canceled the PlayStation 3 version of Frontlines: Fuel of War and the PlayStation 2 version of Destroy All Humans! Big Willy Unleashed. The PC and Xbox 360 versions of the former game and the PlayStation Portable version of the latter appear to still be alive.
Despite recording a killer fiscal third quarter, fueled by hot sales of SmackDown vs. Raw 2008 and MX vs. ATV Untamed, THQ said games like Ratatouille, Conan, Stuntman: Ignition underperformed and two unannounced games were costing more than expected.
The two unannounced games, under development for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, were scheduled for release in 2010. THQ has pulled the plug on at least one of those titles and closed the studio behind it - Concrete Games.
In today's financial report, THQ also said it no longer plans to "pursue its Juiced and Stuntman" franchises. The company did not say if it plans to sell off the intellectual properties or hold them for future use.
"In October, we announced certain product quality initiatives, including personnel and structural changes in product development and a more rigorous internal and external product evaluation and feedback process," said Brian Farrell, president and CEO of THQ. "Consistent with these initiatives, we have taken actions to strengthen our pipeline and position ourselves to compete aggressively with compelling, high quality games."
It's taken a while, but it looks like folks in Japan can now finally get their hands on Asus's diminutive and eminently-hackable Eee PC, although not exactly the same models we have 'round these parts. Dubbed the Eee PC 4G-X, the Japan-centric laptop is apparently identical to the regular 4G model, with the notable exception that it now comes pre-loaded with Windows XP Home Edition as standard instead of the usual Linux OS. That, of course, takes up a hefty chunk of the 4GB of internal storage, so Asus has thoughtfully 4GB SDHC card with the laptop as well.
Look for it to be available in your choice of black or white for ¥50,000 (or about $468 [£237]), with free access to NTT's WiFine hotspot network thrown in for good measure.
Uh oh. You've done it this time, Jeff Jones. As the security strategy director in Microsoft's Trustworthy Computing group, you've just made the bold claim that Vista, from a first year on the market comparison, has been more secure than Windows XP, Red Hat rhel4ws, Ubuntu 6.06 LTS, and Apple Mac OS X 10.4.
Your argument seems to break down the difference between researcher-reported vulnerabilities, the number of released patches and the amount of actual vulnerabilities left standing by the end of one year. And you gave us this sexy chart to examine.
In every category, Vista is either the lowest, or tied for the lowest. And since your argument seems to boil down to the logic: the less vulnerabilities, the less fixes, the more secure, Vista wins. Of course, from what our tiny brains make of the case, such an argument doesn't take into account factors like just how many people are trying to exploit a particular platform/vulnerability, or just how damaging each exploit can be. But from that strategic commander chair, you seems to think that these issues balance themselves out. Maybe you are right.
But I'm not waiting in the open to find out. I have an emergency bunker prepared specifically for such occasions because pissing off the Mac and Linux communities at the same time is a funeral I'm not attending...like that time you said Firefox was less secure than IE. Things got messy and someone cried.
A piece at the MTV Multiplayer blog is exploring the issue of kids and gaming, wondering aloud how old is 'old enough'. A recent CES talk indicated that you should wait until at least seven to introduce your children to Mario, and we've talked in the past about the educational role games can have. MTV's Tracey John spoke to a pair of mothers who offered their own opinions on this topic:
"When I asked Alisa why she thought that games weren't imaginative and explained that many games have challenging, puzzle-solving elements, she conceded a little but remained skeptical. 'Honestly, I haven't really explored video games thoroughly, and I'm sure there are video games that fit more the bill of something that I'd be interested in, but I'm kind of hard-pressed to find a game that's like reading a book or something like that. I understand the kids like it, so I allow them to do it; it's monitored but it's not my favorite thing for them to be doing.'"
What's the right age for a kid to start playing games? Do you see games as more or less acceptable than traditional kid pastimes like TV or reading? Does it matter if the parents are gaming-savvy?
Germany's Gaya Entertainment brings Resident Evil to life on your shelf.
Coming with a series of 6 fabulous Resident Evil High End Collectible Statues 1/6 scale, licensed by Capcom and each of them limited to only 1500 pcs, 2008 will be a festival for all Resident Evil fans.
The first character to be released will be the powerful Tyrant, followed by Chris Redfield, the beautiful Jill Valentine, the terrifying "G" William Birkin, the mysterious Albert Wesker and last but not least the indestructible Nemesis!
Each piece comes in an exclusive box-packaging, hand-numbered and with incredible details.
Console hardware sales in Japan seem to have reverted to normal now, just with some levels lower from the last reading. Figures are shown below:
Nintendo DS Lite: 88,575
Nintendo Wii: 81,638
Playstation Portable: 79,923
Playstation 3 : 38,117
Playstation 2: 13,539
Xbox 360: 4,552
All console experience a drop by roughly 400 and 11,000 except the PS3 and Xbox 360, rising by about 800 and 100 respectively. Wii manages to regain second place and puch back the PSP the 3rd as usual.
- Fixed joystick support and modified the config window.
- Fixed an obscure bug, "file doesn't exist" error.
- Fixed backed battery save/load, it was broken.
- Fixed PPU state loading, somewhat.
- Fixed sprite overflow flag, somewhat.
- Usual optmizations and tweaks.
- Added a new saveblock tagged as PTB1, extended PPU savestate.
- Added a new saveblock tagged as CPU1, extended CPU savestate, fixes loading errors.
- ROM patching dialog improved.
- Config file slightly changed for accuracy.
- The program can run in background now, sweet.
- Fixed video refresh rate to be 60Hz.
- Fixed sound output and changed from 44100Hz to 22050Hz as default.
- Other fixes I don't remember.
Rockstar's battle to get Manhunt 2 on to the shelves of UK stores took another twist yesterday as the High Court ruled against the Video Appeals Committee, who had previously overturned the British Board of Film Classification's decision to prevent the game from going on sale.
Mr Justice Mitting told the committee that it must reconsider its decision, reached by a narrow majority, because it had committed a "clear error of law" in relating the game to the question of harm.
According to a report in The Metro the BBFC had argued that the VAC's original decision had threatened to undermine its position as a content watchdog, not just for videogames but for other entertainment genres, such as film.
The result means that publisher Rockstar, who had attempted to submit a new edition based on the cuts made for the now-passed and M-rated US edition of the game, is still unable to sell the game in the UK.
Sega's Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games was the top-selling game in Australia for the week ended January 20 according to sales data released by GfK Australia.
Four Nintendo DS games also made the Top Ten, allowing titles for Nintendo platforms to dominate half of the chart. Four of the Top Ten titles were for the PlayStation platforms.
The only Xbox 360 game to make the Top Ten - Activision's Call of Duty 4: Modern Combat - dropped to the number seven spot. Call of Duty 4 was also the best-selling PC game for the week.
The Top Ten best-selling titles were as follows:
1. Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games (Wii)
2. The Simpsons Game (DS)
3. SingStar R&B (PS2)
4. New Super Mario Bros. (DS)
5. More Brain Training from Dr. Kawashima: How Old Is Your Brain? (DS)
6. SingStar Pop Hits (PS2)
7. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (360)
8. Sight Training (DS)
9. Assassin's Creed (PS3)
10. SingStar Rocks Ballads (PS2)
UPDATE: US PC game sales brought in $910.7 million at retail in 2007, down from $970 million in 2006, according to NPD figures. World of Warcraft, The Sims and Call of Duty 4 ruled the top 10.
The Entertainment Software Association released the PC figures on Thursday, revealing that overall US computer and videogame sales reached a record $18.85 billion in 2007.
NPD said a total of 36.4 million units of PC game software were sold last year at US retailers.
Console software sales dwarfed PC game sales, raking in $6.6 billion (153.9 million units). Handheld software brought in a record $2 billion (77.5 million).
Total software unit sales across all platforms were 267.8 million in 2007.
While the figures imply that PC gaming is a stagnant market, the NPD Group doesn't factor in digital download revenues from services like Steam, subscriptions from online games or MMOs like World of Warcraft (which charges around $15 per month to 2.5 million North American subscribers) or micro-transactions.
The ESA also noted that in terms of unit sales, 15.5 percent of all games sold in 2007 were rated "M," compared to 56.5 percent of games that were rated "E 10+" or lower and 28 percent of games that were rated "T."
Just three of the US' top-10 games in unit sales were M-rated. "This is clearly an industry strongly rooted in family-friendly entertainment, and not on Mature-rated titles," argued ESA president Michael Gallagher.
NPD Group supplied Next-Gen with the top 10 PC retail titles for the whole of 2007.
1. PC World Of Warcraft: Burning Crusade Expansion Pack*, Vivendi 2.25mm
2. PC World Of Warcraft, Vivendi 914K
3. PC The Sims 2 Seasons Expansion Pack, Electronic Arts 433K
4. PC Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare*, Activision 383K
5. PC Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars*, Electronic Arts 343K
6. PC Sim City 4 Deluxe, Electronic Arts 284K
7. PC The Sims 2, Electronic Arts 281K
8. PC The Sims 2, Bon Voyage Expansion Pack Electronic Arts 271K
9. PC MS Age Of Empires III, Microsoft 259K
10. PC The Sims 2 Pets Expansion Pack, Electronic Arts 236K
GSC Game World's graced us with a fresh look at S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Clear Sky this morning courtesy of 13 new screenshots from the game.
The images are accompanied by news that the prequel to Shadow of Chernobyl will release via Steam simultaneously with its retail touchdown.
Currently the only date given for the game is that it'll be out "later this year".
Clear Sky, if you've not been following it, is set a year prior to events depicted in Shadow of Chernobyl.
(Potential spoilers ahead...)
"The story of Clear Sky will explain what happened to Strelok during his early escapades into the Zone and at the same time present an alternative look at events of the original game", GSC project manager Anton Bolshakov has explained previously.
"You will play a different character this time, a mercenary s.t.a.l.k.e.r. who, against his will becomes involved in global events in the Zone. Eventually, the player will have to not only keep an eye on Strelok's doings but actually oppose him.
"Without disclosing much, I'd say the end of the Clear Sky story will bring you to what SoC begins with."
(Potential spoilers end...)
All our previous coverage of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Clear Sky can be found on our dedicated game homepage.
Rockstar has questioned the High Court of Justice's decision to send Manhunt 2 back for re-evaluation.
The publisher said it was unable to comprehend spending more public money on censoring a game that was well within the rules of an adult rating.
"We believe the Video Appeals Committee decision was correct and do not understand the court's decision to expend further public resources to censor a game that contains content well within the bounds established by the British Board of Film Classification's18-plus ratings certification," Rockstar said in a statement.
The VAC decision was overturned by Mr Justice Mitting who said an "error of law" had been made.
This error was related to the definition of what constitutes harm. Mitting said VAC had misinterpreted it as actual harm, rather than, as he put it, a wider sense of potential harm.
Manhunt 2 will now be re-evaluated by the Video Appeals Committee under new guidelines.
If Rockstar receives a negative response that would effectively end the appeals process, as it is unlikely the House of Lords would want to know.
Code:
* fullheight scanlines + double width are back from the allegro version, it's a new choice of scanlines in video options
* Took back the "pixel double" scaler from the allegro version too. You can now choose the kind of scaling you want if you force normal blits in video options.
* Added hq2x and hq3x scalers in MMX versions only.
And specific for neoraine :
- fix the samples in samurai spirits rpg (random battles), this shouldn't affect any other game, I think this is the only game which rewrites so many bios functions instead of using them...
- Fix the speed hacks when using the so called raster frame. For example, street hoops demo was really too fast!!!
- experimental support for mode2/2350 isos. Normally neocd isos are supposed to be in mode1/2048, but since there seems to be some in 2350 format...
And also for neoraine there is a new choice in the main menu to decide what the exit command of some games will do. Be carefull it's not really for gamers, and the test mode is only the test mode of the console, not of the games, which makes it the most useless test mode ever for a gamer ! And be carefull, this test mode can erase your memory card (but it warns you first !). Don't touch this menu entry unless you are curious !
Fixed
* Clone games not showing in the list when using grouped view mode and "show available only " or "show missing only" filters
* This fix will show parent games in the list one way or another, so clones can be shown
* Access violation when trying to delete .zip games while game is set as missing (MAME only)
* Driver status info in "game details" screen was not showing for all systems
* ClrMAMEPro .dat files info not being restored on restart
* Input playback / record was not working
* Add games to hidden list not working... also fixed re-select item if feature is enabled
* Re-select item after deleting games from favorites lists
* Random game button is finally fixed
* Also, added a timer of 03 seconds. If no game is chosen by then, the first visible game on the list is selected... to prevent front-end from freezing when games list is too small
* System nodes still showing when they shouldn't (system view mode)
* Game name not being reset when no games are selected
* Threaded timer was not being stopped in some operations (splash screen)
* Entries not being properly handled in scan result files (.miss)
* 10 seconds delay when running emulators in some systems
Changed
* Support for the new MAME image format "\gamename\0000.png" is reduced to the first 2 image types (title snapshots / game snapshots). All other image types will only use the old format "full_gamename0000.png"
* "Emu Loader image format (fullgamename0000.png) is always enabled now, and the new MAME format is optional. Removed the setting from "Images" main menu
Files renamed:
* -> Folder: "\resources\main_icons\"
** "image_07_gameartwork" to "image_08_gameartwork"; "image_08_maws" to "image_09_maws"; "filterarcade_10_aae.ico" to "filterarcade_09_aae.ico"; "filterarcade_09_mjolnir.ico" to "filterarcade_06_mjolnir.ico"
* Game details screen remade
* Moved Mjolnir from 8th to 3rd system in the list
* Playback / record input files are now read/written inside a game sub-folder
* You only need to set the main folder for the inp files and EL will add the game name sub-folder automatically (just the way the savestate feature works)
* ROMs/CHDs marked as "nodump" are never checked and will be marked as valid since games can run even when they are missing (mainly for MAME)
* Format of "sysname_roms.el" files are changed. ROM size info is removed since it's never used by the front-end when scanning the games list
Improved
* Frame box label of image types folder selection show all possible file formats for each type (preferences screen, "Images" tab)
* Code optimizations and removal of some unused functions / variables
* Status bar "game name" label now show "gamename [parent_gamename]"
* Select item function is a lot faster and its implementation is 100% ghost-safe
* Reduced image filters to 3 states: "off", "Linear" and "Lanczos"
Removed
* Status bar panels: "game size"; "current favorite profile"
* Status bar icons and customization
Files removed:
* - Folder: "\resources\main_icons\"
** "statusbar_game_size_emu.ico"; "statusbar_game_size_zip.ico"; "emu_pinmame.ico"; "filterarcade_06_pinmame.ico"; "unzipfile.ico"
* - Folder: "\resources\gameslist_icons\"
** "PinMAMEParent.ico"; "PinMAMEClone.ico"; "PinMAMEBios.ico"; "UnPinMAMEParent.ico"; "UnPinMAMEClone.ico"; "UnPinMAMEBios.ico"
* - Folder: "\resources\images\topbars\"
** "emu_pinmame.png"
* - Folder: "\resources\images\"
** "NoGamesAvailable.png"
* PinMAME system is gone...
* ROMs list from game details screen. Not much useful...
* ROM size info from "sysname_roms.el" file. EL never check ROM sizes anyway (you'll need to re-create all your games lists...)
* Game size info is gone. Wanna know a game's size ? Go to MAWS for that info
* Setting "Display Zip Error Messages" since the new zip library does not open the file if there are errors
* "No Games Available" when games list is empty (unnecessary screenshot)
Added
* PCB image type added back
New files:
* -> folder: '\resources\main_icons\"
** "image_07_pcb.ico"
* Some emulator settings for Daphne. Also added support for laserdisc players other then the "Virtual" type (preferences screen, Emulators tab)
version 5.2.1 change log - January 18, 2008
Fixed
* No need to select a game in the main list to edit left panel filters
* Left panel's node height fixed to 18 pixels (same as games list with 16x16 icons)
* Main menu / popup menus not loading / using custom themes (preferences screen)
The mainstream media and other non-consumers of video games have been portraying gamers as pasty, bleary-eyed shut-ins since the 8-bit days -- aside from some bruised feelings, that stereotype never really did us any harm. However, a recent proposal of the powerful environmental organization The Sierra Club to the New Mexico state legislature may put a dent in the pockets of consumers and retailers living in the Land of Enchantment.
The proposal calls for a 1 percent sales tax on televisions and video games; the proceeds of which would go to "outdoor education programs". According to an article in the Huffington Post, these programs would counteract the negative effects of video games -- "lower academic scores, obesity, and increased attention-deficit disorder." Supporters of the "No Child Left Inside" movement tried to pass a similar bill last year, but were unsuccessful.
Unsurprisingly, gaming advocacy groups have spoken out against the bill's obvious shortcomings, such as its assumption that video games are the sole contributor to childhood obesity, lower grades and ADD. We couldn't agree more. The only weight we've gained from being gaming enthusiasts is from our skin growing thicker due to constant attacks on our lifestyle.
Have you ever experienced this feeling after playing a real-time strategy game? You get used to the controls, learn all the hotkeys, become efficient with the mouse, and find that the best way to win is to build units and firepower as fast as possible and throw them at the opponent in successive, inexorable waves.
It's not that the game ceases to be fun, but that it ceases to be fresh: the basic strategy never really changes. Essentially, your only viable strategy -- your overall plan for success -- is to wear down your opponent and destroy him.
I have experienced this feeling. As empowering -- and, at least initially, as fun -- as real-time strategy (RTS) games are, I often find that they turn into real-time tactics (RTT) games after a while. So often, there is no other viable plan for success beyond attrition. Sure, I may construct that building here instead of there, or gain control of those resources over there instead of these here, but I can never really change my basic plan for victory.
I cannot win by convincing my opponent to lay down his arms, since he knows that the only way I can win is for me to destroy him. I must collect more resources than my opponent in order that he not wear me out first. The threat of force or the limited use of force would not convince my opponent that I would win if our military forces engaged one another. Since there is only one viable strategy -- attrition -- victory will go to the best tactician, not the best strategist.
* misc: updated unrar.dll which fixes crashes with incomplete split rars
* misc: updated have/miss list to handle fake clones, nodump-only sets correctly
* misc: update dat dialog is now resizeable
Korean developer Blueside is teaming up with Phantagram to create a Kingdom Under Fire: The Crusaders sequel.
It will take the series back to its tactical roots after upcoming action RPG spin-off Circle of Doom, and will be a self-confessed pioneer of the MMOARTS genre (massively multiplayer online action real-time strategy).
This, ambitiously, means you and thousands of others can siege castles and wage war online, as any one of three factions: Human Alliance, Dark Kingdom and mysterious new addition.
There will be a single-player campaign to romp through as well, promising a deep storyline and lots of drama between characters. Like Neighbours.
On top of all of that are boasts of spectacular graphics which, judging by the first batch of shots, sounds reasonable.
Kingdom Under Fire: The Crusaders appeared on Xbox in 2004 and blended action with RTS. It was well received and followed by KUF: Heroes a year later.
Kingdom Under Fire II is due out on PC and consoles in 2009.
ELSPA investigators have discovered consoles stashed full of cash in the home of an industrious illegal chipper - not, in this case, someone unlawfully happy.
The bloke in question, a resident of Tower Hamlets, had secreted an impressive £12,210 inside a hollowed-out Xbox 1 and PS2s.
Unsurprisingly the fat-boy Xbox - probably now the only one in existence used for something other than a toe-stubbing doorstop - won the cash-stash hands down, with £5,925 apparently where the hard drive would normally be.
Just as well he didn't stick it in an Xbox 360. It would have probably caught fire.
As well as illegally chipping Xboxs and PS2s, the man was selling PSP games on SD memory card. Naughty.
"I've heard it all now", beamed Michael Rawlinson, managing director of ELSPA. "It never ceases to amaze ELSPA and its investigators the lengths criminals go to make money - and always to the detriment of honest, hard working businesses. I congratulate Tower Hamlets Trading Standards on bringing to an end this illegal business operation."
Hey, it's not Microsoft's fault that 2011 sounds like the realm of jet pack VR massage cars, but it's certainly a long ways away any way you slice it.
Contrary to previous rumors of Microsoft planning a Windows 7 release sometime in 2009, Microsoft has apparently gotten in touch with WinVistaClub and set the record straight: Windows 7 is in "planning stages," and development will take approximately three years.
Microsoft wouldn't comment on that supposed leak we spotted last week, and of course denied any implications that development was being accelerated to make up for Vista shortcomings. We can't help but wonder how different the OS landscape will look three years from now, with Linux rapidly reaching feature and usability parity, while Apple plugs away at OS X and cloud computing lands everywhere, but we're sure Vista SP1 won't be the last bid Microsoft makes at this generation.
GP2X Store have today revamped their online store, they previously sold GP2X, Treamcast, Tapwave Zodiac, GP32 and JXD301 but today have reopened and selling a massive range of memory cards and more for the PSP, Wii, DS, One Station and the Homebrew Phone sensation the Neophone.
Full details at GP2X Store.com and this store comes highly recommended.
2K Games has announced that the Wii version of Civilization Revolution has been put on hold indefinitely.
A spokesperson told Eurogamer developer Firaxis wants to put all of its efforts into building the "next-generation" versions.
Which means PS3 and 360 outings, plus a DS game, are still due out this spring.
Civilization Revolution is a fully-fledged instalment in the series - no worries about a quickly cobbled together and dumbed down port here. 2K Games is also keen to emphasise it is spending hours and hours on getting the interface right for consoles, believing few have nailed it so far.
Specifically it will have a strong online component, with streamlined games for fewer day-long head-to-head matches. On top of that will be voice and vision chat so you can see the effect of your plans on your opponent, and 16 civilizations to test your tactical tenacity with.
Burnout Paradise has crashed into the number one spot in the UK all formats charts, pushing aside a top ten of pre-Christmas releases.
Sales of the latest Electronic Arts' racer are fairly evenly split between the two formats – Xbox 360 accounts for 53 per cent of all units sold while 47 per cent is attributed to the PlayStation 3.
The first blockbuster releases of the new year knocks Sega's Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games off the top spot to number two, despite a sales increase over last week of seven per cent.
Activision's seven million-selling Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare also benefited from a rise in sales by five per cent, although it was also nudged down the charts to number three.
Continuing success for the Wii has seen Wii Play climb the charts from ten to four this week, while chart stalwart Dr Kawashima's Brain Training is at five.
The Simpsons Game and Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed are at six and seven respectively, with FIFA 08 at eight.
THQ's Ratatouille is the biggest climber this week, shooting up the charts to number nine from last week's 30, while More Brain Training from Dr Kawashima completes the top ten at ten.
Codemasters Online Gaming has revealed its next big project as a space MMOG from Auto Assault developer NetDevil.
Dubbed Jumpgate: Evolution, it boasts epic battles between fleets of spaceships, a vast and persistent universe to explore, thousands of others to interact with and ships to customise into enormous warmongering craft or profitable mining ventures.
NetDevil is describing it as having twitch-based combat and it is due for release late this year on PC in Europe and the US.
It does sound an awful lot like EVE Online, but the original Jumpgate from 2001 (also by NetDevil and still alive) was keen to mark itself out as a "space flight combat game" not an RPG.
"Jumpgate brings something new and fresh to the online persistent space," said David Solari, big shot at Codemasters Online Gaming with a science fiction-sounding surname.
"The all-action approach and thrilling, twitch-based space combat really sets it apart from other MMOGs in the market."
NetDevil is most well known for post-apocalyptic vehicular MMOG Auto Assault, which closed its servers at the end of August 2007 after barely over a year on sale.
The developer is also currently working on a persistent online LEGO world that should be arriving later this year. Sounds like rather a lot on one plate to us.
Still, you can pop over to our Jumpgate: Evolution gallery for the first screenshots, right here.
While it looked like Mac users couldn't wait to get their hands on the latest version of Apple's operating system, their Windows counterparts seem to have been a little more reticent about picking up Microsoft's oft-delayed Vista upgrade -- so much so that Redmond decided to both extend XP's shelf life by six months as well as offer an unprecedented "downgrade" service on select SKUs.
Well with the June 30th cutoff fast approaching, PC World decided to take a look at your options for procuring an XP license after that date, but unfortunately, the picture isn't too pretty. Basically, personal users looking to purchase less than 25 licenses but not a new machine have almost no recourse; your only surefire move is to buy a new box pre-installed with Vista Business or Ultimate from an OEM opting to continue with that downgrade service. Still, caveat emptor: support for consumer versions of XP ends on April 14, 2009, and with it, the end of your Patch Tuesday celebrations.
Nintendo's DS brain training games remain popular in Germany and Spain, with both the original and the follow-up title appearing on the top ten charts.
According to data released by Media-Control GfK International, the second DS title - known as Brain Age 2 in the US and UK - was the most popular game in Germany and Spain for the week ending January 20 .
The original game was number four in both countries, with the Wii's Big Brain Academy charting at number two in Spain.
Nintendo games took up half of the German top ten chart, with four PC games and a single PS2 game. In Spain, Nintendo games accounted for six of the top ten, with the PlayStation 3 managing to place three titles on the chart.
The complete charts for the week ending January 20 are:
Germany:
1. Dr. Kawashima: Mehr Gehirn-Jogging (DS)
2. Wii Play (Wii)
3. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (PC)
4. Dr. Kawashima's Gehirn-Jogging (DS)
5. World of Warcraft (PC)
6. Super Mario Galaxy (DS)
7. Augen-Training (PC)
8. Mario Party DS (DS)
9. World of Warcraft - The Burning Crusade (PC)
10. Singstar: Apres Ski (PS2)
Spain:
1. Mas Brain Training (DS)
2. Big Brain Academy (Wii)
3. Assassin's Creed (PS3)
4. Brain Training Del Dr. Kawashima (DS)
5. Uncharted: El Tesoro de Drake (PS3)
6. Pro Evolution Soccer 2008 (PS3)
7. Wii Play (Wii)
8. Practice English - Ingles Para El Dia a Dia (DS)
9. Pro Evolution Soccer 2008 (PS2)
10. New Super Mario Bros. (DS)
Related Information
According to the recent NPD numbers, during 2007 the sales of PC games only made up 14% of the total revenue earned through the sale of videogames.
The data shows that of the $18.85 billion dollars earned by the gaming industry, only $910.7 million was earned through the sales of PC titles.
Unfortunately, the NPD numbers don't reflect sales of PC titles through download services such as Valve's Steam service.
When asked how many games were sold via Steam, Valve's Doug Lombardi told Game|Life that they "don't release the Steam sales numbers."
In less shocking news, the two best-selling titles of the year were World of Warcraft and its expansion The Burning Crusade. The two titles made up almost a third of total PC game sales.
Without the data from digital distribution it would be premature to say these numbers are a harbinger of doom for PC gaming, but they certainly don't inspire much confidence.
Even huge PC releases like Crysis and Unreal Tournament 3, which combined for roughly 120,000 copies sold, have seen unexpected failure on the platform during the last year.
I personally believe PC gaming will never die due simply to how many PCs are out there (do you know anyone without one?), though with consoles taking on the role of computers more and more, it's not surprising to see the market shift toward the cheaper alternative.
much faster graphics output, Mac OS X supported better than ever (JIT on IntelMac, networking and more!), coming with ARAnyM logo+icons and usual bunch of bug fixes and improvements.
Men in their mid 20s and 30s need to put down the Xbox controller and grow up, says writer Kay Hymowitz in an opinion piece published in the Dallas Morning News.
Thanks to the emergence of pop culture such as television and gaming today's mid-20-something male "lingers happily, in a new hybrid state of semi-hormonal adolescence and responsible self-reliance," argues the article.
In fact compared to the last generation of young men today's 20 to 30-year-old blokes can't be considered adults, she says. "Adolescence appears to be the young man's default state," a phase which the writer with the funny name has chosen to call "child-man", encouraged, she says, by gaming.
As a 21st Century, 26-year-old bloke, reads the article, "you live in an apartment with a few single guy friends. In your spare time, you play basketball with your buddies, download the latest indie songs from iTunes, have some fun with the Xbox 360, take a leisurely shower, massage some product into your hair and face - and then it's off to bars and parties, where you meet, and often bed, girls of widely varied hues and sizes." So far, so good then.
Does this typical modern young man have a wife, kids or house though, she asks: "Are you kidding?"
Back in the 60s, says the opinion piece, the average man in his 20s had achieved most of life's milestones such as a good job, marriage, a house and even a few kids in the bank.
These days, argues the Dallas Morning News piece, the vast majority of 25 year old men have neither a house, wife nor children, says Hymowitz, which is definitely nothing to do with the invention of either the pill or Ayia Napa.
"With women, you could argue that adulthood is in fact emergent," Hymowitz writes. "Single young males, or SYMs, by contrast, often seem to hang out in a playground of drinking, hooking up, playing Halo 3 and, in many cases, underachieving. With them, adulthood looks as though it's receding."
"Underachieving"? We've got over 10 thousand achievement points, lady. The clue's in the title.
We're now living in a culture different from the one of 40 years ago, when you'd marry at school, get a factory job and live in the old family home? Education fees and houses aren't cheap in 2008...
Today's generation has far more time to develop a career, build a home and find a partner than before. When you consider that we're the first generation to grow up with control pads, it's obvious why it's become a target in this debate.
We bet their parents said the same thing about how 25-year-olds play too much sport on a Sunday instead of bringing up the kids...
"The problem with child-men," the article continues, "is that they're not very promising husbands and fathers. They suffer from a proverbial 'fear of commitment'".
What about the demographic of men who have a job, house and kids and still play games, then? Perhaps this writer should realise that some blokes are adult enough to decide what their hobby is. Sound off below!
We've always been partial to a bit of the old gratuitous RTS violence offered in Relic's WH40K: Dawn of War RTS series, and new expansion Soulstorm will continue the trend.
Two new gameplay movies from the expansion can be seen in our video player, one focussing on the Confessor unit, the second on the Penitent Engine. Enjoy the carnage.
Soulstorm launches this spring and features the Empire's fearsome Sisters of Battle, brand new multiplayer tweaks, flying vehicles for all existing races in the game and a whole bundle of Dawn of War 40K goodies.
Before Electronic Arts lays down its third quarter earnings in a couple days, Janco Partners analyst Mike Hickey believes it "likely" that Spore will move from the guidance EA gave of a March/April release to the second half of '08. This also is corroborated by reports earlier this month when Spore was announced for simultaneous release on Mac and PC.
But what's another Spore delay at this point? We were a bit surprised (and skeptical) when Will Wright said Spore was six months from release last October. Maybe Hickey is totally wrong and Wright will pull a six-legged exoskeletoned gelatinopod from his hat?
Just as we feared, Asus is getting ready to dilute their Eee branding until it's RAZRed down to a hint of its former panache. The new family of low-cost, Eee products will include the E-DT (desktop), E-TV, and E-Monitor. The $200 - $300 E-DT will initially sport a Celeron processor when it ships without a monitor sometime in April or May. The E-Monitor then, is more than that name would have you believe. It's a 19- to 21-inch all-in-one PC with built-in TV tuner and a remarkable $499 price tag. It'll be based on Intel's Shelton platform when the AIO launches in September. The 42-inch E-TV will also launch in September and feature a Linux PC integrated into the LCD. It's expected to list for a $200 premium over the low-cost 42-inch sets it will compete with. Just don't get too hung up on those prices, kid. The Eee PC was only supposed to cost $200 when it was announced.
Now for the bad news. ASUS will not be offering a touch-panel in their next generation Eee PC after all -- their market research shows limited demand.
Starting with Sonic, Tales and Knuckles, British toy manufacturer Impact Innovations brings back Sonic the Hedgehog and his friends as they appeared back in the golden Sega days.
As a series of lovable plushs with highly detail design and quality fabric, this plushs are a must for all Sonic fans.
