The Weekly EuroGamer Digest - 15th May to 22nd May 2002 ===================================================================== The EuroGamer Digest. Brought to you weekly by the tireless fingers of our editorial team, currently dying in painful over-worked heaps on the floor at the very sight of the world's biggest gaming trade show. E3 is here! This is the first day of that! If press releases packed to bursting with jargon and so forth annoy the hell out of you, thank the lord you aren't me, because my Inbox is like a demilitarised zone at the moment, with stupid buzzwords strewn around like rubble and broken bodies or something [raises eyebrow -Ed]. Ah I've been playing the Medal of Honor: Frontline demo, lay off... E3 is a huge spectacle, and it kicks off in style today with press conferences by the major players and no doubt all sorts of amazing announcements. And it's even more fun delving slightly deeper and soaking up every last morsel of information related to the show. Fortunately, we don't demand you switch your full-time occupation to reading lengthy articles because nobody has time to do that. We will try to condense all the information into a few choice tomes, and to begin with you will see our pre-E3 coverage kicking off with a detailed look at the games and stories doing the rounds in the run-up to the show. + Pre-E3: Multi-platform console action! http://www.eurogamer.net/news.php?id=21004 + Pre-E3: PlayStation 2 gets a boost http://www.eurogamer.net/news.php?id=21005 + Pre-E3: Cube games galore http://www.eurogamer.net/news.php?id=21006 + Pre-E3: Xbox delivers http://www.eurogamer.net/news.php?id=21007 Enjoy the next week. It would be hard not to. Tom Bramwell, Assistant Editor ===================================================================== Features E3 may plan to saunter through our lives like a big sauntering mass, but we don't plan to let it get in the way of our games-playing. Oh no. This week we got our hands on TimeSplitters 2 code (much to Eidos' chagrin), interviewed a group of Russian developers whose mandate involves trawling through radioactive cityscapes in the pursuit of realism, and reviewed games across several formats. Martin sunk his teeth into the Cube version of Burnout, and just yesterday took Die Hard: Nakatomi Plaza for a spin, before wishing he hadn't. In the meantime we sent John off to the new Game On exhibition at the Barbican art gallery, and he got to play retro games for a few hours. Which he liked. Tom didn't want to miss out either, and spent stupid amounts of time with 2D blaster Metal Slug X on the PSX. Then, just before lunchtime today, Tom completed his evaluation of the Japanese Cube game, Biohazard, known in the West simply as Resident Evil. This is a big game. You know you want it, you just need to find out why. + Resident Evil preview http://www.eurogamer.net/content/p_residentevil_gc + Die Hard: Nakatomi Plaza review http://www.eurogamer.net/content/r_diehard_pc + Game On! http://www.eurogamer.net/content/a_gameon + Metal Slug X review http://www.eurogamer.net/content/r_metalslugx_psx + Burnout review http://www.eurogamer.net/content/r_burnout_gc + Radioactive Stalker interview http://www.eurogamer.net/content/i_stalker + TimeSplitters 2 preview http://www.eurogamer.net/content/p_timesplitters2 ===================================================================== Industry News in Brief Industry news? Hah, game announcements is E3's territory. For a few days of the calendar year we hope to escape the rigours of keeping our watchful eye over the bits-that-aren't-games. Unfortunately, those of us writing the Digest have to reacquaint ourselves with events over the last week instead, adopting a hawk-like posture out of sheer habit. Perhaps the biggest and best news of the last week has been ECTS' return to Earl's Court. The idea of the consumer event, which we were never particularly excited about, has been turned on its head and instead chief sponsor Sony will use this opportunity to show their wares off the public. A little lop-sided? Perhaps, but SCEE's presence at the trade show may will reignite interest and it's a very positive move if you ask us. Let's face it, Nintendo will repeat their Nintendo Show, but Microsoft will have to do more than wow a few people with AVIs in a hushed London basement, and major publishers will doubtless rekindle their interest in the event. Further to the price cuts we've seen over the last few months, this week heralded even more. For a start we spotted that Microsoft had cut the price of Xbox in Japan as well as in the States, and then early this week SCEA cut the price of its first party releases in the States from $49 to $39, a move which we hope to see over here from SCEE. Fortunately we were spared much else until yesterday, when Nintendo came out and said "ah sod it, let's reduce the price of the Cube in Japan too". It now costs the equivalent of about £105 / EUR165. In time-honoured tradition, EA also chose this pre-E3 week to snub somebody. This time it was Microsoft's Xbox Live, and we have to wonder whether they've thought that through. In a key announcement earlier this week, Microsoft unveiled details of the enormous online service, and industry tabloids like our friends at The Register were quick to dissect and destroy the announcement. It will be interesting to see how it goes. In other news, Nintendo reckons it has sold more than 400,000 Cubes in Europe at this point. That's sold, not just shipped. Quite an impressive figure if it turns out to be true, but supply is now short and demand continues to go up. + Cube cut in Japan http://www.eurogamer.net/news.php?id=20998 + Xbox goes Live http://www.eurogamer.net/news.php?id=20992 + SCEA cuts first party prices http://www.eurogamer.net/news.php?id=20991 + Interplay posts profit [sic] http://www.eurogamer.net/news.php?id=20966 + ECTS moves... again http://www.eurogamer.net/news.php?id=20964 + Flextronics goes to China http://www.eurogamer.net/news.php?id=20958 + EA snubs Xbox Live http://www.eurogamer.net/news.php?id=20960 + Xbox cut in Japan too http://www.eurogamer.net/news.php?id=20955 + 400,000 Cubes sold http://www.eurogamer.net/news.php?id=20954 ===================================================================== Games Announcements The full raft of pre-E3 announcements can be found in our major coverage, beginning with the four items listed in the introduction. Read those to get a better idea of what's coming up, but here is a list of other highlights this week: PS2: Star Wars Episode II: The Clone Wars from LucasArts/Pandemic, Fugitive Hunter from Infogrames, Simpsons Skateboarding from EA, Kingdom Hearts and Treasure Planet from Disney, Star Wars Galaxies from LucasArts (that's a big one), GTA Vice City and GTA three-year exclusivity from Take 2, and TimeSplitters 2 online from Sony and Free Radical. Xbox: Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4 from Activision (surely to end up on every platform under the sun), Counter-Strike from Valve/Vivendi, Deus Ex 2 from Ion Storm and of course Halo 2. Multi-platform or unknown: Sega Rally, House of the Dead and Sonic (working titles) from Sega, and a lot of other stuff less worthy of mention. One of the games we'd most like to see though is a PC game. TRON 2.0 from Disney and Monolith is going to be a first person outing, and if it does half of what the movie does for us then it will be a huge success. + The Empire's Counter-Strike http://www.eurogamer.net/news.php?id=20999 + GTA Vice City confirmed. Again. http://www.eurogamer.net/news.php?id=20997 + TimeSplitters goes online http://www.eurogamer.net/news.php?id=20996 + Birdman swoops over Xbox http://www.eurogamer.net/news.php?id=20994 + Microsoft's first Christmas party http://www.eurogamer.net/news.php?id=20993 + Attack of the Consoles http://www.eurogamer.net/news.php?id=20990 + Disney at the heart of E3 http://www.eurogamer.net/news.php?id=20989 + Codies club Cube http://www.eurogamer.net/news.php?id=20988 + Sega's quarterly report full of surprises http://www.eurogamer.net/news.php?id=20987 + Tony Homer's Pro Skater? http://www.eurogamer.net/news.php?id=20980 + Infogrames Hunts Fugitives http://www.eurogamer.net/news.php?id=20978 + Begun, Clone War development has http://www.eurogamer.net/news.php?id=20975 + Total Annihilation 2 confirmed http://www.eurogamer.net/news.php?id=20970 ===================================================================== Screenshots It's E3. There's going to be a /lot/ of screenshots to deal with this week. I can see myself losing track of time and completely abandoning the notion of sleep in favour of games consumption. It's a good thing the World Cup doesn't start for another week or I would be completely screwed! Screenshots are always fun, and there were actually a darns sight more highlights this week than in any other week in recent history. I guess it's just that time of the year! Xbox owners got the most, and they get a hard time so let's patronize them and deal with them first. Aww? [Fired -Ed] Now that this Digest is under new direction, here are the latest shots. The Lucas Empire released yet more shots of the delicious Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, which our recently dismissed assistant editor liked the look of. Then there was a bit of a break until yesterday morning when Microsoft went absolutely mental. Kung Fu Chaos, Mech Assault, Blinx, Tork, Psychonauts, Project Ego and Deus Ex 2 all appear on the listing this week, and looking to third parties the likes of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4, Brute Force and Steel Battalion ought to warm you up. Cubists were sadly almost completely without respite this week, unless you count Virtua Striker 3 ver.2002, which no sane human being would, but then Star Wars: Bounty Hunter is a nice looking game, and on the back of Jango Fett's colossal Episode II performance we are looking forward to zooming through the air lassoing objects, tossing flame about and laser blasting Jedi across the continent in the name of money. That's our job in a nutshell, some days. PS2 owners fared slightly better, with games like Kingdom Hearts popping up, Star Wars: The Clone Wars and that princess of pout, Lara Croft Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness (now with frowning and dialogue). And finally, PC owners get something to cheer about in the shape of Red Faction 2, Stalker, EverQuest II and Unreal Tournament 2003 screenshots, the latter almost bringing our servers to a juddering halt earlier this week. Praise be to games. + Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (Xbox) http://www.eurogamer.net/content/ss_starwarskotor_x + Kung Fu Chaos (Xbox) http://www.eurogamer.net/content/ss_kungfuchaos_xbox + Mech Assault (Xbox) http://www.eurogamer.net/content/ss_mechassault_x + Blinx: The Timesweeper (Xbox) http://www.eurogamer.net/content/ss_blinx_x + Tork (Xbox) http://www.eurogamer.net/content/ss_tork_x + Psychonauts (Xbox) http://www.eurogamer.net/content/ss_psychonauts_x + Project Ego (Xbox) http://www.eurogamer.net/content/ss_projectego_xbox + Brute Force (Xbox) http://www.eurogamer.net/content/ss_bruteforce_x + Steel Battalion (Xbox) http://www.eurogamer.net/content/ss_steelbat_x + Deus Ex 2: Invisible War (Xbox) http://www.eurogamer.net/content/ss_deusex2_x + Virtua Striker 3 ver.2002 (Cube) http://www.eurogamer.net/content/ss_virtuastriker2002_gc + Star Wars: Bounty Hunter (Cube) http://www.eurogamer.net/content/ss_swbounty_gc + Kingdom Hearts (PS2) http://www.eurogamer.net/content/ss_kingdomhearts_ps2 + Star Wars: The Clone Wars (PS2) http://www.eurogamer.net/content/ss_clonewars_ps2 + Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness (PS2) http://www.eurogamer.net/content/ss_trng + Red Faction 2 (PC) http://www.eurogamer.net/content/ss_redfaction2_ps2 + Stalker: Oblivion Lost (PC) http://www.eurogamer.net/content/ss_stalker + EverQuest II (PC) http://www.eurogamer.net/content/ss_everquest2 + Unreal Tournament 2003 (PC) http://www.eurogamer.net/content/ss_ut2003 ===================================================================== You have been sent this email because you opted to receive it when you signed up to EuroGamer. To stop receiving the weekly update from EuroGamer, sign in at http://www.eurogamer.net and follow the "Edit profile" link on the left hand menu, where you will be presented with the option to unsubscribe. See you all next Wednesday.