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There was a sequel in the works, "Hell on Wheels", but because it didn't have enough Star Wars content, it got axed, nearly 3 years ago.

There was a press release about it getting axed, but that most not have had enough Star Wars content either, and it's been deleted, and you get redirected to the home page.

There's a brief article here: http://www.gamespot.com/pc/adventure/fullthrottle2 /news_6073105.html

And a bit more here: http://www.adventuregamers.com/article/id,183

God I wish Lucas would get over the whole Star Wars thing already.

Most likely, this "confirmation" by SOE is designed to counter stories like this blog entry:

SOE losing Star Wars: Galaxies license? @ GameSpot

Given the previous statements made by SOE concerning SWG, any comments from their PR department should be cast in a very skeptical light.

Revolution to play Genesis and Turbografx games
Zelda on the DS

Revolution to play Genesis and Turbografx games
Zelda on the DS

For those interested in some more background (and with way too much free time), check this out:

Wikpedia article about computer games.
Comprehensive article with lots of detail.

Nintendo had demo software for the controller at last year's TGS. One such demo was Metroid Prime 2 rigged up to play with the Revolution controller.

http://www.gamespot.com/xbox360/rpg/theelderscroll sivoblivion/news.html?sid=6146174 Takes you to the "We play Oblivion for 12 hours straight" page, with a big fat button to watch it. However, after signing up for the free service, I find that I'm still met with the "Only subscribers can participate in this special event!" text. =/ Looks like we're screwed, unless we wanna pay four bucks a month.

Did you try Republic: The Revolution? http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/republictherev olution/review.html
I remember it had some pretty unique elements in gameplay.

DirectX 10 will make it a combined 60 to 80 times faster

A company called Ageia is making a physics processing card that will handle physics calculations. It will be supported by City of Heroes/Villains when it is available.

"To tell the truth, I don't think it's even that 2D is only possible on handhelds, but more that it's only possible on DS," said Igarashi-san. "Personally speaking, I'd jump at any chance to develop a 2D game for any console, or even the PSP, but those chances are getting fewer and fewer. I feel like the DS is the last fortress of 2D gaming. So if we can get a younger audience with this DS 2D game, and prove to them that 2D gaming is worthwhile and fun, maybe then we can increase the market for that type of game." -- 2D PSP Castlevania Dreams in Tatters

Anyone think that Metal Slug is going to be better in 3D? I don't know about Working Designs as a company, but I believe what they said about Sony:

"We just spent too much time fighting the good fight to even get it out," Ireland wrote of Growlanser, "and other games approved."

One such game the company apparently failed to get approved was the PlayStation 2 action adventure game Goemon.

"Though almost finished and substantially improved from the Japanese release, Goemon is dead for the US, and that was really the final straw," Ireland wrote. "If I can't guarantee that the games I personally choose for us to release in the US can actually get approved and come out, there's no business to be done." -- Working Designs closes up shop

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/planescapetorment/

the whole game is unique and unlike anything else i have ever played. the "choose between 4 relies" thing gets tired after awhile, but for sheer inventiveness, 5% of this game is more creative than 5 other videogames put together

My wife (a game newbie) and I love it, and have given it as a gift to other sets of mismatched friends. Seriously, spend the $20 or whatever and give it a shot. She'll love you for it!

Look no further than:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puzzle_Fighter

This game strikes an amazing balance by being both compelling for serious competition and entertaining for casual play. David Sirlin has a relevant article (http://sirlin.net/archive/slippery-slope-and-perp etual-comeback/) describing "perpetual comeback" as it pertains to Puzzle Fighter and why it makes that game so very fun.

Are you still looking further?

Well then...

Another example of perpetual comeback is the fighting system in Battle Arena Toshinden (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_Arena_Toshind en) where each character has usually two special moves (in addition to their normal repertoire) that they can only perform once their health gets very low (i.e., they are about to be knocked-out). These moves (sometimes referred to as "desperation moves") usually do a great deal of damage and can easily turn the tide of a round or just win the round outright so they add cool intensity to the conclusion of many matches (even when one player is notably superior because they need to be extra careful to avoid getting hit by one or more of these "come-back" moves). These moves can be difficult to perform for those uninitiated to the common fireball and yoga-flame joystick movements they typically require but they totally have the best risk-vs.-reward benefit when a player is learning the game. I'd recommend studying and practicing the execution of those moves first to new players. Additionally, some characters have very easy ones like (if I remember correctly) Ellis and Sophia only need to press back, forward, back, forward + Triangle to do theirs. Choose an easy and fast character to start with until you learn enough to venture out.

Of course there are some fun cooperative experiences (like Halo or MMOs) but if your partner shows an affinity for, and appreciation of, games requiring increasing reflexive (a.k.a. "twitch") skill, I would highly recommend the plethora of http://shmups.com/ out there. Ikaruga (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ikaruga) must be mentioned as one of the greatest here. All threatening bullets and beams are either white (with blue highlights) or black (with red highlights). Similarly, each players' ship can flip over to alternate between those colors as well. When you're the same color as bullets, you absorb them into your shield and they store in a meter which can be unleashed as homing shots. When you are the opposite color of enemy ships, your shots do double-damage (but you're vulnerable to their bullets because they are the same color as them). It makes for awesome tension because the whole screen can be completely covered in bullets but at least half of it is always survivable space if you're the same color as the bullets occupying that space. Check out "bullet-eater" mode too. You can beat lots of levels without firing a shot (i.e., by just alternating to the right colors and dodging terrain features).

Another great one is Raiden Project (http://gamespot.com/ps/action/raidenproject/index .html) if you can find it for the old original PlayStation. That game had very interesting cooperative properties where certain shots would change characteristics and trajectory if they hit your friend's ship so sometimes it would be strategic to try to stay vertically aligned together (or overlay each other) to benefit from these special shots.

There are lots of great cooperative Shmups but the only directly competitive one I have yet encountered is astonishingly fun. It is called Twinkle Star Sprites (http://en.wiki

This most certainly is worth the attention that it is getting, but I have a feeling you are just one of the many StarForce stooges prowling various forums and doing damage control. As stated by the others it is their hypocrisy that is causing all this attention. They violated their own forum rules about posting links to illegal content and then left the link up until well after the intial news post on Stardock's site about them doing so. Anyone else making posts like that or posts too critical of their product sees their post promptly edited or outright deleted by the moderators and this was one of their own admins who posted the link in the first place. They left their own link up for a week though until the influx of users from Stardock's forums, Slashdot and Digg brought them a lot of bad publicity. I went to their forums after the story posted here on the 11th and the link was still there and working.

There was also another admin in a different thread requesting scans of a PC Gamer magazine article that mentioned their product because the editor had problems with their protection and wrote a piece on it. This is a company selling products to protect copyright, yet they have no qualms against violating copyright themselves. One of their admins, sage386, also advertises his ties to the cracking group UCF. You can google him and find his name listed in nfo files. This should show you the type of company we are dealing with here and why it is important to get this news out and let the publishers know we do not want to support them if they use StarForce on their products. Since the linking to the torrent they have already lost the support of one publisher, with hopefully more to come. Aspyr Media will not include StarForce in the North American release of Spellforce 2, even though the demo currently uses it.

Wow, way to be proven TOTALLY wrong within 24 hours, that must feel awesome.

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6145972.html

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6145972.html

Kutaragi told the crowd at the event that the PS3 would now launch in November 2006 worldwide.

"Can we get a corroborating source besides just 1UP, or an actual quote from Sony about this somehow?"

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6145900.html

"TOKYO--Sony Computer Entertainment announced it will hold its PS Business Briefing 2006 March conference in Tokyo tomorrow at 3 p.m. local time [1AM EST]. Specific details on the conference have not yet been revealed, but speculation is that the company will unveil additional new information about the PlayStation 3.

The possibility of additional PS3 information tomorrow comes from Sony's decision to include members of the Japanese press in the briefing, rather than its original intention of holding the meeting only for third-party licensees."

Is this news really so important that /. couldn't have waited a few more hours for the official press conference?

If it were true. But hey, 1up doesn't mind the fanatic traffic.

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6145919.html

While authoritative in tone, it must be emphasized that the Nihon Keizai Shimbun report is in no way official. Though Sony's last-minute decision to change tomorrow's event from a closed-door presentation to a full-fledged press conference augurs a major announcement, Sony is staying mum. When contacted by GameSpot, a Sony Computer Entertainment America rep declined comment, saying "we have not made any new announcements on PlayStation 3."

Thanks CNet, at least you try to be objective.

"Sony Computer Entertainment will delay the release of its PlayStation 3 next-generation video game console until early November because the copy-protection technology for the Blu-ray Disc has not been finalized," reported the paper. No specific regions were mentioned, making it unclear if the delay was for the Japanese PS3 or a worldwide release.

While authoritative in tone, it must be emphasized that the Nihon Keizai Shimbun report is in no way official. Though Sony's last-minute decision to change tomorrow's event from a closed-door presentation to a full-fledged press conference augurs a major announcement, Sony is staying mum. When contacted by GameSpot, a Sony Computer Entertainment America rep declined comment, saying "we have not made any new announcements on PlayStation 3."

Report: PS3 delayed until November

And maybe he just didn't wait long enough because Oblivion is scheduled to come out next week according to Gamespot.

According to Iwata the states will have it by Thanksgiving '06 and that Twilight Princess will be released around then as well. Those two events coliding spells crazy sales for the big N for the holidays.

Must be past the end of the Paper Boy Era. ... Now people drive past and chuck papers in the general vicinity of doors.

Nah, it's not they end -- they just need more training.

Gamers need a voice the same way that homosexuals need one. After all, much like homosexuality, being a gamer is soon to become a disease for no reason other then political ones. Wouldn't YOU want a voice now, before you get labelled a sick person who better be locked up for his own good?

Apparently You have never read a review for Big Rig Racing. http://www.gamespot.com/pc/driving/bigrigsotrr/rev iew.html/

How detailed does a developer's first console game design have to be before a console maker will approve the developer and the game?

Sadly, that's a bit of a 'how long is a piece of string?' question. It varies between manufacturers, and even experienced console devs often don't know if their title design will be approved.

It could be anything from a 2 page Word document to a hastily kludged together game demo - or more usually, a technology demo. Such demos often include a lot of work that has to be thrown away/re-done, and sadly some games never make it past the tech demo stage simply because the developer gets messed about so much (or the developer does some messing about of their own, or some combination of the two).

For example, remember Malice on the Xbox? No, didn't think so. But it was the next big thing at one point. It did ship eventually at least - many games don't.

Anyway, I don't really trust myself to answer in any more detail without getting cross and saying something I'll regret. :-)

I always rate the credibility of a game reviewer on the INVERSE of their score for the game Master of Orion III, which was widely acknowledged to be an awful title.

Yet you'll find reviewers who give it quite a good score "4.3/5". And they'll wax poetic about some of the worst and repetitive features of the game. "I always turn up the speakers when I've gotten a diplomatic message to hear the wonderful alien voices."

Compare/Contrast the following reviews. Who would YOU go to for the truth next time?
#1: http://www.stratosgroup.com/reviews/games.php?sele cted=0303moo3 "4.3 out of 5"
#2: http://pc.ign.com/articles/386/386281p6.html "9.2 out of 10 and Editor's Choice Award"
#3: http://www.avault.com/reviews/review_temp.asp?game =moo3&page=3 "3 out of 5"
#4: http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/masteroforion3 /review.html?q=master%20of%20orion
"6.7 out of 10"

This has been tried in several states and it always ends up like this.

I know alot of this is just feel good legislation, but when will they find these politicians start finding the next big thing that is "harming our children."

Thanks Take-Two. And an especially big thanks to the geniuses at Rockstar. Your marketing ploy continues to send shockwaves through the industry. Nice job.

I think you seem to have forgotten history about the Clinton administration (I'll have to do a little guilt-by-association to her husband as she wasn't in office for parts, but I think it's reasonable). It's not a voter ploy, she actually believes this crap.

1) COPA http://www.epic.org/free_speech/copa/
2) Pushed the theater owners organization to be aggressive on people under 18 seeing "R" movies: http://www.libertarianrock.com/topics/censorship/t heater_owner_pr_id_check.html
3) Called for regulation of video games http://www.gamespot.com/news/2005/07/14/news_61290 40.html
4) Today's stuff
5) Past history with Tipper Gore

Well, at least they didn't rate it higher than FFVII.

I mean, could you imagine if everyone at a popular, trusted review site had the collective stupidity to say that FFVIII is the greatest game ever to bear the name? Now that would be hilarious!

Dr Aki Ross's watch from Final Fantasy: The spirits within. I ordered one as soon as I heard about them. It doesn't come with the doctor or the holographic stuff, but it sure is a conversation piece.

You might want to look up Huxley for the PC and Xbox360 coming out late this year. It's an MMOFPS that seems like it'll end up being a lot more in-depth than Planetside (which I played for a bit.. it was ok).

There was also another MMOFPS called Neocon or something like that, though I never tried it. I heard it kinda sucked.

For single player games with some sort of surprise/shock I'd look into BioShock which should be out this year as well. It's a sequal to System Shock 2, which was IMO one of the best FPSRPG games made.

You might want to look up Huxley for the PC and Xbox360 coming out late this year. It's an MMOFPS that seems like it'll end up being a lot more in-depth than Planetside (which I played for a bit.. it was ok).

There was also another MMOFPS called Neocon or something like that, though I never tried it. I heard it kinda sucked.

For single player games with some sort of surprise/shock I'd look into BioShock which should be out this year as well. It's a sequal to System Shock 2, which was IMO one of the best FPSRPG games made.

You might want to look up Huxley for the PC and Xbox360 coming out late this year. It's an MMOFPS that seems like it'll end up being a lot more in-depth than Planetside (which I played for a bit.. it was ok).

There was also another MMOFPS called Neocon or something like that, though I never tried it. I heard it kinda sucked.

For single player games with some sort of surprise/shock I'd look into BioShock which should be out this year as well. It's a sequal to System Shock 2, which was IMO one of the best FPSRPG games made.

Nothing's for sure until the reviews come out, but these previews are positive: http://ps2.ign.com/articles/686/686719p1.html http://www.gamespot.com/ps2/action/tombraidervii/n ews.html?sid=6143861

Pilotwings was for SNES
Pilotwings 64 was for N64
Nit-picking, but hey....

Will this thing work with my LapBoard?

http://www.gamespot.com/ps2/action/tombraidervii/s creenindex.html

*horrified victim in a zombie movie* NO! Noooo! Nooooo! *runs away, but not quickly enough. . . Dead.*

I've always hated Acclaim's games and marketing strategies (but especially the games). Some of the really old stuff was good, but they just turned into an uncreative, "bottom-line" company that wasn't afraid to release horrific games that tarnish the reputation of the licenses they use. ECW Hardcore Revolution anyone?

The last great game they published IMO was Aggresive Inline. A lot of the good features in THPS4 were on Aggressive Inline first. Plus, they started the Burnout series too, but those games were buried under all their bad games. Now that Acclaim has been "resurrected", let's hope they have good management and publish good games 8)

Here's the original picture
http://img.gamespot.com/gamespot/images/2006/news/ 01/03/phantom_screen001.jpg

blow it up, play with the gamma settings and then hit the picture with a contrast enhance. That wire stands out very nicely.

Tweak the original pic & decide for yourself. Recompressing jpegs usually introduces noise.

Those kind of astroturfers are easy to spot. This is a bad idea.

They won't be a bother for me though. I'll be too busy enjoying my Phantom Lapboard Wireless Keyboard+Mouse. Its teh super aw3some!!1!

I can easily think of PC RPGs which took a lot less than 10 hours to finish. For example, take both Vampire titles. In fact, I dare say that that applies to any PC RPG that isn't a console port. (Not to mention that your average PC "RPG" game will actually be either a hack-and-slash action game or a mis-named RTS with some minimal stats thrown in.)

Hmm, I wasn't even thinking of PC RPGs. Come to think of it, the last PC RPG I played was probably Neverwinter Nights, which was well over 30 hours, but also released in 2002. If you check Gamespot, there aren't very many PC RPGs that have been released. And you're right, most of them are just glorified hack-and-slash action games or dungeon-crawlers with some RPG elements thrown in.

IMHO, the decent single-player RPGs for PCs are going to come mostly from consoles. As you already mentioned, there are the KotOR games. Upcoming is also the next Elder Scrolls game, Oblivion (also for the 360). And for some, Fable was a decent enough RPG, although that also came from the Xbox.

Since any decent RPG takes much longer to develop than most titles, I think it's only natural that developers will want to take advantage of as many platforms as possible. Why limit yourself to only the PC? There's got to be a good reason to do so (for example, it's the only place for decent modding, which is why Neverwinter Nights is only on the PC). Otherwise, you're going to get ports.

The only game I've played for it that did anything new and different was the Pac-Man 3D game

don't know if you have some insider knowledge but almost everyone disagrees with you that the two formats are compatible. I have never read anything to hint that they are. From all the tech articles I've read on them, they are about as different as night and day.

Some links

http://hometheater.about.com/od/dvdbasics/a/bluhdd vdinfo.htm

http://hardware.gamespot.com/Story-ST-x-2077-x-x-x

Wow. The idiocy is strong in this one.

Let's see. Deus Ex. Here's a quote from a review about Deus Ex:

"As bionic government agent J.C. Denton, you're issued a series of risky covert assignments by your employer, the United Nations Anti-Terrorist Coalition (UNATCO)."

It reads like the plot to a REALLY BAD sci-fi film. Don't mistake technical expertise and immersiveness for a good storyline. There isn't one.

Half-Life 2... Oh, an evil alien race is trying to take over the planet, and you have to stop them. Only heard that about five million fucking times since the first sci-fi novels came out.

Now Far Cry, that could possibly win...but take a look at one review:
http://www.gamespot.com/pc/action/farcry/review.ht ml

Notice how they spend about one paragraph on the storyline, which contains references to no less than three movie references and one to Half Life (which itself wasn't original), and practically the rest of the fucking review on the graphics? Like I said, no one cares.

You can try being a primadonna about it and claim that you pretend to shoot people on your computer because it's intellectually stimulating, but try and find anyone who will believe you.

Ever notice that the open-source is always the clone rather than the commercial game being the clone of the open source?

Always? I seem to recall that Spacewar for PDP-1 was a free or at least semi-free program developed at MIT, and the first commercial video game Computer Space was a clone of Spacewar.

That might have something to do with the competition, too.

Yes, it is competition. As the rules of casual video games are still seldom patented (even if patentable in a given jurisdiction), the threat of Free or otherwise cheap knockoffs forces the commercial game developers to up their production values. The free market ensures that players are free to choose between games with Freedom and games with production values, at least on lockout-free platforms such as Windows XP, Windows Mobile, Mac OS X, X11/Linux, X11/BSD, Palm OS, GP2X, and GBA Movie Player.

with worse production values.

Not always. Do you think Tetanus On Drugs for GBA has worse production values than THQ's Tetris Worlds, the "official" tetromino game for GBA? And if so, how?

" Its not a crappy reason if it can be played on a Revolution and use the new controller for new gameplay."

So?

Make the Gamecube version now and put the Revo features in a re-release of the game two years later that Nintendo mails to you for proof of ownership of 5 Revo games. Or something.

I hope they're using this time to make the game better for the GameCubem and not to add Revo functionality. Every time Nintendo announces another delay, people (or at least me) anticipate more dungeons. If they are truly using this time wisely, this could be a stellar game, but it'll be a big disappointement if it doesn't deliver.

" Its not a crappy reason if it can be played on a Revolution and use the new controller for new gameplay."

So?

Make the Gamecube version now and put the Revo features in a re-release of the game two years later that Nintendo mails to you for proof of ownership of 5 Revo games. Or something.

I hope they're using this time to make the game better for the GameCubem and not to add Revo functionality. Every time Nintendo announces another delay, people (or at least me) anticipate more dungeons. If they are truly using this time wisely, this could be a stellar game, but it'll be a big disappointement if it doesn't deliver.

wiki is incorrect... the sound resource is from Crystal Quest a popuar game that preceded system 7

Apple called it sosumi because they were having fun teasing the Crystal Quest author and the beatles story is nonsence made up years after the fact.

Anyone with a copy of the tremendously popular 1987 Crystal Quest can verify it. The sound effect resources are not protected.

http://www.gamespot.com/mac/action/crystalquest/

the xbox 360 has a semi-faithful version of the 1987 game too!!! :

http://screenshots.teamxbox.com/screen/44521/Cryst al-Quest/

someone should bitchslap the wiki poster that spreads the lies about sosumi (a recording of two zylophone keys on a synthesizer, but the specific two keys being used in Crystal Quest, the duration, etc shows that the Sosumi sound is stolen from the mac game Crystal Quest, not thin air.