       The Weekly EuroGamer Digest - 15th May to 22nd May 2002

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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

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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

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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

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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

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See you all next Wednesday.