Via CVG

Content in his annihilation of the 50s, Crypto the B-movie alien turns his attention to the decade of flower power. Developed by Pandemic, better known for heavyweight titles such as Full Spectrum Warrior and Star Wars: Battlefront, Destroy All Humans! 2 continues the light-hearted, comic style of its forerunner.

The Earth of ours is represented by five environments, modelled on locales such as San Francisco, Tokyo and bits of little old England. This time around you'll be able to start new missions without the chore of first returning to the mothership, and all sorts of side missions will be packed in to keep things fresh. Split-screen co-op and two-player mini-games (such as PK Tennis), and new destructive options including the Meteor Strike and Dislocator will spice things up further still.

Screenshots Here ...

Via CVG

In a clear attempt to mimic the same lack of self-control exhibited by a Las Vegas slot-machine junkie, Ubisoft has simply been unable to control the urge to release yet more Rainbow Six: Vegas screenshots. Not that we're complaining mind, they could send us another 10 billion if they all look as sumptuous as these beauties, although we might have a little trouble fitting them on the site.

To go with the new screens, Ubisoft has released fresh details about the game, including announcing the new members of Team Rainbow, namely: Logan Keller-team leader and recon expert, Michael Walter-heavy weapons and demolition guru, and Jung Park, long range and electronics specialist.

Apparently the new Special Order Location system means that Michael and Jung will offer you tactical suggestions in real time as you race to find the terrorist cell, and you can also expect to experience real-time mission briefings throughout the game.

Visually speaking, expect realistic fast roping, rappelling and window entry (ooh, er) thanks to the motion-capture expertise of a top Hollywood animation boffin, as well as the gorgeous backdrops you see before you in these screenshots, of course!

Also included is a fully customisable multiplayer option, where you get to create your own multiplayer character who will then evolve during online play, enabling you to unlock new accessories and achievements as you go.

Look for the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions of Rainbow Six: Vegas in your local games shop this Autumn, with the PC version to follow at a later date. ...

Via CVG

Grip your shaft firmly with both hands. Head down, knees bent, draw back, then let rip! Tecmo's Super Swing Golf Pangya will be encouraging Wii gamers to do just that when it tees off on Nintendo's next-gen console next year.

Wii's motion-sensitive controller is to be exploited to the max in this "casual" golf diversion - as the player holds it just like a golf club, the backswing dictates the shot's power, while the rotation at the point of impact defines the amount of hook or slice on the shot.

It's based on the downloadable PC game Pangya (www.pangya.com/english/index.asp). Curiously, while much of PC Pangya's appeal was its focus on social online multiplayer rounds, Tecmo's Wii interpretation concentrates on single-player modes (including Story, Freeplay and Challenge) and offline party-style multiplayer modes. The game is also going through a major graphical overhaul to bring it in line with next-gen expectations, with improved character textures and more detailed models, new costumes, and redesigned courses.

Super Swing Golf PANGYA is on course for an early 2007 release. ...

Via CVG

It's all been a bit quiet on the Turok front since 2002's Turok Evolution, but Buena Vista Games announced a while back that it's revamping the old Acclaim franchise, giving it a whole new spin for PS3 and Xbox 360. New info has escaped from the dinosaur maw that is E3.

As fervent fans of precision platform jumping will doubtless remember, the character of Turok was an 18th century North American dinosaur hunter, based on a comic book character dating back to the 1950s. In this latest version of the game (developed by BVG's Propaganda Games studio), however, Joseph Turok is an ex-Black Ops commando currently assigned to an elite Special Forces squad. Set in the near-future, the storyline sees the band of crack troops on a mission to hunt down a war criminal on a genetically altered planet.

According to Buena Vista, when the squad's plane is shot down, Turok has to fight for survival against a rampaging army of super-soldiers and the "ravenous, unpredictable creatures" that inhabit the planet. Now that's starting to sound a little more familiar, isn't it? Turns out that the planet is riddled with genetically mutated dinosaurs and all manner of savage beasts, although BVG states that, unlike previous instalments, Turok's main focus is on defeating his human opponents.

Combat has also been considerably altered in this latest re-imagining, with much more emphasis placed on the use of firearms, although you still have the option of whipping out the old bow and arrow or dagger if you're in the mood for a spot of stealth action. Hi-tech military vehicles are also promised this time around (probably not driven by dinosaurs, though) as are a variety of online multiplayer modes, details of which have yet to surface.

It all sounds very intriguing, but you'll have to wait until 2007 to get your mitts on it. ...

Via CVG

Yesterday we brought you the fantastic trailer, today we bring you 28 eye-caressing Super Smash Bros. Brawl screens, featuring Snake, Mario, Zero Suit Samus, Kirby in his fetching chef's hat, Link and Wario (in evil pre-fart pose) among others. Gaze at them with love and hold them close to your heart forever.

Oh, and if you missed the Super Smash Bros. Brawl trailer, you can find that right here.

Screenshots Here ...

Via CVG

As much as we love the idea of the tiny speaker built into the Wii controller, we wonder just how far some game developers will go in terms of realism. Take Red Steel for example, the lush new Ubisoft game in which you get to wield the Wii controller like a ceremonial katana. Will the controller gurgle as you slash your opponent's jugular, or maybe emit a nice squelchy noise as you poke them in the kidney? We can but hope.

Sadly no word from Ubisoft on controller death-throw noises to date, but what we have learned is that the game centres around the murder of a Japanese Yakuza big-wig and the kidnapping of his daughter. You get to travel from Los Angeles to Japan in an effort to unravel the mystery and rescue the girl.

Judging by these screens, the first-person slashing, running and gunning action is spectacular to say the least, and another reason why the Wii launch line-up is starting to look very exciting indeed. You get to replicate slashing and shooting movements with your revolution controller, as well as executing deadly combos with multiple swords.

You'll probably have to pinch yourself hard to remind yourself you're not in a John Woo movie. Oh, and there's talk of freezing time, and split-screen multiplayer options and apparently you can even choose to spare your enemies if they beg. We won't be doing that.

Screenshots Here ...

Via CVG

Tina, Hitomi, Helena, the lovely Kasumi and all their 'friends' are set to bring a ray of sunshine to Xbox 360 in Dead or Alive: Xtreme 2. The 'volleyball' part has been dropped from the name as developer Tecmo acknowledges that really, this was never about sporting prowess.

Looking hotter than ever, radiant in their next-gen glory, the girls return to Zak's Island to soak up the rays, compare bikinis and take part in a number of water sports (s******) and beach activities.

The volleyball is back in a 'retooled' format, while other distractions include personal water craft - jet-ski - races, a water slide, hip wrestling (in which you attempt to knock your opponent off a platform by bumping her with your bum!), the original's hopping game and something called 'beach flag', in which you race another girl across the sand to be the first to capture a flag - or just fall over in a heap and start giggling.

Advertisement:Come nightfall, there's the chance to let your hair down in Zak's Casino, which now features even more games. In between all this, of course, you'll be kept busy buying new outfits and gifts for your pretend girlfriend. Online versus modes complete the package.

Dead Or Alive: Xtreme 2 is due out on Xbox 360 at the end of the year.

Screenshots Here ...

Via Gamesindustry

In recent years, Phil Harrison has not only been promoted within Sony to the point where he runs the firm's worldwide network of development studios, he has also become the de facto face of the company at industry events around the globe.

Despite his new-found high profile, however, Harrison remains a software man - so when we sat down with him for a brief chat at E3 this week in the wake of the firm's announcements, the company's hardware and software strategies were definitely top of the agenda, but its hugely controversial pricing announcement was not.

We hope to bring you more coverage of Sony's plans - and the reaction to them - in the coming days - in the meanwhile, we hope you enjoy these insights from the man in charge of what may be the most crucial component of all in the firm's bid to retain its market leadership in the next generation; the software.

GamesIndustry.biz: All three companies laid their cards on the table earlier this week - from your perspective, what do you make of the three conferences and the reaction to them so far?

Phil Harrison: Sadly, I haven't actually had a chance to watch the other two conferences, but I've heard enough reports. I think that if we think the industry or the future of the business is defined by this week of press conferences... Then, we're very much mistaken. I think it's going to be defined by what the consumer thinks and what the industry thinks, and what the game developers think. It's not just about the press conferences.

I think the pieces of the PlayStation 3 puzzle are now fully revealed. Obviously we did the hardware last year, this year it's confirming or re-asserting certain elements of it - obviously, people know about Blu-Ray, but confirming that every machine has a hard disc drive in it, I think, was an important step. Confirming that we've got a new controller strategy was an important step, and showing lots of games was an important step. So, those were the main take-outs, and I think that as far as that was concerned, we achieved our objectives.

Your strategy and Microsoft's strategy are very divergent, in that Microsoft is offering consumers a choice - whether to have HD-DVD or not, whether to have a hard drive or not - while you're putting everything into a very expensive box and saying that they take all or nothing. Why that direction? Why not have a system where people who don't want to pay that premium for Blu-Ray don't have to?

Leaving aside the movie debate about Blu-Ray and HD-DVD, purely from a game design point of view and a game production point of view, we have to have Blu-Ray. DVD is just not big enough; DVD9 is nowhere near big enough for the kind of games, the richness that we're going to be putting in the games, the variety, the detail, you name it.

So, we had to adopt Blu-Ray primarily as a game format. The second benefit of it is that it becomes a video format as well. Putting it all in one box, as you say, is also down to the fact that a hard disc drive is necessary to create a totally integrated network platform. We want every consumer to be able to download and install content on their hard disc drive. If you want to put all your music on your hard disc drive, you'll probably go for the 60GB version. If you're a complete music fan and video fan, and you want to have huge amounts of digital content, then you can upgrade to whatever size of drive you like. You can put any in that you like - it is a computer, after all.

So that hard drive is a standard PC drive?

ATA, bog standard, yeah.

You're not going to be selling Sony drive upgrades?

We've got no plan to. We may offer something, but we have no plan to at the moment.

Talking about software - how many titles do you actually have on the show floor this week? I think we counted a dozen...

I think it's fifteen playable games. At the conference, we had three titles from Japan - GT HD, Eye of Judgement and Genji 2, we had three from Europe - Singstar, Heavenly Sword and F1, and two from the US - Warhawk and Resistance. That was pretty evenly split.

The controller. You showed off the boomerang, then said it was a prototype, and now you've come back and done the Dual Shock but with a twist - no pun intended. How long have you known that this was the plan?

[The motion sensing controller] has been thought about since about 1994, but in reality, you can't make some of the ideas that we have because the technology is not available in sufficient quantity or at a low enough price, and you kind of have to wait for certain things to converge. We had the concept of PlayStation Portable for many years before we could actually deliver it at a price and at a standard that was acceptable.

The controller is obviously a surprise to the industry. We've been thinking about it for a while, but it's a relatively recent addition to the format. We didn't show it last year, because we weren't ready to. The boomerang, as you call it, was very clearly designed as a design concept, and was never intended to be the final controller, despite what everybody said about it.

I think we certainly saw the strength ...

Via Gamesindustry

Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto has stressed the importance of forging a link between the DS handheld and the new Wii console, stating that the technology for interconnectivity is already in place.

Speaking to gaming blog Kotaku, the legendary games designer said that the option for consumers to connect the two 'disruptive technology' platforms has already been implemented in the Wii console - but that Nintendo has yet to cement plans with regard to how best to utilise it.

Using the DS touch-screen and microphone input to affect Wii gameplay as well as downloading content from Wii to be edited and then uploaded back to the console from the DS were just a couple of the suggestions presented, but no firm announcements have been made thus far.

Miyamoto stated that the connectivity functions for the two devices would likely be available by the time the Wii launches during the fourth quarter of the year, or very soon afterwards.

Central to Nintendo's next-gen strategy is the expansion of the gaming audience and a move away from 'core gamers' to a broader demographic, who will want to play the Wii regardless of age, gender and previous experience of videogames.

Software innovations aside, the company believes that its revolutionary motion-sensing controller is key to breaking down the barriers and encouraging a new, non-gaming audience to join in.

Miyamoto hopes to further encourage this expansion of the consumer audience by offering a personal attachment to the new controller. Effectively, each person in the household could have their own controller, which is tied to their own gaming preferences and will ensure that the Wii automatically customises the look or settings of various games, depending on which controller is used to switch the machine on or join a new game.

Whilst Microsoft already offers a personalised gamertag and user profile for it's Xbox 360 console (with similar plans announced for the PS3), Nintendo appears to be taking the idea a step further, offering a personalised controller that enables the console to instantly recognise personal preferences and game settings - a move which could prove to be exceptionally useful in helping the company achieve its ambitions in the next-gen market. ...