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Environmental campaign body Greenpeace has once again slammed Nintendo for its policies on toxic chemicals and recycling.

In Greenpeace's latest Guide to Greener Electronics, which ranks the 18 top manufacturers of PCs, mobile phones, TVs and games consoles according to their policies on tackling environmental waste, Nintendo remains bottom of the pile, having been the first brand to score a zero out of ten when it was first included in the guide back in November 2007.

In the latest guide Nintendo scored eight zeros across nine categories related to the use of toxic chemicals and recycling. "Nintendo only gets 0.3 due to an indication that it does have a chemicals management policy," said Greenpeace, which urged the company to clean up its act by by eliminating hazardous substances in its products and recycling them responsibly once they become obsolete.


You can read more about Greenpeace's efforts to get the hardware makers to tackle environmental waste on its Clash of the Consoles website. ...

via Computer and Video Games


Many games use the current gen consoles to make pretty pictures, but Fracture is "one of the few games" that really pushes the hardware on a gameplay front, LucasArts has told CVG.

Fracture features an innovative Terrain Deformation system that allows players to use various unique weapons and tools to bend, warp and deform the ground below their feet. This, says LucasArts, was a challenge to get working, and pushes the high-performance consoles to their limits.


Bold words, but how will the final game measure up? Check out a preview here, and look out for the full Q&A later today. ...

via Joystiq


After vowing to triple spending on game development in 2007, Disney has announced Spectrobes: Beyond The Portals, a follow up to last year's Pokemon-inspired RPG that's expected to ship for the Nintendo DS this fall. In the same breath, Disney also confirmed that the original title has shipped more than a million units globally and was the best-selling third-party DS game in North America last year, no doubt making the return trip to the well a no-brainer for the animation powerhouse.

Like the original, Beyond the Portals is being handled by Japanese developer Jupiter, and will include a number of additions including a new "three-dimensional perspective" and an online battle system. As surprised as might be otherwise, some of the new game announcement's thunder was stolen by Disney CFO Tom Staggs, who last summer casually mentioned that Spectrobes "warrants a sequel in the games business." Still, be careful what you wish for, as Disney marketing guru Craig Relyea calls the game "part of our plan to expand the series in the coming years." ...

via Joystiq


After vowing to triple spending on game development in 2007, Disney has announced Spectrobes: Beyond The Portals, a follow up to last year's Pokemon-inspired RPG that's expected to ship for the Nintendo DS this fall. In the same breath, Disney also confirmed that the original title has shipped more than a million units globally and was the best-selling third-party DS game in North America last year, no doubt making the return trip to the well a no-brainer for the animation powerhouse.

Like the original, Beyond the Portals is being handled by Japanese developer Jupiter, and will include a number of additions including a new "three-dimensional perspective" and an online battle system. As surprised as might be otherwise, some of the new game announcement's thunder was stolen by Disney CFO Tom Staggs, who last summer casually mentioned that Spectrobes "warrants a sequel in the games business." Still, be careful what you wish for, as Disney marketing guru Craig Relyea calls the game "part of our plan to expand the series in the coming years." ...

via Eurogamer


A total of 80 people got together yesterday to set the Guinness World Record for the largest gathering of games characters.

Sonic, Crash, Yoshi, Lara etc. etc. etc. met up on the Millennium bridge in London. The gathering included 30 children from Argyle Primary School, Kings Cross who all dressed up as Super Mario.


Vivendi representative Catherine Channon turned up to show her support for the event and true dedication to public relations by dressing up as Spyro. "It was a great idea by the folks over at Guinness, but when you get that many game characters together things are always going to get a bit heated," she observed.

Channon declined to comment directly on rumours Spyro was forced to break up a fight between Yoshi and the wolf out of Digimon on top of a bus.

You can watch footage of the event over on the Newsround website.

The record will appear in the Guinness World Records Gamer's Edition 2009. The 2008 edition is on sale now and is the best book I have ever read in my life. Any appearance of my name in the credits is purely coincidental. It's available on Amazon for just GBP 6.75, which works out at less than 3p per page for goodness' sake. ...

via IGN




More than a year ago, Activision revealed that the company was interested in branching its Guitar Hero franchise onto platforms such as the Nintendo DS. It's been a long wait, but the company has finally revealed exclusively to IGN and Yahoo the Guitar Hero game that will soon hit the dual-screen handheld later this year.

The Nintendo DS version -- Guitar Hero: On Tour -- is in development at Vicarious Visions, the team best known for the Tony Hawk and Spider-Man series on the dual-screen handheld, as well as the Nintendo Wii conversion of Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock released late last year. This portable version will feature the same rhythm-based "play to the music" gameplay of the big boys, and will even have its own peripheral to get the job done: Red Octane has developed what it's calling the Guitar Grip to give players the ability to finger chords in similar fashion as the console version's guitar peripheral.

The Guitar Grip will plug into the Game Boy Advance slot at the bottom of the Nintendo DS system. Players put their hand through the strap of the Guitar Grip for a firm hold on the system, and then position the system in its vertical book form. The peripheral has a storage area for a specially designed stlyus pick, which is used to strum the guitar strings on the touch-screen. As the notes slide down the screen, players strum the strings while pressing the corresponding fret buttons, all to the rhythm of the song that's being played. According to the video released by Activision, the microphone comes into play during songs -- we're guessing it'll be used as control to activate Guitar Hero's "Star Power" mode to increase the points multiplier. ...

via IGN




More than a year ago, Activision revealed that the company was interested in branching its Guitar Hero franchise onto platforms such as the Nintendo DS. It's been a long wait, but the company has finally revealed exclusively to IGN and Yahoo the Guitar Hero game that will soon hit the dual-screen handheld later this year.

The Nintendo DS version -- Guitar Hero: On Tour -- is in development at Vicarious Visions, the team best known for the Tony Hawk and Spider-Man series on the dual-screen handheld, as well as the Nintendo Wii conversion of Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock released late last year. This portable version will feature the same rhythm-based "play to the music" gameplay of the big boys, and will even have its own peripheral to get the job done: Red Octane has developed what it's calling the Guitar Grip to give players the ability to finger chords in similar fashion as the console version's guitar peripheral.

The Guitar Grip will plug into the Game Boy Advance slot at the bottom of the Nintendo DS system. Players put their hand through the strap of the Guitar Grip for a firm hold on the system, and then position the system in its vertical book form. The peripheral has a storage area for a specially designed stlyus pick, which is used to strum the guitar strings on the touch-screen. As the notes slide down the screen, players strum the strings while pressing the corresponding fret buttons, all to the rhythm of the song that's being played. According to the video released by Activision, the microphone comes into play during songs -- we're guessing it'll be used as control to activate Guitar Hero's "Star Power" mode to increase the points multiplier. ...

via Computer and Video Games


Developer Bizarre Creations has joined the growing chorus of calls for the UK government to introduce industry tax credits to ease the pressure on domestic talent.

"The UK has always been, and still is, a real hotbed of talent, producing some of the world's best selling games across many genres and formats. But it's getting harder and harder to be a developer or publisher in the UK, as increasing costs and global competition mean that everyone's under great financial pressure," the developer said in a statement on its website.

Explaining that the "stressful" economic conditions in the UK played a major role in its decision to become part of Activision, Bizarre said it supported the efforts of UK bodies TIGA and ELPSA in attempting to secure tax credits through discourse with the government, and threw its support behind UK citizens petitioning the government for the introduction of industry incentives.

"As the years have gone by, many studios have struggled and had to close, and different gaming studios have had to find their own ways to deal with this pressure. It was a big part of the reason that Bizarre chose to become part of the Activision family - in order to guarantee security to our employees, and security to our future games in this difficult climate. But even as part of a large publisher, without active government support of our industry, developing or publishing games in the UK is still stressful with current economic conditions.

"The problem has been compounded recently by some foreign government tax breaks and financial incentives given to studios and/or publishers who set up or operate in their countries. Many publishers have already taken advantage of financial incentives and moved, bought or set up development studios overseas, and UK talent (both experienced, and new graduates) is being tempted away. Of course, the games industry is a truly global marketplace, but undercutting incentives like this are extremely damaging to the UK games industry as a whole.

"That's why we fully support the recent actions from TIGA, ELPSA, and others in asking the UK government to offer the same tax credits to British developers, and continue to keep our local industry competitive with those overseas. We also fully support a recent petition to Gordon Brown asking directly for these tax credits to be introduced here."

The petition referred to currently has 1,744 signatures, and can be found here. ...

via Eurogamer


Bungie has said the Halo 3 Legendary Map Pack will go Live on 15th April.

It will cost 800 Points (GBP 6.80 / EUR 9.60) and contain three maps: Ghost Town, Avalanche, and an unannounced level.

Avalanche is the latest to be detailed, and is a "reimagination" of the original Halo map Sidewinder.

It still has the same U-shape of old, but has lost its ladders and changed the focus from deep interior portions in favour of more snowy fun outside in vehicles, which should all look suitably wintery.

The Bungie team thinks CTF works the best on it, and you can read the rest of their comments on the official website.

Remember, this special Easter weekend hopper sees the return of Team SWAT from Halo 2. That means no shields and no radar, but extra health. This will run from tomorrow until Sunday and treat you to double experience. ...