via Computer and Video Games


Despite the ugly legal battle between Silicon Knights and Unreal Engine 3 studio Epic Games, Too Human publisher Microsoft says there's no change to its current release plans.

In an e-mail statement to CVG sister site (but just as manly) Next-Gen.biz, MS said, "regarding development of Too Human, we are still on track for a 2008 release date, as we announced most recently at E3 2007."

Then again, it's rather easy to say a game is "on track" when it doesn't have a confirmed release date, isn't it? The "2008" release window gives Epic and SK about a year and half to sort out their licensing row.

The ruckus kicked off last month when Silicon Knights served Epic with a lawsuit, claiming it was "mislead" over how complete Unreal Engine 3 code actually was. According to Silicon Knights it was forced to re-write parts of Too Human's game engine, pushing the release back significantly.

Epic has since filled a countersuit, accusing the Too Human dev of among other things, breach of contract.

We're hoping Too Human's in better shape the next time we see it, because after all this ruckus it'd be a terrible shame if it turned out to be pants. As always, we recommend keeping the popcorn at arm's reach. ...

via Eurogamer


Microsoft has remained quiet on rumours that another Halo 3 beta test is currently getting under way.

Word spread after keen-eyed Live gamers spotted others playing something called Halo 3 Epsilon, supposedly later confirmed as a new build of the title by an unhelpfully anonymous email.

According to the mysterious note, Epsilon will let you battle across six multiplayer maps, play custom games, enjoy a single co-operative campaign level, use the Forge feature and get to tinker with the full Saved Film functionality.

Unfortunately it looks as though this will be a closed affair for a select few, but with the game a little over a month away, we can quite happily wait.

Halo 3 recently became the fastest-selling pre-ordered game ever, soaring past the huge one million mark last Thursday. ...

via Eurogamer


Sony Europe has kept its lips sealed over the release date of Gran Turismo 5 in Europe, following news that the racing game is expected in Japan next July.

The target date was let slip by game creator Kazunori Yamauchi, who told Japanese magazine Famitsu he hoped to have it ready by next summer. Given that previous instalments have taken around three to four months longer to appear in Europe, it might not show up here until 2009.

But at least we'll have the Gran Turismo 5 Prologue demo to sink our teeth into sometime this year, although when exactly is still undecided - Japan will have it in October.

It will be a similar affair to the Gran Turismo HD Concept taster we were treated to in March, which let us try out the engine under the hood of the new instalment and race a spattering of cars around a single track. We expect it will also be free to download, too, when the time comes.

Unfortunately concrete details on what will be in it are scarce, but online play has been mentioned.

We'll let you know when so much as a tire squeals. ...

via Eurogamer


Ubisoft has announced Chessmaster: The Art of Learning for DS and Chessmaster: Grandmaster Edition for Windows PC.

Both are due out in October, and are fronted by International Master and eight-time National Chess Champion Josh Waitzkin.

You'll be coached by Waitzkin from the fundamentals through exciting courses and tutorials borrowed from his book The Art of Learning.

Once you've got the hang of it, there'll be the chance to tackle single-player AI opposition or friends via network or the Internet. On the DS, that includes a two-player local wireless offering.

And if normal chess isn't enough for you, Ubisoft's actually got some new gameplay modes. Hrm. There's Dark Chess, where the opponent's pieces are invisible, Extinction Chess, where you have to try and capture all the opponent's pieces, and Losing Chess, where you have to try to lose all your pieces. We asked famous chess person Gary Kasparov for his opinion on all this and he told us: "Who is this? How did you get this number?"

There'll also be six mini-games including Minefield, in which chess pieces are used to locate mines hidden in the board; Breaking the Lines, where the knight is moved to capture all the pawns; and Fork My Fruit, a game that uses chess pieces to fork fruit of the same kind, among others. It says here.

Plus you'll be able to access 900 of the most important chess games ever to analyse and improve yourself. ...

via Eurogamer


Activision is planning to release Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare on 9th November in Europe for PS3, Xbox 360 and PC.

A senior brand manager let the news slip during a press event this week, and although Activision UK representatives could only confirm "winter" the view from retail is that this is the date for which they are gunning.

CoD4 has won all sorts of plaudits since its unveiling earlier this year, not only having abandoned World War II as a setting in favour of something a bit more contemporary, but also having improved itself visually to a huge extent with pretty spectacular animation and a narrowly focused palette that helps achieve a much more realistic overall visual effect.

You can try and translate that into real words in your head by browsing our Call of Duty 4 gamepages, which host various trailers and recent news of a multiplayer best test for Xbox 360.

Look out for more on the game soon - hopefully including some more impressions from Games Convention in Leipzig, which runs from 22nd to 26th August. ...

via Eurogamer


Sony has released JapanStudio's Piyotama puzzle game onto the PlayStation Store in the US, which means you can get it too if you've got the ability to pay for things in Monopoly money.

Priced at USD 2.99 (sadly there's no demo), Piyotama is a falling eggs puzzler where the round eggs bundle together in a Puzzle Bobble-style cluster at the bottom of the screen and the idea is to make diagonal lines of the same colour.

You can slide any individual line left or right and change the order of the three blocks on each end to try and influence the diagonals, or you can shake the Sixaxis pad up and down to try and jumble up the eggs. When four are aligned, a waggle also serves to speed up the hatching.

There are single-player and multi-player modes on offer and global leaderboards, and it all runs in 1080p - although we can't say this one is exactly hammering the RSX chip.

Expect a full write-up of Piyotama at some point in the future. ...

via Eurogamer


With the game due out in a matter of weeks, Sony has begun the countdown to Heavenly Sword's release by kicking off an animated series of back-story shorts on PlayStation Network and the Internet.

You can watch the first (Legend of the Sword) on the Sony US blog or download a 720p HD version (147MB) from the PlayStation Store. Another four will follow before the game's 12th September US release.

SCEA marketing manager Mark Valledor, blogging about the vid, says "we took a page out of 'Clone Wars', because that series kicked ass", also drawing attention to a parallel "making of" video series that focuses on various bits of production. A video related to that is also on the PS Store.


Trailer at Sony's official blog here ...

via Eurogamer


Good news, Virtual Console f-- Sorry chaps, random battle. Dun dun dun. Whack. Cool. Sorry about that. I was just about to te-- How inconvenient! Another random battle! Let me just sort this out. Right. Well anyway, this week's Virtual Console update is headli-- Oh for the love of Mike! This week's-- STOP THAT. Thi-- Breath of Fire II! It's Breath of Fi-- Oh I give up.

Also on Virtual Console is Galaga '90, a 1989 (obviously) TurboGrafx-16 version of the classic arcade shoot-'em-up you'd have to be pretty desperate to still be playing, unless I'm missing something. Frequently the case with retro wotsits, mind you. Thirdly and finally, Virtual Console fans in Europe can download Volleyball for the NES.

Volleyball goes for 500 Wii points (GBP 3.75 / EUR 5.00), Galaga '90 will set you back 600 (GBP 4.50 / EUR 6.00) and - dare we risk it? - Capcom's turn-based RPG Breath of Fire II for SNES demands 800 of your Wii points. Which is GBP 6.00. Or EUR 8.00. Phew! That wasn't so bad in the e-- Right I'm playing something else. ...

via Eurogamer


Scans from the latest issue of Japanese weekly Famitsu show off some new sections of Super Mario Galaxy, including a desert world and a haunted house - where Mario himself becomes a Boo ghost.

Screenshots also show Mario squaring up against (well, running away from) a giant mole boss that's dragging itself angrily out of the ground, while another shot on the same page sees him transformed into a bee.

You'll probably want to see for yourself - in which case you should spirit yourself across to the NeoGAF thread hosting the scans and join in the frenzy.

Super Mario Galaxy is due out later this year. You can what we've made of it so far by checking in with our Super Mario Galaxy gamepage, which also hosts all the news, trailers and shots you could want. Apart from those scanned ones, obviously. ...