German film producer and director Uwe Boll has optioned the film rights for a pair of video games, Eidos' Fear Effect and White Wolf's pen-and-paper role-playing game Hunter: The Reckoning, which has spawned three best-selling video games from Vivendi Universal Games. Hunter: The Reckoning, which is based on the fantasy franchise that sends a band of humans out to hunt down supernatural monsters, is expected to shoot this summer in downtown Vancouver. Boll called the game franchise a "hard, b...

January 27, 2004 - According to The Nikkei Weekly, Japanese electronics retailers are not ecstatic about sales of the PSX, Sony's new all-in-one gaming/DVR/DVD recorder device. In a survey of chief managers of retail stores in Japan, 40% said that sales of the PSX were below expectations. Analysts have been buys pointing fingers at a number of possible problems with poor marketing and a lack of features in the PSX. Beyond being disappointed in the sales figures, those surveyed also said t...

January 29, 2004 - Headed for Japan next month and scheduled for our shores in May, Onimusha 3 is in for plenty of changes when it comes stateside in only a couple of months. Set to receive a slight title change to Onimusha 3 Demon Siege (why there isn't a hyphen, we'll never know), the latest and greatest from Keiji Inafune is being billed by officials as Capcom's premier title for the PlayStation 2 in 2004. "Onimusha 3 Demon Siege will surpass its predecessors in all areas: gameplay, ar...

REDMOND, Wash., Jan 20, 2004 - An unprecedented approach to video game play-holding two separate game screens in the palm of your hands - hits the scene later this year when Nintendo introduces a new portable game system, code-named Nintendo DS. From information made available today, players can look forward to being able to simultaneously manage their game progress from two different perspectives, enhancing both the speed and strategy of the challenge. For example, players will no longe...

Videogames are predominately played by males, and as surging sales of Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto franchise have shown, there's a huge market for the male demographic. The newly formed Topheavy Studios (run by Jeff Spangenberg, former head of Retro Studios, which was responsible for the GameCube hit Metroid Prime) set out just over a year ago to create a videogame for this demographic. Appropriately named The Guy Game, Topheavy's unique new home console title is the very epitome of that goal. ...

In an act I wholeheartely applaud, Blizzard has decided to outright commit genocide on massive cheaters throughout the PC gaming community. 282,000 accounts, all of which used either cheats or hacks for their accounts on Battle.net. The majority (263,000) were for Starcraft, with the remaining accounts being deleted from the Warcraft servers. Talk about the biggest offensive against online cheaters yet, huh? But wait! There's more! Blizzard also banned 1,100 CD Keys for Warcraft 3, ...

Activision has announced that Tenchu: Return From Darkness has shipped exclusively for the Microsoft Xbox. The new Tenchu features Xbox Live mode, new enemies and enemy placement, the ability to drag and hide dead bodies, and never before seen missions and maps.

With Nintendo officially stating that the GameCube's successor will NOT be on display until next year's E3, they've decided to clue the gaming press in as to what will be shown at THIS year's E3: GAMECUBE --Animal Crossing sequel --The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker sequel --GC version of Mario Tennis --Metroid Prime 2 --New Mario RPG (untitled as of yet) GAME BOY ADVANCE --Pokémon Fire Red --Pokémon Leaf Green No other titles have been mentioned as of yet (such as Mario 128),...

In a previous statement, Sony expressed hope for a global release for its upcoming handheld, the PSP. It's now been confirmed that the PSP will not see release in America until 2005. This comes months after the planned release of the PSP in Japan, which will occur later this year. Sony plans to release the PSP in the 2005 fiscal year, which ends on March 31, 2005, but probably not before the 2004 calendar year is over. Why the delay? In the words of a Sony spokesperson who talked to gamespo...

Before this week in news, both Ubisoft and Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment were co-publishing the upcoming PC title Matrix: Online, which is being developed by Monolith Studios. As of today, however, Ubisoft has left the partnership, leaving Warner Bros. and Monolith to continue development of the title alone. This makes it the second time Ubisoft has removed a huge project from their calendar, the first being when they cancelled the online components to Uru: Ages Beyond Myst. And fr...

A few months back, a lot of sites were reporting on potential titles for the next installment in the Grand Theft Auto series. And now, Rockstar has finally come out and announced what it is. The next title in the GTA series will be Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, which presumably means it will be based in an area like Los Angeles and San Francisco areas. This won out over titles like Sin City, Tokyo and Bogota. But that's not the only information that was given. They also announced a rele...

Sean Michael Breen was sentenced a 50-month jail term in California for selling cracked console and PC software totaling nearly $500,000. Breen was a member of Razor1911, a notorious group of game hackers. Together, these guys cracked games such as Quake and Warcraft III, and sold them in advance of their release dates. They aquired the games by posing as reviewers from a fictional gaming magazine, and having them delivered to a "derelict storefront address in Oakland". They would then sell t...

Forget everything you thought you knew. Game Informer and The-MagixBox have revealed new details on Capcom's GameCube survival horror adventure game Resident Evil 4 / Biohazard 4: Appearance: - The game can be played in first person view and two other view perspectives. - RE4 supports 16:9 widescreen (which is mandatory) and 480 progressive scan. When the game is played on a regular screen, there are black borders on top and bottom. - When the game plays in 3rd person view, the ma...

SNK NEO GEO USA announced its plans for the 2004 E3 show in a few weeks. Set up at booth #546 in the South Hall, SNK NEO GEO USA will be showing off: - King Of Fighters: Maximum Impact (PlayStation 2: September 2004) - Metal Slug 3 (Xbox: TBA) - SNK VS. Capcom SVC Chaos (Xbox: September 2004) - Metal Slug & The King Of Fighters Combo (Xbox, PlayStation 2: second half 2004) - The King Of Fighters 2002 & 2003 (Xbox, PlayStation 2: second half 2004) - Metal Slug 4 & 5 (Xbox...

In a somewhat surprising story, Nintendo has decided NOT to include the "Tetra's Trackers" game on the upcoming The Legend Of Zelda: Four Swords Adventure in America. Instead, the game will only have two modes of play: a cooperative mode for 2-4 players, and a 4-player battle mode. "Tetra's Trackers" is a scavenger hunt type game which has all four players racing through a maze and stealing treasure from pirates. Those with the most valuable collection win. So far, Nintendo has offered ...