Through a locked gate, down a winding path and by a still pond a few miles outside of the leafy village of Twycross, England, a bonsai tree stands. It was a gift given to Rare by Shigeru Miyamoto, the most famous game designer in the world, as a thank-you for the game developer's critical and commercial success in creating games for Nintendo, the most famous game maker in the world.

For Rare's staff arriving to work at 8:30 sharp each morning, it has served as a reminder of the company's heritage, of who they are, of how lucky they are to be a part of something so admired, so rare. An unassuming trophy of past glories, it's also an inspiration for future goals, a symbol carefully cultivated to weather trends, transcend fashions; rooted, a gnarly resolution.

On 20th of September 2002, Microsoft paid $375 million for this bonsai tree and all that it symbolised: creative excellence, technical mastery, innovation, originality, soul and the precious fingerprints of Nintendo. The fledgling Microsoft Game Studios, desperate to acquire world-class talent that could help establish its game console, saw in that tree everything it desired to become.

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Last week's release of the Metal Gear Solid HD Collection poses an interesting question - why is the assemblage of Snake's adventures incomplete? While MGS2, MGS3 and Peace Walker are all present and correct, the original Metal Gear Solid is conspicuous by its absence - and what of its Nintendo GameCube remake, The Twin Snakes?

It's this latter release that is the most intriguing. Released in 2004 in collaboration with Nintendo, The Twin Snakes was the original Metal Gear Solid remaster - an alternative take on the classic PS1 game, featuring a bounty of graphical improvements, re-recorded audio with new translations and gameplay elements from MGS2 - such as first person shooting - retrofitted into the original game.

Konami and Nintendo masterminds Hideo Kojimo and Shigeru Miyamoto were said to be involved in honing the gameplay, while Canadian outfit Silicon Knights were drafted in for the main coding duties. As The Twin Snakes was released after MGS2, which did get included on the HD Collection, we couldn't help but wonder... how would it look rendered in high definition? A remaster of a remaster, if you will.

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Naruto, that weird spiky-haired manga beat-'em-up franchise that spits out games you probably ignore, has achieved 10 million sales now.

Streamers!

North American people bought most of the Naruto games (4.3 million), followed by Europe (3.8 million) and then Japan (1.9 million).

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London, October 2011. Thousands are crowded into the Hammersmith Apollo, one of the city's most famous theatrical venues, to hear a concert of music commemorating the 25th anniversary of The Legend of Zelda. It's an emotional night. Host Zelda Williams recalls how much the series she was named after meant to her growing up, and her voice audibly cracks at the memory. As Koji Kondo plays a delicate piano solo of Grandma's Theme from The Wind Waker, grown men can be seen dabbing their eyes. Kondo rises from his seat and the audience stands, too, applauding wildly, a number of them clad in the familiar green tunic, tights and pointed hat of their hero.

How did this simple fairytale fantasy inspire such passion, such devotion?

********

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Nintendo subsidiary Hal Laboratory scrapped three different Kirby projects before finally getting it right with forthcoming Wii title Kirby's Adventure.

As revealed in a new Iwata Asks interview on the official Nintendo site, the three still-born projects were all planned GameCube titles.

The first, which was shown off briefly at E3 in 2005, bit the dust following problems getting a multiplayer mode up and running.

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As detailed in a blog post on its official site, the game was in development back in 2002 for unspecified consoles.

"Dungeon Duel combines fast-paced RTS strategy with the addictiveness of card game trading in a unique fantasy setting - a true RTS game built specifically with consoles and their controllers in mind," read the pitch.

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So the Wii is to lose its backwards compatibility in its slimline Christmas makeover. Thousands of tiny GameCube discs will gather dust as another format slips further down the conveyor belt of history.

It's hardly a surprising move. The number of people who actually use the Wii to play old GameCube games is surely a tiny fraction of the console's audience, and certainly anyone picking up a Wii at this point in its lifecycle is unlikely to be doing so to play Doshin the Giant.

And, let's be honest, it's not as if these old games are in much danger of vanishing completely. Compared to the recent past, today's games market is positively throbbing with retro. Digital downloads and the rise of iOS as a platform have meant that games from yesteryear actually make commercial sense once again - whether it's HD remakes of popular classics, digital emulations sold over Xbox Live or PSN or old Spectrum and C64 titles sprouting on the iPhone.

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"In Europe we will focus on the new Wii Bundle/s going forward," Nintendo confirmed.

The company has announced it will launch the new model in time for Christmas. It comes with Wii Sports and Wii Party packed-in.

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The new-look Wii redesign will no longer support GameCube games or hardware, the company has confirmed.

This means gamers will be unable to use GameCube pads when playing Wii games such as Mario Kart Wii or Smash Bros. Brawl.

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Several Christmases ago, I went to Guildford to interview Peter Molyneux. Towards the end of our conversation, I asked him what I thought was a pretty sneaky question in order to get him to spill the beans on his next, as yet unannounced project. "I know you can't tell me what you're working on at the moment," I said, laying a trap so elegant that even a canny panther might find himself caught within its snare, "but can you tell me about the problems with games that you're currently interested in solving?" I sat back and complimented myself on my underhand brilliance. Maybe after this interview, I should apply to the CIA.

Molyneux thought for a minute. His phone went off - a weird Jools Holland-style dum-der-dum-der-dum piano ringtone, I'm sad to report – and he ignored it. Then, he looked at me. "Games," he said, allowing for a portentous pause, "games have lost their sense of wonder."

I smiled and nodded, and pretended to turn that thought over in my head a little. Really, though, I was thinking, "Well, that didn't work." Then I went home and spent most of Christmas stuck on a train just outside of Tonbridge.

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The original Metroid launched for the NES on 6th August 1986 in Japan. 11 more games have followed, with the latest, Metroid: Other M, released on Wii last year.

Metroid stars space-suited Samus Aran, a bounty hunter whose face is usually kept hidden. Gamers were shocked at the end of the first game when she removed her helmet and turned out to be a woman.

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Places will be extremely limited - it's the only date planned for the whole of Europe.

Tickets are priced at £33.75 and go on sale 8th August from Ticketmaster and Zelda-Symphony.com.

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Gamers will get the last-gen games via the company's existing WiiWare service, Nintendo of America exec Amber McCollom told NintendoGal.

"GameCube discs will not be compatible with Wii U, but a number of the games that were playable on GameCube can be downloaded from WiiWare," McCollom said.

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I’m calling a moratorium on boss fights. I’ve even looked up the word to check what it means, to be sure about that. We need them to be stopped for a while so everyone can gather together and discuss what’s going on. I’m not banning them – you can relax. I’m just calling for a hiatus during which some sensible consideration can take place.

My goodness, Metroid Prime is a good game. It’s an exquisite game, in fact. A vast, intricate, multilayered world, woven together so expertly that I suspect developers Retro Studios might be nanorobots from the future.

And what an undertaking. Until Metroid Prime in 2002, amazingly there hadn’t been a Metroid game for eight years. And this was to be developed by an American studio, rather than in-house by Nintendo. But the reality of how the game came to be developed by this team was not a pleasant one.

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Crytek UK, which formed from the ashes of Timesplitters creator Free Radical Design, said that despite the team having ideas good to go, it was felt the psychic-powered Second Sight "didn't have any momentum".

"Overall it didn't generate sufficient interest for us to feel it was worth making a sequel," Crytek UK boss Karl Hilton told Destructoid.

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"Zelda - it sure brings back memories," said creator Shigeru Miyamoto as he walked on stage following the orchestra's rendition of the score from forthcoming Zelda adventure Skyward Sword.

"We have prepared a game for each of our hardware systems," he explained.

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Sources within the US studio told The Paul Gale Network the unannounced game is "a project everyone wants us to do".

Gale speculates that the game could be a first-person shooter. Retro Studios has pedigree in this area – it created the superb Metroid Prime Trilogy for the GameCube and the Wii. Could a new Metroid game be in the works?

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The review aggregation site blamed poorly detailed credits for the decision.

"We have no plans to bring it back. Right now we just want to see if we can build the database, take a shot at it, see what we can do," co-founder and games editor Marc Doyle told GamesIndustry.biz.

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Yesterday reports emerged that Metacritic had begun collecting the score distribution of developers and working out an average career score.

It determined whether a game developer played a part in the creation of a game by having a gander at the credits entered on GameFAQs, which, like Metacritic, is owned by CBS.

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It collects the score distribution of developers and works out an average career score.

Industry legend Shigeru Miyamoto, creator of the Super Mario, The Legend of Zelda and Donkey Kong series, has a career score of 80.

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StarCraft Ghost was to be an action spin-off for PS2 and Xbox (and GameCube, once upon a time). You'd play as nimble super-spy woman Nova and mission through an experience not a million miles away from Splinter Cell or Metal Gear Solid.

Announced in 2002, StarCraft Ghost changed development hands twice before being "indefinitely postponed" by renowned perfectionist Blizzard in 2006. The reason? So all attention could be focused on the new flock of consoles - the PS3, Xbox 360 and Wii. Ha!

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The thing about sequels is you know what to expect. The conventions of the franchise are usually well established; they're familiar, comforting even. They're what gives the game its identity.

Games critics try to approach sequels with an understanding of what the franchise in question does well and where it could improve. Plus, most of all, the elements which define it as that type of game. Like any gamer, if we loved the previous instalment we really want more of the same, but better.

Then the inevitable occurs. A formula starts to feel old, so Leading Publisher X promises a dramatic reinvention for Huge IP Y with a focus on Flavour Of The Month Game Feature Z.

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The Tokyo Game Show polled 1171 attendees at this year's event and asked them which consoles they currently play the most (thanks, Kotaku).

18.7 per cent said they played Sony's PlayStation Portable the most. The PlayStation 3 comes in at second with 13.7 per cent, and the DS/DS Lite in third with 13.1 per cent.

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"They made the best initial offer," Fries revealed to Develop, "and Rare looked at both of us and, from the way I saw it, was more interested in partnering with Activision. It's because they wanted to be third-party, independent of all platforms."

There were rumours in 2002 that Rare had put pen to paper and signed along Bobby Kotick's dotted line.

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The new filing (thanks Kotaku) was made earlier this month.

There's no suggestion that this means a new Eternal Darkness game is in the offing, but Kotaku speculates that it may mean the GameCube original is in line for "New Play Control!" treatment on Wii.

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The publisher announced today that the six titles in the series have combined to sell over 55 million units around the world.

Activision boss Bobby Kotick said this data - based on NPD, GfK Chart-Track and international data - has made Call of Duty one of the "greatest entertainment franchises of all time".

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Talking to Kotaku, Tanabe toyed with ideas for future iterations

"As all I take part in is the Prime series, I am not capable of commenting on the whole Metroid series. But we will keep considering multiplayer for the Prime series," said Tanabe.

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Comparatively, black people, old people, women and children rarely ever take the limelight.

The study, finished in 2006 but only just published, had gamers play 150 best-selling games for 30 minutes. Researchers filmed and then picked apart the evidence, according to NewScientist.

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"Ah, SSX," Tascan sighed wistfully to GamesIndustry.biz. "We have a big catalogue and we were talking about what people like. I think this is something we will look at in the future to see if it makes sense to revive the franchise.

"It's a little bit early to talk about it, but I feel... I know internally it is a franchise that people love because it was successful and good, and it reminds me of when we were young, and I feel if the market is there and is ready for a new one then we'll consider it."

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The Metroid Prime Trilogy will launch on 24th August in the US. It will feature updated versions of GameCube titles Metroid Prime and Metroid Prime 2: Echoes, complete with Wii motion controls. The compilation will also include Wii game Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, first released in 2007.

The trilogy disc is being developed by Retro Studios, the team behind all three original games. In addition to new Wii motion controls in the series' first two entries, Metroid Prime Trilogy also promises a "unified main menu," a new achievement-style system, in-game rewards, and widescreen support.

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"The games [Shigeru Miyamoto] has worked on have a high batting average to produce big hits. However, he is not God," said Iwata, speaking in an investor briefing.

"Even Miyamoto himself cannot hit the mark every time nor always predict how long it takes to complete development."

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The Mario, Zelda and Wii Fit maker topped the poll last year, but now falls behind the likes of rapper Lil' Wayne and South Korean pop star Rain.

Miyamoto's 614,641 votes and average rating of 9 per cent do beat Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, however, who are at 44 and 45 respectively.

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The exhibition, housed at the Strong National Museum of Play, boasts over 15,000 items. These include games and hardware as well as materials providing evidence of videogames' impact on American life: advertising, publications, toys, books and so on. Those attending will apparently be able to play many of the relics on display, too.

The Strong National Center has further plans for a major, long-term exhibit tentatively titled The Revolutionary World of Electronic Play, which it hopes to open in 2012.

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"This is a job where you have a plan and you polish it endlessly while getting help from others. If Nintendo's games fail to stand out as games that aren't made that way proliferate, then it shows that the creation process is for nothing, which made me very sad," the designer told Famitsu.

"That was especially obvious during the GameCube era; Nintendo titles were hardly even discussed by the general public back then," he continued.

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"Nintendo do not set prices," said a spokesperson for the company. "It is up to retailers at what price they sell any item for."

"However, our trade price for these games will be below our usual trade price for Wii games and our present estimate of the likely retail price is in the region of GBP 29.99."

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As reported by Gamasutra, the firm monitors a selection of households, then does some extrapamolation tricks to work out stats for the whole country.

Apparently PS2 users accounted for 31.7 per cent of time spent playing games. Xbox 360 was up next with 17.2 per cent, followed by the Wii at 13.4 per cent.

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Only books, calendars and "a limited range of other products" will remain on sale for the time being, according to the Zavvi website.

Customers with existing orders for these suspended products will find out by email if their delivery cannot be fulfilled, and, if so, receive a full refund.

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"I'm happy that a title I worked on some time ago remains highly praised to this day, but that also shows how none of the subsequent games in the series have surpassed it," Aonuma told Nintendo Everything.

"As someone who is still working on the series, I have mixed feelings about that. Because I haven't yet surpassed it, I can't quit. Surprisingly, that simple motivation may be the reason I continue to work on the Zelda series."

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A report in the latest issue of Famitsu (translated by IGN) reveals that Donkey Kong Jungle Beat has been tweaked in key areas.

For starters, rather than using the ludicrous Bongo peripheral, the game now controls like a traditional platformer - with movement of Donkey Kong assigned to the nunchuk analogue stick, and jumping mapped to the A button.

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As reported by 1UP, Hopper appeared on US TV show Late Night with Conan O'Brien recently. The actor has now been in nearly 150 movies, and Conan the O'Brien asked whether he regretted signing up for any of them.

"I made a picture called Super Mario Bros.," Hopper began. "My six year-old son at the time - he's now 18 - he said, 'Dad, I think you're probably a pretty good actor, but why did you play that terrible guy King Koopa in Super Mario Bros.?'

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This Save the Videogame campaign launches at Nottingham's GameCity Three festival, which takes place next week, from 30th October to 1st November.

Here, revellers will be invited to star in short video clips pledging support for their favourite games. Some developers have already done so on the Save the Videogame website, and a showreel of theirs and other industry pledges will be shown on the day.

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Also on the cards for remake treatment are Chibi Robo and Donkey Kong: Jungle Beat, although both are currently TBC for Europe.

Yesterday Nintendo Japan announced that Jungle Beat and Pikmin would be the first two GameCube games to receive Wii control systems as part of the above range, confirming release dates of 11th and 25th December respectively.

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Details on both projects, such as launch month, are yet to be revealed - but both parties are ever so excited about the deal.

"We're ecstatic that Resident Evil is returning to [DC Comics' publishing imprint] WildStorm, where we have already established deep roots into the mythos of this world. We can't wait to continue, and bring a freshness and excitement to the property to match the amazing things they are doing with the game," said Hank Kanalz from WildStorm.

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The event is taking place at the Old Truman Brewery from October 28th - 29th as part of the London Games Festival. GamesIndustry.biz is our sister site for trade types, of course.

Now THQ, SEGA and NCsoft Europe have confirmed they will all be there looking for fresh talent. Other companies already signed up include Rare, Ubisoft Reflections, Crytek, Rebellion and Kuju.

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The GameCube shooter is set to arrive on Wii in Japan next month. When quizzed about possible box art, Capcom US suit Christian Svensson revealed he had lost track of the project after deciding internally not to offer it in other parts of the world.

"Nothing is ever final, but we've been asked twice if we've wanted to bring it Westward and twice we've declined," said Svensson on the Capcom forums.

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The new service, called BBFC.online, has already been signed up to by companies such as Walt Disney Studios, Warner Bros, and 20th Century Fox. Over 600 downloads have already been given BBFC ratings certificates.

While BBFC.online will cover a variety of online content it will not, according to the BBFC, attempt to censor the internet nor will it have anything to do with rating online games such as World of Warcraft.

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The site is now up and running over at Eurogamer.pt. It's being published in partnership with LusoPlay, a leading gaming community in Portugal which was established by Tiago Silva in 2006. LusoPlay will be merged into Eurogamer.pt as part of the deal.

"We were very impressed with the success Tiago and his team achieved with LusoPlay," said Eurogamer managing director Rupert Loman, pushing things around a map with a big stick.

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Yamauchi retired from the company in 2005 after 55 years of service, remaining a major shareholder. His net worth has more than tripled since and now stands at USD 7.8 billion. The 80 year-old's net income rose by 48 per cent last year to reach USD 2.5 billion.

According to Forbes, this is all down to "booming sales of the Wii gaming device". Either that or he's really got into car boot sales and eBay since he retired.

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Well, he did invent Mario, Donkey Kong and Zelda, not to mention Wii Fit more recently.

Miyamoto got nearly 2 million votes - 300,000 more than the runner-up, Korean pop sensation Rain. He also saw off the likes of Heidi Klum, in fourth place, and the Dalai Lama, at number 207.

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The publisher acquired the studio in 2002, when it was known as Z-Axis. The name was changed to Underground Development in February.

UD is best known for producing the Dave Mirra Freestyle BMX and Aggressive Inline series. It also worked on the PS3 version of Quake Wars: Enemy Territory, due to launch on 30th May.

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He has been voted for over 2500 times so far, which puts him at 31 out of 200 candidates; one place ahead of David Beckham and one spot below Warren Buffett. His average rating is 56 per cent.

His "pros" are making games like Mario and Zelda to become the "father of modern videogaming", apparently, as well as making the Wii and recent smash hit Super Mario Galaxy.

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The model, sporting a neutral Wii colour-scheme, was spotted on the Japanese official Nintendo site earlier today.

It will apparently be on shop shelves in Japan later this month.

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That's according to a 1UP report and the ever-reliable wikipedia.

Apparently the studio was working on an unnamed game for Eidos. The project was cancelled and Pseudo was unable to secure another deal in time to survive.

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More than 20,000 people took part in the survey. Apparently 40 per cent played a game online last year, and 90 per cent of them did so on a PC. Less than 20 per cent played a console title online, and half of them did so on an Xbox 360.

Xbox 360 owners spend more time playing online than PC and PS3 owners. Children aged between 2 and 12 are responsible for 25 per cent of the online gaming that goes on, while the figure for 18 to 24 year-olds is just 10 per cent.

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We don't tell you, not because we don't want to (we do) or because we've edited it out in post-production (we sometimes have to do that too, but if you listen live you'll always hear the full thing).

We don't tell you because we're really easily distracted. One second we'll be about to tell you something amazing, the next second we'll be playing one of our amazing barely-games related features, like A Pint of Rice Wine and a Packet of Octopus Please (industry gossip / Japanese lessons recorded by a game developer in Tokyo) or Derek Williams' Free Market Economy (synthy sales ramblings recorded by a market stall trader in Doncaster).

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Two of the designs feature the little green Eurogamers men. Then there's a black shirt bearing the legend 'BETTER THAN HALO', and another promoting 'M070R81K35'. They're available in sizes Extra Large to Olsen, and are priced at GBP 16. Yes, each.

"These are the best t-shirts I have ever seen, and they definitely make men more attractive," said Eurogamer deputy editor Ellie Gibson. "Why, just now I passed Tom in the corridor and thought he was Sawyer out of Lost."

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Ledger was working with Onimusha producer Samuel Hadida on a Terry Gilliam film, and production stopped when he died.

This caused a shift in the Onimusha timetable, causing problems for the rest of the cast - whose calendars now clashed. There is an added complication in casting the now vacant supporting role; this has to be an American male, but there is an actor's strike in the US scheduled for June. Whoops.

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Did you read parts one and two? Shame on you! Whatever your answer. In our final selection of Cult Classics for GameCube, Keza touches on all the most influential genres: real-time pinball strategy, asymmetrical team-based '80s arcade games, rhythm shooters, and duck-based top-down aviation puzzling.

These two, like Baten Kaitos, are card-battling games, but they don't bring as much polish and aesthetic flair to the genre as Namco's effort. Their world is neither as gorgeous nor as distinctive as Baten Kaitos', but the card battling is probably very slightly better, and certainly more accessible. If you're into your Magic or card-battling in general, you'll probably force your way through this game's faults to enjoy it now that it's not GBP 40 of your money, and the multiplayer card-battling actually tips these two games into the realm of 'recommended' instead of leaving it to lurk with the rest of the losers in the 'average' zone.

What we said: "Entertaining though Lost Kingdoms can be when it's raising two fingers to RPG convention, it's still blighted by conventional RPG problems."

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Following on from part one, Keza stops understanding the alphabet and starts hugging everything vaguely chronologically. We've also done a quick check and she doesn't claim anything was released in "1005" in this one.

Apparently even Ikaruga and Skies of Arcadia outsold this, which is pretty unbelievable considering that snowboarding games have always been popular. SSX is a better all-around snowboarding game, but as far as actually racing on a snowboard goes, 1080 Avalanche is about the best there is. It goes a lot faster than any other in its genre, and as a result it's more intense, with no nonsense endless-combo tricking or flawless landings - doing any tricks at all puts you at a huge risk of falling over. It's probably been superseded by more recent snowboarding games, all things considered, but as a pure racer 1080 is still exciting.

What we said: "1080 is easily the best snowboard racing game I've played."

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It's often tough to say goodbye. But when only eight games come out for a system in a whole year, it's probably time to bid our farewells. The last GameCube release - the last one ever, I think it's safe to say - was Ratatouille, and God knows where the shops put that. Hidden amongst the three pre-owned copies of Luigi's Mansion at the back of the shelf, probably.

It's a super little thing, though, the GameCube; oddly schizophrenic, it's a console that breaches the gap between the strict, inflexible, Yamauchi-led Nintendo of old and the friendly, progressive, casually successful Nintendo of today. And thanks to the Wii's backwards-compatibility (which, unlike either the PS3's or the 360's, is hardware-based, and works perfectly), its classics need not sit in the back of the cupboard like that enormous pile of Megadrive, N64 and SNES cartridges, ignored until you can be arsed to go through the tangle of old cables to find that peculiar N64 power supply.

It has a lot of fans, the Cube, and pioneered a few really interesting things like Game Boy Advance connectivity, the WaveBird and the Game Boy Player. You often see it painted as a poor, underachieving wee soul, but the reality was always far from that image. It was an experimental console despite its conservative business model, and even though it ended up about five million-odd sales behind its nearest competition and more than 90 million behind the market leader, it turned a good profit (the original Xbox, meanwhile, lost Microsoft around four billion dollars). It never challenged the PlayStation 2, eeither in terms of sales nor in the breadth and variety of its games, but it had an awful lot worth playing, including some of the best games ever made, and quite a few mad and brilliant titles that never made it over to Europe.

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Confirmation comes from US retailers, which provided a list of extras for the title.

However, Fox has since contacted reporter TVShowsonDVD to say bonus content is yet to be finalised and will be subject to change.

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The first snaps were found in Japanese magazine Famitsu (and spotted by Resident Evil Horror).

Zero, just like Resident Evil 4, will be given Wii remote controls and probably some extra story fluff.

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The partnership was first announced in 2004 and allowed EA to cobble together games featuring Marvel characters despite rival publishers owning the rights to other famous faces from the comics, such as Activision with Spider-Man.

EA was also given free reign to design new characters that Marvel would then spin-off to other media.

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Sales of the destructive racer are fairly evenly split between the two formats, with 53 per cent on Xbox 360 and 47 per cent on PS3. Which equals 100. Thank goodness.

It storms past previous best seller Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games, which crosses the line in second despite a slight sales boost over last week.

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Bramwell joined Eurogamer eight years ago and has since worked his way through thousands of features, countless news articles and seven laptops. His genius was formally recognised last year when he won Best Online Writer at the Games Media Awards, which we like mentioning because we know it makes him cringe.

Former editor Kristan Reed will move into a sort of Queen Mother role as editorial director of the site. Britain's fourth best womens in games, Ellie Gibson, will become deputy editor / Princess Diana.

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These days, videogames are getting the blame for everything: for making people violent; for declining standards of literacy; for England being rubbish at football. One of the few things they haven't been blamed for yet, however, is making people worse at history.

Until now. So, in the interests of truth and objectivity - in the interests of a generation who might otherwise believe that the fashion in pre-industrial societies was for chainmail bikinis and soft-rock hair; in the interests of those who might have thought that the Americans were the only ones who fought the Nazis; in the interests of everyone, everywhere, who's ever slammed a joypad down in fury at yet another historical gaffe - it's time to call the videogame industry to account for perverting the course of history. It's time to call the videogame industry to account for its long record of crimes against history and its rampant devotion to inaccuracy across the ages, from the dawn of civilisation to the present day.

In fact, the dawn of Civilization is as good a place to start as any. You might think that Sid Meier's opus is an innocuous enough strategy title, with the potential benefit of giving gamers a grand overview of the course of mankind's history on Earth and providing counterfactual historians with a sandbox in which to test their theories. You'd be wrong. Quite aside from the obvious ridiculousness of primitive warriors taking out tanks and gunships with little more than spears, the most idiotic thing about the game is the way it endorses a Whiggish view of history, in which progress is inevitable, and any sort of national difference in technology or culture is suppressed.

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Ratchet & Clank: Tools of Destruction doesn't reinvent the wheel, but who cares when it's this much fun? And as for Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, it takes something pretty special to get Kristan gushing: "the first must-have PlayStation 3 title."

From December 7th, it will officially be a "can-have" title for Europeans. Before then, Episode 19 of The Eurogamer TV Show takes an in-depth look at both of these PS3-exclusive beauties, with our very own Ellie on roving-reporter duties deep in the bowels of a Croatian castle, of all places.

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His signature is also sprawled across the inclusive games Mario Kart Double Dash, Super Smash Bros. Melee, Robots, Mortal Kombat Deception, Sonic 2 Adventure Battle and Sonic Gems Collection.

According to the listing the GameCube has only been "gently used" in the past, and if "you love Gary Coleman!!!!!" you will stump up more than current highest bid USD 510 to win it.

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Eurogamer.fr is a joint venture between Microscoop and Eurogamer Network, adding to our growing network, which already includes Eurogamer Germany and will soon grow to include Spain, too.

The new site is headed up by Editor in Chief Laurent Guerder and Deputy Editor in Chief Jérôme Bohbot, and adds to Microscoop's existing portfolio of French technology and games publications, and our own exciting portfolio of Eurogamer, GamesIndustry.biz, and when I get drunk and email the Guardian.

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The first Metroid presciently set the tone for the future of the franchise by appearing first on a struggling format and only reaching foreign shores after lengthy delays. Metroid was initially released only for the Famicom Disc System in 1986. The FDS was one of Nintendo's first attempts to monkey around with new storage methods, but its success was limited and it never made it beyond Japan. One year later, Metroid finally appeared on the plain old NES in North America and then, another year later, we pox-ridden Europlebs were deemed worthy of having a copy to call our own. Hmm. Sounds familiar.

Despite this rather awkward staggered release, the rather revolutionary nature of the game was immediately apparent. The story seemed obvious enough - a tough bounty hunter called Samus Aran is given the task of ridding the planet Zebes of malignant lifeforms known as Metroids, before evil space pirates use them to destroy the blah blah blah. And at first glance it seemed like a fairly predictable shooty platform game, albeit one where you could shoot in one direction and run in another. But those who tried playing it like a platform game soon found themselves stumped. Where's the end of the level? Why can't I get through there? What do all these pick-ups do? WHY HAVE I TURNED INTO A BALL?

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Some games are just utterly cruel in their allocation. If Blue Dragon wasn't disappointing enough already, our very own tireless adventuring warlord Bertie received a shameful, insulting 30 points for the 55 hours it took him to trudge through to the end. It's like turning the final corner in a marathon and seeing your best mate screwing your mum on the finishing line.

At the other end of the spectrum is Project Gotham Racing 4, a title so generous early on with gamerpoints, that you'll romp to 400 in just a few hours. But then, Bizarre Creations is a generous developer and Gotham is the series that keeps giving. And, as the final Gotham game from the studio before it hooked up with Activision, the guys have given it absolutely everything to create one of the most comprehensive racers we've played.

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The site won the awards for best news and best reviews and features. Eurogamer editor Kristan Reed went on stage to collect them, despite Ellie offering to make national headlines by "doing a Judy".

Eurogamer KING HERO Tom Bramwell was crowned best online journalist. He collected his award gracefully, despite the fact Ellie spilled beer all over his trousers 20 minutes previously and an over-excited Pat knocked him back into his chair when he tried to stand up.

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That's according retail data from Media Create, which shows the numbers are slightly down on Famitsu's mid-week declaration of over 300,000 units being sold.

PSP sales are up 95,000 on last week, and dwarf competition from the consistently popular DS with a total of 70,523.

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According to analysts the NPD Group, 403,600 Wii units were shifted during August. The figure for DS stood at 383,300. In third place was Xbox 360 after a $50 price cut boosted sales to 276,700.

Perennial favourite PlayStation 2 continues to do well, with 202,000 units sold - not bad for an old timer. As for Sony's young whippersnappers, 151,200 PSP units and 130,600 PS3s were sold.

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As reported by the Guardian, Brown was speaking at his monthly press conference. He stated, "Where there is pornographic or violent material, any parent is going to be concerned.

"This is not the Government telling people what they should do... This is society reaching a conclusion with all those people involved about what are the legitimate boundaries.

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Last year's inaugural event was a huge success, with more than 1000 visitors in attendance. The 2007 London Game Career Fair will take place at the Old Truman Brewery, Brick Lane on October 23rd and 24th. Entrance is free

So why not pop along? It's the perfect platform for anyone hoping to break into the games industry or make a career move. You can rub shoulders with top industry veterans, and if you're a top industry veteran yourself the LGCF is the ideal place to seek out exciting new talent.

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The concert will take place on 22nd October at the Royal Festival Hall, where members of the Philharmonia Orchestra will recreate music from blockbusters like Mario, Zelda, Final Fantasy, Warcraft and Sonic. Even retro titles like Pong and Donkey Kong will get a look in.

There will also be a special arrangement from Halo 3, composed by Marty O'Donnell and performed live by the orchestra for the first time. Although you might be a little busy actually playing it by then.

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Games like Gundam, Donkey Kong, Zelda, Mario and Housekeeping Diary helped the DS continue its retail rampage – totting up 153,834 units shifted for the week.

Wii sales were also up on last week at 73,938, thanks to best sellers Mario Party 8, Wii Sports and Wii Play. Launch titles. Scoff.

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Its visual symphony of joyful, expressive animations, picturesque and interesting environments and masterful, detailed character designs enriched a delightful multiplayer experience. However, with the tall requirement of committed friends, four GBAs and as many link cables on top of the usual GameCube setup, it was quite the hassle to experience it all as Square intended.

While the game enjoyed high praise from most critics and consumers alike close to launch, as the months rolled on a considerable backlash struck. Citing its rudimentary use of the GBA screen (certainly in comparison to rival Zelda Four swords) and the extremely weak single-player game, many players, given time, claimed deep and damaging flaws undermined its glossy surface.

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Speaking at a conference to kick off the the two-day Ubidays event, Guillemot said, "E3 is now only for the US, so we wanted to do something to help everybody see our products. So we decided to do E3 but in France and call it Ubidays."

GamesIndustry.biz reports that around 600 business bods from all over Europe are currently hob-nobbing at Ubidays, which will serve to fully announce Ubisoft's line-up for the rest of the year, including first looks at Splinter Cell: Conviction, Assassin's Creed and Tom Clancy's End War.

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Electronic Arts' Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars has leapt back up the charts following release on the Xbox 360, from number 20 to number two, nudging Nintendo's Wii Play down to number three.

Discounting has boosted sales of Konami's Pro Evolution Soccer 6, which jumps up the charts from number 35 to number four, with EA's FIFA 07 also climbing to number five.

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It gives us a chance to look over the mooing herd and arrange the heifers into some sort of bite size order, so that you can get your chops around the juiciest announcement burgers this week.

Squeenix kicked off proceedings this week by revealing three new games ahead of its Square Enix Party in Japan this weekend. Role-playing game Last Remnant for PS3 and Xbox 360 was the most exciting of these, but Chocobo's Mysterious Dungeon for Wii and Final Fantasy Dissidia for PSP also caused a fuss.

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Goodbye, Spider-Man.

Put it this way: if a picture paints a thousand words, then it follows that a 140-minute film hitting us with 60 frames every second is good for about 504 million. That's a lot of words. So it's an amazing testament to the epic dreadfulness of Spider-Man 3 that none of them is even vaguely printable. The first two films were widely considered spectacular, emotional roller-coasters; part 3 is like having to pay to tie your shoelaces on a zebra crossing in the middle of Le Mans - objects that are moving too quickly to focus on are speeding expensively toward your backside and all you can do is hand over your money and imagine what it would be like if someone gave you 258 million dollars to spend on coke.

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First up is Midway's late entry into the crowded WWII genre, Hour of Victory. If the initial reaction is: 'Oh, dear God, no, not another WWII game!', then the second, on reflection, should of course be: 'Well, there's always room for a good 'un'.

In an attempt to prove the worthiness of its war effort, Midway flew us out to the Austrian Alps, and dragged us up a mountain to the imperious Hohenwerfen Castle, whose claim to fame is its starring role as Schloss Adler in classic British war film Where Eagles Dare.

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Florida attorney Jack Thompson, the self-styled enemy of videogames, has been accused of ambulance-chasing before - but never let it be said that he's a man who rests on his laurels. When the deadly, tragic and as yet inexplicable events unfolded at Virginia Tech earlier this week, Thompson went a step further than mere chasing. Within hours, he was once again attempting to further his own agenda in the American mass media.

Thompson's appearance on various news broadcasts isn't surprising, but his apparent willingness to exploit Monday's dreadful events is genuinely shocking. It shows not only a low regard for facts and research but arguably for decency in the wake of tragedy.

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Look out for our review of Harvest Moon: Innocent Life in the near future - and in the meantime, enjoy this in-depth look into one of videogaming's most unique, enduring and well-loved series.

I pick up the voices of the players through things like the questionnaire that has always come with the games - many people who buy the game will give that questionnaire back. I also pick up what people think from games magazines and the Internet. At the moment, because there are so many opinions, I can't read them all, but up until quite recently I read everything that the fans have said!

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No publicity is bad publicity. How many times have we heard that phrase? It has been applied to all manner of different situations, from video nasties to misbehaving celebrities. People like Max Clifford have made lucrative careers from the power of that phrase. In the videogames market, which is the whipping boy du jour of socially conservative types across the western world, the idea has found fertile soil and taken root. Controversy breeds popularity; exposure leads to sales.

I'm not going to argue with that wisdom - after all, the evidence is compelling. Copies of Manhunt were hoovered off shelves when the game was named (incorrectly, as it turned out) as a factor in the brutal murder of a British teenager a couple of years ago.

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Called "Guinness World Records - Videogame Edition 2008", the book will include reviews of the 20 biggest games of the year (8/10), record scores and fastest times, hardware profiles, sales figures and technical achievements made by individual games (e.g. how Viva Piñata is best).

The book will also answer questions such as which pro gamers earn the most money, what's the single highest score ever in a game, and which is the most successful console of all time.

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Eurogamers allows you to keep in touch with friends, games and the communities you're part of all from one memorable address: gamers.eurogamer.net

You can customise your homepage and the way you appear to your fellow Eurogamers, create your own Groups and join others, keep track of things that interest you, like activity on forum threads you're contributing to, and drag and drop new information feeds to fit your browsing habits.

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