What's New?

Now, I don't know much about tidal waves as such, but I understand that just prior to striking, they tend to suck all the water out from just in front of them, leaving a basin of nought but flopping flounders and marooned mackerel. Well, right now we're the fish, and the tidal wave bursting to drench us is the traditional run of pre-Christmas titles. None of which are here yet. And, unsurprisingly, a lot of supposedly August-bound titles are being sucked up into oblivion, ready to rain down like a ton of kippers in a month or two. Say goodbye to Mace Griffin: Bounty Hunter and Unlimited Saga, for a start. Ta ra.

What we're left with then is very little indeed, and very little confirmation that anything is actually out. Such is life. Probably the most exciting prospect is Bethesda Softworks' PC version of Pirates of the Caribbean, based on the risible film of the same name, which two out of our four sample retailers reckon is available.

PC releases are the majority for once this week, but the publishers of the other three are having a bit of trouble convincing retailers they exist. Nobody has stock of CDV's Heaven & Hell (which they blamed for poor performance in their recent results, by the way), despite three out of four retailers claiming it's out this Friday. We reckon it's more likely to appear next week, but we've got final review code here so we're pretty sure it's finished...

Quite simply, nobody would acknowledge the existence of the other two PC titles. Line of Sight: Vietnam from Atari looks like a cheap (15 quid) take on the current Vietnam obsession, but by the looks of it most retailers aren't carrying it. Likewise Rugrats Go Wild (as if you'd have bought it anyway...) is also proving elusive. We even rang a few shops here in Brighton and they just made fun of us. We said we'd call them wankers on our website, so: wankers!

Perhaps most depressingly though, the GBA port of Rock N' Roll Racing continues to elude us, with only Gameplay claiming to have any stock. None of the others do, although they generally agree that it should be out. Hardly useful, eh?

We'll be back next week, hopefully with some actual games to write about. Sigh!

Update! Apologies, gentle reader, but a nice man from Atari has been in touch to let us know that Line of Sight: Vietnam is definitely out today, but is a GAME exclusive. So if you fancy a bit of that, you now know where to go...

• Heaven and Hell (PC)
• Line of Sight: Vietnam (PC)
• Pirates of the Caribbean (PC)
• Rock N' Roll Racing (GBA)
• Rugrats Go Wild (PC, GBA)