What's New?

Survival horror. Vertical shoot 'em ups. RPGs. Mini-games. Even rap beat 'em ups.

News by Tom Bramwell Former Editor-in-Chief

Updated on 23 May 2003

Excitement abound! It's a brand new Sims expansion pack! No doubt stuffed with the sort of ten-minute-long burst of compressed (and possibly repressed) entertainment we've come to expect from these little booster packs. This time you'll be able to give your Sims celebrity trimmings, keeping their comfort levels in check with back-of-the-limo fornication and all sorts of "boutique" visits. Stellar.

Meanwhile, a number of games you may actually want to buy (or exchange for that copy of Enter The Matrix) have also been released this week, with a list topped by Silent Hill 3 on the PS2 (scarier than watching Kristan on the prowl) and Ikaruga on the Cube. The latter will be firmly jammed inside our little purple joyboxes as soon as InfogramesNotAtari's trusty white carrier pigeons are shot down by our black death rays. Have a look at Rob's thoughts on the Dreamcast version if you haven't a clue what it is.

Other interesting releases this week include massively multiplayer FPS Planetside, which no doubt has more camping spots than any other game in recent memory (save Quake, obviously), Microsoft's Rise of Nations RTS, the first game to punish you for damaging the environment with nuclear weapons, and Wario Ware Inc., a GBA game which consists of hundreds of five-second long mini-games. Perfect for our withered attention spans. What? Oh.

"Second tier" titles also on the list this week include the Xbox version of Phantasy Star Online and Sega Overworks' Cube port of Skies of Arcadia (dubbed "Legends"). Te tum. Yager is another one, and Martin will be looking at that next week (which means that he inherits the cute little die cast metal Yager ship model that THQ sent along with it), and EA's Def Jam Vendetta is also on our lists (and in our PS2s). Partly because we enjoy beating rap musicians upside the head with they own wyrics, and partly because it's actually worryingly good.

Also out this week are Take-Two's Airport Tycoon 2 (hold me), THQ's third GT Advance GBA title and Sega's Revenge of Shinobi, also on GBA. The latter is a bit crap, but the former might not be. See you all next week.