1) FIFA 07 - EA
2) Pro Evolution Soccer 6 - Konami
3) Need For Speed: Carbon - EA
4) Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories - Rockstar
5) Lego Star Wars 2: The Original Trilogy - LucasArts
6) The Sims 2: Pets - EA
7) Cars - THQ
8) Tomb Raider Legend - Eidos
9) The Sims 2 - EA
10) WWE Smackdown vs Raw 2007 - THQ

Spiel ahead:

The UK interactive entertainment software market hit a new all time high in 2006, according to ELSPA (Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association) as it reveals annual performance figures today.

2006 was an exciting year for the industry with a growth in sales, the industry enjoyed a 7% increase on units sold from the previous year taking the total to a whopping 65.1 million units sold. ELSPA happily announces these record sales of interactive entertainment software across all formats totalling £1.36 billion, an increase of over 1% per cent over 2005's record figures.

Paul Jackson, Director General of ELSPA, said: "We are thrilled to see the industry growing and software sales continuing to rise. With the new generation consoles and new handhelds there are some amazing titles out there and consumers are continuing to enjoy them. There are new and exciting games available and more and more family orientated and mentally stimulating titles to grasp and hold the interest of all ages. This is also a testament to the industry and it will continue to gain momentum."

With popularity of the handhelds on the market, the PSP and the DS, and the next generation consoles titles it is fantastic to see that PC software sales are also continuing to increase. Seeing PC titles have had their best year in ever in 2006 with a huge 7% increase since the previous year.

Paul Jackson continued: "Although there are new consoles and handhelds for gamers its is great to see that the PC market is doing so well."

The most popular console software was the PS2, followed by the Xbox 360, the Xbox, Wii and GameCube followed.

2006 was the year of the handheld too with the Nintendo DS and Sony's PSP software coming in only behind PS2 software, with the DS slightly outdoing the PSP.

John Carmack Interview 08:10 am - Robert 'Apache' Howarth - Games: Action (17 comments)
Game Informer caught up with id's John Carmack and Todd Hollenshead to chat a little about about what's going on. Topics include: Quake Wars, moving on to new technologies, DX10 adoption, upgrading your rig, Vista, and oh-so much more. Here is JC's stance on upgrading:

GI: Is there anything in particular that you'd suggest if someone was going to be going out and buying a new computer right now that they should make sure they get in their new rig?

Carmack: You know, not really. I think that while there are still points of differentiation between the different qualities of things both in graphics and processor and all that, it's hard to go wrong nowadays. The prices are so low relative to where things used to be and the performance is great. People can still screw up and buy a computer with no expandability or get stuck with some integrated graphics card on the motherboard or things like that, but it's been a long time since we've cared enough about the exact performance stuff to go and make exhaustive benchmarks on all the different things that we've done. I mean, the latest Intel processors are really fast, and we do find them pretty much top of the line. Jan Paul has done a lot of benchmarking for various compression and decompression things, and it is kind of neat going around benchmarking on the 360 and the different Intel processors and comparing everything, and Intel's done a really great job with the latest generation of things. It's funny from my position, but I'm not all that deeply into the latest and greatest nitty-gritty details between the different things on there. Maybe with the length of perspective that I've had, it's not all that incredibly important--especially when we're looking at a four-year game-development title again. If I go and say, "Right now, this is absolutely the best thing, two years from now it's not going to matter." If I ever see anything where I think someone could make a really tragic mistake, like there was something out there that probably wouldn't be a good thing to buy into, I would warn people off.

The interview linked has now spawned new questions and answers, so check it out once again, because it's a rather good read!

Ready or Not, Here Vanguard Comes 02:04 am - Robert 'Apache' Howarth - Games: MMOG (21 comments)
SOE today announced the launch date for Vanguard: Saga of Heroes:

Sony Online Entertainment and Sigil Games Online today announced that the upcoming massively multiplayer online role-playing game Vanguard: Saga of Heroes will be released to retail outlets across North America and Europe on January 30, 2007, for the suggested retail price of US$49.99. A limited edition is also available for a suggested retail price of US$89.99.

Currently in beta, Vanguard: Saga of Heroes features vibrant environments reminiscent of oil paintings, a robust character customization tool and three distinct spheres of advancement in a seamless world without zoning or instancing. The immersive fantasy world is comprised of three massive, uniquely-themed continents for players to discover new creatures, new items and unlimited adventure. Players have complete freedom to roam the world whether flying dragons to islands in the sky or riding swift steeds to exotic lands.

"We are excited about delivering an MMO with immersive gameplay features that bring new depth and fun to the genre," said Brad McQuaid, CEO, Sigil Games Online. "Vanguard gives players the chance to live in a breathtaking world and try new things such as our diplomacy system and our unique approach to crafting. We're proud to be delivering this level of great gameplay for years to come."

Hardware & Tech Nuggets 12:12 am - Robert 'Apache' Howarth - hardware: General News (0 comments)

Cases

• Aspire X-Pleasure ATX Case - PCApex

  Power Supply
  

• be quiet! Dark Power Pro 850w PSU - Maxit Mag
• HEC AcePower 480 W Power Supply - Hardware Secrets
• Tagan 1100 Watt Power Supply - Guru3D

RPG Vault Goodness 12:07 am - Robert 'Apache' Howarth - Games: Role-Playing (0 comments)

Gods & Heroes: Rome Rising Second View
Currently in closed beta, Perpetual's action-oriented online world featuring squads of NPCs you lead into battle

Game Reviews 12:05 am - Robert 'Apache' Howarth - Games: General News (0 comments)
Slow day for the round-ups!

360

• Lost Planet - Pro-G - 7/10
• Lost Planet - Eurogamer - 7/10
• Ms Pacman - 360.IGN - 7/10
• Ms Pacman - TXB - 8.3/10

In Other News... 12:00 am - Robert 'Apache' Howarth - In-House: In Other News... (32 comments)
There's a big Dark Age of Camelot patch today. My nipples are tingling with anticipation.

Today's question:

What's the oldest game on your hard-drive that you still play?

We have found many of the security changes planned for Vista alarming and likely to present sweeping challenges for PC gaming, especially for online distributed games. The central change that impacts all downloadable applications in Vista is the introduction of Limited User Accounts. LUA's can already be found in Windows XP, but nobody uses them because of the onerous restrictions they place on usability. In Vista, LUA's are mandatory and inescapable. Although Microsoft made some effort to soften the obstructions LUA's place in the path of installing software in Vista, they still present a tremendous obstacle to downloadable game distribution and game compatibility with Vista in general.

The principal user experience problem with LUA's is that when a consumer wants to download and install a game demo off the Internet, they must first click past the IE warning dialogs, and then respond to the security elevation dialog Vista pops up requiring an admin account name and password to enable the software installation.

Hellgate Interview 08:53 pm - Robert 'Apache' Howarth - Games: Action / Roleplaying (5 comments)
Shacknews posted an interview with Flagship's Bill Roper which should calm people's nerves a bit. It looks like they're backing down from the MMOG pricing stuff, but I wouldn't be too shocked if they had premium content ala Oblivion plugins. Anyhow, here's a snip:

"The biggest differences between Diablo II online and Hellgate: London are that Hellgate: London has been built from the very beginning to be sustained online as part of the original design, whereas D2 really wasn't like that at all," he explained. "We had dreams of being able to do continuing content [in Diablo II] but it really wasn't possible at all from a code standpoint. Hellgate has been set up to do that from the beginning. The other big difference is that in Diablo II you were in a chat room. Here, it's like other MMOs: you're in a town, you are your character, you're interacting with people and getting quests. But we're also giving you that single-player experience, which World of Warcraft doesn't."

GRAW 2 Video Goodness 06:36 pm - Robert 'Apache' Howarth - Consoles: Xbox 360 (9 comments)
TeamXbox has four very cool HD videos of Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 showing off gameplay footage aplenty. I especially dig the helicopter rail gun ride. Looks a lot more exciting than R6: Vegas was!

Sony Gets It All Wrong, Again; Carmack Given Emmy 02:15 pm - Andrew Burnes - Games: General News (14 comments)
A couple of days ago Sony sent out a press release announcing that they had won an Emmy for their amazingly designed SIXAXIS controller that is completely lacking any form of force feedback:

Sony Computer Entertainment America today announced that it has been recognized by the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences with a Technology and Engineering Emmy Award for the PLAYSTATION 3 computer entertainment system's SIXAXIS wireless controller. SCEA will receive this distinguished honor at an awards presentation being held tonight at the International Consumer Electronics Show 2007 in Las Vegas.

That sounded like a load of crap, so Hydrapinion (thanks Dave) contacted the Emmy-giving peeps and discovered that Sony is being awarded for the overall Dual Shock analogue design, alongside Nintendo for their invention of the D-Pad:

I understand you had contacted Cheryl Daly, Director of Communications at NATAS to confirm if Sony won for their PS3 controller. This is incorrect, Sony won for their dual shock analog controller. The award is from the Video Game Technology Group. It was nominated by our internal group and considered along with the Nintendo D-Pad both of which were considered Emmy worthy for the development of the generation of controllers that followed the classic joysticks.

Also receiving an Emmy was John Carmack:

id Software had the honor of winning two Technology Emmy Awards from the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas on January 8, 2007. The awards were given as part of the Science, Technology & Engineering Emmy Awards ceremony.

The Pioneering Development Work in 3D Game Engines award was won by John Carmack, co-founder and technical director of id Software, for his cutting edge contributions to rendering technology as the lead programmer on DOOM. id Software, a quintessential leader in technology development, was awarded a second Emmy for the company's technological leadership in rendering breakthroughs with the QUAKE technology.

The Technology & Engineering Emmy Awards honor achievements in two areas: Science, Engineering & Technology for Broadcast Television, which includes broadcast, cable and satellite distribution, and secondly, Science, Engineering and Technology for Broadband and Personal Television, encompassing interactive television, gaming technology, and for the first time, the Internet, cell phones, private networks, and personal media players. This year represents a milestone for the interactive entertainment industry as id Software is the very first independent game developer to be awarded an Emmy since the Academy began honoring technology innovation in 1948.

"This is an incredible honor for John Carmack and id Software," says Todd Hollenshead, CEO, id Software. "We consistently push the limits of gaming technology, and it's great to be recognized for the passion and dedication we put into our games."

More On Outrageous Hellgate: London Online Pricing 02:09 pm - Andrew Burnes - Games: Action / Roleplaying (12 comments)
Flagship Studios' PR dude says nothing is set in stone yet in an interview on Hellgate Guru, and on the Shack, purveyor of dreadful earth-shattering news, the following passage has been added to the end of the story posted yesterday:

Since posting our original news item on the matter, Shacknews has been contacted by Electronic Arts, which is co-publishing the game along with Namco Bandai. EA noted that there has not in fact been any final decision made as to Hellgate: London's online pricing model, be it subscription-based or otherwise. We respect this situation, while maintaining that have reported fairly on statements we received. A full interview is forthcoming.

So, to summarise, calm the fuck down.

New Catalyst Drivers Released 02:07 pm - Andrew Burnes - hardware: ATI (1 comment)
7.1's out, though it doesn't contain anything too exciting.

Crysis Screenshots 08:57 am - Andrew Burnes - Games: Action (46 comments)
My mother always said, "you can never have too much Crysis on your front page."

The Darkness Screenshots 06:51 am - Andrew Burnes - Games: Action (18 comments)
21 flash shots of The Darkness, Starbreeze's next great thing:

BioShock Screenshots 06:48 am - Andrew Burnes - Games: Action (3 comments)
A couple of -small- BioShock screenshots:

Epic Shoots Down GoW PC Rumors 01:30 am - Robert 'Apache' Howarth - Games: Action (34 comments)
If you saw those latest NVIDIA drivers that mentioned Gears of War, well, according to Epic's Mark Rein it's much ado about nothing (thanks BU):

There is no "new information" that Gears will be released on PC. You know console games are developed on PCs, right? Even if we never release Gears of War on PC we still need to run the game on PC to develop and test content for it.

Our first E3 demo, over two years ago, was done on an PC equipped with dual NVIDIA graphics cards. That was how we simulated the power of Xbox 360 before there was actually a real Xbox 360 to run on.

We gave NVIDIA a copy of wargame.exe (along with some sample content from Gears) so they could help us tweak Unreal Engine 3 performance and reliability on NVIDIA graphics chips. That was necessary to make the development tools perform well and ensure that their drivers would support UE3 going forward. That was beneficial because two PC games (Roboblitz and Rainbow Six Vegas) have already shipped for PC and we're planning to ship our next Unreal Tournament game on PC this year as well.

So in reality the only thing this supposed "leak" demonstrates is that we work closely with NVIDIA to ensure the best possible performance for our engine on their platforms. Ditto for ATI and other graphics vendors as well.

Unfortunately none of the site reporting this silliness bothered to ask me for a comment on it

When asked recently in an interview whether I had "any comment on the Windows Vista version of Gears of War?" I replied the following:

There's nothing to announce at this time. We've said all along that, at some point in the future, we could adapt Gears of Wars for PC. Based on past experience we've learned that it takes approximately 5 years for an OS to fully take hold among the gaming population. So unless it takes us 5 years to bring Gears of War to Windows, we certainly expect to keep supporting Windows XP users. For now however Gears is available exclusively on Xbox360 and we're still working on improvements and enhancements to it.

Hardware & Tech Nuggets 01:28 am - Robert 'Apache' Howarth - hardware: General News (0 comments)

Cooling

• Thermalright HR-03 VGA Videocard Cooler - Tweaknews

  CPU
  

• Intel Core 2 Duo E4300: Affordable and Highly Overclockable - Anandtech

  Power Supply
  

• Spire RocKeteer IV 600W SLI Ready Power Supply - Madshrimps

  Video
  

• The Radeon X1000 vs. Geforce 7000 Generation - THG
• ASUS EN8800 GTX - [H]

RPG Vault Goodness 01:24 am - Robert 'Apache' Howarth - Games: Role-Playing (0 comments)

Legend - Hand of God First View
Master Creating's action RPG with a combat system in which you fight monsters differently according to their size

Game Reviews 01:09 am - Robert 'Apache' Howarth - Games: General News (0 comments)

PC

• Anno 1701 - Boomtown - 9/10
• Caesar IV - Strategy Informer - 7.8/10
• Massive Network Assault 2 - 2404 - 6/10
• Warhammer: Mark of Chaos - Game Revolution - C

  360
  

• Lost Planet - Game Informer - 8.25/10
• Tony Hawk's Project 8 - Play.tm - 80%

  Wii
  

• Monster 4x4 World Circuit - Boost Mobile Gaming - 4.2/10
• Red Steel - Gameslave - 7/10
• Warioware: Smooth Move - Eurogamer - 7/10

  PS2
  

• Star Trek Encounters - C&VG; - 3/10

  PSP
  

• Star Wars: Lethal Alliance - PSP.IGN - 7/10

In Other News... 01:00 am - Robert 'Apache' Howarth - In-House: In Other News... (24 comments)
That MMOG style subscription dealio for Hellgate sure caught me off guard yesterday. The knee jerk reaction was, "grab a rope, lets lynch up Roper!" But, I think I'll wait and see what they're proposing to do first before stringing him up.

Today's question:

Is it worth paying a developer a couple extra bucks months to provide a higher quality multi-player experience?