Thanks to GameSpot for its article revealing SNK NeoGeo's announcement of exclusive PlayStation 2 compilations, featuring 2-pack conversions of "SNK's 2D fighting games" King Of Fighters 2002 and 2003 (for Winter 2004), and "old-school side-scrolling-shooter action" titles Metal Slug 4 and 5 (for Spring 2005), for "an MSRP of $39.99." This follows the recent release of King Of Fighters 2000 and 2001 for PS2. Elsewhere, NeoGeo For Life has a picture of the box cover for the Xbox-exclusive Metal Slug 3 conversion, due out next month, which is also sporting "Xbox Live [stats] Leaderboards."

Thanks to 1UP for its article discussing the recent announcement of Star Wars Galaxies' space combat expansion, Jump To Lightspeed, which takes the PC MMO into the heavens, and "focuses primarily on [space-based] vehicles for both combat and transportation, promising at least 15 new modes of travel." There are screenshots and an official FAQ over at the Star Wars Galaxies site, explaining "you can expect to pilot X-wings, Y-wings, TIE fighters, TIE interceptors, and many other recognizable starfighters", and, dodging some sarcastic online reaction, an interview with producer Haden Blackman over at IGN PC argues: "In many ways, we're looking at Jump to Lightspeed as 'X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter' online - much of our focus is on that dogfighting experience."

Thanks to IGN Gear for its article confirming the forthcoming Atari 2600 Paddle TV game from Jakks - the news story explains: "Like the Atari TV Games joystick released two years ago... gamers simply plug it directly into the television to experience the old-school games", and indicates the game line-up for the 1 or 2-player versions will include "Breakout, Canyon Bomber, Casino, Circus Atari, Demons to Diamonds, Night Driver, Steeplechase, Street Racer, Super Breakout, Warlords, Warlords Arcade, Video Olympics, Arcade Pong and Pong." We've previously covered announcements of many other licensed TV games from Jakks (Midway, Namco, Activision), but haven't mentioned a forthcoming Capcom TV game "including 1942, Ghosts 'N Goblins, Mega Man, Gun Smoke and Side Arms" - the official Jakks TV Games site also has 'EA Sports' listed as an (unelaborated on) game choice.

techstar25 writes "IGN is reporting that last night was singles night at a San Francisco Giants baseball game, and a 'The Bachelorette' type contest was held. The winning bachelor was given a choice to either take the beautiful, young, brunette bachelorette out on an all expenses paid date, or receive a Playstation 2. Naturally, the bachelor took the PS2, and 'The men in the audience cheered.'" The article notes: "Looks like when it comes down to a choice between video games and female attention, these days, videogames are winning out."

CuBeFReNZy writes "Game-Science has an article mentioning: 'Capcom held a meeting today to show off their newly formed development team, Clover Studio.' The team showcased their first titles: a Viewtiful Joe conversion ('will include Dante, from Capcom's Devil May Cry series, as a playable character') to the PS2, Viewtiful Joe 2 ('new co-op gameplay') for PS2 and Gamecube, and Ookami ('toon-shading engine... nature adventure') for the PS2."

Thanks to The Korea Herald for its article regarding the battle for the massive Chinese online gaming market. Apparently, "Korean companies controlled more than 70 percent of the Chinese online game market last year in terms of revenue", but: "Last July, China's Ministry of Culture imposed a new regulation on 'Internet culture supervision,' which forces online games and all other programs transacted via the Internet to be reported to the ministry for content supervision." Due to this move, "foreign Internet content providers... [are] required to earn an ICP (Internet content provider) license... NCsoft has not received its license for 'Lineage II' as of yet." In conclusion, it's actually suggested that "worst-case scenario would be a quota on the import of foreign games, according to some analysts."

An anonymous reader writes "Over at GameSpot, there's an interview with Dr. Michael Macedonia of the U.S. Army about the AWE training sim, a 'massively multiplayer simulation [based on the There 'virtual world' game engine] that will be used by military personnel to train troops in urban situations before they are airlifted to a battle zone.' Macedonia says 'We built downtown Baghdad in this environment', and also says 'we call our games tactical decision aids. Our thing is not making people shoot better; it's making people think better.'" We previously featured an initial announcement of this project in January.

Thanks to The Lost Levels for its in-depth report on 'lost' Sega Saturn title, Sonic X-Treme, originally shown in playable form at E3 1996. However, "what gamers didn't know was that the game was being rushed to completion on a compressed development timeline, a fateful decision that would eventually doom the entire project." Using interviews with the original developers of Sonic X-Treme, which was to "take full advantage of the 3D environment in a free-roaming fashion, much more like Mario 64 than NiGHTS", its ultimate fate is discovered, with an overstressed, overworked developer being told by medical staff that "he thought I had 6 months to live", and the entire project eventually cancelled.

securitas writes "The Toronto Star's Murray Whyte writes about the growing popularity of machinima as the birth of a new type of filmmaking and artform. The article largely focuses on Red vs. Blue but also discusses Jim Munroe's My Trip To Liberty City, in which 'Munroe adopts the genteel perspective of a Canadian tourist while meandering the seamy, violent streets of the game Grand Theft Auto.' The most interesting comment comes from the Academy of Machinima Arts and Sciences' Paul Marino who compares machinima to garage bands."

Thanks to GameSpot for its news story noting Electronic Arts' announcement of The URBZ, a multi-platform title due later this year which "..will see players creating new Sims-style characters who live in a city where reputation is everything and the goal is to become the biggest 'player' in the city." Apparently, players will need to impress the bosses "at locations such as the Sushi Bar, the Chop Shop, and the Bootleg Fireworks", and the game engine in the console versions "will also allow for a great deal of character customization, with support for tattoos, nose rings, and the like" - more information and screenshots will be available at the E3 Expo next month.

Thanks to GamesIndustry.Biz for its article confirming that Tecmo's Xbox title Ninja Gaiden has been censored for European release, seemingly "to remove certain violent aspects such as decapitations." According to the piece, these changes "have been removed apparently at the request of European censors, and the final PAL code for the game has been granted a 16 rating by pan-European ratings body PEGI, which rates games for a wide range of European countries (including the notoriously censorious German market)." However, it seems "the actual impact of the change to the game is minor... and does little to detract from the well-received game - which was the best selling single-platform title in the USA last month." Update: 04/22 14:42 GMT by S : Simon Vivien explains what commenters also mention: "Germany still uses USK, which is another rating board dedicated to their market. The rest of Europe indeeds use PEGI. A 16+ PEGI rating doesn't especially mean a 16+ USK rating - as was witnessed in our latest shooter, Painkiller, who received a 16+ PEGI rating but was banned in Germany."

Thanks to Blue's News for pointing to a Megatree Ltd. press release discussing the charity auctioning of the original development discs for Mega-Tree, the legendary, unfinished Commodore 64/Spectrum title that "was [to be] the third in a trilogy of games following 'Manic Miner' and 'Jet Set Willy'." The currently-in-progress Ebay auction, to benefit Cancer Research UK, has much more info and concept drawings of the game sometimes called Miner Willy Meets The Taxman by co-creator Matthew Smith, also noting that "The Atari hard disk containing more 'Mega-tree' graphics was 'lost' when it accidentally dropped off the back of Matthew's motorbike when he went through the Mersey tunnel."

Thanks to The Adrenaline Vault for its editorial discussing the recent, seemingly strange retail pricing of PC videogames. The author explains that he has "reviewed a series of recent PC titles with an initial retail price of either $19.99 or, at most, $29.99... This is occurring even as console versions of the same games are selling for around $49.99." He concludes: "From a consumer standpoint, this new pricing pattern is heaven. You can buy more hours of quality virtual interactive entertainment for a lower fee than ever before... The one downside is the ability to get titles released more than six months ago, as small profit margins have led to diminishing shelf space in ever-contracting retail stores." But is there indeed a danger that "smaller [PC-developing] companies often can't handle the loss of revenues from lowered prices, so too dramatic a drop might jeopardize their existence"?

Nick Yee writes "The Daedalus Project, an ongoing online survey study of MMORPG players that started 4 years ago and has surveyed over 30,000 players, has published presentations of new findings, including whether players get more frustrated in MMOs or everyday life, quotes from players discussing why they play online games, and a statistical ranking of the motivations for MMORPG players. There's also a new multiple-choice survey MMO gamers can fill out."

Jakyll asks: "Why aren't there [more] games for the PC that come on a BOOTABLE CD-ROM? Use Linux and autodetect the hardware - it would make DirectX and Microsoft irrelevant. Boot the disk just like your PC was a Playstation or an XBox - what is the main reason this isn't happening?" A few publications have been released like this: Gentoo has done this for UT 2003 and America's Army (they have their own site but it appears to be broken at this time); and there are the ScummVM Live CD ISOs, out there. Does anyone know if the major game studios have plans on doing something similar, or if not, the reasons why they aren't?

An anonymous user writes "GarageGames launched the Torque Networking Library under the GPL today - this is the PC game networking technology behind Tribes and Tribes 2. It's also available under indie and commercial licenses for closed source projects, but OpenTNL.org is the home for the open source release, which also has an official FAQ online. Along with the library itself is a master server implementation for game tracking, a graphical test app, Zap and a retro-styled space shooter."

Thanks to GameSpy for its interview with Electronic Arts exec Scott Evans regarding the official announcement of a PC sequel to the popular team-based FPS, Battlefield 1942, hot on the heels of the recent news of a separate PlayStation 2-based follow-up, Battlefield: Modern Combat. This title is "bringing modern-day warfare to the series as well as a completely new engine", and Evans notes: "Each side will bring military hardware to the battle appropriate to their nationality. For example, the Chinese forces have a really cool mix of Soviet and homebrew technology that much of the world knows nothing about." He ends by addressing bias concerns: "It's important to remember that Battlefield is politically neutral... It's not just a game about the U.S. versus a Middle Eastern coalition."

jvm writes "On Curmudgeon Gamer a new analysis article by Kyle Orland examines the recent announcement by the NPD Group that sales of "online-enabled console games" reached $1 billion dollars last year. A rudimentary analysis of the numbers behind the numbers shows that at least a third of those online-enabled games probably aren't being (and probably can't be) played online."

Thanks to HomeLAN Fed for its article discussing the state of the annual 'Best Of E3' game awards, in which the writer suggests that the "E3 awards are a bit of a sham and... a lot of games that get these awards are either not released in the coming year or if they are they are not as good as their E3 presentations make them out to be." He points out that "...out of the 16 categories that the Game Critics E3 awards had last year, 10 of them went to games that have not yet come out and won't be out until after E3 2004." Elsewhere, GameSpot focuses its 'GameSpotting' editorials on the forthcoming E3 trade show itself, suggesting that the show "is becoming a bigger and bigger source of stress and anxiety to the gaming industry as time goes by", even taking into account the excitement of "the biggest video game convention on God's green earth."

Thanks to GamerDad for its editorial discussing why it's sometimes impossible to play multiplayer FPS titles as the developers intended it. The author argues: "I certainly don't think that every mod I've ever run across is better than the core game that ships in the box but yet there's often no one running the boxed game", before noting that most game publishers "...do not run their own servers for these games so you can't count on them supporting the boxed game either. There are exceptions to this rule but for the most part when it comes to PC games, you're at the whims of the many fan owned and operated servers... [which may] limit the maps to a select few in a deathmatch game or change the settings of the game to make it play very differently from what you expect."