And The Rest: Friday News Roundup
(Updated throughout the day.) Square Enix working on another Front Mission, Ubi to publish Tork, Star Wars DVD fouls up chipped Xboxen, Colin McRae 2005 multiplayer demo, bonus pack for UT2004 and updated demo.
Although Square Enix hasn't announced any firm details or even a release target, reports are scampering around the web that the develo-publisher has announced that it's developing a new Front Mission game to the assembled hordes at the Tokyo Game Show, which, as you must know by now, kicks off in Japan today. We'll let you know if we hear anything else.
Having purchased French developer Tiwak earlier this year, Ubisoft has now confirmed that it plans to release the developer's third-person platform title Tork: Prehistoric Punk exclusively on Xbox in the USA in January next year - for a budget price. Whether it'll make it out in Europe remains to be seen, but the project's certainly in better shape than it was - back in April 2003, Microsoft abandoned its publishing arrangement with Tiwak, effectively burying Tork completely.
In slightly disturbing news, reports are circulating this week that one of the new Star Wars Trilogy DVDs, which feature a playable demo of Star Wars Battlefront, modify the Xbox dashboard software without requesting the user's permission. It's not clear whether this problem affects regular Xboxen or just chipped versions, but according to reports the Special Features disc will force itself upon your hardware given half a chance. Might be one to keep an eye on. (Update: it seems that the overwriting mentioned here may actually refer to a simple dashboard update, rather than anything dodgy, so apologies all round for any confusion. It's just bad news for piratey types.)
Codemasters has released a multiplayer demo of Colin McRae Rally 2005, which is released today in Europe on PS2, Xbox and PC. The demo obviously only works on the PC, but should give you an idea what you're up against if you're tempted by one of the other versions. The two-track demo weighs in at 166MB and you can get hold of it here. You can read our review of Colin McRae Rally 2005 on Xbox here.
Epic Games has released a bonus pack for Unreal Tournament 2004 owners featuring the bonus content that made it into the new Editor's Choice edition of the game. You'll need the version 3323 patch to run it, but once that's installed you'll find this bonus pack consists of six new characters, three new vehicles and four new Onslaught maps. Nice. You can get hold of it here. And if you don't have UT2004 and fancy giving it a go, you can also get hold of an updated demo of the game at that same location. Really.