Online multiplayer experiences on consoles have progressed in leaps and bounds over the last few years. From frustrating, laggy beginnings, gamers the world over now fully expect online multiplayer as a standard feature on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 games. Series like Gears of War, Halo and Call of Duty continue to be the poster-boys for smooth, well-implemented online infrastructure. None of these three supports more than 16 players, however. Just as OnLive appeared to promise the impossible and announced a lag-free online game streaming service earlier this year, PlayStation stalwarts Zipper Interactive plan on setting a remarkable new benchmark for console-based online play- a 256-player PS3-exclusive online shooter fittingly called MAG (Massive Action Game). And whilst the sheer technical ambition of MAG might seem like a classic example of developer hubris, Zipper might just be the people to pull it off. After all, this is the developer behind the well-regarded SOCOM series which began life on the PlayStation 2, successfully pioneering the console's then-nascent online service. Perhaps MAG is the next logical step. But why 256 players? "Actually, 256 is a completely arbitrary programmer's number!", says Ed Byrne, Creative Director of Seattle-based Zipper. "We could just as easily have selected 204 players. ...

This December sees the release of The Saboteur, a long-in-development third person action title for Xbox 360 and PS3 from Pandemic Studios. Having cut their teeth on well-received series like Full Spectrum Warrior, Star Wars Battlefront and Mercenaries, the developer's latest game continues in their tradition of wham-bam, blockbuster action shooters- at least at first glance. Pandemic have chosen to tread where many others have gone before by revisiting- you guessed it- World War II- as their setting. But that's where the inevitable groans of disapproval should stop- because there are good reasons to feel confident that The Saboteur will offer a refreshing take on a hackneyed subject matter. A distinctive, predominantly black and white art style, a unique twist on a familiar setting- the plot focuses on the travails of the French Resistance rather than on the conventional armies- and some interesting gameplay mechanics conspire to make the title feel infinitely more grown-up than, say, the same developer's Mercenaries games. The aptly named Tom French, lead producer on the title, is a jovial, enthusiastic advocate for the work of his studio, and is just as peppy and pleasant as his online interviews suggest. One concern I expressed to French was that with feel ...

Tim Schafer talks with the non-cynical enthusiasm of someone who is accomplishing exactly what he wants in his line of work. When I tell him that I’m playing Grim Fandango for the fourth time in preparation for writing an article about his work, he gives an excited laugh, and I can hear how happy he is to reminisce about the game. It was a ‘fun and special’ time for him, he says. Ever modest, Schafer talks about how lucky he was to have artists like Peter Chan on board, who could fully realise the polyphonically influenced Land of the Dead from the start of development. ‘No-one had made a game about Mexican folklore before’, which is useful when you're trying to make a 'completely unique' game. Schafer immersed himself in the game’s other influences too, on film noir; ‘I would go home and watch those movies every night’, and you can tell. Manny Calavera: Grim Reaper, Salesman When I ask whether his move away from straightforward adventure games is a signal that he thinks it is a dead genre, it’s a resounding ‘no’. Simply, he makes games that are made up of whatever he's interested in at the time. ‘When we made Grim ...

The adventure game genre has seen something of a resurgence in recent years. Titles like Telltale's downloadable, episodic forays into the worlds of Sam and Max, Wallace and Gromit, Strong Bad, and most recently Monkey Island have put one of gaming's oldest genres back on the map. Nintendo's stylus-friendly DS has played a big part in this comeback, with the system playing host to the likes of Hotel Dusk, Phoenix Wright, and the mainstream success of Professor Layton- all of which belong, somewhat loosely, to the genre. But with just a couple of notable exceptions, from a structural perspective the genre has stagnated, looking back more than forward, relegating itself to a footnote in today's videogame landscape that is dominated by FPS and third-person action games. So when I heard that Quantic Dream's presentation to the Irish press was entitled 'Heavy Rain- a new genre in gaming', my interest was immediately piqued. Quantic, of course, were responsible for Fahrenheit (retitled Indigo Prophecy in the United States), one of the most daring and progressive narrative-driven titles of recent years. Like that game, Heavy Rain aims to push back the boundaries of videogame storytelling- this time, on the much more technically proficient PlayStation ...

Following on from my hands-on impressions of a 90% complete version of Harmonix's anticipated spin-off of their Rock Band series, below is the transcript of my interview with the irrepressible, handsome, and very talkative John Drake from Harmonix- as we talk Rock Band, plastic instrument overload, and the future for Harmonix. Rock Band: The Beatles is coming out on 9/9/09. Same day as the remastered Beatles catalogue. Crazy co-incidence, eh? No Added Sugar: Harmonix have largely pioneered the plastic guitar and drums music genre, which quickly became very popular. In the last couple of years we've seen sequel after sequel to Rock Band and Guitar Hero. Recently, however, there's been a pretty major drop-off in sales for these kind of games. Do you think that the gaming public are getting fed up of stuffing their homes with plastic instruments? Has the genre reached the peak of its popularity? John Drake: I think its robust, and that its still going on strong.  I think the way to look at it s a little less like- and this is the way they were approaching it- constant sequels and constant craziness- and to focus more on downloadable content, which is our strategy. For Rock Band 2 ...

I've already given my impressions of EA's upcoming Need for Speed: Shift, and concluded that racing fanatics, for once, should sit up and take notice of EA's oft-criticised franchise. I sat down with Suzy Wallace, producer at Slightly Mad Studios, to grill her about all things Need for Speed- and I threw in a few curveballs just to keep her on her toes. Need for Speed: Shift is nothing if not a looker. Mark: When EA handed the Need for Speed license to Slightly Mad Studios, were you given free reign to do what you wanted creatively or were you given a specific brief? Suzy Wallace: (Laughs)It's a bit of both really. When EA approached us, they knew our background obviously, which is in hardcore PC racing sims. So yeah, they very much didn't want another arcadey Need for Speed title. We've been working with some parties within EA, particularly Patrick Soderlund from EA Europe and Mike Mann who is Executive Producer in Black Box who've traditionally produced Need for Speed, so there's been a lot of communication with those guys, talking about design ideas we wanted to implement- a lot of to-ing and fro-ing between the two companies. But I don't think anybody ...