Lara V
It will begin with Lara's funeral and feature the usual clutch of new costumes, new weapons and new enemies. Lara will appear as a 16 year old as well as in her mature form. The first preview of TR5 is expected to appear in Official PlayStation Magazine next month. Meanwhile, PSM magazine reckons that TR6 will feature Lara but will drop the Tomb Raiding bit in order to explore new situations. Theresa Jenne's unofficial Tomb Raiders website is tracking developments.
Dream Bleem!
Bleem, best known for its Sony PlayStation emulator for the PC, plans to launch an emulator that will play PlayStation games on a Sega Dreamcast console. Bleem says there will be four $19.99 "bleempaks", each of which will support 100 PlayStation titles. Games will run at 640 by 480 pixels (VGA) instead of the usual 320 by 240 pixels. On its website see www.bleem.com, Bleem concedes that its emulator will play copies of original games: "We can't prevent it since the technology that verifies that a disc is an original PSX title is patented by Sony, and if we used it, we would be in violation of that." However, Bleem says: "It's ridiculous to blame the makers of a program that simply PLAYS recorded media. It would make more sense to go after the devices that make the copies in the first place - the company that created the CD format (Sony), makes the recorders (Sony), and sells the media (you guessed it, Sony)."
Tour de force
Konami, one of Japan's leading games developers, has signed a deal to develop a game based on one of Europe's leading sports events, the Tour de France. It may be out in time for next year's tour, but don't bet on it. Konami also says it plans to publish at least 10 games for the PlayStation 2. The five titles being prepared for the UK hardware launch include the great soccer sim, International Superstar Soccer. Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty will appear next year.
PSone TV
In Japan, Sony has started a TV advertising campaign for the dinky PSone version of the PlayStation. The ads are online in RealPlayer format, so try www.scei.co.jp/news/puki/ram/000717.ram if you have a fast internet connection. For more Sony TV clips, including PS2 ads, see www.scei.co.jp/news/puki/puki_02.html. Jack Schofield
