While Great Britain isn’t quite as foggy as stereotypes have led people to believe and dental care is actually quite popular, the overcast, often rainy weather that is commonly remarked upon in the media is quite true. With the exception of a few gorgeously sunny months in the Summer things are often quite wet. Quite unfortunate for sunblock companies but a gold mine for video game developers. Lately consoles have been selling quite well in the United Kingdom.

A year ago there were about 13.5 million consoles owned there, now the number has nearly doubled, with figures saying there are more than 22 million in homes as of this month. This is only including the current generation of consoles, the PS3, Xbox 360 and Wii. With the PS2 still selling well and the Xbox likely still having a decent number of players that number is probably a bit higher. The industry figures show that there’s currently enough consoles for eight out of every ten households to have one. Assuredly there are some lucky kids who have more than one system, but the numbers are still nothing to be scoffed at, especially since industry analysts predict that within a year that nine out of ten homes will have at least one console.

These numbers are unsurprisingly due in a large part to the Nintendo Wii. Yesterday the company announced that they’d had a record year in Britain, selling enough Wiis to have one in a quarter of the homes there.

Though the medium of video games is relatively new its capabilities have increased faster than any other entertainment industry. Despite the huge and still growing popularity of gaming the medium still doesn’t get much respect. Many people scoff at the medium’s ability to tell a riveting, unique story, despite the fact that many video games deliver a much more intricately thought-out storyline and fleshed out characters than many films.

Dan Houser, creative vice president of Rockstar and head writer on GTA IV says he’s happy that the medium is still considered in its infancy: “…everything is growing and evolving as we go along and we’re still figuring out how to do stuff,” he told The Telegraph. When asked how long before he thought game writers would be given the same degree of respect as film and book writers he said: “I hope it’s long. It’s really fun at the moment because we’re not in any Academy and the medium’s not codified. There’s no accepted way of doing anything so that give us enormous pleasure because we can make it up as we go along.”

Unfortunately for American gamers Microsoft is focusing a good portion of their efforts on getting the Xbox 360 a larger install base outside of its home country. The ‘Best of Halo’ bundle is releasing on February 27th in Europe, but there’s no word on if the bundle will be making its way outside of Europe. It’s unlikely that it would be brought to Japan, given that the series isn’t terribly popular over there.

The bundle retails for $350 and comes with a 60 gigabyte Xbox 360 Pro unit, a one-month subscription to Xbox Live and copies of both Halo 3 and Halo Wars. Of course debate will rage about whether or not this bundle really constitutes the ultimate in Halo games, with probably a lot of people thinking that a true ‘Best Of’ bundle would include a disc of the original, or a voucher for downloading the original from the Xbox Originals.

On Tiscali Games are some early details on Tropico 3, the upcoming third installment in the revived strategy series.

Word is the game will be set in a historically accurate depiction of the Cold War, having players step into the shoes of a ruthless or benevolent dictator and design his own island. It will feature a “random play” mode and a free mode that lets the player’s dictator engage in activities like sunbathing or gambling in a casino. The game’s engine is currently being designed with such detail that you will be able to zoom in on laundry hanging on a line.

The game was announced back in November and is currently being developed by Bulgarian developer Haemimont Games.

Valve is continuously working on making the Team Fortress 2 experience even better than it is right now, and according to director Robin Walker, a major update that will add new achievements and unlockable weapons to the Scout class is “just about done”.

“The weapons and achievements [of the Scout pack] are all nailed down, and we just have to finish up the final artwork on them,” he wrote on the game’s official blog. “Our design and coding has already moved on to the next pack.”

Though it wasn’t mentioned when we will see the Scout pack, Walker did note that “we’ll be able to ship the Scout pack” after the next two patches, both of which are hoped to be released this week.

The first patch is due out today, hopefully fixing numerous bugs and exploits. The second patch will enable Steam Cloud support for a player’s inventory, allowing you to access your default weapon and item settings from any Steam-connected PC.

In the history of video game films the Tomb Raider films with Angelina Jolie were some of the more well-executed ones. The second didn’t perform quite as well as the first, so Paramount did the smart thing and left well enough alone. They opted not to keep the rights for the franchise, so they were by default returned to Eidos. Now Warner Bros. has picked up the film rights to the adventures of buxom British explorer Lara Croft.

Rumors put Megan Fox in the title role, but as of right now that’s just a rumor. As of right now the only name definitely attached to the project is Dan Lin, a producer who’s worked on The Departed, Sherlock Holmes and the upcoming Terminator: Salvation. As one might expect Warner Bros. plans on rebooting the franchise, ‘re-imagining’ the origins of the character, her love interest and chief villain.

Atlus, making itself one of my most favorite gaming companies around, has announced that PS2 action-RPG Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner 2: Raidou Kuzunoha vs. King Abaddon will arrive in North America on May 12. The company boasted its belief that “the longer the title, the better the game.”

Already available in Japan since October 2008, the sequel to Devil Summoner sees the detective return as he calls on monsters to aid him in his battles.

Atlus disclosed that first-run copies of the game will come with an exclusive Raiho plushie doll, stressing that quantities will be “extremely limited”. It will retail for $39.99.

The “Entrenchment” expansion for Sins of a Solar Empire has been constantly delayed – it was first expected late last year – and has now been pushed back one week to February 11 from the revised February 4 release date.

The expansion includes many new features, such as the Starbase defense platforms, new weapons and various civilian structures. It is currently available for preorder on Stardock’s digital distribution platform Impulse.

Publisher Sega sent out word today that Creative Assembly’s historical strategy game Empire: Total War will be shipped to retailers on March 3 and be available for purchase the following day.

Delayed from the original February 3 release date, the game is the fifth entry in the Total War series and focuses on the modern era period of the 1700s and 1800s. The PC game will make use of Valve’s Steam in order to activate both retail and downloaded copies. Buyers will be able to preload the game roughly two days before its release.

Sega also sent out the minimum system requirements. Hit the jump for the details.
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Now before you US-ers get too excited (because we all know anything to do with Microsoft’s 360 avatars are so exciting) please note that the recently released shirts for your avatars will probably only appeal to Europeans.

ANYWAYS, Microsoft released yesterday a whole pack of football (soccer) shirts, dubbed the European National Football Teams collection,complete with little tiny country flags on them that you can barely see, oh boy!

The following countries made the cut:

Austria
Belgium
Denmark
England
Finland
France
Germany
Ireland
Italy
Netherlands
Northern Ireland
Norway
Portugal
Scotland
Spain
Sweden
Switzerland
Wales

Read (Kotaku)