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Sony has finally unveiled an official Grand Theft Auto IV PS3 bundle for Europe.

A game in which you mount expeditions into the depths of five ancient ruined cities should, you'd think, be a gripping experience fraught with peril, adventure and boundless opportunities for daring escapes and bold acts of heroism. While Lost Cities is nominally based on the idea of such quests, it's actually a card game. Not really a hurdle - there are plenty of card games packed with excitement - but then Lost Cities is an incredibly sedate card game. It's not bad, but nor does it live up to its title.

Hollywood writer James Gunn (Dawn of the Dead, Slither) has begun the hunt for a group of actors to star in original content for Xbox Live Video Store.

Interplay has posted results for the three months ending June 30th, with operating losses of $11.4m after revenues dropped by 41% compared to the same period last year. The poor results are largely being blamed on a lack of new releases, with just four Interplay games coming out between April and June compared to ten this time last year, all of them on the PC. This total lack of PlayStation 2 and GameBoy Advance titles meant that they didn't get the boost that many other publishers saw as the next generation consoles took hold.

The long-running soap opera surrounding the demise of Interplay continues today with the dramatic announcement that the company's new French owners are considering taking legal action against former CEO Brian Fargo. Fargo has allegedly been absent without leave ever since Titus took control of the company in a (very) hostile take-over last September, even though he only officially resigned from his post last week. Now Titus are claiming that he was caught "soliciting company employees" to go and work with him at his new company, which (if true) could be "a breach of his duties" to Interplay. "Frankly, we're outraged", Fargo's attorney told Reuters. "This is just fiction. He hasn't hired anyone from the company [and] he hasn't been competing with the company." Ironically, just a few hours earlier Titus bigwig Herve Caen had said in a press release that "I wish Brian the best of luck in his future endeavors" [sic]. Herve Caen is now acting as the interim CEO of Interplay, in addition to being President of the ailing Californian publisher. He added that "I look forward to working closer with the great team of people at Interplay to continue moving the company in a new direction". Quite what that new direction is we aren't sure, but given that the company has completely imploded in the last year any other direction has to be an improvement. Related Feature - Fargo quits Interplay

Embattled publisher Interplay has had its headquarters in California shut down by state authorities, after it emerged that the company failed to pay employees last month, and has no workers' compensation insurance.

Interplay has popped a placeholder image on its old website that promises a fresh design is "coming soon".

France continued its dastardly plot to dominate the global computer games industry today, as Titus Interactive announced that it had taken control of troubled American publisher Interplay. Earlier take-over talks thought to be with a Japanese group were blocked by Titus, which has owned a sizeable chunk of Interplay for some time now. Today it announced that it had extended that stake to 51% earlier this week by turning some of its convertible bonds into actual shares in the company.

Given the apparently bitter power struggle that has been going on at floundering American publisher Interplay since a hostile take-over by France's Titus six months ago, it's no great surprise to learn today that founder and CEO Brian Fargo has finally left the company. A report in the Orange County Register puts it mildly when they say that "Fargo .. and Titus weren't always on the same page about plans for the company", as the old guard at Interplay allegedly did everything they could to ruin the company before Titus formally took control on September 11th. "It's only when they announced their own intentions that I realized I can't fight the market and a shareholder with 50 percent of the shares at the same time", Fargo told the paper. Interplay has been haemorrhaging money for the last three years, and more recently it has lost its valuable Star Trek and Dungeons & Dragons licenses and been taken to court by star developer Bioware over a supposed breach of contract. Just about the only valuable asset that Interplay has left now is a multi-million dollar deal to develop games based on the Matrix trilogy. The first Matrix title is currently under construction at Shiny, and despite persistent rumours that the game is headed for disaster, Fargo insists "it looks great" and will probably still be released "one way or the other". Which doesn't exactly sound promising. Fargo's departure means that the company's board of directors is now almost entirely made up of Titus staff. Whether the French can turn the company around before it sinks into oblivion remains to be seen, but either way this is effectively the end of the line for the old Interplay. Related Feature - Interplay Strikes Back

Interplay's quarterly conference call for investors and analysts has shed some light on the company's product pipeline for 2004, including a return to the Kingpin franchise and new titles in the Fallout, Airborne and Exalted camps.

American publisher Interplay has announced that it is in discussions with an unknown third party "concerning the acquisition of the company". Although the publisher is at pains to point out that the deal has yet to be closed and may still fall through, which happened to a similar anonymous attempt on Eidos last year, it does look like this is a serious bid for the company. Whoever the suitor is, they are apparently willing to pay a "modest premium" for the company, which is currently valued at just $120m.

Revitalised US publisher Interplay has re-opened its internal development studio in an attempt to rekindle some of its old magic.

Canadian developers BioWare have announced that they have terminated their contract with Interplay to develop the eagerly anticipated role-playing game Neverwinter Nights. The move comes following BioWare's filing of two lawsuits against the defunct American publisher in recent weeks, alleging that Interplay sublicensed distribution of BioWare games without their consent, and that Interplay, their new French owners Titus and British off-shoot Virgin Interactive had failed to pay all of the royalties which they owed BioWare. Given the financial mess that Interplay got itself into and the bizarre spoiling tactics its board apparently employed to sabotage the company before Titus could take over, this is perhaps hardly surprising. What this all means for the future of Neverwinter Nights isn't entirely clear, although BioWare insist that the game will be released "on schedule" (and we use those words in the loosest possible sense) some time early next year. We have our fingers crossed, but the chances are that things won't be quite so straightforward. For example, what is the licensing situation? If BioWare hold the Dungeons & Dragons license for the game themselves then there shouldn't be too many problems, as long as it doesn't expire before they finish the game. But if Interplay were the ones with the magic paper, BioWare could end up being forced to go to another publisher which holds a license to release D&D based games. Unfortunately that would pretty much limit the field to Infogrames. Oh dear... No doubt all will become clear over the next few months. Related Feature - Neverwinter Nights preview

Vivendi and Interplay have buried the hatchet and decided to resume their 2002 distribution contract in spite of recent legal hostilities. In the near future, VU Games will distribute Interplay's Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel for PS2/Xbox in North America/Asia-Pacific (but not Japan), retaining exclusive distribution rights in those areas for all future Interplay titles until August 2005.

Interplay have announced that work is now underway on what is likely to be their final game based on the Star Trek license - a PlayStation 2 space shooter called Star Trek : Shattered Universe. The game is inspired by the classic Trek episode " Mirror, Mirror", in which Captain Kirk and companions find themselves trapped in a bizarre parallel universe after a transporter malfunction. In this alternative reality, the Federation doesn't exist, and in its place is a decadent empire in which the quickest way to the top is by assassinating your boss. Mmm .. now there's an idea.

Resurgent US publisher Interplay has said it is working on Fallout Online, a game that will play a key role in its future plans.

Troubled American publisher Interplay today announced a "change of board composition" and future restructuring plans, with confirmation that Titus (which now owns 51% of Interplay's stock) has nominated "a slate of individuals for election as directors at Interplay's annual meeting of stockholders". Following negotiations with the French company, three of Interplay's seven directors have resigned and been replaced by Titus appointees, leaving just chairman Brian Fargo and one other Interplay member on the board of directors in the run-up to next week's Annual General Meeting. It seems likely that they too will be departing the company once Titus take control next week, bringing an end to an acrimonious hostile take-over that has seen some truly bizarre behaviour from both sides.

Interplay has ended its distribution agreement with Vivendi Universal Games and says that it is considering legal action against the publisher following a dispute over the payment of royalties.

Reports have emerged that American publisher Interplay has signed a licensing deal with Warner Brothers to make games based on the sci-fi blockbuster "The Matrix". Details are scant at this early stage, but the deal could be worth anything up to $10m. According to a story in Variety, "although the license was not finalized until this week, Interplay president Brian Fargo told a group of executives as far back as November that Interplay had won the license for The Matrix".

Embattled publisher Titus Interactive has finally reached the end of the line, with a French district commercial court declaring the company bankrupt - raising questions over the future of subsidiaries such as Interplay.

Yesterday we reported that Titus had signed a deal with fellow French media group Vivendi Universal which would see VUIP distributing Interplay's titles in the USA. As it turns out this wasn't the whole story - contrary to what we had read on CBS and Reuters, the deal was actually signed by Interplay itself, not Titus. Indeed, despite the fact that Titus now owns over 51% of Interplay's shares, they won't be able to take full control of the company until they can elect themselves as the new board of directors at Interplay's next AGM. Which leaves the ailing American publisher a few weeks to make life as difficult for the French as possible.

Interplay is extending its relationship with White Wolf by securing the rights to develop games based on pen and paper RPG Exalted, in addition to the company's previous collaboration with White Wolf on Hunter: The Reckoning. Exalted is White Wolf's second largest franchise, and the new agreement grants Interplay exclusive rights to it, something Interplay's veepee of product development Jim Molitor was quite pleased about: "We recognize the enormous following of this franchise and look forward to bringing our gaming expertise to the Exalted license. We have secured the newest offering from White Wolf, which does extremely well from a popularity standpoint. The premise and richness of the Exalted property make it uniquely suited for translation onto the next-generation video game systems," he said. Interplay hasn't talked about what exactly it plans to do with the franchise yet, but we imagine they will make some games. And sell them.

Interplay have declared their financial situation at the end of the first six months of the fiscal year, and it's slipping. The company has reported a net revenue of $24.9 million, $5 million less than the same period last year. The operating loss has gone down conversely, so it's looking quite good for the MDK2 publishers. "We are extremely pleased that we have continued to reduce our operating losses as we proceed on our plan to return Interplay to profitability," said Brian Fargo, and chief executive officer for Interplay Entertainment talking to GameSpot UK. The phenomenal Baldur's Gate's sequel is due out this year from Interplay, along with a couple of Star Trek games, so sales should be very impressive for the closing six months too.

Troubled publisher Interplay is planning to dabble in MMORPGs, and may begin with post-apocalyptic RPG series Fallout, according to comments made by CEO Herve Caen in the wake of another round of disappointing financial results.

Titus has signed a distribution deal with fellow French-owned publisher Vivendi Universal to handle Interplay's games in the USA. A statement from Titus said that "existing synergies with Vivendi Universal, which has very strong distribution in North America, provide Interplay with the best opportunity of improving profitability", and suggested the move will save them up to $10m a year. This means the end of Interplay as a publisher, with their entire marketing and distribution staff set to join the dozens of other employees who were laid off earlier in the summer as Interplay plunged ever deeper into debt.

Struggling American publisher Interplay has seen a radical reversal of fortunes, with the company today announcing that it actually made a profit during the first three months of this year. That's the first time it's been in the black since the summer of 2000. Revenues of $15.4m marked a 9% drop compared to the same period the previous year, but drastic cost cutting helped turn last year's $8.4m loss into a $1.7m profit. The bad news is that this is something of a false dawn, as the money mostly came from selling the family silver. Interplay didn't release a single new game during the first three months of the year, with most of their cash instead coming from the sale of potentially lucrative publishing and licensing rights. An astonishing 62% of their revenues came from royalties and licensing, including $5.6m from "the sale of publishing rights to another game distributor" and another $2.5m "related to the sales of certain licensing rights". We're guessing that this covers the deal announced in late January which handed highly anticipated role-playing game Neverwinter Nights over to Infogrames. Trying to put a brave face on the news, Herve Caen announced that "we are delighted to have returned the company to profitability so soon following our strategic management changes", adding that he is "optimistic that previews at the all-important E3 and the release of .. Hunter : The Reckoning on Xbox later this month will accelerate that momentum". Certainly the company's next set of results should be impressive, not because of Hunter, but thanks to the $47m sale of Shiny and the Matrix license to Infogrames that took place in April. Related Feature - Infogrames to publish Neverwinter Nights

LithTech Engine aids Black Isle Studios in their quest to create the next generation of role playing games. LithTech Inc. today announced they will license the powerful LithTech Engine to Black Isle Studios, the role playing game (RPG) division of Interplay Entertainment Corp.

Employees of publisher Interplay have been allowed to return to work by the Californian authorities after the troubled company secured workers' compensation insurance for them - but parent company Titus has declared bankruptcy in France.

Interplay has revealed that the first of its brand revivals will be Earthworm Jim.

Eidos has explained how the three-day early-access pre-order campaign for Age of Conan will work, and pointed out the retailers taking part.