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Eidos Interactive has announced that it is shutting down Ion Storm Austin, developer of seminal PC first-person shooter/role-playing game hybrid Deus Ex, at the cost of some 35 jobs.

High street giant GAME has reduced the price of its chart titles to £29.99 from today as part of an aggressive ten-day promotion - a move which is likely to provoke an ugly confrontation between publishers and retailers over the coming months.

Sony has demonstrated how the "Game Sharing" feature of the PlayStation Portable can be used to download a selection of small games to another PSP system and store data in RAM, but has yet to demonstrate single-UMD multiplayer functionality or other features to rival Nintendo's "DS Download Play" component, while this website can reveal that European developers were joking that "no one really knows how it works" as recently as last week.

Eagle-eyed Nintendo fans have unearthed a pair of trademarks registered with the Japanese Trademark and Patent Office late last year, prompting plenty of speculation as to how they may be used but no official clarification.

"The knights are drawing in." We know that doesn't work in any context - the days are actually getting longer at this time of year, and this is a one-player effort involving a solitary former soldier set against hordes of his fellow undead. But we like it. It sounds clever. And we're not changing it now; we've come too far. What was it Kieron said the other week about beginning with jokes or anecdotes? Well there you go. Anecdote: this one time, last night, we couldn't sleep at all. All knight.

Traveller's Tales' other PSP racer be-- wait, we've done that. In qualitative terms, Formula One, as a racing sub-genre, seems to operate in tandem with the real thing. Just as ITV's Follow-The-Schumacher arguably needs a kick up the backside, so does the videogame equivalent. Whether Formula One PSP manages to provide it is something we're not too sure of, but we certainly had quite a lot of fun toying with it for the half an hour or so it was within our grasp last week.

Atari has announced a new PC empire-building sim that charges players with "making it big" in a detailed facsimile of New York City. Due out in Q4 2005, Tycoon City: New York has players constructing and customising hundreds of businesses and famous landmarks set around the city.

Brand new publisher Rising Star, which aims to bring quality Japanese software like Harvest Moon to Europe, has announced further details of one of its lesser-known charges - PS2 action title Swords of Destiny, which is due out over here in June.

Regular readers will recognise that (gah - frigging third-person) "the person writing this feature" isn't usually the chap who handles our rally game coverage. Contrary to the spurious claims "your truly" would usually be tempted to make, this is not because Kristan steals them all as soon as they come in. It's more to do with apathy. Rally games just don't do anything for (ugh) "this writer". No disrespect to the developer, but "your humble correspondent" felt a humble spell of shut-eye was probably in order when WRC was passed around last week. (It's turning into narcolepsy, this sleep thing, and sodding Sky+ didn't record that Robert Winston documentary on How To Sleep Better.)

Konami Europe's Crime Life: Gang Wars for PS2, Xbox and PC signals a new phase of development for the company, it said today, adding a Grand Theft Auto-alike title to its portfolio before the end of 2005.

With downloadable demos ballooning to monstrous file-sizes in recent months, it's not too surprising to discover that developers are now taking advantage of the prevalence of broadband to distribute time-limited versions of complete games - and one of the most recent examples is Elixir Studios' Republic: The Revolution.

Atari has released a handful of screenshots of Saber Interactive's time-bending PC and Xbox first-person shooter TimeShift, which you can find exclusively on the site today here.

Details of Electronic Arts' beat-'em-up crossover with Marvel Comics have emerged this week after writer/filmmaker Greg Pak spoke of his involvement in the project in an interview here.

Ubisoft revealed that it has struck a deal with Japanese firm Bandai to publish music and lights puzzler Lumines for the PlayStation Portable in the USA this March, confirming reports based on retail leakages earlier this year.

Anybody who thought WipEout had been wiped out by its failings since 2097 would do well to keep their eyes on this from Sony's Liverpool studio. You can tell we like it because we've even rebelled against our own standards and allowed it that preposterous capitalised "E" in deference. The reasons you should care are many, but the one that most accurately sums up its appeal, at least to us, is thus: it's a racing game again, and not some botched shoot-'em-up with corners.

Activision has promulgated that the Xbox version of Doom 3 and PC expansion pack Doom 3: Resurrection of Evil will both be released on 4th April worldwide.

Rayman fans preparing for the quirky French creation's first DS outing may have to double the amount they scrape off their paycheque as news arrives this week that Ubi plans to launch a separate Game Boy Advance adventure during the same month.

ZOO Digital has confirmed the rather badly kept secret that it's preparing to publish a PC version of Climax Action's Xbox RPG Sudeki this 25th March.

Sony has revealed that five of its first-party PSP titles will feature online play from the launch of the system in the USA, with the games set to be playable both over local wireless connections and across the internet.

A product page on the website for VU Games' Sierra publishing label has shed light on a Delta Force remake currently set for release this spring on the PC.

Well, it's been my magic word, which is all that counts. Were you to take a straw poll of people across the worlds of Paragon City, you'd have different results. Most common would be "Issue 4! Issue 4!" Probably followed by "Where have the Winter Lords gone?" and "I have way too much debt." Well... if you let people expand "Magic Word" into "Magic phrase" anyway.

Sega has proved the strength of its Sonic brand in the UK once again, with retro compilation Sonic Mega Collection Plus debuting at number one and ending Need for Speed Underground 2's record-breaking run in the top spot.

Frontier Developments is working on an expansion pack for RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 which Atari will publish in June. Called RCT3: Soaked!, the expansion unsurprisingly focuses on things like water rides, aquatic animal shows and "tons of interactive water".

Valve is preparing to release a few updates to Half-Life 2 and Counter-Strike: Source over the next month or so via its content delivery system Steam, including new weapons for HL2 Deathmatch, a new single-player map showing off advanced lighting and an update for CS including a new map.

Nintendo is set to bombard individual retailers, shopping centres, bowling alleys, cinemas and other areas with Nintendo DS demonstration units throughout February and March and into April, the company said this week, and estimates that more than half a million people will have sampled the console by the time it launches on 11th March thanks to its promotional efforts. Presumably that figure doesn't include the countless others who will have imported or played on American and Japanese units, either.

Activision plans to release new Call of Duty titles for the PC and consoles before the end of March 2006, CEO Ron Doornink told investors and analysts this week during a post-results conference call.

In news that will only be surprising to those occupying basement apartments in a rock, Activision has informed investors that Doom 3 PC expansion Resurrection of Evil and the long-awaited co-op enabled Xbox port of the original game have slipped into April.

Electronic Arts is beefing up the development effort on its licensed Superman title, advertising for a number of positions on the project including producer roles at its Orlando-based studio EA Tiburon, where the game is being developed.

Former Final Fantasy series director Hironobu Sakaguchi has revealed that one of the projects undertaken by his independent development studio Mist Walker is an as-yet untitled strategy role-playing game for the Nintendo DS.

Capcom is preparing to launch a vicious-sounding action-adventure set in a GTA-style city this autumn on PS2 and Xbox. Beat Down: Fists of Vengeance will drop you into the role of five different mercenaries for the leading Zanetti cartel in Las Sombras who, having been double-crossed by forces unknown, are forced to try and build up an empire to unmask and strike back at their unknown adversaries.