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Publisher Activision and media giant Viacom have settled a legal dispute concerning their Star Trek videogame license agreement, the two companies announced late on Friday.

Comic book giant Marvel's legal action against City of Heroes publisher NCsoft Corporation and developer Cryptic Studios has taken a heavy blow this week after a US district court judge in Los Angeles dismissed a number of key claims.

As much as I love the song "Smile Like You Mean It" by The Killers, I can't help but sing "Miiiichaaaael Cimiiinoooo" instead. I do not have any explanation for this. Somehow I discovered it fits and now it just happens. I liked Deer Hunter and that, but still.

One of the highlights of Satoru Iwata's keynote address at the Game Developers Conference yesterday was the sight of a brand new trailer for The Legend of Zelda on GameCube.

Big Blue Box's chart-topping Xbox RPG Fable will make its way onto PC this autumn - with Microsoft announcing that a Windows version is underway at Big Blue owner Lionhead Studios. Screenshots here.

Sony this week told its internal PlayStation Portable development teams that the handheld system is still "at least a few months away" from release in Europe.

Nintendo DS's midnight launch in London was an unqualified success last night, with hundreds of screaming punters and a sizeable gaggle of press descending on Virgin Megastore in Oxford Street to herald the arrival of the new machine.

In news that is sure to excite Rob, Square Enix has revealed through the pages of Japanese Famitsu magazine that it's working on another Fullmetal Alchemist game, set for release this summer in the Far East.

Aruze's PS2 J-RPG Shadow Hearts: Covenant is due out tomorrow here in Europe, but back home in Japan attention's already turning toward a third game in the series, which was exposed in this week's Famitsu for the first time.

Pac-Pix, the Nintendo DS game that involves drawing your own Pac-Man to gobble up ghosts, has been given an April release estimate for the USA by publisher Namco.

Eidos released its six-month results today for the period ending December 31, 2004, showing an operating loss of £29.2 million. Shares dropped of more than 30 per cent yesterday ahead of the news.

If there's one thing that Final Fantasy composer Nobuo Uematsu certainly does, it's divide opinion. The work of the prolific musician, whose accomplishments range from some of the best-known melodic chirps of the NES era through to dramatic choral arrangements on PlayStation titles and even the penning of a massively successful pop single for Hong Kong idol Faye Wong, inspires the kind of reverence from fans that invites Internet forum flame wars like flowerbeds attract honeybees. One need only view the comments thread on Eurogamer's interview with the man last month to see that there's little truth in the old adage about music calming the savage beast.

Warren Spector has announced his return to game development with the formation of Junction Point Studios, the former studio head of Ion Storm Austin and creative genius behind Deus Ex revealed at the Game Developers Conference this week.

Swedish company Meqon, the firm behind the physics for 3D Realms' Duke Nukem Forever, have rekindled interest in the long-delayed game with a stunning demonstration of its latest physics technology.

Mario and Link, and their creator, Shigeru Miyamoto, have both been honoured in the inaugural Walk of Game ceremony in San Francisco this week along with Sonic the Hedgehog and Pong creator Nolan Bushnell.

At its heart, what Polyphony Digital wants Gran Turismo 4 to do is make you feel like you're driving a lot of increasingly expensive cars. Surprisingly. But we mean it wants to make you feel like you're really driving them. This it does with aplomb. As you move further away from its heart (into the ventricles, perhaps), you find that it also wants you to learn how to drive these increasingly expensive cars properly. And it wants you to understand what's better or worse about each of them compared to the other 700. It knows only too well what the difference is, see, and over four iterations on both PlayStations it's developed an enormous number of ways to underscore these differences and get you to understand them.

The release of Konami's PS2 exclusive Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater has loosened LucasArts' stranglehold on the peak of the UK charts, knocking Mercenaries (PS2, Xbox) into second place at the top of the All Formats Top 40.

"Not another bloody driving game" you're probably thinking. Not the most "adrenaline fuelled" and "intense" way to kick off our build up coverage to Konami's arrival onto the starting grid, but let's be honest right from the start here: it's going to take a lot to get consumers to down tools with heavyweights like Gran Turismo around, not to mention the already well-established supporting cast of TOCA, Project Gotham, the forthcoming Forza and vast numbers of arcade racers, rally games, F1 titles and gawd knows what else busily selling millions across the globe. Enthusia had better be bloody good from the very beginning or what chance does it have in this cutthroat and saturated market? Colour us unenthused.

It's easy to revel in the extraordinary depth and variety of experiences in Gran Turismo 4, but as much as you'll like what it does offer, you may still wish that you could take a break from the isolated pursuit of driving perfection and pit your driving wits against others over PS2 Online. In most cases, when a game comes in for review, it seems harsh to complain about the lack of multiplayer options to complement an already satisfying whole. But the fact that we've all had the carrot dangled in front of our helmeted faces over successive years can't be smoothed over - even by the opportunity to print photos of our cars or play as mechanic to an AI driver when we tire of judging our own braking distances.

Oddly enough, one of the things in Gran Turismo 4 that we've most enjoyed tinkering with recently is the game's Photo mode. It might seem like something easily dismissed on the surface, but the amount of effort Polyphony Digital's put into making sure it's just right is consistent with the effort elsewhere. In other words, it's not too far removed from directing vanity snaps of hugely expensive cars for real, although it does remove the need for expensive travel and transportation costs, film set-ups and, of course, the costs of the cars involved.

Multi-entertainment handheld Gizmondo will launch on 19th March in the UK, the company has confirmed today.

Sonic the Hedgehog is set to return to consoles later this year - in a sense.

Namco has signed an exclusive licensing deal with tabletop wargame maker Games Workshop to create games based on its Warhammer fantasy setting. The deal is described as "long-term" for "multiple games" on PC, and also allows for future console and handheld gaming versions.

SCEE has confirmed this morning that 3.2 million copies of Gran Turismo 4 have shipped to retailers ahead of the game's launch today in Europe, making it the most sizeable debut for any PS2 game in the territory.

Lionhead has launched a new official site and some fresh shots of Black & White 2, the PC strategy sequel that obviously didn't quite make its Q4 2004 slot.

American Anime specialist Geneon Entertainment has reportedly acquired all North American merchandising, TV and home entertainment rights to TV Tokyo Medianet's Japanese Viewtiful Joe series.

Details of downloadable content for PlayStation Portable racer Wipeout Pure released by Sony this week suggest that it could well swallow up the entirety of the default 32MB Memory Stick peripheral used to store saved data.

Nintendo has announced midnight openings at five Virgin Megastores across the United Kingdom this week to mark the launch of the Nintendo DS on Friday 11th March priced £99.

Support for Sony's proprietary Universal Media Disc (UMD) film format received another boost this week as Lions Gate Entertainment president Steve Beeks said his company would release 12 UMD films.

A new independent game developer has emerged in California this week after a management buyout of Sammy Studios, Inc., subsidiary to Japanese firm Sammy Corporation, saved the company from closure.