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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.

No strangers to subverting saturated and tired genres with their own brand of quirky humour and fondness for farting, burbling simpleton mutants as lead characters, Oddworld Inhabitants' well overdue return to the scene after three years in the wilderness is every bit as warped and unique as you could hope. Or is it?

Electronic Arts has revealed that it will co-publish Dead to Rights II in much the same way it delivered the original US-developed Namco title to European store shelves. The PS2, Xbox and PC title is due out in summer 2005 - so you could argue that it's not "much the same way", since there was a Cube version of DTR1 and Hip Interactive handled the PC version rather than EA, but you know. DTRII will carry on with the same sort of gritty noir third-person action antics in the fictional Grant City's underground, as edgy cop Jack Slate and his dog Shadow are once again entangled in a web of crime, corruption and betrayal.

An update to Sony America's PlayStation Portable webpage has identified 25 titles due to be released at launch, although the site is unclear on whether the games will all be available from day one or released within a "launch window" as it was in Japan.

Microsoft has announced the first European Halo 2 Championship on Xbox Live. To take part, all you have to do is sign up between now and 20th March on your regional Xbox.com website and then make it into the top tiers of the Rumble Pit leaderboard.

There's probably some kind of unwritten journalist's code that states that you can't do corny DJ-style links between the title of a game and the weather [there is? -What's New], but given that god is busy shaking off his dandruff outside my window as I write, I feel I've got a decent excuse this time. Even Crystal Dynamics can't resist the opportunity to throw in a few puntastic opportunities, with the central character of Snowblind going by the name of Nathan Frost for gawd's sake. Someone lock us up before it all goes pear.

In news that ranks as "bleeding obvious" - rather appropriately given the subject matter - Capcom producer Hiroyuki Kobayashi has confirmed that the company will make Resident Evil 5.

Creative Assembly, the UK based developer of the enormously successful Total War real-time strategy game series on PC, will attempt to extend the brand's reach later this year with a spin-off multiplatform console title published by SEGA Europe.

Epic Games would like to see Unreal Tournament on PlayStation Portable, vice president Mark Rein has told our sister site GamesIndustry.biz in an exclusive interview this week.

Networked multiplayer games will represent half of Square Enix's revenues by 2010 at the latest according to president Yoichi Wada.

It was a big change for us! One of the agreements [with Eidos] was that we had access to all of the technology that we developed.

Eurogamer's review of Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, based on the US version of the game, was originally published on 25th November 2004 and deals with just about everything in exhaustive detail (and sometimes-flowery prose). If you want to know whether it's worth buying, you should definitely read it. You can find it here.

Codemasters has revealed that it will publish the PS2 and Xbox versions of Eutechnyx's SRS: Street Racing Syndicate across PAL territories in Q2 2005.

Although Nintendo fans will have to wait until next week (Nintendo DS launch) or the week after (Resident Evil 4) to find something to huddle up with next to the radiator, the rest of us have plenty of options to help us forget Mother's Day - and with a minimum of fallout! After all, we've got snow ("It's too dangerous to drive, dear; you stay home"), Interflora (Click, click, sorted) along with a pile of games (and Natalie Denning standing in the queue next to us shivering). Mother Nature favours the geek this week. The sweater-wearing geek, anyway.

Ubisoft is planning to release new downloadable content for the Xbox version of Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon 2 next Monday, 7th March. The update will consist of three maps, two new game modes, eight new weapons and two new skins, which sounds like quite a bundle to us.

Chances are that anybody within the M25 at the moment is either cuddling up to a radiator or cursing the icy cold outside to some degree. If you're upset about the weather though, just imagine how poor Natalie Denning feels.

Peter Jackson, visionary director of the Lord of the Rings film trilogy, is suing New Line Cinema for a greater share of the licensing profits from the first film, The Fellowship of the Ring, in a suit which cites a failure to pay for script and song lyric use in a licensed EA videogame amongst 19 financial quibbles.

Console World War II first-person shooter Medal of Honor: Dogs of War has been renamed Medal of Honor: European Assault, and will involve tracking down various reviewers on this side of the pond and beating us to death with copies of Rising Sun.

"We made the big heap money!" Take-Two exclaimed today, announcing a 74 per cent increase in net income amongst other things in the wake of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas selling in excess of 12 million units worldwide.

With such a vast amount of consolidation in the British development community it's rare to witness the emergence of a brand new studio - never mind one whose first project, Without Warning, has been chosen to be Capcom's first ever European signing. Made up largely of vastly experienced ex-Core Design recruits, Circle has hit the ground running with an intriguing, 24-inspired third-person action title based around 12 hours in the lives of six contrasting characters and the events that unfold in a chemical plant. With much to prove after the Angel Of Darkness debacle, we found development director Adrian Smith in determined form keen to put the company on the map for all the right reasons.

French publisher Ubisoft has announced its intention to acquire Microids' Canadian development studio, with the firm's 50 staff set to be integrated into Ubi's rapidly growing studio in Montreal.

The fact that Tomb Raider: Angel Of Darkness was such a disappointment was enough of a shock for long-term followers of Lara Croft. The fact that the brand was taken away from Core Design, the company responsible for it, was an even bigger one that ripped the heart out of the company almost immediately, with the bulk of the once-proud company upping sticks and starting all over again a mere quarter of a mile across Derby's Pride Park.

The thriving Japanese RPG genre is still a bit of a voyage of discovery for western gamers. The obvious international mega-franchise that is Final Fantasy aside, it's a genre full of smaller franchises and series which have a relatively long history in the Far East but which arrive on these shores like new and strange creatures washed up from the ocean's depths. Occasionally we discover something wonderful, like the fantastic Nippon Ichi games such as Disgaea and Phantom Brave, Aruze's dark and interesting Shadow Hearts titles, or Namco's superb Tales franchise, introduced to gamers in the UK via the excellent Tales of Symphonia last year.

As promised last Friday, Sports Interactive and SEGA have patched and updated Football Manager 2005 to fix the last remaining bugs and have the game content reflect transfers and other personnel changes that have occurred since the game's release late last year.

Fans of LMA Manager 2005 on PS2 and Xbox who wish the game could reflect current squads and stats at this late stage of the football season will be pleased to learn that Codemasters has made a data update available over PS2 Online and Xbox Live this week priced £3. Well, they may not be pleased about the £3 bit, but it's probably better value than £6 million for James Beattie - one of the many transfers observed and incorporated in the update.

Nintendo DS fans holding off buying because they're nonplussed by the system's Platinum Silver presentation might want to talk to an importer about what's happening in the next couple of months, as Nintendo reveals plans to launch four new coloured versions of the dual-screen handheld by the end of April in Japan.

Nintendo DS virtual pet title Nintendogs (known as Puppy Times in the States) will be released in Japan on 21st April in three different packages, each featuring five distinctive breeds of puppy. Players will be able to collect the other ten by linking up with friends' copies of the game.

One million units of the PlayStation Portable console will be made available to US retail for the system's March 24th launch, Sony has confirmed, allaying industry fears that as few as half that number could ship in the launch window.

Fans of The Sims 2 - and we understand a few people did buy it - will be pleased though totally unsurprised to learn that another expansion is planned to follow next Friday's release of The Sims 2 University. In fact, news actually comes to us from the back of University's American packaging, which declares: "BRING on the NIGHT! Send your Sims out for a night on the town in The Sims 2 Nightlife Expansion Pack. Will they stay out late on a romantic dinner date or dance 'til dawn at a nightclub? Find out what else the night has to offer starting Fall 2005!" EA has yet to respond to our requests for comment, but we weren't really that interested anyway if we're honest...