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So here we are. Eurogamer's Top 10 Games of 2004. Our top ten favourite games, mind you. Not the definitive top ten games of the year. Anybody who whacks a list in front of you and tells you that's what you're reading is either mad or omnipotent. Still not sure what this list represents? Head back in time and examine the criteria for inclusion, and while you're at it you might like to check up on numbers 50 down to 11, all of which are preserved at the following URLs: 50-41, 40-31, 30-21, 20-11.

Castlevania for the Nintendo DS is a reality and will be a direct sequel to Game Boy Advance title Aria of Sorrow, Konami has revealed in the February 2005 issue of American magazine Electronic Gaming Monthly, according to reports.

Leading publisher Electronic Arts has denied that it sought an exclusive licensing deal with the NBA, following reports last month which indicated that the basketball association had turned down an approach from the firm.

The Star Wars-themed real-time strategy game being developed for release on the PC this year by RTS veterans Petroglyph will be called Star Wars: Empire At War, according to a preview in the February issue of PC Zone UK.

World of Warcraft has been so well received in the USA since its November release there that it's already topping a few end-of-year polls. We'll have to wait a little while before getting our hands on it in Europe, but one of the benefits of waiting is the constant refinement and new content that developer Blizzard has poured into it in the meantime.

Lionhead founder Peter Molyneux has been made an OBE in the Queen's New Years Honours list, with the honour being granted to the veteran developer for services to the computer games industry.

Presumably in re-- Sorry. Hi! We're back! And straight down to business: Presumably in response to rival MMORPG Anarchy Online's recent introduction of a free, no-credit-card-required play-scheme, French developer Nevrax has announced a pair of new ways to try out The Saga of Ryzom free for 14 days.

Sports Interactive head Miles Jacobson today issued an impassioned plea to the gaming world to send money to the victims of the horrific tsunami that struck many Indian Ocean nations on Boxing Day.

This is the end. Almost, anyway. Apart from a few bits and pieces tomorrow and a weeklong something-or-other next week, we're at the very end of the year - and I'm excited. Not because I won't have to work for a while, though obviously it's nice to have a break, but because I'll be able to do whatever I want to do and, more importantly, play whatever the hell I want to play. I've been grabbing games from the shelf all day - unplayed, incomplete, or just long-since left to fester - and piling them up. I'm looking forward to working my way through some of them just as soon as that final paragraph tag is in place and the content's beamed off to the land of Internet.

Awesome Studios' multi levelled back entrance appears to be designed to conform to Archer Maclean's penchant for innovative puzzles. Accessible via either the basement or first floor iron staircase, it's not immediately clear which the main entrance is. "Are you the journalist?" pipes one of the dev team, evidently noting my quizzical expression; he duly beckons me to the basement. But just as I'm about to slink into the gloom, another member appears at the top of the other entrance. "Come up this way," he insists as I blunder my way haphazardly around Awesome/Ignition's curious entrance system.

Contrary to popular opinion, we're not at the pub today. But we're not strictly working either. In fact, with the holidays now in full force, we're taking - as we hope you are - a well deserved break. Eurogamer will return to its normal self on January 4th 2005.

America's National Basketball Association (NBA) has rejected an approach by publisher Electronic Arts over a possible exclusivity arrangement, according to gaming website IGN. EA and the NBA have yet to confirm or deny the report.

Mortal Kombat creator Ed Boon has revealed that the GameCube port of Mortal Kombat: Deception will feature playable boss characters in order to make up for the lack of online play, which was a key component of the recently released PS2 and Xbox versions.

Konami is planning to release an online-enabled PlayStation 2 update of Winning Eleven 8 in Japan next March according to reports in the region.

Having previously released free-to-download versions of archived games including Wild Metal and the original, top-down Grand Theft Auto, Rockstar Games has delivered a Christmas treat this week with the release, for free, of GTA2.

Reebok has signed a multi-title sponsorship agreement with Electronic Arts, which will see the sportswear manufacturer's products included in a number of EA's sports titles - starting with NFL Street 2, due out in the USA on 26th December and in Europe on 28th January.

Majesco likes to kill fluffy bunnies and wants you to join in. No, this isn't the usual publisher-baiting bollocksery you've come to expect, but the very aim of "Raze's Hell", due out excluuusively on Xbox next spring in the US of America. Newly announced this week for maximum blasphemy, it's a game in which you control a monster trying to smash the adorability off the faces of fluffy life everywhere and plunge the world back into fiery torment where it belongs.

Having vaguely told us some new things about Katamari Damacy's now-confirmed sequel last week, and given us a look at four of the smallest screenshots ever, Namco has this week detailed a few of the new locations, specific objectives, the plot (such that it is), and said some other things which we're about to parrot at you in a loving manner.

EA has released a second multiplayer demo of Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault, and, assuming you can navigate through the intolerably minute text on the publisher's website, you can download it from one of these mirrors. It's [holds arms out as far as they go] this big! (Also: 408.75MB.)

Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory is a very pretty game. We know that. We saw it in May. And said it was pretty. Evidently we didn't use enough phrases like "material reflections" and "normal mapping" for Ubisoft's liking though, because the French publisher's UK reps decided to issue a bunch of Xbox screenshots this week complete with readymade captions for us to draw inspiration from. Insult! Dishonour!

Nintendo has admitted that Sawaru: Made in Wario, the Nintendo DS version of Wario Ware, can succumb to show-stopping bugs in rare cases involving combinations of certain copies of the game and DS units.

While those of us with imported PSPs struggle to encode or transcode videos into the PSP-friendly MPEG-4 format, one Japanese firm is preparing to start selling suitably encoded movies this Christmas Eve.

Phew. A handful of tedious little threads notwithstanding, it looks like the industry is starting to power down for the traditional end of year shutting-up-and-letting-the-bastards-play-games. Having been rather busy the past few months, we've been sending out poisoned Christmas cake lately in the hope of thinning their ranks out a little before January. Then we can spend more time writing about silly little mouse-based scrolling shoot-'em-ups like "Back to Earth 2". Which is what we're doing now.

Square Enix has revealed that chummy dev studio Cavia is hard at work on a sequel to Drag On Dragoon - known as Drakengard in the West - and aims to release it in Japan on PS2 next spring.

Need For Speed Underground 2 has grabbed the coveted Christmas number one slot, holding onto the top spot for the fourth straight week ahead of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas which settles for second place despite being the top selling PS2 game once again.

Forza Motorsport will release in April 2005, Microsoft has confirmed, a slight delay on the development team's estimated release of February.

This feature is brought to you courtesy of our good friends persistence and luck. Getting our mucky mitts on the enigmatic PSP has been a fraught process from day one; encased behind Perspex at E3 (and evidently linked to a bigger machine behind the scenes), and unavailable for a hands-on until we physically went and bought a vastly overpriced Japanese import yesterday, it's been hard work trying to tell the world what a PlayStation Portable is like to touch and feel. If you were into conspiracy theories, it wouldn't take a great deal of imagination to convince yourself that Sony didn't actually want anyone outside of Japan to be talking about its first step in the choppy waters of handheld gaming.

Paramount Pictures has acquired the film rights to the Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell series from Ubisoft, according to film magazine Variety.

NVIDIA's graphics processing unit (GPU) for PlayStation 3 will be completed by the end of 2005, according to US Internet reports citing comments made by chief executive Jen-Hsun Huang to investment firm Morgan Stanley this week.

Valve has released a playable demo of Half-Life 2 weighing in at around 700MB, giving those unconvinced by the critical reaction a chance to see what all the fuss is about.