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Japanese firm Level-5, developer of prominent role-playing games including the Dark Cloud series, could be resuming production on canned Xbox role-player True Fantasy Live Online, according to comments attributed to company president Hakihiro Hino.

French publisher Ubisoft has criticised EA's purchase of almost 20 per cent of the company's stock before Christmas, describing the move as "hostile", while reports indicate that the French government may move to block a buyout.

Legendary strategy game developer Ensemble Studios has revealed the first details of the next title in the Age of Empires series - with the much-loved franchise set to return to its historical roots after the fantasy diversion of Age of Mythology.

Reader Reviews are dedicated to finding lasting solutions to ill-advised Christmas game purchases and the suffering they cause.

A Top 50 list. An explanation is almost redundant. We all sit down and work out which games we've played this year and how much we liked them, we then swap lists and argue them into the shape of a Top 50. We then post comments to argue for and against each of them, and you then post comments explaining how very right we are or, far more likely, how very, very wrong and mad we've clearly become. In the hope of avoiding actual death threats this time around, however, we'd like to preface this year's countdown by pointing out that this is entirely a matter of opinion, and that nobody on the staff has in fact played every single game on the list. It's just not possible. This is not a definitive Top 50 Games of 2004. There's no such thing. What this is is a list of our favourite games based on titles released in Europe over the past 12 months. We hope you'll find it interesting, and we hope you'll feel compelled to respond in the New Year by submitting your favourites in time for us to compile the Reader's Top 50. Expect details of that in the next couple of weeks. In the meantime, here's the first instalment in Eurogamer's Top 50 Games of 2004, dealing with numbers 50 to 41. Tune in every day this week for more.

Games numbering 40 down to 31 in our continuing round-up of Eurogamer's Top 50 Games of 2004. If you missed out on 50-41, or you want to know precisely what this list represents, head here for yesterday's first instalment.

Games numbering 30 to 21 in our continuing round-up of Eurogamer's Top 50 Games of 2004. If you missed out on either of the previous two instalments, head here for 50-41, and here for 40-31. And if you want to know precisely what this list represents, check the first instalment again for details.

Games numbering 20 to 11 in our continuing round-up of Eurogamer's Top 50 Games of 2004. Missed out so far? Just use the following links to head back in time: 50-41, 40-31, 30-21.

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.