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Codemasters sends word that you can now download a single-player PC demo of Colin McRae Rally 2005 from its website ahead of the game's launch next month. The Britsoft publisher also tells us that PS2 and Xbox demos will appear on the coverdisks of both formats' official UK publications on September 9th and 6th respectively.

Game Stars Live is going to be a busy place for Nintendo fans, it seems, although judging by details that landed in our laps this morning there seems to be something of an emphasis on extra-curricular activities.

PSP title Metal Gear Acid will make its playable debut at the Tokyo Game Show next month between September 24th and 26th, Konami has confirmed, where it will join Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater as one of the focal points of the publisher's display.

The newly created European subsidiary of NCsoft, NCsoft Europe, has announced that it will be attending the European Games Network trade show this September and showing off Lineage II, City of Heroes and Guild Wars. The publisher is planning to launch Lineage II and City of Heroes over here by the end of 2004, with Guild Wars due out in 2005; meanwhile its developer Arenanet has announced a global beta event will run from October 29th to 31st. "EGN offers us the facility to firmly establish our presence in the European marketplace. It is a ready-made opportunity for us to present our products to both trade and media while also doing business with our prospective channel partners," NCsoft Europe COO Sebastien Vidal commented.

Electronic Arts and Digital Illusions CE have released a World War II modification for Battlefield Vietnam, effectively transplanting the sort of gameplay we had in Battlefield 1942 into the more advanced Vietnam engine.

Nintendo producer Yoshio Sakamoto has denied that the film adaptation of Metroid has moved into production in the latest issue of Japanese magazine Nintendo Dream, describing reports to that effect as "misleading".

Nintendo is contemplating another round of Famicom Mini/Classic NES Series titles, on the back of the continued success of the retro Game Boy Advance series in Japan. The third series of classic games, released this month, currently occupies no fewer than five slots in the Japanese Top 10 according to Media Create.

The Sims 2 has finally gone gold, according to reports quoting EA sources, and should be on track for its proposed European release date of September 17th, having undergone around a year of "polishing".

In news that makes a change from the usual "X has cancelled Y for GameCube," Midway Games has confirmed that it plans to release Mortal Kombat: Deception on GameCube as well as PS2 and Xbox, having previously denied that a Nintendo port was in development.

Magazine publisher Future Network has acquired Dennis Publishing's remaining videogames magazines, Computer & Video Games and PC Zone, in a UKP 2.5 million deal that sees Dennis exiting the game magazine market.

We haven't been to war for a while around here. Okay, sure, we've dabbled in a few, but usually only on a unit-by-unit basis. In terms of 'knee-deep in legions of soldiers' scope slaughter, it's been rather quiet on the playable front lately.

Unless there's an errant forum post out there somewhere saying different, Half-Life 2 ought to start preloading intractable assets to Steam owners later today, but in the meantime those on the Counter-Strike: Source beta will be pleased to hear that Valve has cleaned up a few issues dogging the current version.

Rockstar Games has now released the Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas trailer that we told you about earlier in the week. The reasonably sized 11MB WMV file features around a minute of gameplay footage from the Los Santos area of the game.

With the BloodRayne movie gathering more and more momentum, publisher Majesco has hit on a novel way to guide gamers' eyes back towards the forthcoming videogame sequel BloodRayne 2, which is due out on PS2, Xbox and PC later this year: heroine Rayne is going to go topless in the October issue of Playboy.

Sony may not be willing to admit it exists, but it seems that development of Forbidden Siren 2 is indeed well underway, judging by details published on The Magic Box this week. According to the update, Siren 2 will feature at least two main characters as they struggle to find out what's happening on an abandoned island where all human life mysteriously vanished 29 years ago. We can also expect an enhanced Optical Illusion System, human and animal perspectives, and more involvement from your companions in fighting and rescuing other characters. Most of which is a trifle ambiguous, but it seems specific enough to suggest the game is at least in development if nothing else.

Konami is bringing its Karaoke Revolution series to Xbox, and is also planning another PS2 version of the popular sing-'em-up series. Both titles will be released in North America this November.

Xbox owners keen to get stuck into the demonic world of Doom III will "probably" have to wait until early next year, as Vicarious Visions, the firm handling the conversion process on behalf of original developer id Software, is now unlikely to finish the project in time for its original late 2004 ship target.

Microsoft Game Studios has axed its internal sports game development team, laying off 76 employees in the process, and has ceased development of its American football, ice hockey and basketball franchises.

Maybe it was January's fault. Maybe everybody had had enough of platform games at that point. Maybe it looked a bit childish. Maybe Sony didn't do enough to promote it to the right people. Whatever the explanation, few would argue that Sly Raccoon vastly under-performed when it was originally released in Europe, despite widespread critical acclaim. Actually, let's be specific: despite the fact it was one of the most enjoyable PS2 platform games we'd ever played.

Aha, proper terrorism. Since America's 10 Most Wanted enjoyed entirely disproportionate chart success (in that people bought it when they should not have), we're hoping that the latest product of Tom Clancy's Random Game Name Generator can storm the top 20 this week and knock Osama off his little porta-podium. Real terrorists don't need dialysis machines, see - real terrorists have to be taken down by squads called Black Arrow or Scorpion Thrust or Badger Oblivion or something.

Late last week, Ascaron announced plans to expand its Diablo-ish slasher Sacred - for free. 'Sacred Plus' is still on track for release in October, adding 15 new weapons and all sorts of other jolly bits and bobs to the equation. But now it seems we can also look forward to an official paid-for expansion in early 2005 as well. Sacred Underworld will pick up where the original game left off with more underground action, obviously, even sailing rather close to the fires of hell on occasion. There will also be new stories, monsters, items, armour, and two new characters: the dwarf, and the succubus. Oh, and you can also get your hands on a new patch for the original Sacred today. Here. version 1.7 beta 38, donchaknow.

The Half-Life 2 preload has been set back again according to a forum post purporting to be from Valve Software project manager Erik Johnson.

Electronic Arts has released a single-player 'work in progress' demo of Black Hole Games' forthcoming 3D real-time strategy title Armies of Exigo, which is due out in Europe on September 10th.

PopTop Software has released a free expansion pack for Railroad Tycoon 3, which includes a 'final' version 1.04 patch and a host of new maps, trains and tools for the developer's locomotive empire building sim.

"Waste not, want not". Wasn't that our parent's mantra, drummed into them by their World War II-scarred parents, humbled into appreciation by the years of rationing and hardship following years of strife? What would they have thought of our criminally wasteful ways of bulging shelves and unfinished, often entirely unplayed games? At the very least we'd be called ungrateful sods. We can only imagine the tutting and rattling of false teeth at our profligate 21st Century ways.

Publisher Vivendi Universal Games has announced that Evil Genius, a PC strategy title which places players in the role of a spy movie style villain and challenges them to build an island fortress and Doomsday device, has gone gold and will arrive at retail on October 1st.

Publisher Konami has taken the wraps off its recently-announced collaboration with UK developer Kuju - with the title in question being The Regiment, a team-based FPS title based on the British SAS special forces unit.

Sony has announced details of EyeToy: Play 2's new games and camera functionality, and announced a November release target across all PAL territories. The package of 12 new games is undergoing development at Sony's London Studio, the original creators of the EyeToy concept.

A new report based on interviews with key videogames industry executives has called for further price cuts to the Xbox and PS2 ahead of the Christmas sales season, in the hope of "jump starting" sales of software.