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War really isn't what it used to be, if Battlefield 2 is anything to go by. Bolstered by critical acclaim garnered by Battlefield 1942 and Battlefield Vietnam, EA has chosen to catapult the PC multiplayer series into the modern age something of an obvious area, pitching US Marines again the Middle East Coalition, but while the pitching may look to be becoming increasingly exploitative, the gameplay on offer is looking increasingly sensational. Fans of 1942 will be amazed at what's on offer this time round.

The Lord of the Rings: War of the Ring developer Liquid Entertainment has signed a deal with Atari to create a new PC real-time strategy title by the name of Dragonshard, which is due out in spring of 2005.

GameCube owners with a retro fetish will be pleased to hear that they can expect to rub themselves with Intellivision games later whilst cooing in goggly-eyed satisfaction. According to a nice little press release that popped into our inbox overnight, Intellivision Productions is teaming up with Crave and Realtime Associates (who cares) to release Intellivision Lives! on the GameCube for around $19.99 this autumn. The game, which uses an 80s pizza parlour lined with arcade machines for an interface, features some 60 titles including (deep breath) Astrosmash, Baseball, Basketball, Buzz Bombers, Football, Golf, Hockey, Hover Force (gulp), Motocross, Night Stalker, Pinball, Shark! Shark!, Skiing, Snafu, Space Armada (we're not going to make it), Space Battle, Space Hawk, Star Strike, Sub Hunt (air!), Thin Ice, Thunder Castle (help!), Tower of Doom, Vectron, Volleyball and Wrestling. Gasp. The disc will also play host to things like the original Intellivision TV adverts and some documentaries, but sadly no pizza. Although there's no word on a PAL release, we understand from retailers that a PS2 version is due out over here in September; while our yankee friends can already buy the package on both PS2 and Xbox.

John Carmack, id Software's... well, you should know who John Carmack is by now. Let's start again. Addressing an audience of Slashdotters this week after Doom III hit retail, id Software's John Carmack said he was "extremely proud" of Doom III, mentioned expansion pack possibilities, and said that Quake 3 would hopefully go open source by the end of 2004. He also touched on his plans for id's next project.

Nintendo of America is planning to release a demo of Metroid Prime 2: Echoes as part of a new Metroid-flavoured hardware bundle this August 15th.

Eidos' Vietnam title ShellShock: Nam '67 is now set to launch on PS2, Xbox and PC on September 3rd in Europe and September 14th in the States, the British publisher announced yesterday, amidst hopes the game can be spun into a franchise.

After much speculation, Atari has announced the follow-up to BioWare's Neverwinter Nights, and revealed that Knights of the Old Republic II developer Obsidian Entertainment will be developing it for release in 2006.

The next handheld WarioWare game will use a built-in sensor rather than the Game Boy Advance D-pad to gauge movement, according to reports from retailers who attended Nintendo's most recent retailer briefing in Japan this week.

Microsoft chairman Bill Gates has told a German financial magazine that he remains interested in buying Nintendo, stating that "if Hiroshi Yamauchi phones me, I will pick up at once."

Critically, Prince of Persia was one of the most universally acclaimed games of recent years, but getting you lot to buy it was a tougher job than it probably should have been. Without a recognisable licence attached to it, most gamers played safe and chose to ignore it and plump for the big names instead. Fine, buy inferior games then, see if we care! Hopefully the deafening applause that The Sands Of Time received will awaken the slumbering audience when the sequel lands later this autumn - ditto Beyond Good & Evil if there's any justice in the world. And in the run up to the game's release, Ubisoft kindly allowed us an hour or so to look at the game in action in the company of the game's producer Yannis Mallot, who took time out of his busy schedule to show off all manner of cool new additions to the game, including a much improved fighting system, time travel, bigger levels, a darker art direction and - believe it or not - better visuals all round. Could it scoop game of the year for the second year running? Read on...

When Microsoft originally announced Sudeki, at a press event in Seville a couple of years ago, we were told it would change what we came to expect from a role-playing game. Given the vastness and pedigree of the competition, perhaps it will come as little surprise that it doesn't. What may come as a surprise though is our rather tiring decision to snipe at the marketing rhetoric by way of an introduction. Honestly, we're sorry about that, but in the case of Climax and Microsoft's ambitious RPG, it seems rather fitting; not only do our expectations and desires for future RPGs remain unshifted by their work, but within the framework of what's on offer it's difficult to think of anything at all that caught us by surprise. So what better way to kick off than with a cliché, right?

Midway is planning to release a pair of Mortal Kombat: Deception limited edition packs, featuring a copy of the game, a metal collector's card, and a DVD consisting of a history of the game and some character videos. The PS2 and Xbox will each have their own version, too - the PS2 Premium Pack will be adorned with a picture of the lovely Sub Zero, while the Xbox "Kollector's Edition" (sharp) will be available in four different covers featuring Baraka, Mileena, Raiden and Scorpion respectively. The limited edition packs will obviously cost slightly more, and have only been confirmed for the US at this point. Oh, and on a related note, you can find the newly launched MK: Deception website at... the location we just linked.

Sudeki 2 is not yet in development, according to developer Climax, despite a job posting widely reported yesterday that seemed to suggest it might be. With the game picking up middling reviews and not even out in Europe, we did wonder why Climax was talking about a sequel at this stage...

GameCube exclusive Resident Evil 4 is due out in the USA on January 11th, Capcom officials across the pond have apparently confirmed overnight. That's technically not a slip though, since it falls within the previous "winter 2004" target, although that's probably not much comfort to most.

It's hard enough going to school in America these days, we'd imagine, without the constant threat of teachers turning into aliens, murderers with ghost outfits, hooked hands and William Shatner masks, and Courtney Cox bashing on your door for comment every fifteen seconds (or more now she's got Friends out of the way). But there is undeniably a lot of value in putting obnoxious big-breasted brats within blood-curdling distance of the horror du jour, so it's not too surprising to learn that we'll be playing a survival horror game about five American students stuck in a school this September.

Kristanna Loken is set to play the title role in Uwe Boll's film adaptation of BloodRayne, the game series' publisher Majesco announced this week. As Rayne, apparently she's going to be driven by vengeance to overthrow her father Kagan, king of all the vampires. (And manager of Manchester City Football Club.)

After delivering two huge and celebrated platform adventures in two years, Insomniac Games is gearing up for the release of the third in three - Ratchet & Clank 3: Up Your Arsenal - and has big plans for the quirky duo. Apart from multiplayer, which is a huge (and perhaps obvious) addition that proves really entertaining thanks to Ratchet's vast and volatile arsenal, we can also expect the occasional sojourn into a 2D side-scrolling platformer starring Captain Qwark - whose mini-adventures will be catalogued in various collectible, playable episodes strewn around the game world (ripe for PSP conversion, we'd argue). And above all that it's just a bigger and more exotic variation on what's come before, and a darn sight better looking, too.

Sega Europe has announced an agreement with Myelin Media to publish Immortal Cities: Children of the Nile, "the first in a new generation of 'god games'," in all territories outside the US and Canada this November.

LucasArts has released a pair of new trailers for Star Wars: Battlefront, Pandemic Studios' forthcoming multiplayer Star Wars shoot-'em-up, showing of a couple of planets we haven't seen before - Rhan Var and Tatooine - and should take up about a minute of your time in total (er, you know, after you've downloaded them anyway). You can get hold of them, along with a bunch of other trailers showing off the other planets, from here.

American McGee is set to collaborate with the horrible George Romero on a new project called City of the Dead, the veteran game developer has mentioned in his latest journal update this week.

Activision clocked up its fourth week at the top of the UK games chart, as Spider-Man 2 held off Driv3r (No.2) and Shrek 2 (No.3) to claim the number one spot in a chart which showed very little movement over last week.

Sega today announced plans to enter the Chinese market, expanding its PC portfolio with titles including Phantasy Star Online Blue Burst, CTRacer and, most intriguingly of all, Shenmue Online.

Majesco has agreed to publish DoubleFine Productions' platformer Psychonauts, according to reports in the US press overnight. According to GameSpot, a video trailer for the game shown at a recent awards show also sported a Majesco logo.

The original has enjoyed something of a mixed reception so far (including a rather unhappy write-up elsewhere on this website today), but Climax is already developing a sequel to Xbox exclusive RPG Sudeki according to a job posting on the company's website.

Order yours now from Simply Games.

We've had thinking men's action games before, but with Men of Valor, 2015 seems to be set on populating Vietnam with thinking men and leaving you and your squad-mates to worry about them. The AI displayed by your NVA enemies, the developer insists, is some of the most adaptive and persistent ever encountered. Of course, we've heard claims like that before, but when we're creeping through the jungle and all of a sudden a bush rustles behind us and starts unloading Kalashnikov rounds into the back of our head, we have to put our hands up and admit it's probably going to be a tougher trek through than most.

A Japanese turn-based role-playing strategy title. Sounds like a barrel of laughs, right? Real material to make Billy Connolly, Denis Leary and Bill Bailey start watching their backs. No? We didn't think so either, to be honest. Turn-based strategy has never been a genre to have them rolling in the aisles, after all - in fact, it's rarely been a genre that publishers saw fit to release in Europe at all, with the notable exception of GBA classics Advance Wars, Final Fantasy Tactics Advance and, more recently, Fire Emblem.

Spider-Man 2 is one of the most unique and breathtaking games we've played all year, and yet at times it can inspire the kind of terrifying frustration that has sofas wincing in pain and loved ones running for cover and muttering Driv3r under their breath. Hell, it got so maddening that physical pain had to be inflicted upon our person with an Xbox joypad to somehow cancel out the fury that was threatening to boil over into madness at one stage. Yet here we are, having gone through some of the most painful hoops ever in order to complete the game, still sat here largely in admiration over the whole thing. It's a funny old game.

Eidos has announced that Championship Manager 5 is on its way to both PlayStation 2 and Xbox. In development at Gusto Games, the console ports will be released in spring 2005, a few months after the PC version - which aims to be out this autumn in time to compete with Football Manager 2005, the game that the original CM developer, Sports Interactive, is currently working on.

Tecmo has delayed the release of the first chunk of downloadable Ninja Gaiden content - the Hurricane Pack: Volume I - in order to give North American Xbox owners more time to sign up for the second round of the Master Ninja Tournament. The Hurricane Pack will now be released on August 9th to coincide with the start of that, judging by the official website. Of course, the European schedule for the tournament is slightly different - perhaps in light of our later release date, Microsoft is running our first round between August 2nd and September 2nd (full details here). We'll let you know when you can get your hands on the new content as soon as we've seen it with our own ninja eyes; and for more details on what's in the Hurricane Pack, head here.