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We'd like to thank Black Monday director Naresh Hirani and writer/narrative producer Katie Ellwood (and designer Dominic Robilliard, who, though he didn't answer any of our questions, was nice enough to give us a tour of the game and show off some of the combat) for their time. If you haven't already, make sure you check out our hands-on impressions of The Getaway: Black Monday elsewhere on the site.

The Getaway had a lot of critics. And, to be fair, it had a lot of things that needed criticising. The cars rarely lasted more than a handful of streets due to poor handling and an unforgiving damage model, and, in racing from A to B, the lack of an A-to-Z made for agonisingly slow progress. The third-person sections meanwhile - a mixture of violent gunfights and sneaking - often fell foul of camera and control issues, and in both scenarios the difficulty level often spiked beyond the abilities of the average player. Not many people lasted the journey.

Ubisoft has announced Uru: The Path of the Shell, an official expansion pack for Uru: Ages Beyond Myst, and released a pair of screenshots. The newly announced expansion should be available from June 30th onwards for around 20 quid - and as part of the Uru: Complete Chronicles set along with the original game and free expansion Uru: To D'ni, all for around £35.

Rockstar Games has released a screenshot of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas - in response to claims that the game was the most disappointing absentee at the recent Electronic Entertainment Expo, for which Rockstar chose to give American magazine Game Informer an exclusive preview instead of demonstrating it to the masses. The shot, which is sort of a joke, features the game's hero Carl Johnson perched on a bicycle in front of a certain Convention Centre.

Grand Theft Auto is in court again, although not - for once - as the defendant. Instead, this month an American man is claiming that the false "bomb threat" he is alleged to have shouted down the telephone at a co-worker was simply an instruction yelled at somebody else playing GTA in the same room.

Capcom continues to enhance its publishing credentials this week, bringing two more third party games under its wing for release throughout PAL territories next year. Funnily enough, both are Japanese-born sequels from Spike. Riding Spirits II is a motorbike racing game due out in March, to be followed soon after in the slightly hazier "Spring" bracket by Way of the Samurai 2.

A new scheme being championed by Warner Bros Interactive Entertainment boss Jason Hall would see publishers whose games are reviewed poorly being penalised by higher royalty payments to the license holder.

Sony Computer Entertainment Europe has already announced that it will publish Ace Combat 5: The Unsung War during Q1 2005, but anybody hoping to get their hands on it sooner will be pleased to hear that Namco intends to release it in the USA this November, and presumably beforehand in Japan.

Ingenious PS2 adventure game Michigan, in which the player takes on the role of a cameraman thrust into a zombie-infested city with a brief to get as much coverage as possible, has been given a Japanese release date.

"Heihachi Mishima... is dead." And not just dead! Blown into tiny little pieces by a robotic, self-destructing Jack, whose face pops open just seconds into the Tekken 5 trailer to reveal a bomb timer in an advanced state of countdown. We don't know exactly what it is that Heihachi mumbles a few moments before an aerial shot of a mushroom cloud illustrates his demise, but we're guessing it's "Crap!"

A message in a bottle arrived this morning proclaiming that the official website for Sid Meier's Pirates! has launched, and (to nick one of their gags) a-vast trailer has been uploaded to commemorate the occasion. Should you feel like joining in, you can plunder Eurofiles for a copy.

British technology firm Imagination is preparing to deliver a new arcade system to Sega at the start of next year, according to the company's financial statements, which will be based on the firm's next-generation graphics system.

A report in the British trade press has indicated that the PlayStation Portable and Nintendo DS consoles may launch in the same week in Europe - with a March 18th date apparently pencilled in for both systems.

Atari has signed best-selling author R. A. Salvatore and actors Patrick Stewart and Michael Clarke Duncan to contribute to Stormfront Studios' forthcoming D&D fantasy hackandslash Forgotten Realms: Demon Stone, due out this autumn on PS2.

Sims creator Will Wright has confirmed that a new SimCity title is in development, telling the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, "We're about to come out with a new direction for it." No word on what it might be, but it's clear from Wright's comments that he wants to create a different sort of sequel this time.

Massive Entertainment has released a 183MB single-player demo of its forthcoming David Bowie-themed 3D real-time strategy title, Ground Control II: Major Tom. [Sigh. Ground Control II: Operation Exodus, then. -Ed]

Insomniac Games has refused to rule out more Ratchet & Clank games in the future. Although the developer has no firm plans for a sequel at the moment, according to company representatives speaking to us at E3, "We're going to decide that come November."

Konami has released a streaming trailer of PSP title Metal Gear Acid via its website, showing off various sections from the title it teased us with during E3, and giving us a better idea of how Hideo Kojima's team has translated the series' familiar gameplay to the PSP. Or hasn't, as the case may be.

Digital Illusions has patched Battlefield Vietnam (probably using superglue - woof!) to version 1.01, a change that fixes a few basic GUI issues with the server browser, reduces lag to a certain extent and tweaks the prediction code so it's less jerky, and makes numerous other minor changes (including several concerning the poor old M60, which probably mouthed off out of turn and had its rate of fire restricted as punishment). More details are available in the readme file, or you can just go ahead and download the patch anyway. Server admin types (hi there! Love your work!) can find links to the standalone 1.01 server distribution here.

Shigeru Miyamoto has shed some more light on the next GameCube Legend of Zelda title, almost literally in fact, remarking that the game isn't necessarily any darker or scarier and pointing to a greater emphasis on sword fighting and action elements - an approach the veteran game designer likens to Zelda II: The Adventure of Link.

Square Enix president Yoichi Wada last week insisted that the Final Fantasy developer has no plans to get involved with Xbox Live, echoing comments he made during E3 week when he described it as "completely contrary to our concept of networked business."

Here at Eurogamer, we often find ourselves worrying about NTSC-to-PAL conversions, and in particular whether the process of refitting games for our eyes might ruin our prospects of killing people on different continents. (Side note: Ladies, we're in the phone book.) So it's always a relief when developers get in there first and manage to allay our fears before we've even had a chance to wake up in a cold sweat screaming about borders, slowdown, incompatible lap times and bodged up cut sequences.

According to an item in the The Hollywood Reporter, John Woo is close to making a deal with Universal Pictures to direct a the Spy Hunter film, which is already tentatively aiming its sights at 2005 with Dwayne Johnson/The Rock attached to star.

Resident Evil 4 and Viewtiful Joe 2 were amongst the most enjoyable hours we spent at E3 this year, even though we were almost as weary and emaciated as some of the latest residents of Capcom's survival horror franchise by the time we got to them.

This week, it all comes down to a single question. It's a question we don't honestly level at ourselves much when we're playing new games, because - to be honest - we rarely have an audience and rarely have to worry about how we're looking or sounding. Heck, most of the time we're sprawled out, limbs dangling lazily over armrests and cushions strategically placed to prevent even the slightest discomfort, broad grins slapped on our faces and expletives dancing merrily in the air. The idea of eliciting any sort of reaction from anybody, or succumbing to even the remotest form of self-consciousness, barely enters into the equation. What was the question?

Forthcoming Xbox title Halo 2 will feature free support for the clan management and statistic tracking features of Xbox Live 3.0 when it arrives next November, developer Bungie has confirmed.

You can download two movies of Resident Evil 4 in action - one from Capcom's Las Vegas press event earlier this year, and one from E3 2004 - right now from Eurofiles. For details on how to make use of our free file service, click here.

Sony Computer Entertainment boss Ken Kutaragi is set to take top roles at Sony's home electronics and semiconductor divisions in addition to his current role at the videogames division, effective from late next month.

Read on for a composed overview of Second Sight, or download a movie of David Doak's demonstration directly from Eurofiles. For details on how to make use of our free file service, click here.

Having flogged almost a million copies worldwide (with rather more sold in the US than anywhere else), it's no surprise that Empire has announced a sequel to Eutechnyx' Big Mutha Truckers. Big Mutha Truckers 2: Truck Me Harder! (Dear God) will work along much the same lines as its predecessor, except Eutechnyx has thrown in day/night cycles, visual rig damage and the chance to drive other vehicles. It's due out on PS2 and Xbox in 2005.