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As Lionhead gears up for Fable's September release, the developer has confirmed that Ron and Chris Millar, the brothers responsible for the likes of Diablo, Warcraft and StarCraft are to join the Guildford outfit.

Atari has signed a deal with Microsoft to publish a PC version of PAM's Top Spin, the formerly Xbox-only tennis title that surprised many on its release last year by actually being really good. The conversion promises "massive internet-based multiplayer functionality as well as online rankings". LAN functionality is also available. No release date information has been released. PAM formely made Ronaldo V-Football for Infogrames, but the less said about that the better, eh?

New versions of Sony's multi-function games console, digital video recorder and DVD burning device, the PSX, are set to arrive in Japan at the start of next month - with a host of software changes to add extra functionality to the device.

Electronic Arts is launching its own web-based fantasy football game on July 21st, but before you get excited, this is Gridiron we're referring to, as opposed to the real football where players actually, you know, kick the ball, as opposed to using their hands and dressing up in girly armour.

British sources have revealed to Eurogamer that Warner Bros is inviting developers to make pitches for a Dirty Harry game.

Ambitious publisher Cenega has snapped up the publishing rights to Altar Interactive's UFO: Aftershock, the sequel to the confusingly similar sounding UFO Aftermath. What next? UFO: Afterdinner? UFO: Afteryou?

The PC version of ID's long-awaited Doom III could be in US stores in August according to stateside retail sources, but their UK counterparts are being told 'October', as the wait for the hugely anticipated first person shooter continues.

Atari has confirmed this morning its plans for its PC line up for the remainder of the year, with no fewer than seven titles pencilled in for the run up to Christmas.

Konami chalked up a timely legal win over the French National Soccer Federation last week, with news reaching us that its European arm has proven to a judge in the Paris District Court that its Pro Evolution Soccer titles do not infringe the trademarks of the Federation Francaise de Football - meaning the titles can now be sold in France.

The legendary Kick Off creator Dino Dini has signed a deal with Canadian developer DC Studios to work on an all-new football title - his first commercial project in over ten years.

Knights Of The Old Republic II and Star Wars: Republic Commando will not be released this year, it emerged yesterday, adding to the succession of recent high profile delays.

Galleon has resoundingly failed to make a splash in the UK charts following its first week at retail, despite eight years in development. Ranking at seventh in the Xbox chart and 36th in the full price all format chart, the piratic adventure appears to have stalled from the outset.

On paper, the idea of a Transformers game gave us the fear, conjuring up all sorts of terrifying images of the usual hastily knocked up licensed rubbish, with big stompy Mechs zapping each other over vast featureless terrains to the sound of ear-splittingly bad music and over enthusiastic voiceovers. We couldn't have been less excited if you'd given us the latest Adiboo game to play. But, in practice - as you may recall from our first impressions - Melbourne House has created a near masterpiece, managing to not only stay utterly faithful to the subject matter, but in many respects creating a benchmark mech shoot 'em up that practically bends the PS2 out of shape for technical merit. It's a bit on the short side, and is single-player only, but for non-stop concentrated action you can't go wrong.

The Half-Life 2 release date saga continued to rumble on this weekend, with an Autumn release date now mooted as the title's likely launch window despite development on the hugely-anticpated game reportedly being completed in a matter of a few weeks .

GameCube tour-de-force Resident Evil 4 looks likely to be pushed back, if US retail information is to be believed.

In traditional drip feed fashion, Rockstar North has revealed a few more tantalising morsels about Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas in this month's UK edition of the Official PlayStation 2 magazine.

Doubts over Atari's commitment to The Matrix franchise were cleared up last week, when the French company's CEO Bruno Bonnell admitted that two further Matrix titles are planned over the coming years.

Halo will not be making an appearance on the Game Boy Advance, Bungie confirmed last week, quashing excitable Internet rumours which claimed that a handheld version of the multi-million selling sci-fi shooter was in the works.

Sega Europe has just announced that Team 17's Worms Forts Under Siege will be playable online via Xbox Live - something that we hinted at after seeing Live functionality built into a preview version just prior to E3.

Japanese toyfolk Tomy has apparently confirmed that a third Zoids Versus title will be released on the GameCube. Imaginatively titled Zoids Versus III, it will... probably feature some Zoids. That's about as much help as we can be unfortunately, as no concrete details of anything other than the name has made it into the public domain. GameSpot reckons it will be out by the end of March 2005 - when Nintendo's fiscal year ends - but whether it'll ever appear on this continent is harder to predict. The Zoids TV show was just about our only reason for getting up before 8am back when we watched it though, so we hope somebody has a word and sorts it out...

"Mobile games are rubbish." We hear that a lot. It's not true, mind, but it is the common perception. And obviously not everybody is happy about that - least of all the games' developers and publishers. That's why global research firm NOP World has set up The Mobile Panel - a worldwide panel of mobile gamers who provide useful feedback on the latest mobile games, which is then organised and shipped off to the developers to help them gauge the market's reaction to certain ideas.

Although most publishers clearly wouldn't be caught dead going anywhere near June 11th, this particular 11th day of the sixth month happens to mark the completion and release of three rather interesting and protracted projects - featuring pirates, outlaws and thieves respectively. Yarrr yeee-haw or your life? [He shoots, he misses -Ed]

Datel launches new cheat products (or 'game enhancers' as it likes to call them) all the time, but recently the company has been branching out into other areas, giving gamers the chance to do a variety of things with their consoles - and take advantage of the Internet and the growth of other forms of digital media - in a variety of different ways. Its most recent launch, the new Action Replay MAX for PS2, arguably represents the pinnacle of its efforts to date, incorporating support for DivX movies, MP3s and even Mega Drive ROMs, loaded via CD-R or flash drive. It also features all the other functionality you'd expect from a Datel device, including cheat code downloads, memory card management and even online instant messaging. In a recent interview made available by Datel PRs, the company's technical director Alex Edge makes the case for the new product.

One of the things trailed ahead of the game's release was Starbreeze's plan to include work-in-progress content from the game as unlockables. The intention was to give players the chance to see how the game evolved from beginning to end. Extras, unlocked by collecting cigarette packets strewn around the game world and available to buy from certain NPCs, would not only consist of the usual barrage of concept artwork and movie stills, but footage of the game in action and even - as far as we knew based on previous interviews and press briefings - actual playable preview versions of the game. On a recent visit to Starbreeze Studios in Uppsala, Sweden, we quizzed lead programmer and designer Jens Andersson and lead modeller Pelle Tingström about the game's bonus content...

Forget hiring and killing prostitutes in back alleys, building up a Scarface empire and riding roughshod over the moral fabric of society in a stolen police car. With its latest game, The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay, Swedish developer Starbreeze shuns pop criminality in favour of something infinitely darker - the tale of a man who kills for pleasure, driven by a single goal (woven into the game's mouthful of a title), and a man who's mind is a void we're meant to fill. "We really wanted to communicate the feeling that you are playing Riddick," the game's producer Lars Johansson tells us at one point, as we snap a guard's neck and watch our fellow inmates die in a stream of leaden retribution meant for us. Already we're getting inside his head. And butting people with it.

How do you make a good game out of a film licence? Given the sheer volume of licensed games roaming the charts and review pages of magazines and websites, and the even greater number in development at any given time, you might imagine that it's a question that dominates the thoughts of sleepless publishing executives the world over. But there's little evidence that it does. A solid film brand is a solid money-spinner, but if you ask the average critic to list a handful of top quality licensed games, he probably wouldn't make it past his index finger. Or even his thumb.

Ubisoft has released a pair of new Pandora Tomorrow multiplayer maps into the wild this week, giving Xbox-owning spies and mercs the chance to sneak and protect some new environments - assuming they're prepared to pay a few quid for the privilege, as the latest downloadable update is yet another 'premium' offering.

Valve Software has announced that a number of arrests have been made in several different countries by authorities tracking down those responsible for the theft of the Half-Life 2 source code last autumn.

Square Enix wasn't kidding when it said that Fullmetal Alchemist was going to be one of its headline franchises in future. With sales of the manga (graphic novels) rapidly heading for the ten million mark and the Fullmetal Alchemist animated TV series easily the hottest show in Japan right now, it's just announced that two new games are going to be based on the property.

Senior sources have confirmed today that Starbreeze, the developer of the supposedly Xbox-exclusive Chronicles of Riddick, is currently putting together a PlayStation 2 version.