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Monolith's TRON 2.0 will appear on Xbox and Xbox Live this Christmas under the whimsical guise of TRON 2.0: Killer App (see what they did!), Buena Vista Interactive announced last night.

Atari has announced that RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 will form a key component of its Christmas 2004 PC schedule, and by the looks of it we're in for less of a cynical rehash this time in light of the fairly disappointing RCT2.

There's always been something of a post-Christmas lull for new game releases. It's only to be expected; we're all skint, our credit card's up to the max, payday's not ‘til the end of the month, and, oh joy, there's a few inconsiderately placed birthdays to plan for. But when you consider that this year's lull is entering its fourth month, you can begin to see why we're getting a little bit exasperated with it.

"LucasArts has decided to stop production on Sam & Max," the publisher has remarked in a tersely worded statement on its website last night, thankfully confirming that there are no plans to reduce staff as a result, but otherwise shattering our hopes for the insanely funny buddy-cop point-and-click adventure's resurrection. That's not hyperbole either - this was one of our Most Wanted of 2004.

Following HAL Labs' revelation that it planned to buy Kirby a mobile phone for Christmas, Nintendo has updated the website for forthcoming GBA adventure Kirby's Star: The Great Mirror Maze (or whatever we're translating it as this week) with details on 16 of the 25 forms the pink blob will be able to assume in his first outing since the departure of creator Masahiro Sakurai.

It looks like Atari might be returning to the oft-bashed Test Drive series this summer, following a revelation from the Raymond Herrera, drummer in popular beat combo Fear Factory, who claims he'll be contributing some music to an Atari game called Test Drive Cross-Town, due out this August on PC, Xbox, Cube and PS2.

The Phantom broadband game system is set to make its public debut at the E3 trade show in Los Angeles this May, with Infinium Labs confirming that the device will be playable on the company's stand.

Here's a thing. Renowned composer Mike Oldfield is launching a "musical virtual reality dimension" next month, billed as "the world's first organised 'chill-out' online computer gaming experience". Coo. According to Oldfield's press people, it's called Maestro, and it's a freeform world in which you can fly around and discover, observe, compete or relax, as the audio-visual experience mimics Oldfield's Tubular Bells composition in that it's "an engaging and hypnotic journey for the senses", as well as a plain old computer game.

Belgian developer Larian Studios has released a 168MB demo of Divine Divinity not-a-sequel Beyond Divinity. And, rather refreshingly, the demo is apparently available in English and German (although there are no mirrors for the German version yet). The full list of mirrors will be updated here in due course.

Microsoft has announced that it plans to delay True Fantasy Live Online, the Xbox exclusive MMORPG currently underway at Dark Cloud/Chronicle developer Level-5. The game will now reportedly begin beta testing this summer, and although MS has all the testers it needs for now, this may change once the test is underway. As for the actual retail release - the new launch estimate in Japan is winter 2004. MS has yet to suggest a possible date for the US or Europe.

Take-Two has finally announced that Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas will be the title of the next game in the phenomenally popular GTA series. The Rockstar North-developed title will once again be exclusive to the PlayStation 2 and will be released on October 19th in North America and October 22nd across Europe.

Having rattled our Team Sabre competition to its very foundations, it turns out that 99 per cent of our readership can distinguish Somalia from the new road-widening/40mph disaster zone erected around Junctions 14-18 on the M25. Congratulations. However there were only ever going to be five winners walking away with copies of Black Hawk Down and Team Sabre, and only two of them were ever going to... Let's start again: five of you have won goodies. Two of the five also get 12" Black Hawk Down action figures, which could well be modelled on Ewan McGregor for all we know. And it is now time to reveal who won what. Drums please!

Those Swedish geniuses at Digital Illusions have finished work on Battlefield Vietnam, according to a certain Mr. E Arts who emailed this morning (we think he's a relative), and the long awaited multiplayer amalgam of Apocalypse Now/Platoon/etc now looks certain to debut on target on March 19th. As ever, the US is being unilaterally impatient about the matter - the game is out over there on the 15th.

Broadband console proponent Infinium Labs has provided details of its complaint against news website HardOCP, focusing on a September 2003 article which it claims contains many false statements about the company and its CEO, Tim Roberts.

Stocks of the GameCube console are almost depleted in the United States following strong demand through the Christmas period and the start of the New Year, according to Nintendo, which says it is working to bring in supplies from elsewhere.

Anybody wondering where I've been for the past couple of days can thank Nokia for my impromptu disappearance - having read a "Bomberman on N-Gage" press release early on Monday morning, I suddenly realised I was genuinely looking forward to a forthcoming game on the rightly maligned Finnish handheld, and promptly died of shock. Fortunately I just happened to have a decent stock of Phoenix Downs on back-order, and as soon as they turned up one of my housemates was kind enough to jam one down my throat and set me up in front of a keyboard. I awoke just minutes ago.

EA has signed a publishing deal with fresh-faced developing type Black Hole Games for its debut title, a PC RTS called Armies of Exigo (for now at least). Due out in late 2004, Exigo's eponymous armies will apparently consist of elves, beasts, knights and creatures of the darkness, some of whom have the ability to tunnel underground and advance on their adversaries undetected. Swine!

Not content with inflicting Postal 2 on folks in the UK via Whiptail Interactive, developer Running With Scissors has now signed a wider European distribution deal with Greek publishing firm hell-tech, which should see the spruced up 'with multiplayer' version released in France-etc at some point.

If you're not yet drunk on dance mat antics, you'll be pleased to hear that in keeping with a strong generic tradition of expansion pack chasers, Aberystwyth-based developer Broadsword Interactive is preparing to deliver a pint-sized musical update for Dance:UK. And as promised when the game was released last October, you won't have to pay full whack to hear a few new tunes.

Midway has confirmed that Mortal Kombat: Deception is the name of the next game in the long-running beat-'em-up series, following reports just over a month ago drawing attention to the publisher's January 7th registration of name and logo trademarks. As previously stated, the game is due out on PS2 and Xbox later in the year.

Admit it. You've always wanted to be General Rommel! Okay, you probably haven't, but if you're the sort of chap who enjoys sending the odd tank or 50 hurtling into battle then CDV's forthcoming, standalone Blitzkrieg expansion Burning Horizon is probably already lit up brightly on your shopping list. And with the game due out in April, story-boarder and historical expert Ernst Stein has been outlining what to expect in a recent "developer chat" of indeterminate origin.

The forthcoming PlayStation Portable will allow developers to create games that can be played both on the move and on a home PS2 or PSX console, Sony has confirmed - but the emphasis will be on new titles, not on ports of existing games.

Nokia's N-Gage has come in for fierce criticism from publisher Electronic Arts, with EA president and COO John Riccitiello describing the system as a "dog" in an interview and stating that software shipments on it have been "non-meaningful."

Ubisoft sealed its latest acquisistion yesterday, snapping up Austin-based developer Wolfpack Studios, the team behind massively multiplayer epic Shadowbane.

Following hard on the heels of the first batch of screenshots comes this 35-second video trailer of Brat Design's work-in-progress FPS which can be downloaded from here (as Brat Design's own website appears to be down at present).

Lionhead has kindly gone to the effort of posting a massive FAQ for its forthcoming multi-platform god sim The Movies, another game to fuel the megalomaniac in all of us, and due for release via Activision whenever Peter Molyneux's been forced to stop coming up with 14 new ideas he wants to implement today.

Rockstar North's ultra gory take on hide and seek is coming to PC and Xbox next month with the publisher having confirmed to retail an April 23rd release date for both formats.

Get your lateral thinking caps on, ladies and gentlemen: Syberia is back to torture our poor grey matter once again. It's not often we find ourselves reporting on point and click adventures, but French developers seem to like them - even some of you lot do, judging by some of the comments. Anyway, Microids has kindly put up a demo to Syberia II on its website, weighing in at 82.3MB, and it’s likely to run on even the most steam powered PC.

Ah, we do love PC versions of console games and their ability to screw up multiple times. But praise be the patch and the broadband connection; where would we be without it?

The latest issue of the Official Championship Manager Magazine will be available from tomorrow, and Eidos is offering the magazine online "totally free-of-charge". [I thought we called those "emails"? -sneezing deputy]