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Naysayers favourite Duke Nukem Forever is still some way off according to Take-Two CEO Jeffrey Lapin, who told a conference call of analysts and investors last month that developer 3D Realms could finish it at the end of 2004 or even at the beginning of 2005.

Game's online multiplayer gaming service Game.net is to be shut down on January 23rd, three years after the retail giant bought Barryworld.

Vivendi-Universal Games has confirmed its plans to release a game based on David Fincher's Fight Club movie towards the end of next year, following reports t'other week that originated in the American Official PS2 Mag. In addition to the PS2 version, which is obviously in development, the game is also due out on Xbox.

Take-Two has joined the billion-dollar club, having posted net sales of $1.04 billion as part of its record financial results for the 12 months to October 31st 2003 - up 31 per cent on the same figure last year.

Here we are then! The end of the road marked "2003". Technically there are a few more days to go, but unless Jim Morrison rides naked past our window in a flaming chariot pulled by a flock of Dodos heralding the launch of some new game franchise, we're sticking to brandy, mince pies and a big pile of games marked "To be completed."

EA has today announced a game based on the third Harry Potter novel, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, which will be released on PS2, Xbox, GameCube, PC and Game Boy Advance in May 2004 - just in time for the summer release of Alfonso Cuarón's movie adaptation of the same.

Impress Game Watch reports that the Panasonic Q has been discontinued. Apart from a few stragglers left in retail channels, you can't buy it any more and Panasonic has stopped making it.

Turbine Entertainment has signed an agreement to purchase the Asheron's Call franchise in its entirety from Microsoft Game Studios. That includes the original Asheron's Call and its expansion Dark Majesty, as well as the sequel Asheron's Call 2: Fallen Kings.

If you're bored of the multiplayer maps in Rainbow Six 3 already, then you're a bit of a Scrooge, aren't you? What's wrong with you? There are loads! Jeez! Still, there's nothing wrong with adding a touch of variety to your playing habits, so it's probably all right if you hit that "Downloadable Content" button and download the latest addition - a colourful parade of unusual cover called Carnival - as long as you promise not to badmouth its mates. They have feelings too.

It's strange how a single popular game can shift an entire genre from 'stuffy and outdated' to 'firm favourite'. Who would have predicted a couple of years ago that in 2003, we'd be salivating over turn-based strategy games - a genre at which the majority of the gaming world has always turned its nose up? In the end, though, all it took was one game to mark a turning point - and once the world was hooked on Advance Wars, the floodgates of turn-based strategy titles were sure to open.

Nokia has excitedly issued a press release announcing a new self-published first-person shooter called Ashen. The gothic-horror styled title - developed by Melbourne-based Torus Games - naturally features plenty of "impressive gameplay and unique features", and will take place in the fictional Seven River City, pitting you against eight enemy types as you attempt to rescue the city's citizens.

Nintendo has issued an end of year missive highlighting some of its plans for Cube and Game Boy Advance owners in 2004. March continues to be the month of choice for big launches, with Spawn: Armageddon (March 5th), Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles (March 11th), R: Racing (March 19th) and Metal Gear Solid: Twin Snakes due out on the Cube that month, while GBA owners benefit to the tune of Sabre Wolf and Sword of Mana (March 18th). Not that impressive when you think about it - Spawn and R: Racing are both multi-format anyway.

EyeToy has been selling very strongly in Europe in the run-up to Christmas, Sony announced today, confirming that the webcam-based suite of mini-games (backed by the less popular rhythm-action variant EyeToy: Groove) has now shipped more than two million copies in Europe. Whether that translates to two million sales isn't clear, but with demand still high on this continent and a decent response in the US where EyeToy launched at the start of November, it seems fairly safe to say it's topped that worldwide by now.

Blizzard has released a patch for Warcraft III and its expansion The Frozen Throne, making an enormous amount of changes that would take us all day and a couple of pages to delve into - if you're really, really interested in every detail of the patch, then you can have a look at the list of changes on Blizzard's site here.

Ubisoft has released a new trailer of Crytek's gorgeous looking shooter Far Cry. Clearly intended to show off the game's physics engine (hence the filename), the video shows off various combat scenarios with combatants interacting with the environment by shooting barrels, scenery and inevitably each other.

December has become a joyous month for Rings fans. However as we reach the third phase in the journey of Frodo, Sam, Aragorn, Gandalf, etc, it's also tinged with sadness. When the King finishes returning this month, all we'll have left is the DVD release of the final film in Peter Jackson's epic trilogy - that, a few aeroplanes with Frodo's face on them and a few Rings marathons running in that sweaty armpit of a cinema nobody ever visits.

Eidos has officially unveiled one of its "pillar titles" for financial year 2004, the third instalment in Io Interactive's Hitman series, set to appear on PS2, Xbox and PC in spring 2004.

Poor old Fisher. Sam Fisher, black-clad acrobatic splinter operative of the CIA, that is. Not Donald "Flathead" Fisher of popular Australian soap Home and Away fame. Not at all. What were you thinking? Anyway, old Fisher has had his bar-swinging, ledge-hanging, wall-jumping antics overshadowed recently by some fresh-faced young chap from Persia and his curvy lady-friend embarking on some medieval high adventure through some sprawling castle environs. None of these boring old governmental conspiracy theories, night-vision goggles or skin-tight bodysuits for those athletic whippersnappers, no sir. But ahhhh, what's this? Sammy's got one last trick up his sleeve - his new N-Gage! Oh, wait...

Illusion Softworks has confirmed that a co-operative multiplayer mode will make it into the developer's expansion pack for Hidden & Dangerous 2, as mooted in an interview at the end of October.

Two of Counter-Strike's most popular original maps have been made available as downloadable extras for Xbox Live users today. Joining the rotation of slightly modified maps in the Xbox selection are Office and Inferno - both firm favourites amongst the game's PC followers.

Electronic Arts continues its stranglehold on the top of the UK charts, with the top three still composed entirely of EA franchises in a week which saw the software market shoot past the two million unit level.

There were two reasons we were curious to take a look at this quick-fire port. Firstly it's a game which arguably has controls that lend themselves better to an Xbox pad than a finger-stretching PC keyboard configuration, and secondly it's being ported by Vicarious Visions - the team tasked with the Doom III port, of all things.

Sony's integrated games console, DVD recorder and digital video recorder has arrived in Japan, but analysts now seem unconvinced by the machine following the company's decision to scale back its specifications.

With the immediate flow of Christmas releases now firmly blocked by a sturdy Yule log, we're gradually starting to turn toward the New Year and think about some of the big games due out in 2004. One of them is a PS2 Online update to the Syphon Filter series, dubbed The Omega Strain.

Turbine Entertainment, best known for its work on the massively-multiplayer Asheron's Call title for Microsoft Game Studios, has secured $18 million (€14.5m) in funding from its original investors and two venture capital firms, Highland Capital Partners and Polaris Venture Partners, and plans to use part of the money to self-publish its Dungeons & Dragons Online title.

Halo for the PC has been updated once again with the fairly important-sounding 1.031 update fixing "the crash on startup bug relating to the intro movies", as well as turning off anisotropic filtering by default and invalidating all your save games. Don't worry about the latter part though, because it's only your checkpoints that are reset - any levels you've actually unlocked should still be available to you.

Ubisoft has announced CSI: Crime Scene Investigation: Dark Motives, a new PC title for release in March based on the CBS-made television series, in which the player is tasked with solving five cases with help from a fully-voiced cast of CSI regulars.

Last week, we helped Sony to celebrate the release of Ghosthunter, a spooky and atmospheric ghost-gathering adventure from Studio Cambridge, by offering one of you a leather jacket as-worn by the game's main man, Lazarus Jones, some signed artwork and a copy of the game, with four more copies of the game for runners-up.

Koei has announced its plans for the first quarter of 2004 in the shape of three combative releases for the PlayStation 2 - Pacific Theatre of Operations IV (P.T.O. version 4), Romance of the Three Kingdoms VIII and Dynasty Warriors 4 Xtreme Legends.

When the common man thinks about videogames, several images flash through his Neanderthal head. One of them is a little yellow dot munching pills in a maze. One of them is a little spaceship firing upward as rows of insectoid aliens dance from side to side. And one of them is a series of geometric shapes falling down the screen and disappearing with each completed row. It's difficult to compete with that sort of inherent genetic marketing.