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Shooting people has always been at the heart of online gaming, so it's no surprise that the third person tactical shooter SOCOM: US Navy SEALs is currently throbbing away inside our PS2s with their newly strapped-on network hardware. And rather like the best Xbox Live offerings, Zipper Interactive delivers a pretty vast single player distraction to boot - a 12-mission, team-based campaign built around a Rainbow Six style dynamic. But with a £50 price tag for the game and a bit of multiplayer-oriented headwear, SOCOM still has a heck of a lot to prove.

My name is Chuck Doud, I'm the Music Director for SCEA and also the producer of Amplitude.

Polygon reports that Nintendo is planning to bundle a demo disc with their new "GameCube Enjoyment Pack" in Japan. Similar to the recent US promotion, which showcased demos of Billy Hatcher, Viewtiful Joe, Sonic Adventure DX, Splinter Cell, and Soul Calibur II, the Japanese disc will include Viewtiful Joe, Sonic DX and Wario, along with video footage of Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles, F-Zero GX and Tales of Symphonia. However if you want to get your hands on it, it'll cost you a pretty penny [or Euro -Ed], as the GameCube Enjoyment Pack (which bundles the Cube and GB Player adapter) weighs in at 19800 yen - €140, or £100.

Metal Gear Solid fansite Operation MGS has conducted an interview with the voice of Solid Snake, David Hayter. Much of the interview focuses on Hayter's background and life as a voice actor, and also some of his other work as a screenwriter, particularly on movies such as the X-Men series and the recent Hulk adaptation.

Trepid.net has conducted a pretty extensive Q&A with Valve's Gabe Newell, inevitably focusing on Half-Life 2.

MCV reports that the fondly remembered Intellivision 16bit console, originally released in 1980, is to make a comeback thanks to Character Options. The company is releasing two hand-held joypads that connect directly into the television – one containing 10 games for £14.99 and the other with 25 games for £29.99. Some of the titles to be packaged with the product include Star Strike, Night Stalker, Space Armada, Astrosmash, Sub Hunt, Thundercastle and Pinball. It’s quite a shame that the console’s original and quite ludicrous controller won’t be making a comeback as well.

Big Huge Games has updated an existing patch for their world-bending RTS Rise of Nations because some people were having difficulty getting it to work. In their words, the new 8.7MB patch "will now install correctly". You can also get the patch by running the game, selecting "Multiplayer Game" and then choosing "GameSpy Internet Matchmaking", after which an automatic update should kick in.

Hot on the heels of the Czech language Ghost Master demo, comes a 143MB English version, featuring one tutorial mission from Sick Puppy's ghostly strategy game - reviewed here last Friday 13th. Those of you with no idea what I'm talking about would do well to click the aforementioned link, or head over to the official Ghost Master website, a Flash-based audio/visual monstrosity which had us spitting corn flakes in search of the 'mute' button - "Aaaaaarrrrgghhhhh!" - but which also sheds some light on the subject.

Having reviewed the Xbox, GBA and PS2 versions and previewed the PC version, it's fairly clear to us that Splinter Cell is a damned good game, and if you don't agree, then, well, we're sorry about that. But if you thought we'd had enough of Sam Fisher, the stealth disco dancer, then you obviously haven't been paying attention to the anorexic release schedules that these long hot summer days bring. And like some chubby slackard in a cross-country race, ladies and gentlemen, let us present to you the GameCube version.

As promised, Bungie has released a proper cut of the eight-minute Halo 2 E3 trailer, complete with surround sound, weighing in at about 160MB. If you fancy taking the plunge then it's available from FilePlanet. We're not sure how it looks ourselves, as we're still downloading it. Or at least, we will be in - sec - 34 minutes. If you find any decent mirrors, then by all means paste away...

It's easy to assume that any game with a movie licence attached to it will be utter lowest common denominator rubbish, and it's pretty hard to think of many good examples since GoldenEye bucked the trend all those years ago. Since then, it's been a steady stream of sludge culminating in arguably the most heinous example, Enter The Matrix, which is busy committing daylight robbery the world over.

Oh man. It's pretty hot today. I can't see through the silky curtain protecting me from prying eyes on the street, such is the sun's ferocious impact on that fibrous barricade this morning. And my geek-issue hay fever pixies are sprinkling paprika or something on the inside of my eyelids and nostrils at regular intervals, despite my having scoffed Piriteze Cetrizine Dihydrochloride, which presumably works by baffling said pixies to death by forcing them to read the label.

Right! Let's get this out of the way... GameSpot is reporting that the first signs of a new expansion for EverQuest due to be released later this year have popped up on that bastion of press resources, the EBGames online store. The pack is called EverQuest: Lost Dungeons of Norrath and, in a shocking move for the genre, will see players scouring dungeons, secret catacombs and ruins for powerful artefacts. There will naturally be hundreds of new quests and spells and whatnot, and new technology that is designed to bring more a personalised experiences for small groups of adventurers. Sounds just lovely.

Sony sent us an email this morning proclaiming that their new SOCOM adverts - which you can stream from the interweb here - were their "craziest yet". Given the potential opportunity to discredit this claim, we scampered off in the direction of the website and fired the two adverts up. The terrifying truth, and we're sorry you had to hear this from us, is that, well, they're actually not all that bad. In fact, we laughed. Quite a lot.

The idea of commanding your very own arsenal of ghosts seemed a fantastic basis for a videogame. Nothing gives us more pleasure on a day-to-day basis than terrorising our fellow mortals in increasingly bizarre and dangerous ways (just look at Tom's driving for a quick, easy example), so it was with open arms that we welcomed Ghost Master onto our hard drives.

Codemasters has released a 145MB demo of IndyCar Series, which lets players race around the Texas Motor Speedway in either the Red Bull Cheever Racing or Pennzoil Panther Racing cars. As you may well know, ICS uses accurate 2002 season data from the American racing championship of the same name. You can download the demo here if you like - just make sure your PC is up to the spec listed on the same page.

Even for the unversed, lurking amongst the rows of hot, sweaty, blackened shark eyes rolling spotlight-wards during Nintendo's E3 press conference, it wasn't difficult to pick the odd one out up on stage. Standing before us were Toru Iwatani, Shigeru Miyamoto, Hideo Kojima and Will Wright. Over the years, three of them have designed groundbreaking, fantastically entertaining videogames. Once upon a time, the other fellow had a decent stab at it, but has since proceeded to sit around counting the money. And, on the evidence here, intends to carry on doing so.

According to IGN, Hideo Kojima has totally killed off one of the staples of the Metal Gear Solid armoury - the radar, for MGS3: Snake Eater. The basic reasoning behind it is the idea that the removal of the said piece of kit will create a lot more tension in the field, and so we assume this will force the player to rely on line of sight and their spatial awareness. Going some way to help the player's outsmart the enemy will be the camouflage meter, which sounds a lot like Splinter Cell's or Thief's stealth meters. Ho hum!

Hungry Ghosts is an incredibly intriguing title that's set to launch in Japan on July 31st, according to GameSpot. The game sees the player as a character on their way to the gates of judgement before their final resting place. In life, the character wasn't a particularly nice chap and as such is destined for hell, but the player is able to sway their fate through their actions.

Hey great! It's a Battlefield 1942 file-o-rama today, with the release of the official 1.4 patch, an incremental 1.31 to 1.4 patch, the BattleCraft map editor and standalone servers for both Windows and Linux. The main patch features a wealth of improvements, including two new rifles to replace earlier weapons, gameplay tweaks, graphical enhancements, networking improvements and bug fixes all over the place. Anyway, without further ado, here's a big list of sites (which we 'borrowed', picked apart and carefully reconstructed for your use from BF42.com) for you to pound into submission like some kind of sick pack of sick... things:

Star Trek: Elite Force II has gone gold, says Activision. Elite Force II has been developed by Quake engine aficionados Ritual, who released a single player demo last month. Early reviews seem to be fairly positive, although the exclusive ones we've seen seem to be struggling to justify high scores. Ho hum.

Speed kills, if the Smashing Pumpkins (and indeed Bush) are to be believed, but Nintendo's classic futuristic racing series F-Zero teaches us a rather different lesson. Speed doesn't kill; speed is good, and to be embraced. It's the things we hit while travelling at high speed, and the ground we smash into after flying off the track at hundreds of miles per hour, that kill.

Secrets. We've all got 'em. That Huntley fellow probably knows something about those two kids, Tony Blair clearly knows something about the war, and Martin almost certainly knows what happened to my Matrix DVD. For Belgian developer Larian Studios, though, the burden of truth has clearly become too much, and so we feel compelled to tell you that Larian has secretly been developing a new PC RPG, set in the same universe as Divine Divinity, since just after the original game's release last year. Those dirty Belgians.

Hot on the heels of yesterday's press release, Acclaim has announced another comic-based title. This time, DC Comics' 100 Bullets is to make an appearance on "next-gen gaming systems."

We may like to think that it's just the likes of EA who pummel the shelves of retailers with seasonal sports franchise updates, whose subtle alterations generally necessitate much marketing ear-bendery and press release juggling to truly understand, but to say the Japanese games industry isn't guilty of that sort of thing is nonsense.

It is our distinct pleasure to announce that Mindscape will be releasing Painkiller this coming October. Yes, you too will soon be able to indulge yourselves in the "19 unique single-player levels" and marvel at Painkiller's undoubtedly amazing proprietary 3D engine utilising the Havoc physics engine. Also, "the multiplayer modes really are hardcore." Gosh.

Further to a report in April that Blizzard had closed some 131,000 accounts because of cheating, we've now learned via GameSpot that the company has blitzed a further 112,000 accounts. Blizzard says that the users had been using cheating programs, and that they have further identified users using map-hacking programs, and those accounts will be closed as well if they find that the map-hacking has continued. Slapped wrists all round then, you cheating scumbags.

Enlight Studios has announced the development of a third-person title about the life and battles of Joan of Arc, set for release in November. The game, via "fast-action combat, RPG character development, and real-time strategy elements" charts the player's progress as Joan of Arc from peasant to warrior and the battles in which she was involved. As well as strategically commanding troops the player will enter the fray directly, starting with swordplay and learning new fighting techniques and making use of an increasing arsenal as the game goes on. We weren't able to be funny on this story, sorry.

Although we can't find any other reports to substantiate it (go on then, you scour Watch Impress), The Magic Box claims that KCEO (Konami Computer Entertainment Osaka, and specifically the team responsible for the Winning Eleven series) is developing a new football title called Final Formation for both PS2 and GameCube.

Microsoft is planning to release the Halo 2 E3 trailer, which showcases American journalists "wooping" and "hollering" uncontrollably in an orgy of discarded integrity, as a high resolution video with 5.1 surround sound this Friday. At 10:00am PDT. We don't really know when that is, but it's probably just after you go home from work.