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Believe it or not, it's been more than five years since Mario Kart 64. When Nintendo first showed off a tech demo featuring Mario and Luigi karting (which, in retrospect, looks nothing like the nearly-finished article), we'd already been waiting more than three. In other words, it's safe to say that Mario Kart Double Dash has been a long time coming, and given that MK64 failed to set the entire world on fire, it's safe to say that we have heady expectations for this one. It's got to be utterly fantastic - and it's getting there.

At last: a new Tomb Raider game. And what have we here? An E3 demo? After fully three and a half years since the last meaningful Lara Croft adventure, we've had to be pretty patient. Having seen the game at two previous trade shows, it's fair to say that E3 2003 represents the last chance saloon for Core and its interminably delayed project.

If you have any lingering doubts on the merits of the Xbox, then we challenge you to not be astounded by the nine minute trailer of Halo 2. Truly, this extraordinary piece of footage manages to set new standards in real time gameplay cinematics.

Although we had hoped to bring you first impressions of Nico by now, the game isn't on the show floor here in Los Angeles, and we don't think it's doing the rounds behind closed doors either. Sony is being very upfront about games like Jak II, Ratchet & Clank 2, SOCOM II and Gran Turismo 4, which are all over their stand (in the shape of multiple demos), all of which is disappointing for fans of what was arguably last year's best game who were looking forward to setting eyes on the sequel. Rest assured though, we've still got plenty to write about here, and will be doing so in due course. It might take a bit longer today though, because we've got those Matrix tickets to employ. Remember: there is no E3!

Eidos has, at sodding last, confirmed a release date for Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness - 20th June it is. Oh and the next movie - The Cradle of Life - comes out 25th July, but you weren't interested in that were you? Were you?

Ubi Soft will be releasing the first Raven Shield mission pack, titled Athena Sword (how do they come up with them?), this autumn. Developed by Ubi's Milan studio, the pack will feature an eight-mission campaign including missions in Italy, Croatia and Greece, eight new multiplayer maps, five new multiplayer game modes, and seven new weapons. The pack will also contain three "classic" missions from previous Rainbox Six titles, remixed and re-worked for the Unreal engine, although it hasn't been announced what missions these are, or which games they're from.

Rockstar has started to make murmurings about the latest title from GTA3 developers DMA Desi... sorry, Rockstar North. Further to the recent unveiling of a totally noncommittal web"site", Rockstar granted us this: "Manhunt explores the depths of human depravity in a vicious, sadistic tale of urban horror." Nice. So, will this be a title that shows Running With Scissors how to do it right? Hopefully we'll find out by Autumn, when Manhunt is released on PS2. Colour us intrigued.

Warner Bros. and Ubi Soft have joined forces to co-publish The Matrix Online, which is expected to go beta this year, and release sometime in 2004. The massively multiplayer title apparently features a rich storyline - picking up from where The Matrix Revelations will leave off - permeating throughout a persistent game world that enables thousands of players to slowly kick each other in the head at the same time.

October 7th 2003 is the date that Nokia will unleash its N-Gage 'Game Deck' across the world, at the suicidal price point of $299. The price in Euros is also expected to be 299, with a UK SRP expected to be around the £249 mark.

One trailer we were quite pleased with at the Xbox conference was for Star Wars: Republic Commando, a new Live-enabled title that plans to mix squad-based combat and survival horror. The footage showed a couple of Republican guards (Saddam should sue) chasing one of those flappy-winged Episode II aliens in glorious CG, and finally cornering it only to discover a swarming-great ambush of pure death. Republic Commando is due out in 2004 - on Xbox and on PC.

The other "highlight" of Nintendo's pre-E3 announcement was Satoru Iwata's assurance that the firm is already working on the successor to GameCube. "At Nintendo, we are not ready to act, we are already acting," Iwata-san had boldly stated. The Nintendo president also told the gathered, wooping faithful that he would offer his competitors no head start this time - although given Sony's position, we'd fancy its chances even if PlayStation 3 launched a year late.

If Microsoft's Xbox shindig was a bit disappointing, then Nintendo's soirée at the Hollywood Renaissance Hotel was downright boring. Were it not for Shigeru Miyamoto's mucking around, Shinji Mikami joking on tape that he's still not been fired and the welcome sight onstage of Pac-Man creator Toru Iwatani then we might have given up and gone home.

Although EA president John Ricietello lent his videoed face and star player Will Wright to Nintendo for their press conference, Sony fans got the whole man this morning, and with him he brought news that this year's nine EA Sports titles would work exclusively with PS2 online. Each title will even include online voice chat (dubbed EA Sports Talk).

By scheduling its pre-E3 press conference for Monday night, Microsoft presumably hoped to get the jump on Sony (tomorrow morning) and Nintendo (tomorrow afternoon) and grab some headlines in the meantime. And grab some headlines it will, but probably not for the right reasons.

27 hours without sleep was obviously going to cost this story one or two details, so just in case anybody wasn't aware, Microsoft has also confirmed its Xbox Live multimedia functions (mostly documented here), adding Xbox Live alerts to MSN Messenger, web stats, team facilities, a sort of global chat room and the ability to invite people into games even if they're just mucking about in single-player.

Nintendo's Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker has stayed at number one in the UK All-Formats sales charts for a second week, while Xbox and Cube releases for Burnout 2 propelled it back into the top ten.

Metro3D has announced that it will be releasing Armored Core 3 in the middle of Q2 this year, which is... erm, right about nowish surely? Anyway, AC3 had a massively successful reception in its native Japan earlier this year, and Metro3D is hoping to repeat that success on these shores. We're still waiting for a firm release date, but until then, gawp at some of the tasty flying robot action in the screenshots.

In the calm before the inevitable deluge of E3 news, we thought we'd take the opportunity to let you know that popular Battlefield 1942 mod Desert Combat has received an update, bringing the version number up to .35 (cheers to Errol for bringing it to our attention).

We reported on this some time back, but LucasArts has reminded us all that Sam & Max, the intrepid dog and rabbit detective duo, are to make a return next Spring in Sam & Max Freelance Police. The press release says the game is "a whimsical miasma of fur-flying action" and contains "unnerving cross-species jocularity" - how could we keep phraseology like that out of the public eye?

Nintendo has announced that Wario will make his GameCube debut on 20th June. Wario World is an action adventure with puzzle elements that sees Wario attempting to retrieve his wealth, after a mysterious gem turns his entire gem collection into monsters. What we've seen of the game so far actually looks like great fun, with Wario picking up, swinging and lobbing enemies into each other, and fighting off large crowds of adversaries with some impressive slapstick violence, sort of reminiscent of Power Stone, but only a wee bit.

We're not sure whether the much-vaunted "convergence" between Hollywood and the gaming industry is such a good idea. Acclaim, however, seems happy to play on the idea that we'd all be better off this way with the announcement that the cast members and writing team of the popular Alias TV series have been signed to work on the eponymous stealth combat title currently in development for PS2, Xbox and PC. Not having seen the series myself, I have no idea if this is a good thing. Is it any good?

Resurrecting arcade legends and bringing them up to date is a great idea on paper, but it never seems to work out all that well in the real world. In fact, we're scraping the bottom of the barrel just to think of any arcade classics which have turned into enjoyable games once passed through the modern Make-It-3DTM development process; Defender, anyone? We didn't think so.

Eidos seems rather excitable and keen to wave about its new character-centric action platform whatsit Whiplash under our nose, a game that's in development for PS2 and Xbox by Crystal Dynamic. There aren't actually many details about the game around, but the title is apparently attempting to cash in on the rush of Jak & Daxter-alikes.

The Xbox may have had the best launch line up in the history of gaming, but it's been a barren old time since then for exclusive killer apps. Sure, there's been Splinter Cell (briefly exclusive at least), Panzer Dragoon Orta (which sold zip), and, um, Project Gotham Racing (which was MSR 1.5 in some people's eyes), but aside from those it's a struggle to think of many truly benchmark titles.

The Electronic Entertainment Exposition (wahey!) runs from May 14th to 16th this year at the LA Convention Center, and Eurogamer will be on hand to consume vast amounts of beer, wine, whiskey, margaritas, nachos, tacos, pizza, burgers, steaks and quite frankly anything else that works to the detriment of our health. We will also write things about videogames, and try and find some tacky limited edition nonsense to give away on the website when we get back. Because we're good to you like that.

Argonaut will have its largest presence to date at this year's E3. Not many details released for each of the titles on the developer's stand or its two publishers (Vivendi and EA), save water-racing title Carve and Powerdrome, a remake of the Amiga/ST retro classic designed by Michael Powell, the man behind the original incarnation of the racer. Other titles on show include SWAT:GST, New launch and Bionicle.

Argonaut is apparently so keen to show off its new water-rendering technologies that its built a whole game around them. Carve apparently "harnesses the sheer power of the Xbox" in a 27 level water racing game, with detailed comic-styled racers and water that... well, it's watery. The racer will also feature full support for online racing via Xbox Live.

Despite the show finally coming to an end (thank you God), Vivendi has announced the development of a new Buffy the Vampire Slater title for PS2, Xbox and GameCube. Buffy the Vampire Slater: Chaos Bleeds will be developed by Eurocom and is slated for release in August.

Well it was only a matter of time wasn't it? Vivendi has announced the securing of a deal with Turbine Entertainment (of Asheron's Call fame) to develop Middle-Earth Online, a massively multiplayer Lord of the Rings game. Not many details available as yet, but you can expect to be able to form kinships and build race-specific dwellings, and probably fight over pebbles and sticks and things.

LucasArts has revealed new details on its original project currently being by The Collective, Inc. Wrath Unleashed - formerly just Wrath - is said to be a part intense combat and part strategy. The strategy part sees players commanding an army of mythological creatures attempting to take control of a large world map that's split into tiles. When two armies collide on each tile, the game switches to an intense combat mode, with players receiving full control of their creatures and enabling them to engage in one-on-one fisticuffs. Wrath Unleashed is expected to release this Winter on PS2 and Xbox.