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Midway has released a series of fact sheets related to some of the games it's due to show off at E3 this year. New details on each of the games are pretty thin on the ground, but we thought we'd scavenge what we could find and serve them up in one handy article, just for you:

IGN reports via themselves (oddly) that the Cube update to Mario Golf will be called Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour when it launches on July 28th in America. Although official confirmation still appears to be lacking, they have tracked down what looks like final or near-final cover art for the game, which you can see for yourself here. Whatever the deal, we're certainly looking forward to this one.

Can't be bothered to buy Activision's retail boxed copy of Day of Defeat? You're not alone, and you don't even have to, as it's now been released on the grand old Internet, right here. Plenty of mirrors can be found there for the 173MB Windows version and 170MB Linux release.

InfogramesNotAtari's Stuntman is joining the PS2 Platinum collection, meaning that you'll be able to pick it up for £20 sometime this summer and, more importantly from the publisher's perspective, it's now achieved more than 500,000 sales. Developed by Reflections, Stuntman is of course the game that lets you be a stuntman. In Hollywood. On film sets. Your goal is to complete stunts for different directors without screwing up too much (lest you suffer the horrific load times as punishment). It's pretty good as we recall, and you can look forward to picking it up if you haven’t already on June 13th at the new price. Those of you with that find the black-spined Platinum cases look crap on your shelf with all those regular PS2 cases would do well to pick it up before then.

Activision is running around telling people that the demo of Star Trek: Elite Force II is "code complete" and should be released sometime today! We don't know anything about it other than that. We'll tell you when it's out. Meanwhile, in a separate instance of file-seepage, a 21MB gameplay trailer has been released and can be found on 3D Gamers, Gamer's Hell and so on.

Another demo released this morning (along with Vietcong) was Unreal II: The Awakening, which didn't get our juices flowing all that much when it was released early this year, but is still worthy of a cursory glance if only for the eye candy (and those who absorb FPS content like oxygen will probably get into it anyway). The demo is 153MB, we gather, and the mission you get to play is the game's first, Sanctuary.

Gathering (there is no GOD) has released a 100MB single-player demo of Vietcong, which Kristan reviewed earlier this week. The demo features the Crash in the Jungle mission from the full game, with the player leading a small squad of soldiers on a rescue mission. You can even play it in three difficulty modes to give you a better idea of what's required from the full game. We also get the impression from the filename ("vietcong_teen_single_player_demo_v1.0") that this version has been stripped off its profanity. But hopefully not the blood-letting. And just to clarify, that is speculation on our part. Because my PC here isn't powerful enough to run the thing.

An official list of the games Eidos will be showing at this year's E3 has made it onto the interweb with a little help from GameSpot and others. Amongst various titles we've already heard about (Commandos 3, Deus Ex: Invisible War, Thief 3, The Italian Job, Backyard Wrestling: Don't Try This at Home) and titles which we thought we might be playing by now (Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness, Republic: The Revolution), lurks some stuff we haven't encountered.

For me, voodoo dolls are captivatingly obscure bits of superstition. And apparently Microsoft feels the same way too, because they're making an entire game about one particular doll, called "Voodoo Vince", announced - er - sometime in April when we obviously weren't paying any attention. In this Xbox title (which will "careen onto the scene this autumn," they'll have you know), players control Vince the voodoo doll as he explores "outrageous levels" and meets "over-the-top characters" on his way through the depths of the Louisiana Bayou. "Voodoo Vince is the only game where kicking your own butt leads to victory!"

Codemasters has confirmed that Colin McRae Rally 04 is due out on PS2 and Xbox in November, and that plenty of details on the game will be unveiled simultaneously on the show floor at E3 and on this website. In the meantime, they've told us that CMR4 will have improved handling, more championships, new single and multiplayer gaming modes and improved visuals. Well colour us surprised!

Ubi Soft recently conducted a brief Q&A session with Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time producer Yannis Mallat. Yannis was keen to speak about the evolution of the Prince himself as a character, compared to the original incarnation: "Today's videogame standards are extremely high. It is harder than ever to create a truly special hero that the gaming public will embrace. For Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, we faced a double challenge: To recapture the spirit of the original character, while reinventing him as a distinctive hero for a new generation of gamers."

The past year has been kind to fans of Real-Time Strategy, with two of the biggest franchises in the genre receiving fantastic updates - namely WarCraft, whose third incarnation saw the welcome addition of an impressive 3D engine and RPG elements, and Age of Empires, whose reappearance as Age of Mythology also heralded a move into 3D, more focus on storyline in the single-player game and solid, well-implemented, traditional RTS gameplay.

InfogramesNotAtari has confirmed something we (and you) already knew today: that Stuntman is coming to GBA. Having recently released a batch of screenshots (which embarrassingly we can't link you to at the moment due to teething troubles), the publisher now sends word that the game will be handled by the same team that did the visually arresting V-Rally 3 for the GBA. Consider our attention caught.

German Xbox magazine AreaXbox (website here) dropped us a line to say that Half-Life 2 is in development for the green slab. Just not exclusively, as some worried that it might be. AreaXbox apparently contacted Doug Lombardi at Valve and was told that "Yes, we're also working on an Xbox version, though not releasing any specific details on that until after E3." That doesn't necessarily rule out other console releases - we imagine that an Xbox magazine only inquired after the one version anyway - but the incredible visuals witnessed in the screenshots probably do.

Batfish Studios - developer of the Captain Scarlet game - will be at E3 and showing their forthcoming Gerry Anderson-inspired title off to the public, the UK-based independent developer has announced. We'll be sure to have a look at how the Mysterons are progressing on stand 2340 sometime during the show.

Konami is doing the decent thing and porting survival horror classic Silent Hill 3 to the PC, with an October release date expected for European and US punters.

Huh. Cheeky Acclaim. Despite originally announcing NBA Jam 2004 for PS2, Xbox and GameCube, the official website now indicates that we're up against a PS2 and Xbox title only. There is no GameCube. This is obviously a bit of a disappointment for basketball fans on the Cube, although NBA Street Volume 2 (out this Friday) will appear on the system, so there seems to be some hope for arcade b-ball fans nevertheless.

Microsoft is revising the contents of the Xbox Live Starter Kit disc to include a full version of Tetris Worlds and a demo of MechAssault alongside the ever-popular demo of MotoGP. At least, it's doing this in America. Xbox Live Vol. 2 is available from today to the Yanks, and strips out the frankly awful "Whacked!" in favour of the above. OK, Tetris Worlds probably isn't the greatest game ever, but it's an improvement, isn't it? It's the whole game, too!

In one of the least surprising announcements you’ll ever read, EA has revealed it is working on another Need For Speed title, this time with the moniker ‘Underground’.

Morning! As you can see, we've made some… changes. In fact, some of us haven't even been home since 9am yesterday - that's dedication for ya. The new design you're currently surfing around (hopefully in a state of awe and wonder) adds a lot of new functionality and design elements to what you're used to, but it's all been designed for your benefit, and the fun doesn't stop here - over the next few weeks we'll be finishing off the job of converting all our old content, and implementing some new features - of which more in a minute.

Had a look, didn't you? First of all, let me assure you that what you just witnessed was a very, very high nine. In fact, it's so perilously close to the upper echelons of the top flight that it almost feels stingy not to give the game a ten, but at the end of the day I've been wrestling with the pros and cons of that for over a month and this is the right choice for me. The Wind Waker gets a nine. You're probably wondering why.

We're sure you'll be thrilled to hear that The Sims Superstar has gone gold. Due out on May 23rd over here, Superstar lets you take on the role of a rocket star, movie star or supermodel and live the life of a celebrity in the little life management game. We've got some code of this, so as soon as we can muster the enthusiasm to install it, we'll bring you a review. Well, I say 'we'. It'll be muggins here won't it?

Well we've had DreamCatcher's line-up so we were kind of expecting The Adventure Company's at some point and lo, here it is. The seven games announced will be joined by another by the time TAC hits the show floor, but in the meantime we have Atlantis Evolution (set in 1904, about a young photographer transported to Atlantis by vortex), Crystal Key II: The Far Realm (sci-fi kidnap fantasy), Cypher: The Sequel to Traitor's Gate (quite possibly a working title, with a gadget-laden hero), Egyptian Prophecy (attempt to save the life of pharaoh Ramses II), Forever Worlds (first person archaeological detective drama), Jack the Ripper (murder mystery in New York, err), and Mysterious Journey: Chameleon (first person, puzzly adventure - the sequel to Schizm).

The original Metal Gear Solid is being remade exclusively for GameCube, with Silicon Knights of Eternal Darkness fame handling development duties.

Square Enix has announced its line-up for E3 2003, which includes a couple of surprises, most notably the US version of Final Fantasy XI on PS2 and PC, which we'd decided was probably just something the Japanese made up to annoy us. We're amazed to find it's actually a game! Also unexpected is a new action RPG called Drakengard (sorry, no idea of platform), in which the player's character Kyme has a dragon which matures and acquires new abilities as he himself levels up.

THQ has announced the GameCube's next exclusive WWE title, WrestleMania XIX, due out in October 2003. The firm's latest wrestling game (probably designed by Yuke's but we're not 100 per cent certain of that) boasts some enhancements over X8 that seem like lessons learnt from SmackDown: Shut Your Mouth; namely a new story mode with a "sweet revenge" angle, in which players must restore their favourite superstar's status, a new grappling engine, location-specific damage and presentation/visuals to rival the PS2 title. Of course we can also expect more than 40 WWE wrestlers from the 2003 roster (including Rey Mysterio, Stone Cold Steve Austin, Hulk Hogan and the Rock).

Yes, we know we 'only' gave Halo 8/10, but it was still one of our favourite games of the year, and continues to be the Xbox's biggest-selling exclusive title well over a year after it appeared on European shelves. Naturally, we're more than interested in how progress is going with Bungie's sequel, and the lucky sods at Official Xbox Magazine got a sneak preview of the eagerly awaited E3 demo, and have devoted a huge section of the June 2003 issue to reporting on the fact, complete with exclusive artwork and imagery from the game.

There are some things in life you just have to accept; there's really very little point questioning them. Arguably, in a gaming sense, the riddle of why Rayman has no limbs must come high up on that list, as well as how on earth did this critically murdered franchise end up becoming the UK's biggest selling platformer? You think we're making it up don't you? Released at the same time as the launch of the PlayStation back in September 1995, the game is still selling around 2,000 copies a week, and has shifted around 1.5 million* copies in the UK alone. That's more than any Mario, Crash, or Sonic game has ever registered on the ChartTrack panel. The follow up hasn't fared quite so well commercially, but as with the original, once its price came down, the sales ramped up. Suffice to say, this is also selling about 2,000 copies a week at a knockdown price.

Nintendo is finally preparing to release the SD Card Adaptor for GameCube on June 27th in Japan, which was originally announced way back before the Cube even launched. This is useful because it will allow players to swap data between Cube and PC, and Nintendo is launching a piece of PC software called Animal Forest e+, also on June 27th, which will allow you to take pictures from Animal Forest and pass them on to your friends via the computer.

Our chums at Midway have provided us with its plans for E3, including the games which are tantalisingly “behind closed doors”. We’ve not seen any of the games mentioned before, so we’re keen to see whether the former arcade veteran can provide us with some excitement.