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A second Highland Warriors demo has been released this week. Available from NovaLogic.com (but also, thankfully, from more responsive mirrors), this 154MB demo is the perfect partner to the 118MB file you may have downloaded in November.

Having already secured a deal to publish Myst titles until 2008, Ubi Soft has this week given birth to Uru: Online Ages Beyond Myst, which is as the name suggests Cyan's first foray into online gaming with the pretty, albeit somewhat lifeless adventure series.

Nintendo has been in touch this morning to amend its enormous 2003 Cube release schedule. According to embarrassed PRs, the infamous Capcom four (Viewtiful Joe, P.N.03, Killer 7 and Dead Phoenix) will not be out by the middle of the year as publicised yesterday. Somehow, we're told, Capcom's Japanese dates slipped into the document, whereas at the moment there is no solid detail on when the four exclusives will appear in Europe. So, sorry about that, and, well, bugger!

Frequency, one of our weakest-selling faves of last year, is to receive a rather splendid sounding sequel within a matter of months. SCEA is reportedly working on the follow-up - dubbed 'Amplitude' - with a mind to release it in March this year.

Pocketeers, the outfit formerly known as AGB, whose 3D engines for Game Boy Advance look so impressive, have signed a deal with New Jersey-based Destination Software to produce Need For Speed: Porsche Unleashed for the handheld.

Creative Assembly's excellent Medieval: Total War will be followed up this spring by the release of Medieval: Total War - Viking Invasion, publisher Activision has announced. The add-on will transport players back to 790AD when the Viking hordes descended upon their neighbours for a bit of medieval pillaging, giving players a choice of Saxon, Scot, Irish, Welsh and Pict factions, along with the Vikings themselves. Your goal? To dominate the British Isles -- what else?

Having escaped an exclusivity contract with Microsoft at the end of 2002, Ubi Soft has been taking steps to wake the world up to Splinter Cell on other platforms since then. Anticipation levels piqued with the release of a PC demo, and now we have the first two screenshots of the game running on PlayStation 2 - click here to see those.

It's not as small as you think.

Sony will ship the US version of EverQuest Online Adventures (or EQOA if you like) for PlayStation 2 in February, the publisher's online entertainment division has announced. And as expected, players will have to cough up a monthly subscription fee in order to tour the virtual lands, known as Tunaria. However, we hadn't expected it to be $9.99. Sony will reportedly develop a variety of payment options to accommodate demand.

It's been quite a morning for Nintendo fans in Europe - a new(ish) console, a raft of software release dates we hadn't really expected, and far more important than anything else at all ever... the news that Advance Wars 2 is on the way. Woo!

In addition to the exciting news this morning about Game Boy Advance SP, Nintendo has also confirmed a few key release dates for upcoming Cube software, and confirmed some of the GBA titles we've most been looking forward to. And as much as we like reeling it off to you like a third rate Peter Sissons, we'd be here all day, so without further delay, here are Nintendo's current release schedules for GameCube and GBA over the next year.

As I type, Kristan is on his way to a Nintendo UK press conference, where the triple-A-less platform holder will unveil for the first time in the UK the brand new Game Boy Advance SP. However typically the Kyoto-based publisher has spectacularly failed to align its international announcements, so the Japanese and the Americans got the jump on us. Ah well.

Looking for something new this Friday? You've got limited options. Although sniper special Silent Scope finally appears on the GBA from Konami, that's about as 'high end' as it gets. Indeed, the only other release we're aware of is Nintendo's "Hamtaro: Ham-Hams Unite!" What's more it's a Game Boy Color release - aimed at younger brothers and sisters with their hand-me-down handhelds.

Having purchased Rainbow Studios several months ago now, we've been quietly expecting to hear something of the developer's plans, and in a typically brisk press release this week, THQ has confirmed that the Phoenix, Arizona-based developer is working on a follow-up to Splashdown.

Grand Theft Auto: Vice City continued to hog the number one slot in the UK ELSPA chart in the first Top 40 of the New Year, and has been confirmed as the fastest selling title in the country ever, having already broken the one million barrier - even outselling GTA 3 in the process.

Although we're still reeling from the endless eating and drinking binges forced upon us by concerned relatives, the sight of a decent new game is almost enough to snap us out of our sorry state.

If you've ever wondered why you might want to blight your computer with a copy of the ever-clunky RealOne software, we think we may have the answer. This week, Sega has taken it upon themselves to release a number of classic Genesis/Mega Drive era titles which will run on your PC through RealOne Arcade.

Although early US sales figures for The Sims Online must be a disappointment to EA execs whose pockets have been so amply lined by the franchise over the last couple of years, it hasn't stopped the publisher celebrating the New Year by hosting more than 5,000 parties in its newly birthed massively multiplayer world.

Various sources (including Entertainment Weekly) report that EA is busy beavering away on the follow-up to its critically and commercially successful Two Towers hackandslash released late last year. Developers at EA have been reviewing footage of The Return of the King ("We just saw a flyby of Minas Tirith," one exec boasted) and plan to have the game out on all three console platforms simultaneously. What's more, RotK will see roles for Frodo and Sam in addition to the war torn trio of Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas.

Wired is reporting that an LA city councilman has called for an investigation into recent violence at internet gaming cafes, after several recent outbreaks centred around perennial teamplay favourite Counter-Strike.

When we reported on The National Network (Viacom)'s plans to develop, produce and air a gaming awards show toward the end of 2003, we had hoped that it would quietly go away and never bother us again. Unfortunately, this week we learnt more - about categories, length and how many parallels exist between and videogame and movie industries! (In Viacom's mind, that is.)

Roughly a year after its PAL debut, Capcom is planning to release the follow-up to Devil May Cry on the 30th of this month in Japan, and a new, 30-second TV advert (3.7MB) has found its way onto the net along with some footage of anti-hero Dante's newfound counterpart, the fiery haired Lucia (5.4MB).

Nintendo UK has confirmed Japanese news reports that Pokemon's GameCube debut will require either of the two matching GBA titles to play, and cost less to buy than either of them.

Yes. We know The Thing has been out for a few months now, but given that we got sent it late in the first place (in true Vivendi style), we thought we'd return the compliment and take a look at The Thing once the traditional post Christmas lull kicked in, and the sales are in full swing.

Sam Fisher has crept like a shadow past our early warning sensors and taken up a place in our hearts. If it weren't for his grumpy, mechanical voice and neck-snapping tendencies we'd probably even invite him out and over for tea. And scones.

Square's Japanese website has been updated with news that Final Fantasy XII - that's twelve, not X-2 - is continuing despite the developer/publisher's newfound love for other platforms, publishers and direct sequels.

2D beat 'em ups have long since felt left out on the three chief gaming platforms, with only Capcom, Sammy and a couple of others still delivering them from time to time, but the Game Boy Advance is relatively unexplored territory for the genre. Past successes are thin on the ground, mainly thanks to the prohibitive D-pad and control layout.

A report on the Seattle Times website suggests that the games industry could soon boast its own red-carpet awards show. According to sources, The National Network, a unit of the MTV Networks division of Viacom, is planning to develop, produce and air an award show towards the end of 2003.

Polish games developer Ganymede has almost completed work on Armobiles, which combines checkpoint to checkpoint racing with a healthy thirst for blood. What's more, we now have a demo to showcase this time-honoured pairing, which features two cars and three whole missions - at a surprisingly accessible 27.4MB. The full game will feature six cars and many, many more missions.

Releasing passable top-down, Flash-based strategy games built for the net is a growing tradition amongst publishers as we soar through the tickertape into 2003. And, argues Take-Two, what better way to promote a game about the Vietnamese conflict than a game about the Vietnamese conflict?