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Despite releasing a rather enjoyable anti-war ad, Sony is clearly suffering from the rampant Francophobia currently sweeping the US, announcing a cycling sim of its own to compete with Konami's Le Tour de France: Centenary Edition, announced exclusively (at least for the time being) for PS2 yesterday afternoon. Ah not really, we're just stirring.

InfogramesNotAtari has released details of Kya: Dark Lineage, in development at Eden Studios for PlayStation 2, and to be shown in some detail at E3. Although we haven't sourced any screenshots at the time of writing, we are given the usual song and dance about "highly-aesthetic environments" and unrivalled beauty. The game is powered by Eden's own proprietary game engine, we're told, which affords Kya "a liberating sense of movement and freedom" in a world that "delivers high-resolution models and textures, smooth-blended animation and utilises spectacular physics". So make of that what you will.

On the last day of March, we reported on POSTAL 2's proposed release date of April 14th, but it seems that the game has been held up a week or so, as publisher Whiptail Interactive's latest press release is a mite evasive. OK, it doesn't rule out an April 14th date, but the claim that the game will be available "across Europe and the UK from Easter" is a bit non-committal. Let's hope nobody gets upset and shoots people.

Konami of Europe is celebrating the 100th Tour de France cycling competition this year with a Centenary Edition of Le Tour de France for PlayStation 2. Following on from last year's Tour de France title, this Centenary Edition will include all the teams and riders in the 2003 competition, and many enhancements.

Microsoft is set to cut the price of the Xbox to £129.99 in the UK this week according to reports from retail sources, in a move which will see the console matching the hardware price of the GameCube.

According to a story on the Hollywood Reporter, plans for a live action movie based on Tecmo's Dead or Alive series have been cemented and the film is about to enter production. Headed up by Impact Pictures, the same team responsible for the Resident Evil movie sequel, the film is going to run up an estimated cost of $30 million. The story is said to rather predictably focus on four female characters from the game who are invited to take part in the fighting tournament on an exotic island, and will be penned by J.F. Lawton, also known for his work on Pretty Woman and, er, Under Siege. Great.

In a quite possibly ludicrous move, Sega is bringing the insanely fast-paced Crazy Taxi to the GameBoy Advance this June. From the still shots we've got it actually looks like a fairly decent port, what with a pseudo-3D graphics engine and all. It remains to be seen whether or not it can keep up the essentially insane pace, though.

Sega has announced plans to publish Virtual On Marz on PS2 in the good old US of States this November. What's more, Sega will be releasing the Virtual Twin Stick, a sort of joystick controller which Virtual On experts can use to recreate the arcade experience.

Vivendi Universal has announced the signing of hardcore rocker, actor, spoken word artist and all-round scary-but-nice guy Henry Rollins, who is to voice the lead role in forthcoming sci-fi shooter, Mace Griffin Bounty Hunter.

JoWooD has announced that Neighbours From Hell will be released on May 30th, priced £19.99. The PC game is a 'virtual gameshow', in which the fiendish Woody and his next-door nemesis Joe make like Spy vs. Spy and attempt to terrorise one another.

Activision came running through the door like an excited child this morning with news of its Call of Duty franchise, a new umbrella brand that "lets players experience the dramatic intensity of war through the eyes of common soldiers". Starting with World War II, Call of Duty will try and map elements of the 20th century's most devastating conflicts from the perspective of various unsung heroes. The games will be released on both console and PC in line with Activision's multi-platform strategy.

Cypron Studios is planning to fill the real-time strategy gap on the GameBoy Advance by revealing Command & Destroy Advance, and showing off some shots of the game in action.

Championship Manager 4 was the UK's top selling game once again in a chart that was largely unchanged from the previous week, with no new entries.

Midway Sports is altering NFL Blitz, NHL Hitz and so on to appeal to a broader gaming audience. Apparently, Midway has been focus testing (uh-oh) and determined that gamers would like to play in an authentic, simulation context. The new line of games will be renamed "Pro", of which NFL Blitz Pro and NHL Hitz Pro will be the first two. NFL, for example, will now include authentic 11-on-11 gameplay with realistic rules and options. Midway is describing their sudden awareness of simulation sports titles as a revolution, which we don't quite understand.

IGN has confirmed from its sources that the first GameCube-exclusive Final Fantasy title, Crystal Chronicles, will be fully playable at this year's E3 in May. This will be the first time the game has been totally exposed to the press.

GameSpot reports that Sega GT Online is in development for Xbox and due out in "the fall" (sigh). As well as allowing up to six players to race against one another, the game will encourage the customisation and tuning of each car, and offer 160 of them in total - from three different eras and including several prototypes. You can even trade or wager the pink slips for each before the start of a race, which could be interesting if you genuinely risk losing the car from your copy of the game via some sort of save data mechanism.

The revered and enigmatic Valve has signed a worldwide multi-title deal with US giant Activision, kicking off with the Half-Life powered WWII multiplayer only shooter Day of Defeat.

Combat Mission: Afrika Korps will be the next game in the Combat Mission series, Internet-based publisher Battlefront.com has announced, and will introduce various upgrades and changes relevant for North African desert combat, and conflicts in the Italian mountains and on the island of Crete. According to the press release, Afrika Korps will be a 1-2 player, hybrid turn-based/real-time strategy title in full 3D, simulating parts of the Mediterranean Theatre in World War II - which means multi-turreted tanks, dust and smoke and all the rest. And according to Battlefront.com, the game will be released worldwide via the Internet during Q4 2003.

Ubi Soft and IGN readers have selected the four Ghost Recon maps to appear in the upcoming Xbox expansion pack Island Thunder. They will make up a third of the game's complement of multiplayer maps.

GameSpot reports that Namco has announced Tales of Symphonia for GameCube, the latest game in the long-running 'Tales' series. Symphonia is set in the homeland of Lloyd Arving, a 17-year-old boy raised by dwarves after his parents' death. Along with his 12-year-old magician friend Genious Sage, he sets out on a mission with a girl called Colette Brunel, whose fate it is to save the world by turning into an angel. Which sounds eerily familiar.

Choo-choo! Take-Two, PopTop, Gathering and God knows who else have announced plans to release Railroad Tycoon 3 on the PC this autumn. This time, we're told, the game will be in full 3D, allowing it to get a better handle on everything from the Golden Era of Railroading to the strike and accident-prone, never-hit-a-timetable farce that counts for modern railways.

Gathering (Take-Two) has accumulated a number of groovy 60s tunes to add to Vietcong's authenticity, apparently. Among the artists on the soundtrack will be Iggy Pop's Stooges (I Wanna Be Your Dog), Deep Purple (Hey Joe), The Standells (Riot on Sunset Strip), and The Groupies (Primitive).

Sold Out has again marked itself out as the master of budget software by signing a stunning deal that brings a string of Eidos PC titles to its already enormous range.

Veteran gamers rejoice! The revered Geoff Crammond and his Simergy team are back with Stunt Car Racer Pro - an update of his classic Amiga/ST title from fourteen years ago.

Delta Force - Black Hawk Down is proving so popular that NovaLogic has signed a contract to add 100Mbit-per-second of bandwidth to its NovaWorld online gaming network, in order to improve the quality of the service for its many users.

"Microsoft Game Studios has made the difficult decision to end development on Tork," an official statement from the Xbox platform holder reads today. The Tiwak-developed platformer could still appear somewhere, but will have little to do with Microsoft if it does. "We recognise that Tork is a great game and value our developer relationships, so we are doing everything we can to help Tiwak bring their ideas and development of Tork through another publisher," MS wept. But we can't help picking up on the crocodile tears, because MS will publish any old crap these days and Tork actually looked good. "We currently have a huge portfolio of titles in development, including a number of exciting platformers and great new games from Rare, and made the decision to focus our resources on other games," the statement concludes.

Capcom prompted more questions than answers yesterday when its Japanese HQ issued a statement to clarify its software development strategy.

Codemasters hopes to have hit it big by securing worldwide rights to develop and publish games based on Pop Idol, anticipating that the game of the TV show, due out on PS2 and PC this autumn, "will become the mass-market video game of the year and be Codemasters' biggest video game launch in the company's 17-year history." As this story at GameSpot indicates, Codies has plans for both sides of the Atlantic.

As we recently reported, there's a new Jedi Knight on the horizon, and Activision finally confirmed the news late this week. As expected, players will not control Kyle Katarn in Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy (which has lost its numbering, as you can see), but an apprentice at Kyle and Luke Skywalker's Yavin 4 training facility. Players will rear their own young Jedi, RPG-style from scratch, with custom species, gender, clothing, physical attributes and lightsaber design giving players a wealth of options.

And so slip back into another lull, with nothing tremendously exciting on the horizon. Fortunately, there is still one totally indispensable game to add to your collection this week, and that's Super Monkey Ball Junior. Ooh-ooh! More on that here. Oddly though, the only exciting things in the line-up other than that (in our humble/collective opinion anyway) are the Player's Choice titles on the Cube. Budget re-releases have now put Luigi's Mansion, Pikmin and Super Smash Bros. Melee well within reach of thrifty GameCube owners, and we'd recommend each of them at the price.