Sierra and MadDoc Software today announced that starting Monday, August 5th, thousands of gamers will have the opportunity to participate in the public beta test for Empire Earth: The Art of Conquest, their upcoming expansion pack for last year's runaway hit real-time strategy game, Empire Earth. The beta test program will focus on multiplayer play balancing and load testing to ensure the best possible launch for the ambitious expansion pack.

Rage just let us know that Gun Metal, a robotic shooter for the Xbox, blasts off to your local gaming store (distributed in North America by Majesco). Featuring 25 different missions, Gun Metal challenges the gamer to fight a variety of enemy units ranging from foot soldiers to enormous citadels by ground, and then takes them to the air to battle Hover Tanks and Fighter Crafts. We have cooked up an in-house in-game action trailer for your enjoyment. Read more for link where to grab this puppy ...

The Marksmanship pack takes players to the U.S. Army's Sniper School in Fort Benning, Ga., for training missions. In order to progress to this advanced level, players must qualify as an "Expert" in the Rifle Range single-player mission. In the Army, relatively few Soldiers attain an "Expert" qualification badge, so meeting the requirements to proceed to this level in America's Army is not easy. Read more for details and links where to grab it...

Codemasters send out 15 brand new screens from their newly released Operation Flashpoint: Resistance demo. Check them out and you can grab the demo here. Njoy!

7FX today released the second mission pack for Team Factor 10.5MB. Prepare for a fierce desert combat at the Desert Camp and a bombing chase in the abandoned Railway station. Both are outdoor-style maps giving you again many possibilities in achieving the mission goal. Show no mercy, frag the enemy! Find out more and grab it here. (thanks Pete)

Croteam has updated their website with some more details on the upcoming Xbox version of their smash title Serious Sam. Turns out that it will NOt be a mere conversion/port from the PC game but a WHOLE lot more than that. Most interesting is the fact that they will incorporate the 2 Serious Sam PC games into 1 Xbox version and the multiplayer will be something to look out for as well .. read more for details ... (thanks Voodoo)

Missed this one yesterday, but Crave Entertainment announced that its latest Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) title, UFC: Throwdown for Nintendo GameCube computer entertainment system has shipped to retailers. Crave shipped UFC: Throwdown for the PlayStation2 earlier this month.

Ubi Soft and ubi.com unveiled the details of a first-ever limited edition Shadowbane pre-order box which will contain a code to unlock three restricted races in the final version of Shadowbane. Shadowbane is the highly-anticipated, fantasy-based massively multiplayer online (MMO) game scheduled for release this November.

Just noticed over at Dungeon Siege that they have added a new Siege University class that covers Teleporters and Displacers. In addition Siege University 200 now has several new definitions and Siege University 204: Moods has been updated with a "Practical Exercise" which illustrates how to make a new mood and an associated trigger. Njoy.

As an added bonus and thank you to all IG2 players, the level designers in Ebensee have restructured the mission levels so that they are suitable as endless games. Mission Bart County is now available for all fans of endless games. The original structure was maintained as far as possible. Get the redesigned 'Mission Bart County' here.

As mentioned yesterday Strategy First has now released the first patch for their recently released Romanic strategy game 'Legion'. The Legion update patch bring Slitherine Strategies latest to v1.0.6. This cutie add a few new campaigns and other tweaks and update. Read more for details and links where to grab it ...

We just received 4 new screens from Monolith/Sierra's upcoming first person shooter No One Lives Forever 2 : A Spy In H.A.R.M.'s Way. The first two are way cool shots from Ohio. Then we have two very nice shots where Cate is taking on z mimes! in . Check them out ...

Codeco is proud to announce the development of their new online strategy game, "StarShift: The Zaran Legacy". StarShift: The Zaran Legacy will please strategy fans with its captivating atmosphere and its ease of use, which will provide an incredibly dynamic experience to players.

Byte Software from Slovakia today tossed up the first screens from their upcoming FPS game, Specnaz Project Wolf. "Specnaz is a first person shooter, built on the outdoor 3D engine (Amoeba), in which main character passes through real environments and uses real weapons"

The 3DO Company today announced that it is collaborating with world-famous fantasy and comic book artist, Simon Bisley, to develop Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse for PC, PlayStation 2, GameCube, and the Xbox. A dark adventure based on the Biblical tale of Armageddon, Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse combines the expertise of celebrated artists Simon Bisley and Dave DeVries with the distinctive voice talents of Tim Curry (The Hunt for Red October, Charlie's Angels, The Three Musketeers), Lance Henriksen (The Right Stuff, Aliens, Millennium) and cult film star Traci Lords (Melrose Place, Profiler, First Wave). The action games are planned for release in Fall 2003.

Electronic Arts send over four screenshots from their upcoming Total Club Manager 2003 game. No release date is set for this manager game yet! Read more for 4 new screens!

Experience the first home computer simulation of 617 Squadron's epic raids of World War II.. On 16th May 1943, 19 aircraft led by Squadron Leader Guy Gibson flew on Operation 'Chastise', now commonly known as the 'The Dam Busters' raid. Lancaster ED932, AJ-D was flown by Gibson and carried the ingenious bouncing bomb designed by Barnes Wallis which was used to attack three dams in Germany's Ruhr valley.

SWAT: GST is a first-person tactical arcade game combining the strategic elements of SWAT 3 with the instantly accessible arcade action of the Virtua Cop series. Like the real-life SWAT organization itself, the SWAT Global Strike Team is a life-saving organization tasked with defending and saving the lives of the innocent. As a member of the SWAT Global Strike Team gamers will be called to duty at a moment’s notice, confronted with missions unlike any see before.. We have 12 new screenshots - not of the finest quality, but you don't argue with men this heavily tooled up.

JoWooD Productions Ltd and in house developers Massive Development today at 1700 GMT announce the official opening of the AquaNox Portal. The developers behind the widely known AquaNox series, Massive Development have developed an official site that will serve as a communication centre for the fan community and will provide regular updates about the forthcoming title to the series AquaNox: Revelation due for release in Q4 2002.

IGI 2: Covert Strike brings the world of Project IGI back to PC screens this Autumn as the acclaimed stealth-based first-person shooter returns, compete with an arsenal of authentic weapons featuring realistic gun ballistics. With over 30 real world firearms, the ballistics system is based on real-world data and, using a comprehensive physics engine, simulates a range of weapon effects.. Read more to see what it includes.

Update: 38 Weapon screens added.. Check them out!