Etrom is an epic adventure among realms and cities, democracies and “nazi” dictatorships, a journey through space-time portals, among the Thrones of the Abyss, beyond the gates of the City of Light and many more locations, situations, rituals, secret-services plots, dark spells.

Amid surging Xbox sales and global business expansion, Robbie Bach, senior vice president of Microsoft and head of Microsoft’s Home and Entertainment Division, today announced a number of new executive appointments. Shane Kim, currently acting general manager of Microsoft Game Studios, has been named permanently to that position and will report to Peter Moore, corporate vice president. To create additional synergies between game content and marketing, Moore, in turn has been named head of worldwide content and marketing for Microsoft games and game products. Bach also announced that Mitchell (Mitch) Koch, corporate vice president, will lead Microsoft’s global retail sales efforts.

Midway Games Inc. today announced the launch of the official website for Psi-Ops. Players can now access all of the latest news and updates for Psi-Ops by visiting the official Psi-Ops webiste. The site will continue to be updated over the upcoming months, so be sure to stay tuned for the latest on Psi-Ops.

Publisher Strategy First Inc. and developer Stardock announced today that a new expansion pack for the award-winning turn-based strategy game Galactic Civilizations will be released in Q2 2004. Galactic Civilizations: Altarian Prophecy will add a host of new features, content and other enhancements to the original game to add depth and greater replayability.

Hitman: Contracts delivers more action-packed and suspenseful missions, with a greater variety of ways to make the perfect hit and an increased arsenal of firearms and close-combat weapons. A new graphics engine showcases Hitman's 'work' in brutal detail and brings new locations to life. An improved control system and more gradual learning curve will ensure that the game is accessible to all aspiring hitmen. Hitman: Contracts is being developed by Io Interactive and will be available for PS2, Xbox, and PC in spring 2004.

LTStudios today announced their new toolchain and development system Myriad – which has been specifically designed to deliver highly populated environments for Playstation 2, Xbox and PC. Myriad's sophisticated engine can manage environments teeming with characters, high volumes of vehicle traffic or any other active game content – from cars and animals to soldiers and military craft. With the addition of vehicle dynamics and physics, Myriad had recently been used to create a racing game prototype.

EARTH 2160 is an RTS game based on the popular and successful EARTH series. Including single and multiplayer modes. The game uses the latest Earth III engine. Storing objects in a format based on the mathematical model of Bezier-curves instead of polygons. Giving an as yet unseen level of detail, only limited by the hardware used. A native T&L rendering module supports per pixel shaders and bone calculation directly on advanced graphic cards. Read more to check the first screens ...

Publisher Graphsim Entertainment and developer Slitherine announce a publishing agreement for the North American release of Spartan, a new turn-based strategy game from an award-winning developer of strategy classics. Read more for details or check the new cinematic trailer...

“The I of the Dragon” is an RPG in which the player sees the world through the eyes of the Dragon. As a shimmering, flying colossus, armed with poison, ice, acid and fire, he soars and glides through the beautiful game world Nimoa with the task of liberating the lands of evil. Zuxxez & Strategy First have released a new demo for “The I of the Dragon” featuring a tutorial, 3 missions of the full game, and one dragon. Read more for download links ...

Players will be able to take the reins of their preferred team through European and World Championships. Over 15,000 real players are included within the game. Managers can buy and sell players, train their squads and develop match tactics - with matches portrayed in real-time through a detailed 3D engine.

Crimson Tears takes place in Tokyo--50 years from now--where a biotechnology company named Weponix secretively controls the world as an underground manufacturer of war machines. Crimson Tears consists of randomly generated dungeons. In the beginning of each dungeon, the player is situated in a base where characters and equipment can be chosen. Once in the dungeon, the player must fight enemies, find items, beat the middle boss, and then return back to the base.

Following the critically acclaimed and award-winning Anarchy Online – Shadowlands, Funcom is proud to present Anarchy Online – Alien Invasion. The next chapter in the Anarchy Online saga further strengthens the sci-fi aspects of the game, making it even more unique compared to current and forthcoming offerings within the Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG) genre.

The Roots is set in the land of Corris and plunges the gamer into an ancient battle of good versus evil, with the main character, Yan, on a quest to defeat the ancient forces and restore order to the land. The official website for the new RPG from Cenega Publishing has gone live. and contains all the latest information from this upcoming title, including screenshots, storyline and character profiles. Go check out the official The Roots website.

In this clever and entertaining strategy / life simulation game created by Elixir Studios, the player assumes the role of a wicked mastermind bent on achieving global domination through the construction of the ultimate doomsday device. A tongue-in-cheek take on the 60's spy thriller genre, Evil Genius offers the player the chance to be the villain and control a secret island fortress complete with powerful (and strangely dressed) henchmen, mindlessly loyal minions and a wide range of hilarious gizmos.

Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. announced today that its Global Star publishing division will release Serious Sam: Next Encounter for the PlayStation2 and GameCube. Developed by Climax, the all new alien-blasting adventure will feature online play for up to eight players and two-player split screen action on the PlayStation 2, a four-player deathmatch option on the Nintendo GameCube, and two-player cooperative mode for both platforms. Read more for some new screens ..

Another day, another batch of game trailers were released. Instead of giving them all their own posts, we grouped them, and so far there are trailers for :

• Far Cry - Trailer (2)
• NARC - Trailer
• Advent Rising - Trailer
• Ground Control 2: Operation Exodus - Trailer
• Unreal Championship 2 - Trailer
• 
  
  We will update this throughout the day when new trailers become available. Read more for download links ...

The official Raven-Shield website has word that we can expect a new Ravenshield v1.56 & Athena Sword v1.02 update patch for Ubisoft's team based tacitcal shooters somewhere next week. The new v1.56 Ravenshield patch will lock the debug commands that were left unlocked in the previous patch. The v1.02 Athena Sword one will addresses a bug in the meta data of certain maps that caused operatives of opposing teams to have similarly colored uniforms, as well as on Siberia, the armor levels of the two opposing teams were set at different levels, which has been resolved. Of course we will have it available on our fileservers ....

Tesseraction Games Inc. of Eugene, OR, producer of the hit naval action strategy game ENIGMA: THE RISING TIDE is sponsoring a PC computer war gaming conference and tournament. From 9am to 11pm March 20, 2004 at the Hilton hotel in Eugene, Oregon the local company will feature a multi-player game tournament with an array of prizes and panels on "modding" and PC game development.

Blizzard issued this statement earlier today : "The first round of emails has gone out, and the North American and Korean World of Warcraft beta tests have officially begun. If you didn't receive an email, don't worry; we'll be adding more testers at the start of each upcoming beta-test phase. Keep an eye on www.blizzard.com for news on when we'll be opening up the additional phases, because that will be your clue to check the email account you used to sign up. Also, anyone interested in tracking the progress of the beta test can visit our World of Warcraft Community Site, which will contain regular updates as well as general information about the game."