DreamCatcher Games today announced that Painkiller: Black, a limited edition package of Painkiller featuring the original, the expansion pack and some additional goodies, is now available at major retail stores across North America.

SCEA today announced seven additions to its PS2 "Greatest Hits" lineup: ATV Offroad Fury 3, Hot Shots Golf: FORE!, Jak 3, Killzone, Rachet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal, Sly 2: Band of Thieves, and Syphon Filter: The Omega Strain.

Music composer Inon Zur has signed on to provide the original musical score for THQ and Relic Entertainment's Warhammer 40,000: Dawn Of War expansion pack Winter Assault.

Bet On Soldier is a first-person shooter with a corporation-takes-over-the-world-style plot, where you bet on the outcome of encounters with specific enemies. Before entering battle, players can wager on which particular enemy soldiers they are going to kill. This humongous (800mb) patch brings your German retail game to v1.1 and addresses various bugs, game crashes and so forth. Read more for download links ...

Top Spin takes 16 of the top professional tennis players in the world including Maria Sharapova, Roger Federer, Venus Williams and Carlos Moya and puts them in gamers' hands to create the most realistic tennis game ever. Players must work their way up from an unranked amateur with no skills, to a top ranked player in the world with huge endorsement deals.

X-Men Legends II introduces the epic storyline of an uneasy alliance between the X-Men and the hated Brotherhood in a fight to reclaim Earth from Apocalypse's grasp. Impressive gameplay enhancements include more than double the superpowers and customization capabilities, the debut of several new playable characters, over 100 diverse types of enemies, and a breathtaking range of exotic and real-world environments—from the Madri Temple to Egypt.

TimeShift is an innovative FPS in which players control time to complete missions and defeat foes, is in development by Saber Interactive. TimeShift will leverage first-of-its-kind gameplay abilities and functionality, the latest graphics technology, and high production values to create a truly unique action game experience.

Age of Empires: The Age of Kings for the Nintendo DS is based on the best-selling PC RTS title of all time: Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings. Players command five different civilizations, build armies and take them on scores of campaigns. Boasting turn-based strategy game play, Age of Empires: The Age of Kings allows players to move from the Dark Ages through the Middle Ages with one goal in mind: domination of the known world.

Far Cry Instincts is a technically advanced gaming experience built from the ground up using the kind of cutting-edge technology that Far Cry fans will recognize from the PC title. Far Cry Instincts will ship for Xbox in September 2005.

Tri Synergy announced today that they will be working with Frogwares to publish and distribute 80 Days in North America. 80 Days is a graphic adventure for the PC based on the timeless classic by Jules Verne and will be available in October of 2005.

In Gene Troopers you are in the heart of a unique, vibrant and living universe. Explore amazing new worlds, develop your character into a stealth or battle professional, control supernatural powers, make friends with powerful characters and lead them into battle against the forces of evil. Experience a captivating sci-fi story, high-paced action and thrilling game play in a setting never seen before.

After repeated fatalities, the Chinese Government is finally taking measures into its own hands and Tuesday it unveiled a new system to prevent individuals from playing online games for more than three consecutive hours. The system has to be installed for every online game in the country, and if you exceed the 3 hour limit your character will degrade and eventually be reduced to starting level.

Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War - Winter Assault features a deeper single-player experience, a brand new fifth race – The Imperial Guard – and even more intense Dawn of War action. Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War - Winter Assault is based on the world of Warhammer 40,000 - the dark, futuristic, fantasy universe from Games Workshop.

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 :

• SSX On Tour [NGC] - Mario & Co Trailer
• The Witcher - GC 2005 Trailer
• Sniper Elite - Trailer #5
• Bet on Soldier - Trailer #8
• Battle of Britain 2: Wings of Victory - Trailer (2)
• Panzer Elite Action - Friendly Fire Trailer
• 
  
  We will update this throughout the day when new trailers become available. Read more for download links ...

Valve announced today that Half-Life: Blue Shift is now playable for anyone that owns the Half-Life Premier Pack, the Half-Life 2 Silver package, or the Half-Life 2 Gold package. Blue Shift is an expansion pack for the original Half-Life released a few years back, to no great success. This is merely the original, not a Source remake. As usual, restart your Steam client and let it download...

Mythic Entertainment today released details for Darkness Rising, the sixth expansion to the epic fantasy MMORPG Dark Age of Camelot. In this expansion, you will get to interact with the each Realm's new King to stop a rising force of evil. This batch of screens & trailers show off the new player-controlled mounts, Champion Weapons, and the revamped Darkness Falls dungeon.

NCsoft producer Steven Snow put up a message in the official Auto Assault forum that "NetDevil and NCsoft are both companies with a strong commitment to releasing “only when it’s ready,” so we want to extend the beta into the spring of 2006. Over this time, we are going to continue tuning, tweaking, and adding to Auto Assault." NCSoft's MMO was originally scheduled for release November 2005. People who pre-ordered the game hoping to get priority access into the beta are out of luck, as NCsoft also said they will not be adding any more North American testers for the time being.

The Settlers V: Heritage of Kings - Legends is scheduled for release in September and will feature 4 campaigns, 17 missions, new singleplayer as well as multiplayer maps, improved editor. One of the main additions is more interaction with the environment, a new landscape type (coastal) and a little bit more focus on building structures.

FIFA 06 returns to field with more teams, better graphics, and improved gameplay. Utilize improved formations to create the perfect attack with the world's greatest players. Read more to check a massive amount of screens, for most current platforms.

Sony has finally released its 2.0 firmware update for PSP users in North America. The software is downloadable through the Network Update feature on the PSP, and requires 16MB of free space on the PSP’s Memory Stick Pro Duo to download. New features are: web browser, additional photo formats, 4:3 screenmode, wallpapers, and several extra audo formats.