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.

Playing with pull back friction vehicles, ‘Mad Tracks’ players will battle in numerous challenges like races (Weakest link, red light, Roller Coaster...) or mini games (Snooker, table soccer, long jump, crocket, bowling, Darts...). More than 45 challenges in 10 original environments await, each victory unlocks new cars, new tracks or spare parts to improve performances of 16 cool vehicles.

Video Game publisher Mastiff today announced the launch of the official Pump It Up: Exceed website, which will be available in stores early September 2005 for the PS2 and Xbox. The website features the latest news on the home game, sample music tracks, videos of expert dancing and more. Or you can always check our Pump It Up: Exceed preview.

Ensemble Studios' Dave Pottinger confirmed that a demo for Age of Empires III is in the works, and speculations are that it will be released ahead of the game's official November release, somewhere in September. A few demo candiates have been submitted to Microsoft for approval meaning it is nearing completion. The demo will be quite big as Dave also said "I hope you have a fat Internet pipe." We will of course have it on our fileserver network as soon as it becomes available.

Burnout Legends sets the bar for on-the-go automotive anarchy, combining the series' trademark speed, destruction and depth with new PSP-only features, gameplay refinements and connectivity. Gamers can look forward to eight gameplay modes, including crash, road rage and pursuit, with white-knuckle multiplayer via WiFi, and a GameShare option allowing players to wirelessly share a demo level of the game with friends.

In this new episode, you lead Team Rainbow, the world's most elite counter-terrorist unit, as they are called into action and unfamiliar territory to battle a bioterrorist threat. Stakes escalate as they are personally targeted by an evil terrorist organization. Used to protecting the lives of others, Team Rainbow must now embark on a mission to fight and save some of their own.

In Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon 3, players will embody Captain Scott Mitchell as he commands the Ghosts and Special Forces allies equipped with the IWS in the quest to save the president of the United States, recover stolen nuclear codes and eliminate a vicious band of renegade soldiers hell-bent on unleashing catastrophe.

Glacier is a combat racing game that puts you behind the wheel of the Iceblade - Not just any car, the Iceblade is the ultimate combat car prototype vehicle. It's stronger than a tank, turbocharged and has over 1200 horsepower for you to (ab)use. There's an arsenal of weaponry for you available, like machine guns, missiles and mines.

Newly formed Hi-Rez Studios announced today that it has licensed Epic Games’ Unreal Engine 3 for a massively multiplayer online game currently in development (thanks ve3d).

In his blog Monkey Island creator Ron Gilbert revealed that he had a planned trip to France, in order to meet with a publisher in France. Unfortunately Ron got sick and had to cancel the trip, but the interesting part here is that this would mean he is working on a new game. Speculations that Paris means Ubisoft are a little bit premature since also Atari, Vivendi have offices there, or it could be just somebody who wants to have a romantic date under the Eifel tower.