Way of the Samurai 2 takes place at the end of the Edo period in 19th Century feudal Japan and is set in a town called Amahara, located on the island of Dejima. The citizens of Amahara once lived in peace and harmony, but as policy shifted within the powerful Magistrate’s office, they have found themselves the victims of extreme justice. Read more for details and screens ...

Bioware has released the final patch (last week there was a beta) for their 3D role-playing game Neverwinter Nights, and its addons Shadows of Undrentide and Hordes of the Underdark. This upgrade brings your retail game to v1.61 and addresses a massive list of changes and game tweaks, including synchronization of the previous titles to the latest addons. Read more for detailed fix list and download links ...

Blizzard has released new patches for Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos and Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne. This upgrade brings either game to v1.13 and addresses a quite lengthy bunch of fixes and game tweaks/improvements to the game and World Editor, as well as adding Acts II and III to The Frozen Throne's bonus Orc campaign. Read more for detailed fix list and download links ...

As King, it is your duty to lead your people in their struggle to raise your kingdom from its humble beginnings to a position of power and prestige. War, diplomacy and a burgeoning economy are the means by which you increase your power and expand your influence. A unique Knight-management system will offer you brand new possibilities to enhance your personal strategy.

Diversions Entertainment has issued the first patch for their 3D fighting/action game One Must Fall: Battlegrounds. This upgrade brings your retail game to v2095, no details as to what it fixes are available (thanks 3DGamers). Read more for download links ...

Matrix Games has released a demo version of Massive Assault by Wargaming.Net has been completed and will be available for download next week. the demo features 5 Training Missions, 3 Scenarios, 4 Epic Replays and World War on One Planet. Read more for download links ...

UA recently held an online Counter-Strike tournament with $10,000 in cash & prizes sponsored by ZipZoomFly. Nearly 1000 players participated and six of the top 20 CS clans played as well. Team3D and the runner up teams United5 and Deadzone were awarded prizes worth $10,000, including $5,000 in cash and $5,000 in top-of-the-line AMD Athlon 64 processors and motherboards.

Future Tactics is a turn-based tactical RPG that looks and feels like an action/platform game. Built around a highly complex turn-based battle engine, the adventure showcases a single-player Story Mode, as well as a two-player Battle Mode. The plot is set in the not too distant future, when Earth as we know it has succumbed to a race of extra-dimensional creatures. Now the final hope for restoring order to the planet rests on the shoulders of a young boy, his sister and a rag-tag assembly of unlikely warriors. Read more for some screens ...

Encore and JoWooD have released a demo for Phenomic's RTS/RPG game SpellForce: The Order of Dawn. The demo features the usual tutorial as well as a singeplayer map (Rift), and a multiplayer map (2-player map Ashvale). Read more for download links...

The main hero of the game, the lumberman from the introduction, comes from Earth. He came to this planet with the whole earth civilization when the Earth resources started to exhaust. The mankind was forced to leave the Earth and leave for another planet (thanks GenGamers). Read more for details & screens ...

Larian Studios announced today that Beyond Divinity will officially become the new title for the latest adventure set in the Divinity Universe. Divine Divinity, launched in 2002 was critically acclaimed for its depth and level of interactivity. In Beyond Divinity, Larian Studios takes what made Divine Divinity so deeply appealing, and pushes it one step further. Using an enhanced version of the original engine, the final product delivers infinite character development, unparalleled levels of interactivity, a wide variety of enemies; tons of quests and a brand new combat system. By catering to all of these elements with equal levels of importance, Beyond Divinity will truly deliver a total RPG experience.

Whiptail Interactive, a global publisher of PC games, today announced that the kung fu action role-playing game Blade & Sword has gone gold. The game will ship on December 22, 2003 with an MSRP of $29.99 and has been rated M for Mature.

Black-haired and sullen-eyed, a thief, a reaver, a slayer. The legends that surround his name, speak of the world before history, where shadows of magic and dark alien gods shrouded the known world and the fate of whole empires were dependent on the strength and skills of a single sword. And this is one of those legends. Conan is a 3rd person action game, with few elements of RPG and adventure. The game is divided into chapters, each chapter with different environments and creatures. Each chapter contains several levels. Read more for some new screens ...

GMX Media today announced that it has secured the rights to publish the PC RTS title – Cold War Conflict in the UK. "Based on the Gameplay of the award winning Sudden Strike 1 & 2 but with flair of the cold war theatres, this is certain to take the UK by storm." Commented Barry Leonard COO of GMX Media. “We are due to kick off a massive marketing campaign in 2 weeks which we hope will all but guarantee a chat position on release.” Read more for details and a bunch of new screens ...

In the gaming industry, the free playable demo is one of the most popular and powerful tools to interest gamers in the final product. It therefore seems logical to expect publishers will maximise the game's exposure by giving the demo the widest possible release. Unfortunately this is not always the case, and sometimes a demo is given the most restricted release: to one site for several days or even a week. This hurts the industry at large much more than it can help a single relationship. Read more for the full letter ...

Electronic Arts today announced that The Sims Bustin' Out for the PlayStation2, Xbox , and GameCube has shipped under the EA Games brand. For the first time, Sims console players can get their Sims out of the house and into all-new locations to play, work, and meet a cast of outrageous new characters.

Slated for release in Spring 2004 for the Xbox and the PC, Race Driver 2 will provide gamers the most diverse and thrilling range of motor sports ever seen in one game. Designed as the definitive racing experience, the game will feature complete head to head Xbox Live and PC online functionality. Read more for details ...

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 :

• Spellforce - Trailer
• Hitman: Contracts - Trailer
• 
  
  We will update this throughout the day when new trailers become available. Read more for download links ...

Codemaster has released a new upgrade for their stealth/action game IGI 2:Covert Strike. This upgrade will bring your retail game to v1.3 and adds anti-cheating features and framerate optimizations. Read more for details and download links!