Vavle just send over word that the Steam Beta is entering its final phase, and is now open to the public. To enter this beta, simply download and run the 500K installer. Steam, a broadband platform for the deliver and management of digital content, currently features a variety of Valve games including Counter-Strike 1.6, which introduces the new riot shield, the official CS bot and more. Visit the Steam Powered website or read more for details & download links ...

From the developers of Madden NFL Football comes a new brand of football where style is BIG: NFL STREET. NFL STREET blends fast paced arcade action with street culture to create a unique new gameplay experience where NFL stars become larger than life personalities. Players battle to earn the enhanced gear and attributes necessary to dominate the urban environments. Read more for some new screens...

As expected & announced, the Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory Map Editor is now available for download. This will allow anyone to create maps and content for Enemy Territory. Please note, these tools are not supported by Activision, id Software, or Splash Damage. Help is available via a community forum located right here where you'll find open discussions on working with the editor.

Blizzard Entertainment today announced that lead programmer Rick Seis has accepted the role of development team lead for Blizzard North. In his new position, Seis will focus on leading Blizzard North's concentrated team of developers while assuming the day-to-day responsibilities for maintaining and promoting the group's success. Additionally, Blizzard North will be streamlining their teams into one core group in order to focus their development efforts on one key project. Further information regarding the specifics of their next project will be announced at a future date.

The release of the new tactical 3D action-shooter BREED will be postponed and put off until September. Many fans from the BREED community and the entire action-shooter scene had made worthwhile suggestions. The British BREED developer, Brat Designs, took these suggestions to heart and even further increased the game's complexity. Since the publication of the beta demo at the beginning of June, the 3D action-shooter has undergone a lot of fine tuning. The full support of DirectX9 and NVIDIA's enhanced rendering technology have turned BREED into a visual masterpiece!

Talk about golden oldies! Already known as a big rumour but today Sega Japan officially announced that they are working on a follow-up to the classic arcade racing game created by Yu-Suzuki in 1986, OutRun 2. The game is currently being developed for the Chihiro arcade board and is expected to be available this Winter in Japan. The Chihiro arcade board is similar to the Xbox hardware, so more rumours predict that we may expect a port shortly after (thanks TVG). Read more for some screens...

And they go for a hattrick as Midway Games Inc. announced today that Area 51, the ultimate "sci-fi meets government cover-up" first-person shooter videogame, is scheduled to ship in 2004 for the PlayStation2 and the Xbox. Read more for additional details ...

Midway Games Inc. announced today that it will ship a new videogame based on the hit animated Cartoon Network television series, Justice League, for next-generation platforms in 2004. Read more for details ...

Already revealed during the E3, Midway Games Inc. today officially announced that NARC, a stylized third-person action/shooter game, is in development and expected to ship in 2004 for the PS2, Xbox and GameCube. Read more for details and features ...

War Times is a Real-Time Strategy game that lets players follow the tumultuous era of the Second World War through the actions of Germany, Great Britain, the USA or the USSR; each nation is totally different and uses unique strategies in their attack and defense and all the campaigns are based on real historical events, bringing an unparalleled realism to the fight. Check the new screens...

As expected EA has now released the free Battle of Britain map for BattleField 1942. The objective-based map includes the German Junkers Ju88 heavy bombers and a host of British coastal defenses, including squadrons of Spitfires and the newly developed radar defense towers. The Germans must disable the RAF's coastal defense towers and the Harwich Weapons Factory for Operation Sea Lion to have a chance of success. To win, the Germans must destroy the five objectives before their ticket count hits zero, while the British must defend the objectives until the German tickets run out. The new map requires the latest v1.4 patch installed. Read more for download links ...

Phantasy Star Online Episode III: C.A.R.D. Revolution expands the Phantasy Star Online (PSO) universe, offering a new style of strategic combat. Combining the excitement of card collection and deck settings with team-based battle tactics, PSO Episode III allows users to chat in the lobby about status upgrades and tactics, and then journey to the planet surface to engage in strategic combat using a turn-based Card system. The game continues the story arc of the previous PSO games, as players once again become Hunters and explore the mysteries of the planet Ragol. Featuring both online and offline play, as well as multiplayer modes, PSO Episode III adds new content and players to the ever-growing PSO community.

According to EA, we can expect the free Battle of Britain map tomorrow. The objective-based map will include the German Junkers Ju88 heavy bombers and a host of British coastal defenses, including squadrons of Spitfires and the newly developed radar defense towers. The Germans must disable the RAF's coastal defense towers and the Harwich Weapons Factory for Operation Sea Lion to have a chance of success. To win, the Germans must destroy the five objectives before their ticket count hits zero, while the British must defend the objectives until the German tickets run out. The new map requires the latest v1.4 patch installed. To be continued...

Activision sends us word that the map editor for Wolfenstein Enemy Territory is slated to be released at some point tomorrow. No further details are available at this point.

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 :

• Champions of Norrath (PS2) - Trailer
• Advent Rising - Trailer
• NFL Street - Trailer
• Ghost Recon: Island Thunder (Xbox) - Trailer 2
• Endless Ages - Trailer
• Lock On - Trailer 3
• 
  
  We will update this throughout the day when new trailers become available. Read more for download links ...

KOEI Corporation, the creators of the Dynasty Warriors series, announced today that in a continuing effort to listen to your opinions, KOEI has launched a new polling feature on koei.com. “Over the years, we have sensed what our customers want to see in future KOEI games - from letters, emails, and even phone calls. Now with the Polls, we have a way to accurately measure our customers' opinions on a variety of issues,” said Ben Stockwell, Webmaster for koei.com. “It's an invaluable tool and a major step forward in KOEI's efforts to incorporate user feedback in the development of our games.“ Check out the poll (questions will change periodically) right here ...

Jowood has released a new patch for Cauldron's recently released FPS Chaser. This upgrade is for all English versions (not available in North America yet) and brings your retail game to v1.47 while fixing some soundf issues, adding various multiplayer fixes such as anticheat, kick etc. Read more for detailed fix list and download links ...

The game is developed on original high-tech engine The Firestarter Engine, which uses the possibilities of the latest accelerator generation GeForce3/4. Among the engine possibilities are work with outdoor and indoor areas, coloured dynamic lighting, dynamic shadows, vertex and pixel shaders, T&L, procedure textures, various classes of particle system-based effects, interactive and destructible level objects, realistic physics, high-polygonal character and monster models (up to 5000 of polygons), skeleton animation. The official site has once again been updated with 3 new screens, read more to check them out...