Activision, Inc. the #1 worldwide publisher of action sports games, announced today that the company has teamed up with AND 1, the biggest name in street basketball, and FOOTACTION USA, a division of Footstar, one of the largest specialty athletic retailers in the nation, to promote its upcoming street basketball game, Street Hoops™, through a number of co-marketing activities. The partnership, which includes event sponsorships, retail initiatives and promotions, will broaden awareness for the game among the hip-hop culture.

NVIDIA Corporation, the world leader in visual graphics solutions, today announced that it has formed a 'special ops' team to work closely with the development team behind the upcoming game "America's Army," and assist them in optimizing the game for NVIDIA Graphics Processing Units (GPUs). When powered by NVIDIA GPUs, "America's Army" achieves amazing levels of graphic quality -- from the barracks and bunkers rendered in rich 3D detail to the true-to-life character animations of real soldiers -- providing gamers a truly immersive gaming experience.

No rules radio-controlled racing through living off-road worlds with giant objects and giant people. Smash Cars puts you behind the wheel of RC cars in a high-speed race where daily life is in full-swing - people, animals, cars and a variety of other real-world obstacles interact with and hinder your tiny car. Super-realistic control, suspension and physics bring a level of game-play rarely seen in RC games. Looks like a promising, fun game! Check the screens.

Lead Sidd or Eva on a mission to free mankind from the V-Space network that controls the near-future. V-Space is dominated by DroneZ, cyber-insects who forbid people to disconnect. With the help of a hacker living in the "real world" you must move to and from network memory locations (platforms), avoiding lasers to stay alive. Defeat the computer enemy protections with rapid fire weapons. Down the DroneZ! Check the psycho new screens!

RPGVault has a Q&A with Mark Zechiel and Peter Tyson of Codemasters talk about their upcoming fantasy massively multiplayer RPG, Dragon Empires . Computer and Video Games has a new Q&A with Black Isle Studios producer Doug Avery talking about their upcoming RPG sequel Icewind Dale II. Total Video Games has a Q&A with the Running With Scissors development team talking about their upcoming Unreal engine powered first person shooter Postal 2 (part 1 of 2). Action Vault has a new Q&A with various Burut Software employees talking about their upcoming first person shooter Kreed. Ferrago has a Q&A Elixir Studios' Ben Gonshaw talking about their upcoming strategy title Republic: The Revolution. Gamer's Hell has a Q&A with the creators of Tony Tough, an adventure puzzle game with the flavor of LucasArts' classic Monkey Island series. RPGDot has a new Q&A with Marko Dieckmann of Duplex System talking about their upcoming sci-fi massively multiplayer game Face of Mankind.

Blizzard just informed us that they have already issued the first patch for WarCraft III. This patch upgrades your WarCraft III game to v1.01 and fixes four minor game issues and a few balance changes with the characters. The game is not evne out yet and here we go already. Read More for detailed fix list and links where to grab this puppy.

There is a movie trailer for America's Army available for download from Gigex, showing off this first-person action and role-playing game by the U.S. Army. The movie requires a 9.5 MB download and offers some two minutes of cinematic and gameplay footage in a self-running proprietary format. (Thanks Blues)

Today the official site for Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Raven Shield is updated with some q/a from Raven Shield's Art Director, Carol Bertrand. Here is a clip:

Q: You used the new Unreal Technology to develop Raven Shield. What does it allow to do in terms of graphics? What are the strong points? And the challenges?

True, we are using the ever-evolving Unreal technology. I say ever-evolving cause one of the biggest challenges is to keep up with constant changes made in the toolset. It's also true that UnrealEd is not exactly made for our needs, so we have to do our own modifications in the tools some times. On the other hand, we have a state-of-the-art technology that allows us to display a lot of stuff.

Digital Leisure today announced its release of a remastered version of the American Laser Games' smash arcade hit Crime Patrol 2: Drug Wars. Digital Leisure, the leading publisher of interactive DVD adventures, has re-mastered Drug Wars into a fully interactive adventure for DVD movie players that is also compatible with PS2 and XBox. The remastered version is highlighted by spectacular video quality and all the shooting action of the original laser disc adventure. Players use their DVD remote controls to aim and fire, as the notorious Lopez and his South American Drug Cartel strive to ship their white powder across the border and into major metropolises. Check the screens!

The best-selling Myst franchise takes its award-winning Myst III: Exile to Xbox/PS2 this fall. Developed by Presto Studios, Myst III: Exile takes place 10 years after Riven: the Sequel to Myst and broken out into five ages, Tomahna, J'nanin, Amateria, Edanna, and Voltaic. The game begins with the Tomahna Age, where players meet Catherine and Atrus, and first encounter Saavedro. Check the Tomahna Age screens!

ABG games just send us a bunch of little video's showing off their updated advanced 3D racing game engine for Gameboy Advance and PDA. The engine allows the player to navigate at high speed around a mix of arbitrary indoor and outdoor worlds. The videos show various locations around a 4-mile track that we have up and running on GBA at around 30 fps. Some locations include river jump, canyon jump, urban area, desert area, tunnels, railway and inside a large multi-storey building. We have merged those files into 1 mpeg for your convenience. Read more for some screens and link to grab the trailer.

Time to patch up your Command & Conquer Renegade!! Today Westwood has released a new patch for their 3D action game Command & Conquer Renegade. The patch is 18MB to grab and you can get it at shacknews here or official site here!

The official Neocron site today let us know that an English offline tutorial demo of 'Neocron' (that is an upcoming MMORPG by Reakktor Media) is available for download. The demo is 96MB and you can grab this puppy over at fileplanet.

A southern California start-up is preparing to start selling a device that would play digital music on the Game Boy handheld video game machine. Santa Monica, California-based SongPro plans to launch a device for under $99 this fall that will play digital music in various formats on any of the tens of millions of Game Boy game consoles worldwide. The Game Boy line -- both the older Game Boy Color and the newer Game Boy Advance -- is a product of Japanese game giant Nintendo Co. Ltd., and it has a virtual monopoly on the handheld gaming market worldwide. The company says it has Nintendo's support for first-of-its-kind device.

Klonoa and his ten pals can each call on their own unique special attacks utilising their inner potential to dazzle opponents. The knockabout fun is given extra spice with these extravagant shots taking on the form of lightning blasts, light contrails and other atmospheric fireworks. Spiking the ball takes on a whole new meaning when balls turn oblong due to the mighty velocity with which they are launched resulting in some grand slam gameplay.

THQ Inc. today announced that it has completed its previously announced purchase of substantially all the assets of ValuSoft, Inc., a leading publisher and distributor of consumer-priced interactive entertainment and productivity software.

In DroneZ, players lead characters, Sidd or Eva on a mission to free mankind from the deadly V-Space Network, the computer enemy that controls the future. DroneZ dominates the V-Space Network – cyber-insects who forbid people to disconnect. With the help of a “real world” hacker, players must fight to stay alive as they travel from various network memory locations and avoid the DroneZ deadly lasers. A free-aiming weapon scanner, tons of bonus powers, shield generators and secondary equip players for pinpoint attacks. Defeat the DroneZ protections with rapid-fire weapons and players steal victory.

No rules radio-controlled racing through a variety of off-road realistic worlds. Smash Cars drivers steer remote-control cars in a high-speed race where daily life is in full swing with giant objects and people interacting with and hindering the path of your tiny car. Don’t drop the hammer too fast or people, animals, cars and a variety of other real-world obstacles may spin you into trouble. A one- or two-player game, Smash Cars provides special control features including power boosts, jumps, and the most realistic physics for enhanced driving action.

Lemon Interactive (yes, Lemon Interactive), is excited to announce that the ultimate bargain flight simulation meets action combat PC game, The Aces of World War I, is near completion and will to ship to stores in late-August 2002. This may be the first time you’ve heard of the Aces of World War I, but believe me, it won’t be the last.

"CREW REPORT" video shows off incredible damage engine.. When the flying Scotsman’s car leaves the tarmac, there’s no telling which way up it’ll land when you’re behind the wheel of Colin McRae Rally 3. Read more below for links!