Shoppers spent Thanksgiving week stuffing their shopping bags with Nintendo hardware, setting the stage for 2004 to be the year of the hand-held holidays. Shoppers snapped up more than 500,000 Nintendo DS systems during Thanksgiving week, representing more than 90 percent of all units available in stores across the United States.

Atlus announced today its plans to publish Super Army War, an action-packed military combat game scheduled to ship in February 2005 for the Nintendo Game Boy Advance. Read more for details and screens...

Dreamcatcher Europe has released the first patch for Streko-Graphics Inc.'s puzzle/adventure game Aura: Fate Of The Ages. This update brings your UK retail game to v1.02 but no details as to what it addresses are provided at this point. Read more for download links ..

Atari's Betatests.net announced today that the beta test for Liquid Ent's D&D RTS Dragonshard will commence in mid-January, and signups have been open since October. Dragonshard will incorporate classic role-playing themes, a powerful and dynamic real-time strategy engine all woven together with a rich storyline involving a global conflict for an immensely powerful artifact with the power to change the fate of Eberron itself. Dragonshard is scheduled for Spring 2005.

Konami Europe has released the first update patch for its recently released (in Europe only) soccer game Pro Evolution Soccer 4. This update brings your retail game to v1.10 and mainly addresses performance and multiplayer issues. Read more for download links ...

Cossacks - Napoleonic Wars returns one of the most successful strategy games of the past years to the real-time battlefield - with reinforcements: Meet Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor of France and probably the most ingenious strategist in European history! Enter the battle on the side of one of 10 great European nations and rewrite European history in six exciting campaigns.

It has been six years since the destruction of Raccoon City and in that time, the U.S. government has been able to destroy the evil Umbrella Corporation. Fast forward to 2004 and players rejoin Leon, who is now a U.S. agent with a top-secret mission. He has been tasked to look into the abduction of the President’s daughter and his investigation has led him to a mysterious location in Europe. Capcom has launched the official North American 'Resident Evil 4' website offering a timer counting down to its January 11, 2005 release date, a big batch of previously released screenshots and an old flash trailer.

Grey Dog Software is pleased to announce the release of its highly anticipated wrestling simulation, Wrestling Spirit. Renowned wrestling game maker Adam Ryland once again challenges you to take on the world of brawn; you now start as a rookie and then grow to be a wrestling legend. Wrestling Spirit, based around the pro-wrestling industry, is an exciting and highly addictive simulation game and is available exclusively through Grey Dog Software.

Cutting through the ambiguity of the current industry-run ratings, Current Attractions has begun an objective and quantitative reporting on the Profanity, Sex, and Violence in today's hottest video game releases. With Current Attractions use of the proprietary PSVratings technology, parents will know exactly what to expect before they purchase video games containing potentially objectionable material for their children.

Well when Valve says SOON, they really mean it. As speculated earlier today, Valve had a little surprise for the community, and by posting a screenshot it was strongly hinted at that a Deathmatch multiplayer mode might be coming. A few hours later, it has arrived! Half-Life 2: Deathmatch is now available through the latest HL2 Steam update. By the same token, they also released the full HL2 SDK and announced a Half-Life 2: Deathmatch Map Making Contest.