Eastside Hockey Manager: Franchise Edition will be Sports Interactive's first non-football game, and is due to be released in late Q1 2004. The game will feature a detailed and realistic game engine with in-depth ice hockey content including numerous leagues, players with detailed statistics and personalities and full management features for trading, drafts and transactions. Read more for some screens ...

As was mentioned yesterday GSC Game World has released an updated demo & a patch for yesterday's demo of their sci-fi first-person shooter FireStarter. This small patch addresses some framerate issues as well as enhances the RPG elements of the demo. Read more for download links ...

Matrix Games is pleased to announce that a demo version of Eric Young's Squad Assault: West Front by Freedom Games has been completed and will be made available online later this week. In the demo for Squad Assault: West Front, you command troops in both the Allied and German Armies of the West Front of World War II in an immersive full 3-D continuous time environment. Two scenarios are included along with online multi-player capability. In addition, this demo is based on the latest version of Squad Assault, which will also be released simultaneously in the form of an update later this week.

DRIV3R is an action-packed driving adventure game that stays true to its roots, incorporating the cinematic gameplay and gritty street crime of its predecessors with ground-breaking graphics and three mammoth, wide-open city environments: Miami, Florida; Nice, France; and Istanbul, Turkey. Today we serve up an interview with Reflections Interactive's Managing and Development Director Martin Edmondson.

"Unreal Tournament 2004 is the next evolution of the greatest competitive computer game ever created," said Jean-Philippe Agati, senior vice president and general manager of Atari's Los Angeles studio. "The addition of new modes, mods and maps as well as the controllable land-, air- and space-based vehicles, means Unreal fans are getting an entirely new experience featuring devastating vehicular combat and wide scale warfare." Check out some new screens ...

Maximo has defeated a host of ghosts and gone for the glory, but nothing can prepare him for...The Army of Zin! Dormant for centuries, this legion of mechanized mayhem has returned to unleash their undead clockwork fury! The action has never been more furious as Maximo, aided by his dark pal Grim, strikes back with new powerful combo attacks and even more daring moves! From the top of the Crystal Mountains to the depths of the Dead Sea, Maximo must defend the innocent and make new alliances as he seeks to unlock the mystery of the Zin!

KOEI unveiled details on Samurai Warriors for the PlayStation2. Known as Sengoku Musou in Japan, the Japanese-themed Tactical Action game signals the culmination of KOEI's 25th Anniversary and will ship to North American Retailers in March 2004. Read more for details and screens ...

The official Raven-Shield website has word that we can expect a new Raveshield v1.5 update patch for Ubisoft team based tacitcal shooter next week Tuesday. The new patch adresses several game fixes and general improvements, read more to read the full list and of course we will have it available on our fileservers ....

Just Play today announced that it had finalised an agreement with Slitherine Strategies to publish their latest strategy game Spartan in the UK, Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, BeNeLux and Scandinavia plus several other European territories. Spartan is the third in a series of Empire-building strategy games that includes the best-selling Legion and Chariots of War, Spartan is expected March 2004. Read more for details & screens ...