Eidos Interactive announced that the PlayStation2 version of Commandos 2: Men of Courage has gone gold to begin manufacturing by Sony Computer Entertainment America and will be in stores August 30th, 2002. Commandos 2: Men of Courage is a port of the popular PC team-based strategy game set during World War II. The Xbox version will follow shortly!

NINA is an action-adventure game, with a good balance of both elements. It is not meant to be another shooter with the intention to take out anything that moves just spiced up with adventure elements, but a game where completing tasks and solving puzzles will be as important as eliminating opponents. The action is likely to move towards a tactical shooter, where combat tactics and taking maximum advantage of available weaponry has more importance than just fast reactions allowing to shoot numerous opponents. Check out the "real life" Nina screens, the actress who stood model for digital Nina. Ohh and of course also a few in-game screens ...

In 2139, the earth’s tectonic plates begin to shift, producing massive seismic activity throughout the world. This makes most of the world’s land sink into the sea, leading to many deaths and changing civilization forever. Those who survived adapt to the new conditions of life under and above the surface. By 2145 two factions arise, the Meluguis Empire and the Alliance Army. The Alliance, in a desperate attempt to turn the tides on the war deploys the experimental Chronos attack submarine.

Square EA is about to blow the lid off its upcoming PlayStation 2 adventure roleplaying game, Kingdom Hearts with a community event centered around the game called the Kingdom Hearts Consumer Demo Day. On Friday, August 23 Square EA will give players the chance to get a hands on preview of this wonderful adventure that combines the characters and locales of various Disney movie franchises with the worlds created by SquareSoft. Attendees will also get a chance to meet the game's director and character designer Tetsuya Nomura and voice talent David Gallagher ("7th Heaven") and Hayden Panettiere ("Ally McBeal," "Remember The Titans"). The event will be held at the PlayStation store, located at 101 Fourth Street (Fourth & Mission streets) in San Francisco on August 23 from 2:00 - 6:00 PM. Limited edition posters will also be handed out at the event, but the most important thing is that you'll be able to play the game before September 17 - the day the game hits retail in North America! (Thanks GameSpy).

Fans of the Rayman series will be excited to hear that Rayman's two best friends, Globox and Murfy, will return alongside Rayman in Ubi Soft's action-adventure, cartoon fantasy game Rayman 3 Hoodlum Havoc . Globox and Murfy play important roles in the game and Globox is especially intertwined in Rayman 3's plot. Not to reveal too much of the story (that'll come later), all we can say for now is you'll be seeing a lot of Globox and Murfy as Rayman comes face-to-face with some of his greatest adversaries yet, including the Hoodlums and evil Dark Lums.

Aces of World War I, the ultimate flight simulation meets action combat PC game, fully immerses gamers into the heat of World War I combat. Assuming the identity of Edward Rickenbacker, a great American ace, players are challenged to hold their ground against the most lethal German flyers of the Great War. Flying in one of six authentically rendered planes, players must successfully combat all of the opposing ground, air and sea German forces if they intend to win the war victoriously. Check out the Aces of World War I site for yourself. There you'll find all sorts of in-game details, plane and in-game images and a game trailer. We have a local mirror for the trailer so "read more" for links ...

It's robots fightin' time! A team of employees at Sony Online participates in the remote-controlled fighting robot competition BattleBots by entering our very own bot known simply as "S.O.B." See how our bot came into being, from the initial meeting full of wild ideas, through early designs and prototypes, to the final product. Follow the story of one tough S.O.B. as it competes in the fourth and fifth seasons of BattleBots on Comedy Central. Read more about the Sony Battlebot right here.

Ubi Soft Entertainment will release an upgrade for its multi-award winning World War II combat flight simulation title, IL-2 Sturmovik. The IL2-Sturmovik version 1.2 upgrade includes four new flyable aircraft including theYak-9, Yak-9D, Bf-109-E-7/NZ and Ju-87B-2, and features 10 new single player missions and six new cooperative online missions for the IL-2 community. Version 1.2 will be available for download in three weeks from the official il2sturmovik website and also check some early screens here.

As an added bonus and thank you to all IG2 players, the level designers in Ebensee have restructured the mission levels so that they are suitable as endless games. This time, Mission Emerald Creek can be downloaded as an endless level. Every effort has again been made to maintain the original character of the level to the maximum possible extent. Get the redesigned 'Mission Emerald Creek' here.

Ubi Soft Entertainment today announced a rebate program for its forthcoming Chessmaster 9000 PC title. Under the program, current Chessmaster owners will receive a $10 rebate when they upgrade to Chessmaster 9000 from any previous version of Chessmaster, starting with Chessmaster 4000. Chessmaster 9000 has an MSRP of $39.99, and will ship to U.S. and Canadian retail shelves on August 27, 2002.