Ubi Soft and its online subsidiary, ubi.com, today announced the launch of the first ever Shadowbane "Laugh out Loud" contest. The creative minds behind Shadowbane, an MMORPG offering strategic challenge, wants its fans to make them laugh. The contest seeks the most numorous Shadowbane fans that can create the most comical scripts surrounding Shadowbane's characters and story for the next Shadowbane promotional video. The contest goes online today.

Deep Shadows updated their site yesterday (only a few days after their last update) and added 2 new screens for their upcoming First Person Shooter Xenus ... the more screens they release, the more i am looking forward to this title ... jungle fever baby!

The PunkBuster site has been updated with the news that they have activated a "test" server for people who encounter possible cheats to test them, giving the PB people a chance to examine and incorporate them in new PB version ... they also address a few oher items .. read more ...

There is a Freelancer movie (previously appeared on the cover discs of GameStar magazine) available over at German fansite Station-Network.de. The site is rather slow but they offer two versions, a regular size clip (aprox. 28mb/3 minutes) and a bigger high-res one (aprox. 36mb/4mins). Both have in-game footage with the German commentator illustrating the game features, gameplay and more (thanks blues).

UbiSoft is organizing a Battle Realms map contest running till end of the month .. read more for the specifications and what to do if you want to participate!

THQ Inc. today announced that it has added gaming veterans Outrage Entertainment to its internal studio roster. Based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, the team at Outrage Entertainment is best known for its PC gaming roots at Parallax Software, creators of Descent. The studio is currently developing an original action game for PlayStation 2 and Xbox that THQ will unveil at the Electronic Entertainment Expo this May.

Car Battler Joe is an exciting action game around the futuristic "Car Battles" sport. These are autofights with the sole purpose to scrap opposing cars by using many different weapons and dirty tricks. In the story mode you slip into the role of the ambitious Joe Todoroki and work your way up from an inexperienced newbie to a genuine "Car Battler". Earn cash, by completing various functions, buy hundreds of new upgrades, in order to rig and tune up your auto. There are 3 million different combination options! Naturally you can play against your friends via link cable in Multiplayer mode. Expected in July 2002.

A reminder that this is a GC launch title. Wake up, kid the entire Universal Studios Theme Park is yours to explore for the day, but you only have one day to see everything!! Luckily for you, your animated pal, Woody the Woodpecker will be along as your guide. Listen to him carefully and you'll be able to go places and do things no visitor has ever done before.

Recently a member of the official Renegade forums has posted a fake modification that "allowed" for using the ORCA VTOL aircraft in the first mission of Renegade's single player, Scorpion Hunters. This mod is actually a trojan virus that is intended on stealing your Renegade serial number. Read more for the official WestWood words (Thanks Gamespy).

Radica U.K. Ltd, manufacturers of the highly acclaimed Gamester range of accessories have today announced that they have entered into an exclusive co-operative marketing agreement with Microsoft, giving them unique access to all Xbox UK promotional events for the rest of the year.