UC 2: The Liandri Conflict continues the Unreal franchise on the Xbox and introduces an evolutionary new gameplay style to the traditional FPS genre: acrobatic melee combat. This sequel also features new single-player and multiplayer gameplay, person camera mode and intense melee abilities. Unreal Championship fans can play as any one of 14 characters from the Unreal universe, each with spectacular new Adrenaline Powers that enable new offensive and defensive combos.

The European release date of the highly-acclaimed and award winning City of Heroes has been confirmed for 4th February 2005. Exclusively available for PC, City of Heroes will have a suggested retail price of £29.99 / €39.99.

Cold Fear is the first action-horror title to be published under the Ubisoft brand and combines the popular elements of both action and horror releases, delivering an action-packed, tension-filled gaming experience. Today's developer diary covers 'Monsters and scientific madness' with contributions from DarkWorks' Nicolas Castaing (Level Designer and Lead Level Builder), Arnaud Barros (Lead Computer Artist) and Cyrille Combes (AI programmer).

Valve's SteamPowered website has been updated with details regarding yet another Half-Life 2 update which performance improvements, increased cache memory usage, increased cache memory usage, weapon script files are preloaded at startup in HL2, and a few more little tweaks. Restart Steam to get the latest update...

The Arena Football League and Electronic Arts have entered into an exclusive agreement to produce an AFL video game in time for the start of the 2006 AFL season that also allows EA to share in the proceeds of future expansion team sales. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Famed sci-fi writer Orson Scott Card revealed today that he has entered into an agreement with A Tale in The Dark developers eGenesis to create a MMORPG based on his 'Tales of Alvin Maker' work. ATITD lead designer Andy Tepper will spearhead the project which discribed as a non-combat-centered community-building game. Orson Scott Card is currently also involved in Majesco's Advent Rising trilogy.

After D-Day and Afrika Korps vs. Desert Rats, Digital Jesters has signed yet another WWII RTS from developer Digital Reality. No specific details are available yet, but it is safe to assume that 1944: Battle of the Bulge will once more make use of the powerful Walker 2 graphics engine, albeit maybe an updated version (thanks gamers.nl). The Battle of the Bulge is one of the most famous battles of WW2 which was fought between Allied forces and Germany in Normandy, Belgium during the winter of 1944. We won't have to wait very long as the game has a scheduled release date of Q1 2005.

In anticipation of the release of Freedom Force Vs The Third Reich in April, Digital Jesters & Focus Home Interactive are asking fans to devise their very own comic strips and win some amazing prizes at the same time. What do you have to do? Simply take your favourite Freedom Force character, or even your own hero, and create a comic strip. If drawing isn't your thing fear not, as comic strips can be created with photos of your friends to make a photo story. You can add speech bubbles to devise the plot.

Unreal Championship 2: The Liandri Conflict continues the Unreal franchise on the Xbox and introduces an evolutionary new gameplay style to the traditional FPS genre: acrobatic melee combat. This highly anticipated sequel also features new single-player and multiplayer gameplay, person camera mode and intense melee abilities. Unreal Championship fans can play as any one of 14 characters from the Unreal universe, each with spectacular new Adrenaline Powers that enable new offensive and defensive combos.

Microids and DreamCatcher have signed a publishing/distribution agreement for the North American market for two titles, Still Life and Obscure. No specific release date was announced, but both are expected around Q2 2005.

Vivisector: Beast Inside developed by Action Forms (creators of Chasm and Carnivores series) is a unique mixture of 3D Action/Horror. The game blends a thrilling interactive story with intense, high-adrenaline action and immerses players in a rich and fascinating storyline.

Valve's SteamPowered website has been updated with details regarding yet another Half-Life 2 update which addresses some Steam issues, enables support for new query protocol in the HL dedicated server, and fixed a Source Engine spam issue. Restart Steam to get the latest update..

The rivalry between Sony's Blu-Ray and Toshiba/NEC's HD-DVD rages on as today the first two game companies have announced their support for Sony's Blu-Ray solution. Electronic Arts and Vivendi Universal Games will announce their support for the Blu-ray Disc optical disc format on Thursday afternoon at the CES.

You belong to an elite force fighting against global counter-terrorism. Your team is made up of two crack agents poised to react to any threat. Stealth Owl is an infiltration expert, whose skills are accuracy and skydiving. Raptor uses weapons of mass destruction and favors close combat. Your main objective is to dismantle the NEMESIS network and retrieve the stolen technology. But by changing the chemical properties of certain proteins, the terrorists have made their fighters much more aggressive…

At the Consumer Electronics Showtoday in Las Vegas, Electronic Arts announced its entire PSP line up set for release when the system launches in the U.S. this March. Designed to deliver the ultimate handheld experience, EA's PSP list of launch titles includes two new EA SPORTS staples; FIFA Football and MVP Baseball (U.S only), along with four previously announced franchise greats; Need for Speed Underground Rivals, Tiger Woods PGA TOUR, NBA STREET: Showdown and NFL STREET 2: Unleashed.

DreamCatcher Games today announced it will publish Tesseraction Games has naval combat Enigma: Rising Tide -Gold Edition in North America, coming January 28 2005. Read more for details and new screens ...

Live fastballs, suicide squeezes, grass-staining dives, seventh-inning stretches, walk-off homeruns, peanuts and hotdogs… these are just some of the things that make the sport of baseball America’s favorite pastime. The victory of a baseball game can depend on the walk-off homerun in the ninth inning or a simple second base steal. Anything can make an impact in a baseball game because- as a wise man once said - “it ain’t over ‘til it’s over.” Coming this spring 2005.

Electronic Arts and Nintendo announced today a partnership that brings the Nintendo All-Stars – Mario, Luigi and Princess Peach – to the GameCube version of NBA Street V3, scheduled to launch in February. Read more for details and some screens showing off the new characters...

Players play Donkey Kong: Jungle Beat using bongos - by tapping the left or right drum, tapping both drums together or clapping as each gives Donkey Kong a different move. By using these moves on the bongos, players will be able to run, jump, battle, swing from vines and collect bananas as they explore beautiful side-scrolling environments. Controlling the game using the bongos elevates this far beyond a regular platform game.

'Spellforce: Shadow of the Phoenix,' scheduled for a February 18 release, will feature two new units and buildings, as well as allowing you to further upgrade your heros to level 50. An all new singleplayer campaign will be added, but also 25 new multiplayer maps, 15 of which are dedicated to coop play (a feature which was added in the previous Breath Of Winter expansion). Read more for 10 new screens ...

Paradox Interactive announced today that their much-awaited sequel to the multiple award-winning Hearts of Iron II has shipped to retail stores all over North America. Hearts of Iron II has been rated E for Everyone and has an MSRP of $39.99.

Vivendi has released a second singleplayer demo for Irrational's Tribes: Vengeance. In This demo you play the role of Mercury, a robot assassin hired to locate and eliminate Daniel, a captain of the local Phoenix subclan. Read more for download links ...

President of Infinium Labs and former Microsoft Xbox creator Kevin Bachus will be a lead speaker for a panel on the "History of Gaming" at the upcoming 2005 Consumer Electronics Show (CES), the world's largest annual trade show for consumer technology, Thursday – Sunday, Jan. 6 – 9, 2005 in Las Vegas.