SEGA has released a demo for Sports Interactive's hockey management title, NHL: Eastside Hockey Manager 2005. The beta demo is a fully functional time limited version, allowing you six months worth of game-time in the NHL and UK elite leagues. Read more for download links ...

Sega has released a demo for its FPS/Horror game House of the Dead 3. This demo gives you the chance to try out a small portion of the game playable in two modes, Survival and Time-Attack (thanks 3DGamers). Read more for download links ...

The mysterious ourcolony.net time clock ticking down towards May 12th has been revealed. As many suspected, a big announcement was to follow on that date, and it turns out that Microsoft will finally unveil the Xbox 2 (or Xenon) in a 30 minute live presentation ... on MTV. Hosted by Lord of the Rings' Elijah "Frodo" Wood, the presentation will be aired on ALL MTV channels worldwide. This way Microsoft marketing guru Peter Moore hopes to not only reach pure gamers, but also appeal to a broad spectrum of young people. The event will of course be filled with celebrities giving their first impressions, as well as an appearance of rockband The Killers. Prior to the show, MTV will start airing teasers to attract an as big as possible audience.

The Obsidian Entertainment, Knights of the Old Republic 2, jobs page reveals that it has licensed the Unreal Engine 3 for one of its next projects as there are various modeler/texture openings for people to work with Epic's newest engine (thanks Beyond Unreal).

Europe 1942. These are desperate hours for Allied forces as the Nazi war machine rages across a devastated European landscape. You are US Army Lieutenant William Holt, hand-picked by William “Wild Bill” Donovan to be the first field agent of the newly formed Office of Strategic Services­the OSS. Medal of Honor European Assault makes you the driving force in the struggle to liberate Europe.

The newest issue of GameInformer has the first details from EA's latest skiing/snowboarding game SSX4. In previous titles players never really for the sense they were going as fast as they were, so the new title will put the emphasis on speed. A unique set of animations, grabs, wipeouts and landings are being implemented, as well as the ability to initiate specific Monster tricks. More detailed information will follow shortly, and EA will surely include SSX4 in its E3 lineup.

Ratchet: Deadlocked will be more squad based, so you will be running, jumping & shooting with various new characters. Ratcher will now wear a Master Chief like battle suit, and have even more customizable firearms. Ratchet: Deadlocked will feature multiplayer and the possibility to play the singleplayer missions with friends over the internet.

A community update on the official BFME website reveals that the new v1.02 patch has been delayed until late April due to some new technical issues encountered when working on adressing other fixes. "After implementing all of the balance changes, technical fixes, the “code matrix” (as I like to refer to as the inner-workings of the game) started producing some ugly errors. We found ourselves in a position we didn’t expect to be in at this time and the team is working on getting the patch back on track." Read more for fix details ...

It is generally expected that Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft will unveil their next-gen consoles at the upcoming E3 in Los Angeles, which kicks off mid-May. As is usually the case, all three companies do their major announcements the Monday & Tuesday prior to the official E3 start. Microsoft sent out its invitation to the press yesterday, announcing its conference on the usual Monday evening. Interestingly enough, Sony sent out theirs shortly thereafter, but surprisingly moved up its event to Monday afternoon, beating Microsoft to the punch to unveil its next-gen console by mere hours. Not to be outdone by all this maneuvering, Ourcolony.net, Microsoft's newest ilovebees project, has a timer counting down to May 12th. Maybe an announcement then? Oh, the suspense!

Vivendi Universal Games today announced that Empire Earth II has gone gold and will hit store shelves in the US on Thursday, April 28th. Empire Earth 2 will build upon the award-winning formula of its predecessor by adding features requested both by casual game players interested in a brief spin through history and by more hard core gamers who demand a real-time strategy game that will challenge them for dozens, if not hundreds, of hours.

The latest issue of PC Gamer UK has no less than 10 pages dedicated to what now seems to be a confirmation on the next (and no doubt, one of many) Half-Life 2 expansion pack. Half Life 2: Aftermath will pick up where the original left off and, as has been rumored for a while, will feature an all-new story line with the focus on Alyx, although not necessarily alongside Gordon Freeman. While no release date has been set, strong indications are that it may only be available through Valve's online delivery system, Steam (thanks ve3d). You can read more about it over at EuroGamer, who has reprinted some of the article content.

Microsoft Corp. today unveiled its all-star lineup of award-winning publishers committed to making the leap into the HD Era on Microsoft's next-generation Xbox platform. Read more for details ...

Deep Silver and Stormregion are delighted to announce their cooperation on a real time strategy title using the latest version of the Gepard Engine. Stormregion the creators of the award winning title Codename: Panzers are developing a new AAA game that is to be published worldwide by the expanding games label Deep Silver and exclusively presented to press at E3.

International software publisher Deep Silver are delighted to announce that Singles is back! This time packed with more characters, more locations, more lovin' and more troubles. The sequel to the charismatic 'eye-opening' romantic life-sim focuses on the lives of 3 fun-loving singles that have been brought together under unforeseen circumstances. Singles 2: Triple Trouble releases on May 27th and will be available on PC only for £19.99.

Combining platform, puzzle and adventure elements, players must race against time and other dream travelers in the Dream Champ Tournament to collect stars, sun and moon fragments and become the ultimate Dream Champion. Klonoa 2: Dream Champ Tournament offers five new puzzle-packed worlds where players must use boxes, bomb boxes, switches, goomies, springs and scales in their quest for glory.

Quantic Dream is finalizing initial design documents for two next-generation projects: Omikron 2, the sequel to Quantic Dream's first PC hit, and Infraworld, a new franchise. Both projects are aimed at X-Box 2, PS3 consoles and for PC and will be developed on Quantic Dream's proprietary next gen' engine. The later will offer enhanced physics capabilities through a recently signed partnership with NOVODEX and a range of action orientated features. Talks are also being finalized with major middleware creators to integrate enhanced AI capabilities. They promise more details are to follow shortly ...

Vivendi today announced the development of Crash Tag Team Racing for the PS2, Xbox, GameCube and NDS. Developed by Radical Entertainment, Crash Tag Team Racing will give players a unique racing experience and allow them to continue the adventure on foot with out-of-car action. For the first time ever in a racing game, players will be able to fuse two cars together on the fly to form a super vehicle with the all-new "clashing" technology.

Oxygen Interactive announced today that UK developer Kuju is working on a new FPS 'Conspiracy: Weapons of Mass Destruction.' Using the Fire Warrior engine, Conspiracy: Weapons of Mass Destruction, is under development for PC, PS2 and Xbox, and is scheduled for March 2005. Read more for details and new screens ...

Konami of Europe has announced a collaboration with leading Hip Hop collective D12, and a soundtrack that will feature a wide array of musical talent and styles, for its forthcoming Crime Life: Gang Wars title. Read more for details ...

Revealed on the EBGames website, Namco's action game Dead to Rights is making its debut on a handheld with Dead to Rights: Reckoning. While it has not been offiically announced, the PSP version of the game is scheduled to ship May 1st and is priced at $39.99. Whether this will be an all-new product or a port from either one of the two previous titles is not known at this point. The Dead to Rigths titles are third-person, story-driven action-noir games delivering diverse gameplay mechanics, cinematic style and Hong Kong-inspired action. While Dead to Rights II pre-dates the original title, both games are set in Grant City's underworld where Jack Slate and his deadly K9 partner Shadow battle with various criminal organizations.

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.

The latest Famitsu issue reveals that Capcom is already working on the next version of its popular Viewtiful Joe series. Announced for PS2 and Gamecube, Joe VFX Battle is scheduled for release in Japan later this year. According to the article, the new title will take the franchise in a new direction and has been said to be more like Super Smash Bros., but what that really means was not explained. Capcom is also working on Viewtiful Joe Scratch!, but no platform specifications were disclosed ... perhaps a Nintendo DS title?

Midway Games today announced that Unreal Championship 2: the Liandri Conflict, has gone gold and will ship to stores for the Xbox on Monday, April 18, 2005.

SN Systems today announced that it start offering a new service to improve relations between Japanese developers and western publishers. While usually Japanese game developers sell few games outside of Japan and western publishers have sold few western-developed games into Japan, SN Systems Match-Making service hopes to contribute to the increase in Japanese consumer's appetite for all things western.

Set in the seedy underbelly of Las Sombras, players are immersed in an urban setting ruled by a criminal underworld of power, greed and corruption. This intense, urban action game features a twisting storyline filled with betrayal, warring cartels and hard-hitting battles.