LucasArts and Sony Online Entertainment Inc. are proud to celebrate the one-year anniversary of the launch of Star Wars Galaxies: An Empire Divided. Launched a year ago, Star Wars Galaxies: An Empire Divided quickly became the fastest growing massively multiplayer online role playing game (MMORPG) in North America and today boasts over 500,000 registered users, with more than 115,000 players logging into the game every day.

Blizzard Entertainment today announced the 5th July 2004 as the date players can start signing up for the European Closed Beta of its eagerly awaited MMORPG, World of Warcraft. Potential testers will be able to register online through the official European Blizzard websites for the English, French and German speaking markets.

Sports Interactive is putting its immediate future on ice, with the announcement that NHL Eastside Hockey Manager will be available to the public for the first time from Friday, July 2nd in Europe, with releases to follow in Czech Republic in August, and the US in September. The PC version of the game will also be available as a digital download from the 2nd July, with more details to follow in the coming weeks.

Interplay today reported operating results for the first quarter of 2004. Interplay Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Herve Caen also announced the company's strategic decision to enter Massively Multiplayer Online Gaming (MMOG) with Interplay's wholly owned intellectual properties, namely Fallout (thanks Blues). Read more for details ...

'Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon 2' is a first-person shooter game from Red Storm Entertainment, is due for a November release on Nintendo Game Cube and PCs. It’s already attracted North Korea’s attention. In a curt review, one of its government newspapers called the game “proof” of U.S. warmongering. “Through propaganda, entertainment and movies,” read a recent online commentary in the Tongil Newspaper, Americans “have shown everyone their hatred for us. This may be just a game to them now, but a war will not be a game for them later. In war, they will only face miserable defeat and gruesome deaths.” Read the full statement over at Stars & Stripes...

Set in the 60s and using the Cold War as its inspiration, Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater forces the player to adopt a number of new skills to survive in Snake's new jungle environment. Danger lurks everywhere as Snake explores the beautifully-realised forests, encampments and rivers, with guards patrolling key routes, dangerous animals to contend with, and the uneven terrain and noisy foliage making the silent approaches the Metal Gear hero is famed for virtually impossible. Check the new screens ...

Funcom is proud to announce that Anarchy Online is turning three years on June 27th! Through the years, Anarchy Online has evolved to become the highest ranking sci-fi MMORPG on the market, a feat made possible thanks to the commitment and feedback from our players. Today, Anarchy Online is a highly profitable and thriving online game, and Rubi-Ka has turned into an incredible planet, almost breathing and taking on a life of its own.

Valve's Gabe Newell has been spotted on the Half-Life 2 Fallout forum dropping by to post some info about who they signed to do the voice overs in HL2, available language versions and the size of the game. Half-Life 2 is about 3.5 GB uncompressed and about 2 GB compressed. This doesn't include CS:Source, HL-1:Source, DoD:Source, the SDK, or whatever (thanks Shacknews) Read more for list of the voice actors ...

Noted German director Uwe Boll, who apparently skipped his English lessons in school, has posted a comment on the Alone In The Dark movie website about the not so positive reactions on the internet.

"HOUSE Of THE DEAD was in a lot of territories a very big success. In Middle East, Russia, Spain, Thailand and South America was the movie similar to the USA and KANADA two weeks in the TOP TEN and a long time in the Video/DVD-Charts. In a lot of countries the release is coming up in summer. But in the internet are a lot of negative voices talking about the film and I wanna tell all this people that they are right and wrong."

The action-RTS PC game entitled King Arthur: Pendragon Cronicles takes us back to the heroic epic of the founder King Arthur, whose figure is lost in the mist of time. The choice of topic was inspired by the King Arthur film produced by Jerry Buckheimer coming out soon. The game is created in European cooperation (using GarageGames' Torque Engine), the game design is provided by Game Consulting, while the artistic and programming part is done by a group of professionals of veteran developers of Spore Games. Read more for details, features & screens.

Featuring all 30 NHL teams, plus teams from all the other major hockey leagues of North America and Europe, NHL Eastside Hockey manager provides ice hockey fans complete franchise control of their favourite ice hockey team. This updated GOLD demo is a fully featured version of the game that lasts for six months of game time. Read more for download links ...

Playing as both the detective Sherlock himself and his no less-loved sidekick Dr Watson, the player must investigate their way around massive, sumptuous levels rich in graphical detail, which will delight knowledgeable fans and newcomers alike. An expansive adventure that spans the globe, The Silver Earring delivers a deep and involving experience that will, in all likelihood, completely destroy any social life that hopeful PC owners aspire towards. Read more for screens & trailer...

Chaos League combines sports, fantasy and brutal, chaotic action on a playing field where the primary objectives are typical but the gameplay is anything but. This demo features previously released single-player tutorials, as well as internet/lan multiplayer capabilities with three races: the Humans, Barbarians and the Undead. Read more for download links ...

Forget Euro 2004, Wimbledon, the Grand Prix and the British Open – Summer’s real sporting event is about to explode on your computer screens courtesy of Xfire - The Summer of E-Sports is about to commence!

Phelios announced the release of their Shoot 'em Up ("Shmup") game, Kaijin, another addition to their growing list of games made with their own game engine, PTK.

From the far corners of Middle-earth, new adventures come forth to face the growing evil in the East. The forces of Mordor are mobilizing as the Nazgül hunt for the One Ring. Read more to check some screens ...

Minions of Mirth is an open-source "Massively Single Player" RPG under development at Prairie Games. There will be 15 character careers from 3 character archetypes, multiclass characters with primary, secondary, and tertiary class, 8 playable character races, 16 incredible zones to explore, hundreds of spells and PLENTY more (thanks RPGCodex). Read more for details, screens and in game footage trailer.

In the ongoing stream of Xbox name speculations and system specifications, a new document has hit the streets (or the internet for that matter) giving us another look at "what might be." The document is supposedly by Pete Isensee, Development Lead, Xbox Advanced Technology Group and gives us details on CPU, GPU, USB and other technical specs (thanks Spong), all to be taken with a bag of salt of course. Read more for the full blurb ...

French software company Micro Application today announced it will publish 'Dreamfall: The Longest Journey' in Europe, Australia, New Zealand and the French speaking region of Canada. Funcom will act as publisher in North and South America, the Nordic region, and Asia.

'Road 666: Deathlands', under development at Psycho Craft Studio, is an arcade car shooter. The gamer is one of the new world explorers where you get the opportunity to earn money on the armed car. But danger and lots of enemies are waiting for him in the new world. The gameplay is divided into sequence of missions. During the missions the gamer gets credits for enemy kills and bonus catching. Between missions the car can be upgraded in the shop. Read more for details, screens & trailer...

Guilty Gear Isuka introduces revolutionary upgrades such as 4-player simultaneous fighting, allowing for 2-on-2, 3-on-1 and 2-player co-op battles. The title also adds new characters to a full roster of returning fighters, all-new fight arenas and multiple new modes of play, including an exciting side-scrolling action game called Boost Mode. Check the freshly launched offcial website, or read more for new screens....

Matrix Games is pleased to announce that it has secured the rights to publish Koios Works' innovative new wargame, Tin Soldiers: Alexander the Great. Tin Soldiers: Alexander the Great is a turn-based, simultaneous-play wargame with a classic feel and a reaction system to allow mid-turn adjustments to strategy. Aside from covering the most famous conqueror in all of history, Tin Soldiers: Alexander the Great also presents the wargamer with a unique miniatures-oriented feel with graphics of hand-drawn, individually adorned soldiers.

Inevitably, as we all roll out of our beds in 2004 the games industry instinctively begins to speculate on the year ahead. Sony’s PSP and the Nintendo DS guarantee a fierce handheld battle in the run up to Christmas, but on the established formats there is one battle that is really going to let rip this year – the war of the padless game.

Sammy Studios today unveiled two new characters and a weapon from its upcoming Xbox Live Kung-Fu brawler, "Iron Phoenix." The first ever 16-player online fighting game, “Iron Phoenix” brings a new experience to Xbox Live with team combat in massive arenas and a fight system where moves and combos are dictated by weapons.

Lineage II offers a dynamic 3-D world drawn in exquisite detail. Set 150 years before Lineage, just as the kingdom of Aden becomes a unified state, Lineage II: The Chaotic Chronicle shows the struggles that take place during a time when several medieval provinces come under one rule. The soon to be released Lineage II, Chronicle 1 update includes many new player adventures, NCSoft has sent us some new screens..