It's Friday and WorthPlaying is giving away 10 Run Like Hell (Xbox/NTSC) CD's, sponsored by Interplay. Enter the sweepstakes here! Run Like Hell puts you in the role of Nick Connor, an exiled military hero sent to work on a mining station in deep space. Returning from a mission, you find your crew members wiped out by a vicious and intelligent alien race. Your mission is to stay alive long enough to discover the aliens' plans for your ship and find any survivors in the process.

UK based Sales and Marketing company 'Nobilis' has teamed up with Slovakian developer 'Mayhem Studios' to proudly announce the much anticipated release of Empire of Magic for the PC in August 2003. Empire of Magic is an absorbing turn-based strategy game with a complex storyline and an RPG style of gameplay... Read more to check out a bunch of new screens and the gamestory / features!

Namco proudly announced today that the company’s high-impact title, Dead to Rights, has qualified and is now a Platinum Hits title with an MSRP of $19.95. "We're incredibly excited and honored to have Dead to Rights entered into the Xbox's Platinum Hits program”, declares producer Andre Emerson. “With a lower price point, we hope that even more gamers can experience Jack Slate's one-man-war against crime in the tough streets of Grant City." Inspired by Hong Kong action movies, classic film noir style and hardboiled detective novels, Dead To Rights stars action hero, Jack Slate, a good cop in a bad city, forced to be a fugitive as he fights for his life and searches for his father’s killers. Dead to Rights features more than a dozen game mechanics including diving, rolling, punching, kicking, and lethally disarming enemies in a variety of over-the-top ways.

The Pirates of the Caribbean game transports players to the 17th Century where they can experience life as a pirate in any way they see fit," said executive producer Todd Vaughn. "Whether they want to be feared by all and welcome nowhere, or just enjoy compelling missions or a life at sea, we're creating a game that fits their gameplay style. A few new PC/Xbox screens, check them out!

Turning traffic-filled streets into a high-speed, two-wheeled obstacle course, Acclaim, today announced that it has shipped Speed Kings for the PlayStation2 and GameCube. An arcade-style motorcycle racing game, Speed Kings features adrenaline-infused tricks, stunts and combat, as well as hidden features and dangerous speeds. Gamers will need nerves of steel and lightning fast reflexes if they are to survive the danger on the road and be crowned the ultimate "Speed King."

What could be greater than God? To be God - just like in Heaven and Hell! In the year 1500 BC you announce to four peoples: Thou shalt have no other gods before me. To make your commandment effective, you are supported with miracles and plagues by seven different prophets. Convince your future followers with sound arguments such as chain lightning, locusts, and other mysteries. As you have to compete against a strong opponent at the same time, the fight for the most followers will be even more challenging. There can be only one after all!

Utilising the technical prowess of the Xbox video game system from Microsoft and Xbox Live!, Digital Extremes, the developers of Unreal Championship in conjunction with Epic Games and Atari have completed the auto-update for the game and is available for download through Xbox Live! today. While new to the console arena, auto-updating has been a mainstay of PC games for many years, and is a requirement to maintain fair and fun online gaming. Online games are extraordinarily more complex than single player titles. Exploits will invariably be found by the hundreds of thousands of gamers playing and sharing ways to gain an advantage in the game. Auto-updates defeat these exploits and balance the playing field against those who would cheat to win.

New Role Playing Strategy game "Lethal Dreams" involves player into events taking place in a fantasy world on the side of one of the six magicians. Each of them is a specialist in one of the six paths of magic: Evocation, Incarnation, Necromancy, Portals, Enchantment and Transmutation. Yesterday we had a multilanguage patch for the international version of the game (not out in North America yet) and today we have a fresh batch 'o screens...

Boolat has released a new multilanguage patch for their RPG/Adventure game 'Lethal Dreams: Circle of Fate'. The upgrade adresses various game tweaks such as the frequency of the appearance of random events, some in game descriptions are corrected, the algorithm for pathfinding is accelerated, and various other playability improvements. Read more for download links...

Electronic Arts today officially announced plans to publish the hugely successful game Dead to Rights on the PS2 and GameCube. Both versions will be released next August in all PAL territories. Dead To Rights is an intense, hard-hitting, action-thriller game in which police officer, Jack Slate, discovers and unravels a conspiracy that threatens not only himself, but the city he’s sworn to protect, Grant City. Jack Slate’s adventure has him progressing through various game chapters by taking out hostile threats, solving challenging puzzles and mini-games, and defeating sinister bosses. Check out the screens ..

Konami has released a new patch for Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance which enables support for ATI Radeon videocards, and also takes care of a language selection issue for the European version. If you have previously updated to the v1.0, you will need to uninstall and reinstall the game before applying the v2.0 patch. (thanks Shacknews). Read more for details and download link...

Staying true to all the gameplay features that made Medal of Honor Allied Assault one of the most acclaimed titles launched in 2002, the Medal of Honor Allied Assault Expansion Pack will build on the success of that game and add new multi-player gameplay modes, new soldiers including British and Soviet squads, new weapons, level editing tools, and an integrated server browser. A new & updated version of the 'Medal of Honor Allied Assault: SpearHead' has been released, no specific details are available but it would be safe to assume they have fixed "something". Read more for download links ...

KOEI Corporation, respected worldwide as the premier brand for strategy and simulation games, today announced North American plans to release Romance of the Three Kingdoms VIII for the PlayStation®2. Read more for details and some new screens ...

1500 B.C.: four different peoples in a biblical land are waiting to be converted. The gamer is working with a God-simulator and has to convert the inhabitants to the good or the evil side. For this purpose, each side has seven prophets at their disposal, as well as an amount of wonders and plagues (lightning, flood, grasshopper ...) This German demo sports a tutorial as well as 1 game mission playable in three different difficulty settings. Read more for download links ...

Konami has just launched the official website for their upcoming stealth action game Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes website. The site sports a wealth of new info, some new screenshots, the E3 trailer (local mirror here), and more. Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes (developed by Silicon Knights)will be only available on the Gamecube, expected in November 2003. Go check out the site!

Electronic Arts today officially announced plans to publish the hugely successful game Dead to Rights on the Playstation 2 and Nintendo GameCube platforms. Both versions will be released next August in all PAL territories.

Utilizing the technical prowess of the Xbox video game system from Microsoft and Xbox Live!, Digital Extremes, the developers of Unreal Championship in conjunction with Epic Games and Atari have completed the auto-update for the game. It will be available for download through Xbox Live! tomorrow, May 22 (thanks EvilAvatar). Read more for details ...

The official Battlefield 1942 website now has a movie with plenty of ingame footage from Secret Weapons, the second expansion pack for the popular WW2 vehicular action game (thanks 3DGamers). Read more for download links...

New nations, new campaign missions and a new game mode. An add-on disc, basically. Except... it isn't... Strategy players who can't get enough of CDV's classic RTS American Conquest will have a new set of challenges as American Conquest Fight Back is published in August. Read more for details and screens ...

Heat Project is a state-of-the-art 3D FPS where players from different countries can interact through theInternet. It’s realistic action play and thrill combined with MMORPG’s advantages, such as the economy system, character growing and multi-objective mission scenarios, will provide pure excitement. Read more to check put new screens & a trailer!

ARUSH Entertainment and Playinteractive, LLP today announced a major licensing deal with NBC Enterprises and Endemol USA to create, market and distribute interactive video games based on the worldwide hit TV series Fear Factor. Tentatively titled Fear Factor: Unleashed, the games are targeted to be in stores in 2004. Joy Tashjian Marketing Group helped broker the deal.

EA just send us a note that NCAA Football 2004 will be available in stores starting July 17 on three platforms: PS2, Xbox and NGC. NCAA Football 2004 relives the intense rivalries, pageantry, and spirit of college football. Celebrate the history of college football with classic teams like the 1924 Notre Dame Fighting Irish, or replay one of the 20 greatest college football games from the last two decades. NCAA Football 2004 features new pre-game tunnel presentations, EA SPORTS Talk in-game chat (PS2 broadband only), and the joy of ripping down the goalposts after an emotional victory over your biggest rival. We got some new screens to get you by until then...

Today we have a big batch of screens from DreamCatcher's E3 Lineup. Featured titles are :

• PainKiller (PC)
• Arx Fatalis (Xbox)
• BattleCruiser Generations (PC)
• X-treme Beach Soccer (PC/Xbox)
• Spirits & Spells (GBA/NGC)
• US Open 2003 (Xbox/PC)
• Cypher: Code of Ruin (PC)
  
  Hit this link for the screens!

I saw on VE3D that Andy tossed up info about a E3 footage of Unreal Tournament 2004 on E3 Insider (there's a glimpse of the title screen in there too). To check out this movie click here, then 'Watch Floored' ..

Andy also let us know that Beyond Unreal also has following comment from Mark Rein:

Sorry I have not been able to visit the forum sooner but we've been extremely busy showing off UT2004 during the day and then meeting with licensees and potential licensees at night.

The reception to UT2004 has been great which is especially gratifying considering how early everything is. There are so many cool things going into UT2004 that aren't in showable shape yet. But regardless of that people are really liking the parts they're seeing and we know they're going to be even more delighted in a few months when everything comes together.

I see many of you are discussing the topic of UT2004 pricing. Atari has not yet set the retail price of UT2004 however they have told us that all along they've been planning to have some sort of deal for existing UT2003 owners who buy UT2004. The game is still many months away so there's plenty of time to figure this out and let people know.

I have guests here in my suite and I need to get back to them now. I'll try (no promises) to post more tonight and possibly get on IRC again sometime in the next few hours to answer peoples' questions.