The entire Worthplaying staff would like to say "MERRY CHRISTMAS" to our readers all around the world. We hope everybody has a wonderful holiday, loads of good food, and a joyful time with friends & family. May Santa bring you all the games you wished for, but above all, stay safe! Our news coverage will not slow down, but the news itself might be lacking. If there is anything worthy of your attention, you can be sure to read it here ...

In Sid Meier's Pirates! you take the leading role of a Pirate Captain in the 17th century Caribbean amassing fortune and fame in an attempt to seize your rightful place as one of the most revered (and feared!) pirates in history.

X-Isle is a singleplayer mod for Ubisoft/CryTek's FPS Far Cry. This Alpha v0.1 features 2 maps, 2 weapons, a jetski and a few other features. Read more for download links ...

The Sims 2 University is the first expansion pack for the highly-acclaimed The Sims 2, giving players of The Sims 2 the ability to watch their Sims become young adults and put childhood behind them as they settle into an all-new college town to live out their ultimate college fantasy.

Activision Value has released the first patch for Creat Studio's motorbike building game American Chopper, based on the Discovery Channel's TV series with the same name. This update brings your retail game to v1.1, although no details as to what it fixes are available. Read more for download links ...

On December 22 many players were unable to access World of Warcraft for approximately seven hours, due to server problems. Blizzard will address this issue by automatically extending the trial period of all players who created an account on or before December 22 (11:59 PM PST) for an additional day.

SEGA of America has released the first patch for Sports Interactive's 'Worldwide Soccer Manager. This update brings your retail game to v5.0.2, fixes lots of bugs, tunes the game more realistic like the player position bug, and makes it compatible with the European Football Manager 2005 edition of the game. The patch is save game compatible, but to get the full out of it, start a new game. Read more for download links ...

In Battlefield 2, players will choose to fight for one of three military superpowers: the United States, China, or the newly formed Middle East Coalition. Armed with the latest modern weaponry, players can take control of any of the game's 30+ vehicles to engage in major conflicts with over 100 players in some of the largest online battles on the PC. Read more to check out 32 new screens, and a trailer showing off the 1st person perspective, weapons and vehicles...

Another day, another batch of game trailers were released. Instead of giving them all their own posts, we grouped them, and so far there are trailers for :

• World Racing 2 - Trailer
• Jurassic Park 'FarCry Mod' - Trailer
• Dangerous Waters - Trailer

Oddworld Stranger's Wrath has officially gone gold for the Xbox and will begin shipping under the EA GAMES brand starting Tuesday, January 25, 2005.

Ubisoft announces that Prince of Persia Warrior Within has already doubled sales of the brand's first installment, with 1.8 million units delivered since its December 2nd release. During an extremely competitive holiday season, Prince of Persia Warrior Within has proven itself as a force with which to be reckoned.

Offering over 40 fully-licensed and faithfully replicated club and national teams, players can tinker with tactics, formation, line-up and training before each match. During the game, Pro Rugby Manager 2 displays each bone-crunching tackle, each heart-in-mouth drop kick and every maddening pass and dash to the try-line in such glorious, motion-captured detail, it rivals anything TV coverage can offer.

Wow, talk about a surprise! A few weeks ago Israeli game developer Majorem announced it was putting development of Ballerium on hold due to insufficient funds, and today Interplay announced that it will exclusively publish and distribute the massively multiplayer online strategy game. The game, currently in beta testing, is expected to be commercially launched by summer 2005.

Another day, another batch of game trailers were released. Instead of giving them all their own posts, we grouped them, and so far there are trailers for :

• Brothers in Arms - Trailer
• Drakengard 2 - Trailer
• ESPN MLB 2K5 - Trailer
• GTR - Trailer
• Stolen - Trailer #2
• Tenchu: Fatal Shadows - Trailer

Busy evening for the people over at Valve as today it disabled more than 30,000 Steam accounts (a few weeks ago Valve already banned 20,000) which had been used to try to illegally gain access to Valve games without a valid purchase. A new Steam update has been released fixing some some stuttering issues with Half-Life 2 and also addressing missing models when running the Counterstrike Source Video Stress Test.

Ubisoft is pleased to announce that Spring’s hottest title, Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, will be releasing a Limited Collector’s Edition for the PS2, Xbox, GameCube and PC in the U.S. and Canada. Read more for details as well as some new screenage ...

The Sims 2 University is the first expansion pack for the highly-acclaimed The Sims 2, giving players of The Sims 2 the ability to watch their Sims become young adults and put childhood behind them as they settle into an all-new college town to live out their ultimate college fantasy.

Digital Jesters have announced the launch of the official Bet on Soldier website for its forthcoming FPS, featuring screenshots, movie footage and a dedicated forum on which to chat about the game.

Created by Texas-based Gearbox Software, Brothers in Arms is the most realistic and authentic WWII shooter ever. While other WWII games have sugarcoated the war experience, Brothers in Arms is based on a true story and will immerse gamers into the gritty, uncensored and emotionally-charged side of war. Ubisoft has launched the official Brothers in Arms website, featuring previously release screenshots, trailers and game info.

World Snooker Championship 2005 will be launched at next year's World Championship in April 2005 on the PS2, Xbox, and PC formats. In addition to this, Blade is delighted to announce that it is developing World Snooker Championship for Sony's PSP.

As promised, Starbreeze has now released the level editing tools for its action game The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay - Developer's Cut. This v1.10 toolset includes the Riddick GDK which allows you to edit the Riddick levels, but also requires you to have the latest Ogier level editor (v1.3), Starbreeze's game engine (thanks 3DGamers). Read more for details and download links ...

Codename: Panzers thrusts players into the high-powered battles of World War II offering real-time combat rampages with awesome 3D graphics. CDV has released a multilanguage patch for its WW2 based RTS, addressing several singleplayer/multiplayer issues as well as a new feature which allows you to upload a score and compare it with other players' highscores. Read more for download links ...

THQ announced a new Dawn of War mapping contest which will allow fans of the game to submit their own creations to be judged by Relic developers. Read more for details ...

Another day, another batch of game trailers were released. Instead of giving them all their own posts, we grouped them, and so far there are trailers for :

• S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow Of Chernobyl - Trailer
• Darkwatch - Trailer

Activision has released the first patch for Troika's RPG Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines. This update brings your retail game to v1.2 and addresses a number of known issues, including fixes for the Society of Leopold quest, keys and keycards disappearing, the use of Protean (Level 5) and Fortitude at the same time, and various other gameplay updates. Read more for details and download links ...