Encore has just let us know that while the majority of the press corps was attending last week's E3, Surreal's action/horror "The Suffering" has quietly gone gold and is expected in stores May 28th. Merely announced a few weeks ago, you can already check our in-house The Suffering preview if you want to find out more about it ...

Ubisoft is committed to offering the best Xbox LIVE experience as possible. Today, the next Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Pandora Tomorrow Auto-Update has been released. A number of features have been improved and a few bugs have been fixed. This Auto-Update will give gamers an even greater pleasure in playing than it already has. Please note that the leaderboards will be cleared next week, once Microsoft's tournament is over. In the coming weeks, new downloadable content will be available that will extend and heighten the Splinter Cell experience. Read more for details on the new features...

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 :

• Playboy: The Mansion - E3 2004 Trailer
• Crash Twinsanity - E3 2004 Trailer
• Spyro: A Hero’s Tale – E3 2004 Trailer
• Men Of Valor - E3 2004 Trailer
• Call Of Duty: United Offensive - E3 2004 Trailer
• The Sims 2 - E3 2004 Trailer
• Bet On Soldier - E3 2004 Trailer
• MoH: Pacific Assault - E3 2004 Trailer
• Dungeon Lords - E3 2004 Trailer
• Chaos League - E3 2004 Trailer
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In 'Soldner: Secret Wars' the player takes command of one of these special teams. As Commander he leads the small high tech army consisting of soldiers, light armoured vehicles, helicopters and VTOLs to fulfill a wide variety of mission. The Simulation of a highly complex political system creates a dynamic campaign: each decision has direct impact on the flow of the game.

Today we have more screens for Hip Interactive's 2004 E3 lineup. Check the following new screens for :

• Pariah (Xbox/PC)
• CT Special Forces: Fire For Effect (PS2/Xbox/PC)

Knight Rider 2 will address much of the customer feedback received on the first Knight Rider game as well as add many new features, which will improve the gameplay dramatically whilst maintaining the authentic atmosphere of the series. Knight Rider 2 will contain more action, in-game animations, special effects and dialogue than its predecessor.

Taking place in a massive, free-roaming city featuring five distinct interconnected neighborhoods, Need for Speed Underground 2 delivers an immersive game world where the streets are your menus. As players explore the city, they’ll encounter rival racers who will school them in the ways of the underground and tip them off to the hottest racing spots in town. Read more for some new screens or check the freshly launched official Need for Speed Underground 2 website.

Codemasters has released the first patch for their racing game TOCA Race Driver 2: Tthe Ultimate Racing Simulator. This update patch brings your retail game to v1.1 and unlocks more Simulator Mode championships tracks, camera controld, replay saving, rear view mirrords and the usual tweaks and bug fixes. Read more for details and download links ...

Today we have more screens for Codemasters' 2004 E3 lineup. Check the new screens for :

• IndyCar Series 2005 (PS2/Xbox)
• MTV Music Generator 3 (PS2/Xbox)
• Colin McRae Rally 2005 (Xbox)
• Soldiers: Heroes of World War II (PC)
• Perimeter (PC)
• Operation Flashpoint: Cold War Crisis (Xbox)
• Dragon Empires (PC)

UbiSoft has released a new patch for their 3rd person action/stealth game Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow. This patch will brings your retail game to v1.2 (available for US/Euro versions) and adds multiplayer improvements, multiplayer ban option, and various other tweaks and fixes. Read more for details and download links ...

Unleashing the horror throughout nine levels, The Suffering features dynamic lighting that illuminates frightening visions of horror-filled exploration and frantic combat sequences. In the dark world of The Suffering, creatures attack from the shadows and emerge from jail cells, chambers, the ground and trees, surprising the player in the most disturbing ways possible. As Torque, the main character, players encounter a cast of uniquely hardened criminals, prison guards and grotesque apparitions.

Before E3 officially kicked off, several of the biggest publishers have their annual pre-E3 conferences where they give speeches about past achievements and look ahead at things to come. Micrsoft had its pre-E3 conference on Monday, and we were treated to some exciting Xbox Live news, footage from the new Forza Motorsport racing game, several announcements, but above all, a live demo of Halo 2 multiplayer. Read on for our report ...

Atari's Shadow Ops: Red Mercury, the cinematic first-person action game for the Xbox, has earned the coveted "THX Certified Game" status. THX ensures that the game has the potential to deliver the immersive and compelling audio and video experience typically found in blockbuster Hollywood films. Shadow Ops: Red Mercury will be available June 22 and will offer players a gripping action movie-style experience through its unprecedented Hollywood production values and ground-breaking sound and visual effects.

EverQuest II returns to the culturally diverse world of Norrath in the future of the original EverQuest, with the sheer size and graphical detail greater than ever seen before. Larger in scope than its predecessor, EverQuest II will allow players from every corner of the earth to explore familiar areas and new, undiscovered territories of Norrath.

Set before the events of both Universal Pictures' upcoming summer release, The Chronicles of Riddick, starring Vin Diesel, and the 2000 breakout hit Pitch Black, which first introduced Diesel as enigmatic anti-hero Riddick, the game tells the story of Riddick's dramatic escape from the previously inescapable triple max security slam Butcher Bay, home to the most violent prisoners in the universe.

Captured, conveniently forgotten, tortured, and left for dead, MI6 agent Andrew Sterling awaits execution in a Chinese prison. The story begins when a mysterious friend from his past rescues him, setting off a chain of events that could rock the very foundations of global security and wreak chaos on a worldwide level. Just another day in paradise... Anti Social, Anti Normal, Anti Bond, Anti Hero...It's a bitter, cold winter.

• Read the full preview on our dedicated E3 Page...

Digital Jesters has announced that it has secured the publishing rights to thrilling PC-based first-person shooter Bet On Soldier. With near-identical first person shooters flooding the PC shelves week in week out, developers need to present something considerably different in order to stand out from the crowd. Fortunately, Paris-based developer Kylotonn have that very thing.

On his quest to advance in the Shaman Tournament and defeat Zeke, Yoh and his friends run into a man named Magister, who plans on resurrecting the demon king Mephias. With the help of his friends and their Guardian Ghosts, Yoh must stop Magister at all costs.

Crave Entertainment announced today that they would release the first handheld version of the Tokyo Xtreme Racer series with Tokyo Xtreme Racer Advance for Game Boy Advance. For fans of Tokyo Xtreme Racer Zero and Tokyo Xtreme Racer 3, Tokyo Xtreme Racer Advance will take players beyond the open roads of Tokyo and onto the motorways of London and the freeways of Los Angeles.

Shaman King: Power of Spirit finds Yoh and his friends robbed of their powers by a mysterious force seeking to seize control over the minds of the Earth's populace. Players have access to multiple fighting styles that allow for long-range attacks, en-masse confrontations and solo hand-to-hand battles.

Ubisoft announces the worldwide in-store dates for Splinter Cell Pandora Tomorrow for the PlayStation 2 and GameCube. The next game in the critically acclaimed Splinter Cell franchise brings the intense realism of the original game to a whole new level. Splinter Cell Pandora Tomorrow is unlike any game on the PlayStation 2 - amazing graphics, a deep single-player storyline and a ground-breaking multiplayer experience that's so mesmerizing, it's one of the most played games on the Xbox LIVE game service.

Vivendi Universal Games announced today the development of the latest action-packed project from the developer that created award-winning games like Aliens vs. Predator, the No One Lives Forever franchise and Tron2.0. Developed by Monolith Productions, F.E.A.R. (First Encounter Assault and Recon), is an intense first person close-quarters combat experience with rich atmosphere and an engaging storyline.

Microsoft Game Studios and Bungie Studios today announced that Halo 2, the highly anticipated sequel to the hugely successful and critically acclaimed Halo: Combat Evolved, will land on store shelves on November 9, 2004. In what promises to be one of the biggest launches in videogame history, Halo 2 will be the focus of an extensive marketing campaign that includes cinema, print, outdoor, online and television advertising.

NDL announced today, from the 2004 E3, that Gamebryo is being used by game developer Cyberlore in the creation of the upcoming title, Playboy: The Mansion for the Xbox, PS2 and PC. Cyberlore has fully integrated Gamebryo into its Prometheus Engine to improve graphics and reduce the time and resources associated with cross-platform development.

Ubisoft has announced that they are getting ready to release (mid May)a new v1.2 patch for their recently released stealth/action game Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow. Word is that "Special attention has been paid to comments from players who've had difficulties joining servers. The development team has done everything possible to improve this part of the game. Our objective was to reduce the amount of time spent in the menus."