Aspyr Media today announced it has acquired the rights from JoWood to publish and distribute SpellForce 2: Shadow Wars in North America. In this seamless blend of RTS and RPG genres, SpellForce 2: Shadow Wars provides an environment full of surprises and challenges as the player takes on the role of the Avatar, (ev. together with his party of heroes) solving quests and overcoming obstacles in carefully crafted worlds.

Blazing Angels: Squadrons of WWII is an Xbox exclusive action-filled flight combat game internally developed by Ubisoft. From Western Europe to the Pacific, players test their air-combat skills as they experience the most famous battles of World War II. As a squadron leader, the player can fly up to 40 WWII aircraft in both single-player and multiplayer missions.

EA today announced it has shipped its biggest launch line up of EA SPORTS titles to stores with four EA SPORTS branded games for the Xbox 360. FIFA 06: Road to FIFA World Cup, Madden NFL 06, NBA LIVE 06 and Tiger Woods PGA TOUR 06 are all available for the new game system.

A humorous action/adventure game about mysterious and adventuring journey of the young luckless hero. The attractive but rather down-on-his-luck young hero of the game gets into a scrap. But he's a hard nut to crack, and a series of misfortunes turn into jolly and sometimes exreme adventures.

Prima Games today announced the upcoming release of a manga series based on Rare's Kameo: Elements of Power video game. A preview of the manga will appear in Kameo: Elements of Power -- Prima's Official Game Guide, releasing in mid-November. The four-page section will introduce the storyline and artistic style that the remainder of the series will follow.

Phantasy Star Universe is being developed for both the PS2 and the PC, offering two complete RPG experiences - a single-player action adventure spanning multiple planets, and a robust online multi-player component.

Dolby Laboratories announced today that the new Xbox 360 will support Dolby Digital surround sound for both games and movies. This next-generation game console includes both interactive Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound for game play, as well as Dolby Digital decoding for video playback.

Atari today announced the company has shipped Dragon Ball Z: Supersonic Warriors 2, featuring explosive tag team battles, offering gamers the opportunity to experience high-speed fighting and providing them with an exclusive opportunity to uncover new DBZ plotlines.

Walk of Game today announced its list of 2006 inductees. John Carmack and Sid Meier were selected in the Lifetime Achievement category, and EverQuest, Final Fantasy, Lara Croft (Tomb Raider), and StarCraft received the top votes for favorite Games/Characters. Winners will be honored with a permanent 24"x24" customized steel star installed on the floors of Metreon, in downtown San Francisco. The official induction ceremony is currently set for Spring 2006.

Newly founded publisher-developer Legendo Entertainment announced today The Three Musketeers, where you play as one of the Three Musketeers. You, playing as Portos, famed member of the Musketeers, have to save the day in the first game ever based on the world-famous novel by Alexandre Dumas.

Namco announced today that Me and My Katamari will be launching in North America and Europe (through EA Europe) in 2006 exclusively for the PSP. Me and My Katamari is the third installment in the Katamari series and delivers more of the simple and addictive game play enjoyed in Katamari Damacy and We Love Katamari, this time for the handheld platform.

Today Ubisoft announced that Peter Jackson’s King Kong is now available in stores. Delve deeper into the film experience through alternative viewpoints designed to immerse the player into the action and truly "feel" the tension of the adventure. Unprecedented Alternating Gameplay Battle for survival on Skull Island in first-person as Jack Driscoll AND experience the staggering power of King Kong in third-person taking on massive beasts.

Featuring 41 ski jump ramps including Worldcup venues, you can either compete or be a coach in one of three difficulties, or opt for management mode. After a hard-working day, you can also relax with the integrated Quiz Games with over 500 topical questions. RTL Skispringen 2006 will be in German stores November 17.

The Snowboard Kids are back, sporting a new look and a brand new adventure?exclusively for the Nintendo DS! Play with up to 4 friends at a time with single-card download play while utilizing a multitude of special items and attacks during the race to win at any cost. SBK: Snowboard Kids is scheduled to ship this winter on the Nintendo DS.

JoWooD Productions continues its successful cooperation with the German developer Piranha Bytes by publishing one of the most spectacular titles of the coming year: Gothic III, the third part of the legendary RPG saga. Check out the new screens...

As part of Update 38 we will be introducing Massive in-game advertising to The Matrix Online, similar to what people experience in SOE's Planetside. Real-world ads will cycle to keep things fresh, and SOE is also looking into maybe allowing players to purchase ad space.

Today Ubisoft and Universal Studios announced that Academy Award nominee Naomi Watts and Jack Black will appear via likeness and provide voice talent for the Peter Jackson's King Kong videogame. Academy Award winner Adrien Brody has also lent his voice talent to the game.

The Civilization IV website has been updated with word on the imminent patch for Firaxis latest strategy title. "Some of the highlights include multiple AI improvements and tweaks, worker behavior tweaks, MANY game play improvements (ex Animal Husbandry reveals horses), promotion tweaks, a softer pillage sound (requested by many, many people), fixed diplomatic exploits (gold for gold, peace treaty exploit), multiplayer tweaks (Hot seat, Lobby, etc.), memory, caching and performance improvements, etc. There were also a number of video card specific fixes." We will of course have the patch on our fileserver network as soon as its released.

KOEI announced its hack & slash Dynasty Warriors 5 Xtreme Legends is now available in North America, serving up a banquet of 18 all-new maps, 5 sizzling modes, and so much more! In 'Legend' mode, gamers will take part in never-before-told stories, including the first showdown between the Kingdoms of Wei and Shu, and the attempt to kidnap the Emperor.

Gravity Interactive has set the launch date for the company's new MMORPG game, ROSE Online, for Dec. 1, 2005. The Ragnarok Online follow up title is an interplanetary adventure game that will take players through a journey of mystery and peril.

Atlus U.S.A announced that Softmax's PS2 exclusive RPG Magna Carta: Tears of Blood is now available in North America. Magna Carta: Tears of Blood is a role-playing game, set in Efferia, a continent populated with five races. In this world, you can use seven different types of Carta and meet a host of characters.

Groove Games has released the first patch for Brainbox's horror/FPS Land of the Dead: Road to Fiddler's Green. This update brings your retail game to v1.1 and adding 3 new multiplayer maps, dedicated server, editor, plus a few other multiplayer optimizations. Read more for detailed fixlist and download links ..

THQ has now released a new patch for Relic's 3D RTS Dawn Of War/Winter Assault. This update brings your retail game to v1.41 and mainly seems to add unit balancing, interface enhancements, some optimizations and bug fixes. Requires the previous v1.40 patch to be installed (thanks Relicnews). Read more for detailed fix list and download links...

German publisher Frogster Interactive announced today that it will publish Xbow Software's 3D space combat RPG Star Wolves 2 in Germany, scheduled for release Q1 2006. No further details are available, so read more to check the first screens...

SWAT 4 allows players to take control of a squad of up to five police officers tasked with performing dangerous operations such as high-risk arrests, hostage rescue and counter-terrorism. Sierra has released a QMM map pack which includes eight game levels created by members of the SWAT 4 QA Team using the in-game Quick Mission Maker.