Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines, built using Valve's Half-Life 2 Source Technology, allows players to become a dangerous creature of the night as they assume the role of a recently embraced fledgling vampire in the service of the city's dark prince. Vampire: The Masquerade- Bloodlines is being developed by Troika Games, based on White Wolf's renowned pen-and-paper Vampire: The Masquerade RPG series.

Gamers can enlist for a second tour of duty on the intense front lines of WWII with Call of Duty: United Offensive. Delivering a compelling, all-new single player campaign filled with new weapons, character abilities and other expanded features, Call of Duty: United Offensive also offers a robust multiplayer experience introducing new maps and modes of play. Read more for new screens ...

BBC UK is reporting on a case where Rockstar's "Manhunt" is being blamed for a 17 year old going berserk on his friend. The parents of a boy who was murdered with a claw hammer by a friend have blamed a violent video game which the teenage killer was "obsessed" with. Warren Leblanc, 17, repeatedly stabbed 14-year-old Stefan Pakeerah after luring him to a Leicester park to steal from him on 27 February. Read the full story over at BBC UK.

Netamin today announced the world's first virtual reality, massive multi-player online sports game, Ultimate Baseball Online (UBO), is in the final stages of testing and will be ready for a worldwide launch in Fall 2004. 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 :

• Xpand Rally - Trailers (3)
• Lord Of The Rings: Third Age - Trailers (3)

The furious battle of Pearl Harbor became the first in the sequence of gory sea combats. Now you can take part in all major Pacific battles of the World War II in the Pacific Storm game that is a mixture of RTS, war-game and simulator. All major and important sea battles of World War II, which took place in the Pacific Ocean, are included and you can play either for the USA or Japan. Mine the resources (money, iron and nickel ore, bauxites and oil), train various units and retaliate! Sink’em all!

1C Company and Pointsoft Interactive have signed a Pan-European distribution deal for Vivisector: Beast Inside. Vivisector: Beast Inside developed by Action Forms (creators of Chasm and Carnivores series) is a unique mixture of 3D Action/Horror. The game blends a thrilling interactive story with intense, high-adrenaline action and immerses players in a rich and fascinating storyline. Read more for some new screens

WWII's Pacific theater was the backdrop for some of the most famous aerial battles in history. In places like Midway, Guadalcanal and Iwo Jima, allied fighters and bombers went head-to-head against the air power of the Japanese empire. Pacific Fighters provides the opportunity for players to experience the realistic action, intense flight combat and immersive gameplay of WWII's Pacific air war.

Midway today announced a multi-year, multi-product agreement with Epic Games to publish three new videogames based on the popular Unreal franchise. The agreement marks Midway's entrance into the premium PC games sector with a property that has sold more than seven million units worldwide and generated nearly $200 million in revenue at retail since the introduction of Unreal Tournament in 1999.

EA has released a new patch for DICE's multiplayer shooter Battlefield Vietnam. This update patch brings your retail game to v1.1 (client & server) and adds a new "Defense of Con Thien" map, including 3 new vehicles (OH-6 Loach and Ka-25 'Hormone' helicopters, and M60 emplacements), improves server browsing and the usual game balace tweaks and bug/crash fixes. Read more for download links...

Eidos today announced the hard hitting in-game soundtrack for Backyard Wrestling 2: There Goes The Neighborhood. The sequel to the genre-bending phenomenon Backyard Wrestling: Don’t Try This At Home, Backyard Wrestling 2: There Goes The Neighborhood offers a soundtrack featuring contributions from legendary artists, today’s hottest acts, and tomorrow’s industry leaders. The in-game soundtrack delivers a direction that further refines and voices the sound of Backyard Wrestling and today’s youth.

Digital Jesters has released a patch for their recently released D-Day demo. This brings the demo to v2.14 and addresses issues regarding: framerate, GameSpy crossmatching, memory leaks, and more. Players of 2.12 will not be able to play users with the patch. Read more for details and download links ...

UbiSoft has released yet another patch for Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow. This update brings your retail game to v1.3.1 and fixes an issue that surfaced in the v1.3 patch where punkbuster disappeared if the pb directory was not accessible in read/write, and the spy teleportation problem has been corrected. Read more for download links...

Atari has forged links with Microsoft to publish the Windows PC version of Top Spin, the critically renowned tennis simulation releasing this September. Atari and Microsoft are confident of repeating the success of last year's Xbox version in 2004. Developed by French games studio Power and Magic Development (PAM) - the creators of the original Xbox version - Top Spin is the complete virtual tennis experience. Here are some fresh screens ...

Empire Interactive are celebrating the spirit of 50 years of Rock n' Roll by encouraging new rock and indie bands to look to the interactive entertainment industry as a springboard to a career in music. Empire have teamed up with Overplay.com, the up and coming music site dedicated to the development and exposure of unsigned bands, to put together a killer rock soundtrack for their upcoming free-roaming, smash-fest racer FlatOut which releases on PS2, Xbox and PC in Fall 2004

Electronic Arts today announced an agreement to acquire Criterion Software Group Ltd. from Canon Europe. With the acquisition, EA assumes Criterion's studio in Guildford, UK; two globally recognized intellectual properties, Burnout and Black; and the RenderWare middleware technology.

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. The demo will allow you to play as Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson as well as having 10 different locations to visit and 10 minutes worth of movie footage to go along with the 3 hours worth of gameplay. Read more for download links ...

Midas Interactive continues to raise the bar for budget console development by the addition of a whole host of licenses, including the valuable Crescent Suzuki team, to its forthcoming PS2 superbike and sidecar product. Read more for details and screens...

Sailing has never been for the fainthearted. However, with this latest version of Virtual Skipper, it doesn’t matter if you are an inexperienced or skilful navigator, you are joyfully transported from the colourful horizons of Sydney, to the choppy English Channel around the Isle of Wight… the worldwide waterways have never looked so good.

Killzone is a squad-based, first-person shooter, set in the near future during a period of planetary colonization. Drawing inspiration from classical military conflicts of the 20th century, Killzone captures the intense reality of warfare between the ISA Command and a ruthless, militaristic separatist faction called the Helghast.

The popular fighting franchise, Guilty Gear X2 #Reload, makes its debut on the Xbox this summer, courtesy of Majesco. Developed by ARC System Works, Guilty Gear X2 #Reload features Xbox Live support, offering players head-to-head competition, real-time global rankings, and community support of voice and friends.

In preparation for the launch of Nintendo DS in North America and Japan later this year, Nintendo today announces developments for the dual-screen, wireless, hand-held video game system. Nintendo DS, originally chosen as the code name, has been selected as the official product name. Read more to check out the new design!

"Monster Garage The Game" puts players on show host Jesse James' monster team and charges them with creating a custom machine in seven days, for $3000 or less. Activision Value has released one of their Trymedia" trial demo's giving you the chance to try out the full game for 2 hours, after which you must purchase a serial key to unlock the entire game.

Merscom LLC today announced plans to publish WWII Fighter Pilot, an arcade-style flight combat game in which players battle for domination over the Pacific skies during World War II. WWII Fighter Pilot will be available for the PC in October 2004.