Atari, Inc. and Firaxis Games have announced the upcoming release of Sid Meier's Civilization III: Gold Edition, the latest offering in the Civilization III franchise. The Gold Edition will include the blockbuster hit Civilization III and the Civilization III: Play the World multiplayer expansion pack.

Microsoft today announced its partnership with Eatsleepmusic Corporation (http://www.eatsleepmusic.com) to provide downloadable karaoke songs for Microsoft's breakout party title, Xbox Music Mixer. This downloadable content will be available the moment Xbox Music Mixer hits retail shelves on October 14 for a suggested retail price of $39.99 (U.S.). Read more for details & screens ...

The long awaited release of the tactical 3D action shooter Breed will be postponed for another few weeks. CDV announced today that the 3D action shooter BREED will be released by the beginning of November. In UK and in USA the release will also take place in November. A new single player demo is scheduled for October and multiplayer-demo at the time of release!

NCsoft today announced the latest chapter to its massively multiplayer game, Lineage. The new epic, called Lineage: Dark Conquest (www.lineage.com), is a series of six new episodes to be released over the next three years. The first new episode, Light and Shadow, goes live on North American servers today. Lineage first launched in 1998 and has grown to more than three-million active subscribers worldwide.

The next chapter in the award-winning Disciples series will be a stand-alone expansion pack titled Disciples II: The Rise of the Elves and it will be released this fall. Disciples II: Rise of the Elves will give both new and old fans of the popular series just what they have been asking for; The Elven race. Read more for details and screens ...

Back in the days of 1920's prohibition, one man ruled the roost in gangland America; Al Capone. Game publisher and lover of violence, corruption, murder and extortion, Whiptail Interactive is to mark the anniversary of Capone's most notorious murdering spree by releasing its forthcoming gangster PC game Gangland on Valentines Day, 74 years after the infamous Valentines Massacre. Developed by Danish gaming bad boys MediaMobsters, the game, based on life as a Sicilian gangster will be released across the UK, Europe and North America on Valentines Day, February 14th 2004.

Namco Hometek Inc. announced today that it has expanded its relationship with Hip Interactive Corp to license several of Namco's key video-game properties for the PC. Hip Interactive will develop and distribute PC versions of "kill.switch," "Extreme Force: Grant City Anti-Crime" (working title) and "PAC-MAN WORLD 2" in North America and Europe in 2004. As previously announced, Hip Interactive will be releasing another top Namco franchise, "Dead to Rights" for PC in North America and Europe in fall 2003.

THQ Inc today announced the release of BIONICLE for Game Boy Advance. BIONICLE, the second title under THQ's multi-title exclusive publishing agreement with LEGO Interactive, is now available at retail outlets nationwide.

"BIONICLE is a fun twist on a classic brand name that is perfectly suited for the Game Boy Advance," stated Tiffany Ternan, senior vice president, North American sales and distribution. "We are happy to add the strength of the LEGO brand to our leading Game Boy Advance catalogue."

Day 2 of Microsoft's X03 event has kicked off and there are more goodies coming our way. At bat today are tons of screens for upcoming Xbox Sports titles. Decided to list them seperatly from the action titles since the list was getting rather long :) We have screens for :

• MX Unleashed
• ESPN NFL Football
• Inside Drive 2004
• NFL Fever 2004
• NHL Rivals 2004
• Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2004
• Links 2004
• NFL Street
• ESPN NBA Basketball
• Total Club Manager 2004
• Fifa Football 2004

Codemasters, creators of genre-leading motorsport video games, will once again drive racing gaming forward with Race Driver 2: The Ultimate Racing Simulator. Designed as the definitive racing game experience, the game will launch Spring 2004 for Xbox, complete with Xbox Live functionality.

Armed with her camera, aikido staff, and resolute investigative skills, Jade sets out to expose the dark secrets behind these alien invasions and to liberate the minds of her deceived people. Pushed to the very edge of her physical and spiritual will, she soon discovers that even these limits are not what they seem … Her quest for the truth knows no bounds. Read more for the full preview ...

Set in a fantastical medieval world where small Kingdoms struggle for supremacy in a chaotic land of knights, and demons, you are the ruler of a new kingdom, born from the ashes of a once mighty realm. To resurrect this realm to its former glory you must forge order out of chaos by uniting the fragmented lands into a single, mighty empire under the rule of one warrior king - you. Read more for the full review ...

Monolith has now released a singleplayer demo for their recent cyberspace 3D action game TRON 2.0 . This demo features a tutorial, the 'Abandoned Test Grid' mission where you battle against Resource Hogs and the Seeker, and the new 'Low Level Crunch' map in the Light Cycles portion of the game (thanks FilePlanet). Read more for download links ...

Sony Computer Entertainment America Inc. announced today that Final Fantasy XI, the latest installment of the critically acclaimed FINAL FANTASY series, will be available pre-installed on the upcoming internal 40GB Hard Disk Drive exclusively for the PlayStation2. Final Fantasy XI, an online only title, will be among the great content only available with the internal Hard Disk Drive release in March for a suggested retail price of $99.

Electronic Arts Inc. announced todya that it is postponing the next game in its key "James Bond" franchise from this holiday season to early 2004 in order to put more development work into it. Read more for details

SWAT: Global Strike Team was founded in 2018 as an international offshoot of the U.S. SWAT organization. Primarily established to supplement the income of the U.S. SWAT establishment, the Global Strike Team contract their personnel and expertise to companies and countries around the world to help “resolve” situations for those who have the funds but not the means to do so. Check the new screens ...

PlanetSide: Core Combat brings the action of PlanetSide, the world's first massively multiplayer online first-person action game, underground. With more gameplay options for players in PlanetSide's vast game world where thousands of players can battle all hours of the day, PlanetSide: Core Combat takes squad-based combat to the next level. Players choose their allegiance and enlist with one of three unique empires in the fight for total domination on a global scale. Characters gain experience with every conflict, and can become one of the best in more than 30 combat specialties, including infantry, sniper, stealth commando, engineer, hacker, medic, pilot, driver and more.

Microsoft Game Studios today announced that “RalliSport Challenge 2,” the highly anticipated second installment in the internationally acclaimed “RalliSport Challenge” franchise, will be the first Xbox racing title in the new XSN Sports brand. The game is scheduled to be available in the spring of 2004. “RalliSport Challenge 2” joins other announced XSN Sports games shipping this fall, including “Amped 2,” “Links 2004,” “NBA Inside Drive 2004,” “NFL Fever 2004,” “NHL Rivals 2004” and “Top Spin™.” “RalliSport Challenge 2” is being developed by Digital Illusions CE.

Needless to say that at their own X03 event Microsoft is unveiling tons of upcoming Xbox titles, in house and from 3rd party developers such as Acclaim, Atari, LucasArts, Activision and more. We will have screens for most of those and we start with :

• Halo 2
• Rallisport Challenge 2
• Armed & Dangerous
• Pitfall Harry
• Wallace & Gromit in Project Zoo
• Kameo: Elements of Power
• True Fantasy Live Online
• Grabbed by the Ghoulies
• Mission: Impossible: Operation Surma
• True Crime: Streets of L.A.
• Deus Ex
• Race Driver 2
• Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic
• BC
• Alias
• NBA Jam
• Tony Hawk Underground
• Urban Freestyle Soccer

It's time for some fun in the sun! Leading videogame publisher Konami of America, Inc. today announced that Boktai: The Sun Is In Your Hand has shipped to retail outlets nationwide. The highly anticipated new action/role-playing game for Nintendo Game Boy Advance is the world's first videogame that incorporates natural sunlight into gameplay. Only in Boktai will the player's experience be affected by where, when and how much time they play the game in the sun.

Developer Stardock Entertainment has released Galactic Civilizations: Expanded Universe, a free expansion pack for their award winning strategy game, Galactic Civilizations today. Set near the dawn of the 23rd century, the player takes on the role of leader of the human civilization and must compete against dozens of alien civilizations in the creation of an interstellar empire. Read more for details and links where to grab it ...

Sony Pictures has a new version of their Half-Life mod Underworld: Bloodline, a team based horror themed mod with four maps (2 new one's in this version) that is serving as a free promo for the upcoming action-horror film Underworld. The new updated version (also available in patch form) offers various small improvements along with a pair of new maps and a new Black Widow Spider weapon (thanks Bluesnews). Read more for download links.

Micorsoft announced new European details for its Xbox Live service, the only fast-action, always-on broadband gaming service where gamers can simultaneously play, talk and build their legend across games and around the world. New Xbox Live-enabled countries, flexible pricing options, a trial offer for Europe, and some amazing games mean that European Xbox gamers will have a lot to look forward to this Christmas and beyond. Read more for details ...

Tonight at X03, Microsoft announced a partnership with Epic Games, developers of the legendary Unreal series of games and the Unreal® Engine. Epic Games and its recently-formed Scion Studios will develop several new games exclusively for Xbox and Windows. The to-be-announced products will be published by Microsoft Game Studios.