After the enigmatic disappearance of an American scientific expedition in the uncharted and frozen wastelands of the Antarctic, a military rescue team is sent in to investigate. Within these inhospitable surroundings the team encounters a strange shape-shifting alien life-form that assumes the appearance of people that it kills. The game brings fear and suspense to unimaginable levels, with a compelling plot and unique gameplay elements based upon action, evasion, trust and fear. Forget everything you ever learned about obliterating alien species with a simple barrage of violent ammunition - this monster is difficult to see, hard to kill, and seemingly impossible to evade. And when you actually see The Thing, it's often too late…

Xicat Interactive, Inc. is locked, loaded and aiming high with the release of "Sniper: Path of Vengeance." Powered by the Lithtech Jupiter engine, the game drops you head-on into the merciless world of a hit man out for revenge. Xicat, a four year-old company, expects Sniper to be their biggest hit yet.

Set in White Wolf's World of Darkness, Hunter: The Reckoning is a third-person action-shooter where players take the role of one of four unique hunters - Deuce, a biker ex-con, Father Cortez, a prison chaplain, Kassandra, a raver chick and Samantha, a tough ex-cop. Armed with a variety of fearsome weaponry, players will battle it out with a plethora of supernatural enemies. Non-stop heart-pumping action, combined with outstanding graphics bring the true spirit of Hunter: The Reckoning to life, and give players a taste of the World of Darkness. Check some character art and in-game screens from the Gamecube version.

Set during the Vietnam War, "Vietcong" is a first person shooter that also features tactical elements. As elite soldiers, players of "Vietcong" command an A-team, part of the U.S. Special Forces, in realistically represented Vietnamese environments. This is shaping up to be a VERY good looking title. Read more to check 6 new screens

Reakktor Media Today released the beta 4 client of Neocron and it's awesome 1.2GB to download. Sign up for an account to enter this futuristic MMORPG and download it here.

Interplay Entertainment Corp. announced today their best-selling title Hunter: The Reckoning is coming to the Nintendo GameCube video game system this winter. Developed by High Voltage Software, Hunter: The Reckoning is a fast and furious action game based on the characters and fiction found in the popular role-playing game Hunter: The Reckoning and the immersive World of Darkness created by White Wolf Publishing Inc.

SEGA of America, Inc. announced today the release of "SEGA Sports NFL 2K3" for the Nintendo GameCube. Heralded as the "Best Sports Game" by the "Game Critics Awards: Best of E3 2002," "SEGA Sports NFL 2K3" is poised to redefine the standards of football video games this season with ground-breaking Artificial Intelligence, unparalleled lifelike animations, an ESPN telecast-style presentation and an in-depth franchise mode featuring a revolutionary and easy-to-use visual interface. Developed by Visual Concepts Entertainment, a SEGA development studio, "SEGA Sports NFL 2K3" pushes the boundaries of realism and blurs the line between a football video game and a real-life Sunday afternoon gridiron battle.

Publisher Strategy First and developer Object Software are pleased to announce that the action RPG Prince of Qin has shipped to retail stores nationwide. “Combining the best elements of Diablo and Baldur’s Gate, gamers everywhere should grab a copy of Prince of Qin,” says Steve Milburn, Director of Marketing for Strategy First. (read our preview here)

Yesterday Ubi Soft Entertainment announced that it will be releasing a further upgrade for its multi-award winning World War II combat flight simulation title, IL-2 Sturmovik. Today we tossed up a bunch of goodlooking (18) screens. Enjoy!

Ubi Soft Entertainment, one of the world’s largest video game publishers, today revealed its plans for the ECTS, one of the industry’s major European event of the year. At booth # 1640, Ubi Soft will be featuring triple A games for the leading platforms of the market. Within the trade area of the ECTS, Ubi Soft will be presenting four of its major key brands right out from its Canadian and French studios:

• Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Raven Shield for PC, scheduled for a European release in October 2002
  
• Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell on Xbox, scheduled for a European release in November 2002
  
• Rayman 3 Hoodlum Havoc for PlayStation 2, scheduled for a European release in March 2003
  
• XIII for Xbox, scheduled for a European release in March 2003

Jon Hare from Sensible once said “90% of the game is programmed in the last 10% of time.” and so right he was. Game balancing and artificial intelligence is always the part of development that takes the most work and so has been the case with Total Immersion Racing’s Emotion AI – nick named “AI-TUDE”. But as expected Razorworks have finished implementing the Emotion AI in time for the scheduled release and it’s proved everything we’d hoped for. Find out more below (4 screens included)!

Today there is a demo of Hitman 2: Silent Assassin available for download from Tiscali Games. The demo is 48MB to grab and you can try out the first mission in this third-person action game by IO Interactive.

Donning yellow trousers and mounting a shiny red engine, Monte Cristo today announced the release of Fire Department for PC for November 2002. Fire Department allows players the chance to experience what life is really like as a fire fighter. As captain of their own fire departments, players will be able to choose and train their team of specialists how to fight fires, develop their stress resistance in emergency situations and, most importantly, how to survive emergency call-outs intact. 38 new screens is included below with the announcement!

Combat Mission II – Barbarossa to Berlin ventures into the heart of WWII wargaming: the Eastern Front. The struggle between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union captures the flavor of the four years conflict that left Germany in ruins. Combat Mission II reflects 50 battles between 1941 and the final capitulation in May 1945. Today we tossed up 5 new screens!

Tothegame let us know that they got the UT 2003 (PC) Final Release Date confirmed by Infogrames for Europe today:

Is the wait for Unreal Tournament 2003 soon finally over? Infogrames Nordic dropped us an email today, stating it would hit store Shelves 27th of September (this year, "of course"). The mail also contained the word "Final Releasedate".

Vivendi showcases Xbox Bruce Lee game at tribute event to the star. To coincide with the release of its Bruce Lee: Quest of the Dragon Xbox title and the 30th anniversary of the martial arts legend's Way of the Dragon movie, Vivendi Universal is participating in a Bruce Lee convention to be held in Bradford.

Just when you thought they couldn’t get any smaller, Ellula, a cutting-edge manufacturing company, introduces the future of portable sound systems— inflatable speakers. For the first time ever, speakers can be inflated within mere seconds, just like a beach ball, and then plugged into your portable CD player for use anywhere people want to listen to their favorite music, making them perfect for the beach, dorm rooms, picnics and travel.

Activision, Inc. and id Software announced today that Return to Castle Wolfenstein for the Xbox video game system from Microsoft will take console gamers to the front lines with online multiplayer warfare via Xbox Live, the first comprehensive, world-class online game service by Microsoft. Presenting platform-specific multiplayer features, including squad-based and co-operative Internet and split-screen modes, and an epic single player experience, Return to Castle Wolfenstein is set to offer Xbox players unrivalled gaming action. Nerve Software, creators of the award-winning multiplayer feature in Return to Castle Wolfenstein for the PC, is developing the highly anticipated Xbox game, with id Software serving as executive producer.

These fellas reckon that, given the chance, they could write Quake - but on the Game Boy Advance. Eight new shots from AGB's pocket Quakette. We also got another 3D GBA clip, this time of blokes running around a suspiciously Quake-like arena.

NINA is an action-adventure game, with a good balance of both elements. It is not meant to be another shooter with the intention to take out anything that moves just spiced up with adventure elements, but a game where completing tasks and solving puzzles will be as important as eliminating opponents. The action is likely to move towards a tactical shooter, where combat tactics and taking maximum advantage of available weaponry has more importance than just fast reactions allowing to shoot numerous opponents. Check out the "real life" Nina screens, the actress who stood model for digital Nina. Ohh and of course also a few in-game screens ...

Square EA is about to blow the lid off its upcoming PlayStation 2 adventure roleplaying game, Kingdom Hearts with a community event centered around the game called the Kingdom Hearts Consumer Demo Day. On Friday, August 23 Square EA will give players the chance to get a hands on preview of this wonderful adventure that combines the characters and locales of various Disney movie franchises with the worlds created by SquareSoft. Attendees will also get a chance to meet the game's director and character designer Tetsuya Nomura and voice talent David Gallagher ("7th Heaven") and Hayden Panettiere ("Ally McBeal," "Remember The Titans"). The event will be held at the PlayStation store, located at 101 Fourth Street (Fourth & Mission streets) in San Francisco on August 23 from 2:00 - 6:00 PM. Limited edition posters will also be handed out at the event, but the most important thing is that you'll be able to play the game before September 17 - the day the game hits retail in North America! (Thanks GameSpy).

Fans of the Rayman series will be excited to hear that Rayman's two best friends, Globox and Murfy, will return alongside Rayman in Ubi Soft's action-adventure, cartoon fantasy game Rayman 3 Hoodlum Havoc . Globox and Murfy play important roles in the game and Globox is especially intertwined in Rayman 3's plot. Not to reveal too much of the story (that'll come later), all we can say for now is you'll be seeing a lot of Globox and Murfy as Rayman comes face-to-face with some of his greatest adversaries yet, including the Hoodlums and evil Dark Lums.

Aces of World War I, the ultimate flight simulation meets action combat PC game, fully immerses gamers into the heat of World War I combat. Assuming the identity of Edward Rickenbacker, a great American ace, players are challenged to hold their ground against the most lethal German flyers of the Great War. Flying in one of six authentically rendered planes, players must successfully combat all of the opposing ground, air and sea German forces if they intend to win the war victoriously. Check out the Aces of World War I site for yourself. There you'll find all sorts of in-game details, plane and in-game images and a game trailer. We have a local mirror for the trailer so "read more" for links ...