UK Based Just Flight have today announced their new AI traffic add-on for Microsofts Flight Simulator 2002.

FS Traffic 2002 replaces the default AI aircraft in FS2002 with 20 brand new high quality Gmax constructed airliners (in 47 different real world liveries) and places those airliners at 52 of the worlds most famous airports and sets them running on real world time tables.
With the addition of real world airlines an update is needed to the ATC systems voices as well to accomodate the new airlines and Just Flight have taken this opportunity to add some much needed regional accent diversity to the ATC as well.

In addition to the commercial flights FS Traffic also adds some 9312 general aviation flights to 630 airfields around the globe (usually different from those supporting commerical flights) and if thats still not enough the package provides the tools within it to create your own flights and add them to the mix.

There's also (brace yourself) a virtual aircraft spotters kit that allows you to listen in on the ATC and pull up maps etc and place aircraft where ever you please.

For more details and a host of screenshots check out the products Official Website.

It seems that the current exclusivity agreement that Rockstar Games and Sony have is due to run out next year and its now being reported that when that happens Rockstars premium titles, GTA3 and GTA:Vice City, will emerge on the PS2's rival consoles.

No big surprise... Metroid Prime 2, the current darling of the GameCube, is set to get a sequel.

While the game itself won't be shown at E3 there will apparently be some video on show, watch this space for more as and when.

JoWooD kindly sent me a press preview copy of their upcoming first person game Chaser. I am currently on my second play through in advance of a proper preview, so I thought I would post some screenshots taken from the game as a sort of teaser to the preview itself.

In another 'exclusive', FilePlanet subscribers (ie paying customers) can now download the Planetside Beta. So if you've been signed up for the beta and haven't received word from Verant, head on over to Gamespy and pay them a subscription fee to download the 1.2Gb beta.

Tribes Vengence is the now announced name for the next game in the Tribes franchise, set to return in late 2004 on the PC.
With its return Tribes is bringing with it a new development team in the shape of Irrational Games (the power behind the excellent Freedom Force and System Shock 2) and a new engine (for the franchise at least), T3 will be using an enhanced version of the Unreal Engine.

TribalWar have bagged themselves the first screenshots and concept art if you fancy a peek. Guess it's time to start dusting off the old arguments again ...skiing and scripting anyone?

The much anticipated sequel(ish) freebie release of RTCW: Enemy Territory is very very close now and, as promised, a test version has been released to the slavering hordes.

RTCW:ET is an online only semi-sequel for the hugely popular WW2 shooter. It will be released as a FREE DOWNLOAD and is a totally STANDALONE product (although it was originally being developed as an expansion), if you've not got RTCW it doesn't matter, RTCW:ET won't care.

The test version is a one level team co-op game and as always 3DGamers.com have their usual list of reliable mirrors for your downloading pleasure.
To learn more about RTCW:ET or the games development team, Splashdamage, then check out their website.

The full release is expected soon...

Borrowed shamelessly from GamesPress, here is this week's All-Formats Charts for the week end 19 April 2003

POS.	TITLE	PUBLISHER
1	Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell	UbiSoft
2	The Sims	Electronic Arts
3	Championship Manager 4	Eidos Interactive
4	Primal	Sony Computer Entertainment
5	FIFA 2003	Electronic Arts
6	Harry Potter & the Chamber of Secrets	Electronic Arts
7	Grand Theft Auto: Vice City	Take 2
8	The Getaway	Sony Computer Entertainment
9	Vietcong	Take 2
10	X-Men 2: Wolverine's Revenge	Activision
11	Dancing Stage Party Edition	Konami
12	Metal Gear Solid 2 - Substance	Konami
13	The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers	Electronic Arts
14	Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon	Ubisoft
15	Rayman 3	Ubisoft
16	Zelda 3 - Link to the Past	Nintendo
17	Devil May Cry 2	Capcom
18	Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2003	Electronic Arts
19	The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring	Vivendi Universal Games
20	Freelancer	Microsoft

In a rare shocker, Vietcong takes the number 9 slot, despite not being released until this coming Friday.

Microsoft have announced that all new Xboxes sold in Europe will ship with the smaller Controller S rather than the huge controller originally shipped with the console.

Controller S was originally sold as a seperate peripheral.

"The decision to make Controller S standard in Europe was based on feedback from gamers," said Michel Cassius, Senior Director, Xbox Platform and Marketing. "The majority of gamers preferred Controller S to the original Xbox controller, and we saw an opportunity to further improve the Xbox offering to new gamers."

Crowd Control Productions have announced that EVE Online: The Second Genesis, their massively multiplayer space sim has now gone gold. The game will be published simultaneously in the US and Europe at the beginning of May.

The NDA for beta testers has now also been lifted - which means we can write our preview and post our own screenshots now.