MindArk have announced their MMO game Project Entropia is now one year old, having been originally released on January 30^th 2003.

Like almost all massively multiplayer games you can download the game client free of charge, however there is no monthly fee to play. Since the entire game economy is based on real currency, to purchase new weapons, equipment and other items you need to make an initial deposit into you account.

You can deposit more money at any time, increasing the amount of money you have to spend in the game, and if you are successful within the economy and make a profit, you can withdraw this from the game.

Bungie have announced that Halo 2 will finally be shipping in Autumn (or Fall for those of you living in America). No definitive date has been announced, although before the end of the year is a good start.

Also posted is the FIRST EVER MULTIPLAYER HALO 2 SCREENSHOT! as they put it.

Activision have announced that their popular console game True Crime: Streets of LA will be released on the PC later this year. Unlike it's console counterpart, the PC version will also include multiplayer elements, allowing up to four people to compete either over a LAN connection or over the Internet.

(article by Media Create)

Total sales for the TOP 100 this week amounts to approx. 816,000 units. This represents 139.90% of the last week's total or increase of about 230,000 units over last week.

There were 14 new titles made it into the rankings this week. "Fuun Shinsengumi" topped the charts with unit sales of about 129,000 units. Other new releases such as "Phantom Brave", "Upset Trial 3" and "STAR OCEAN 3: Till the End of Time - Director's Cut" have also performed well with each shifting close to 100,000 units. The share of new releases is also high at 55.25% of the total.

On the other hand, the sales of older releases dipped from 551,000 units last week to 365,000 units. Though the total sales volume was increased this week owing much to the new releases, those stellar titles released last year-end have now started to lose their steams.

As previously mentioned, Blizzard have now opened the World of Warcraft beta signups page. The page is under a heavy load, so may take a little while to load.

Blizzard have also mentioned on more than one occasion that the beta testers will not be chosen on a first-come, first-served basis but will be chosen at random, so you have an entire week to sign up for an equal chance to become a tester.

OK, so I didn't think this was new news, but apparently it is: The boys at SplashDamage are currently on the lookout for three high-poly modelers and a concept artist to help with work on their Doom 3-engined game. For more information, check out the jobs page over at Splash Damage.

Following last weeks news on Japan obtaining new Limited Edition Xbox's, us lucky Europeans are set to receive a quite fantastic looking Crystal Xbox, with clear plastic casing, rather than a quite ugly-looking black case. It comes with two Crystal pads, but lacks the Hi Definition pack that usually accompanies Limited Edition Xbox's in Japan. Apparently it's scheduled for release on March 14th. Pictures can be found here and here.

Digital Jesters have released the playable demo for Desert Rats vs Afrika Korps. The 166Mb demo is available from the following mirrors:

Astro Boy, the seminal japanese manga character first designed by Osamu Tezuka in 1951 is coming to a Playstaion 2 near you. Sega has teamed up with Sony and Tezuka Productions to produce a Playstaion 2 and a GameBoy Advance game based on the character.Tezuka, known as the pioneer of Japanese animation and "father of manga," created the Astro Boy character more than 50 years ago. Often compared in popularity to Mickey Mouse, Astro Boy was also the first Japanese animated television show shown in America and, during the 1960s, the highest rated show in syndication.No release date has been announced.

EA have recorded another bumper quarter, with the financial results for the 3 months ending December 31 2003 generating a net income of $392,000,000, based on sales of $1,475,000,000.

The increase in revenue was based largely in an increase in net revenue and gross margins, with margins currently running at 65.2% - meaning that your £40 game costs EA less than £14 to developer, publish and market.

Forecasts place EA's 1st quarter 2004 revenues at between $550,000,000 and $570,000,000, up 19 to 23%.

The source code for Return to Castle Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory has been released. Developed by local boys SplashDamage (also responsible for the outstanding Quake 3 Fortress) the public source code release will help mod developers create new additions to the freely available multiplayer FPS.

The tools are unsupported, and come as a 2Mb archive from the following mirrors:

According to a report on Yahoo Finance, Atari have delayed DRIV3R from the end of March to June 1^st.

"The Driver franchise set the benchmark for the driving adventure genre, as the incredible legacy of Driver and Driver 2 has combined to sell more than 12 million units worldwide, said Bruno Bonnell, Chairman and CEO of Atari, Inc. "We believe that this additional time will give our marketing team the ability to exploit DRIV3R's full potential, meeting the high expectations of gamers, media and shareholders," he continued.