Following the recent release of Ultima 5: Lazarus, the development team have already pushed out a patch addressing some of the issues encountered in the initial release.

WHAT'S FIXED:

• ALL provisioners now sell bedrolls, as they were supposed to.
• All Rings and Amulets now function properly.
• Insect Swarms are now better balanced.
• Sea Serpents, Dragons, Sandtraps, Drakes, and our friends the Shadowlords are all deadlier than before.
• All gold-transfer bugs are fixed.
• Shadowlords will not display their names until you've "learned" them.
• Shadowlords will never occupy the same town two nights in a row, thus greatly reducing "wait time."
• Time now pauses while you are in a shop or a container. This makes making your daily "shopping run" considerably easier.
• All reported game-crashing bugs in plot-critical NPCs should be fixed.
• Iolo and Shamino can rejoin your party if left behind.
• The Crafting system (bread making, etc.) is fixed.
• Character bonuses upon leveling function properly.
• The game now begins with access to the mini-map function. The mini-map may be accessed by pressing the TAB key or clicking the small map icon in the bottom right portion of the screen. The mini-map contains "discovery fog" which is gradually uncovered as you explore more of the world. Peer Gems work as they did before, and reveal the world around you without any fog, whether you've been there yet or not.
• All broken portrait issues should be fixed.
• Several minor dialogue bugs have been fixed.

GENERAL NOTES:

• This patch will NOT break your savegames. However, many of the fixes included in this patch will not take effect until you begin a new character. Our apologies for the inconvenience.
• Team Lazarus would like to thank all of our fans for being so patient while waiting for this patch, and the one which will follow it. We're ecstatic that you're all having fun with the game *despite* the bugs, and hope that this patch will make it a great deal more enjoyable for you. :)

Action Forms have released a couple of demos of their upcoming FPS game Vivisector. There is a 177Mb alpha demo, available from one of the following mirrors:

• the Vivisector Website
• 3D Downloads
• 3D Gamers
• FileFront

• 3D Gamers
• Gameguru Mania

Speaking to 'EDGE', ATI's European Developer Relations Manager Richard Huddy has slammed Sony's Playstation 3, referring to it as "Unrefined", "Complicated" and "not very elegant".

Pressed on the issue, Huddy said that while he concedes that the 7800GFX is "a pretty powerful piece of hardware," he criticized rival Nvidia's card as "not very elegant". Referring to the construction of the Playstation 3 he described it as thrown together after Sony's original plan of using its Cell processor to handle graphic fell through.

However, Huddy saved his most scathing attack till last, lambasting Sony's E3 claims as ridiculous, going as far as to say

"Well, why not take another combative line here? I think it's more likely that [the E3 PS3 demos] can be realised on an Xbox 360 than they can be on a PS3."

Thomas Weisel analyst Tim Klasell has revised his initial predictions for end of year sales of the Xbox 360 in a report released to investors on Wednesday.

Citing retail sources, and media reports, Kasell revised his initial estimate from 2 million to 1.2 million after widespread shortages. He estimates 700,000-800,000 of those consoles have been sold in the US, with the remainder consisting largely of Canada and the UK.

"While the console launched to much fanfare, it is well known that Microsoft's ambitious global launch plans constrained supplies, leaving inventory thin at retail and gamers clamoring for limited shipments," writes Klasell his report.

The holiday season is upon us once more and the team at News0r (Ben, Tom, Luke and Matt) would like to take this opportunity by wishing all of our families, friends, clients, partners and readers of this web site a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

3D Realms have given game fans an early christmas present, releasing the classic Apogee side-scroller Bio Menace as freeware.

Thirteen years ago, our company was heavily into the old sidescroller market. We had successes with games like Commander Keen, the original Duke Nukem, as well as Cosmo's Cosmic Adventure, and plenty of other titles. However, in 1993, we released one based on the Keen 4 game engine - this game was called Bio Menace. While it wasn't the runaway hit that Duke Nukem was, Bio Menace was a very successful game for its time. It stayed as a product in our line for many years, until being discontinued awhile back (mostly for technical reasons). However, now we're here to bring the game back to you - as freeware.

The Lazarus team have been working on recreating the entire classic RPG Ultima 5 using the Dungeon Siege engine. More than 5 years in development, the mod for Dungeon Siege has the blessing of the original creator of Ultima, Lord British.

At last, my friends, the time has come. After five and a half long years, Lazarus is complete. The first Ultima remake project to ever actually reach the finish line....weighing in at over 500 megabytes, with nearly 300 unique NPCs, and literally hundreds of hours of play value, Lazarus is HERE!

Every week new games get released, lists are made, and things are bought. Alongside this there are the games 'due for release' that never seem to quite make it, or whose release is missed. The list below has been generated from the records kept by the kind people at Games Press, and are all the games listed for release this year, but without an actual release date. I'm sure some have managed to slip out into the wild, but a lot - notably S.T.A.L.K.E.R., now set for September 2006 - have yet to see the light of day.

So, here's the games that didn't make it into your Christmas stocking.^* Will we be seeing them next year?

Nintendo DS
Kim Possible: Kimmunicator, Animal Crossing: Wild World, Finding Nemo, Nicktoons (working title), Texas Hold 'Em, Viewtiful Joe DS.

Game Boy Advance
Pocket Dogs, Dora The Explorer: Super Star Adventures, Mario Tennis Power Tour, Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi, Ms Pacman / PacMan World, Alien vs. Predator, Backyard Football.

Game Cube
Chaos Field, Cocoto Fishing Master, Total Club Manager 2005, Backyard Football.

Gizmondo
Battlestations: Midway, Carmageddon, Catapult.

Macintosh
Backyard Hockey.

Mobile
Dweebs, Star Wars: Battle Above Coruscant, Star Wars: Jedi Arena, Super League Rugby League.

PC
Ground Zero - Genesis of a New World, Battlestations: Midway, Dead Mountaineer Hotel (working title), Just Cause, S.T.A.L.K.E.R., The Battle of Britain, Wild Earth, World In Flames, Phoenix Racing, 777 Professional, Kakuro - Infinite Edition, Traffic PlusPak – Jet Airliners 1, Alexandra Ledermann 6, Black Powder Wars: Battles Of Napoleon, Gene Troopers, Hard Truck: Apocalypse, Jacked, Knights of the Temple 2, Metal Combat, Space Empires IV DeLuxe and Star Fury, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, TrainMaster Train Simulator, Trainz Railroad Simulator 2006, Tycoon City: New York, Vietcong 2, World Racing 2, Armobiles, Backyard Hockey, Ball Adventures.

Playstation 2
Battlestations: Midway, Ford Mustang: 40th Anniversary Edition, Just Cause, Nanobreaker, NASCAR 06, The Regiment, Barry Hatter, Fear & Respect, Jacked, Knights of the Temple 2, Frogger: Helmet Chaos.

PSP
Ys: The Ark of Napishtim, Armored Core: Formula Front - Special Edition, Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith.

Xbox 360
Frame City Killer, Top Spin 2, Mutant Storm, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Dead or Alive 4.

Xbox
Battlefield: Modern Combat, Battlestations: Midway, Ford Mustang: 40th Anniversary Edition, Just Cause, KoF: Maximum Impact - Maniax, NASCAR 06, The King of Fighters '94 Re-bout, The King of Fighters Neowave, Fear & Respect, Gene Troopers, Jacked, Knights of the Temple 2, World Racing 2, Xyanide, Armada 2 Exodus.

* If you see something here that has been released, let us know and we'll remove it.

The Inquirer is running a story claiming that Unreal Tournament 2007 will be a Playstation 3 launch title. Apparently the January 2006 issue of PSM magazine confirms that UT2007 will be released alongside the next Playstation. For more, head over to The Inquirer.

We previously mentioned this possibility a couple of weeks ago.

Despite not being officially announced, some US retailers have begun allowing customers to pre-order the highly anticipated Halo 3. The title, hinted at by Microsoft's Bill Gates earlier this year is likely to break the $250m first day sales record already set by Microsoft's 2004 blockbuster hit Halo 2.

The news has prompted speculation that Microsoft may announce the game at CES 2006 in Las Vegas. Any form of announcement, verbal or visual is likely to deal a blow to any Sony announcement regarding the Playstation 3.

Microsoft was unavailable for comment at the time of writing.

A beta demo for Championship Manager 2006 has been released for the PC. Those interested can download the 57Mb (yes, 57Mb) demo from http://www.cm2006beta.com/.

According to a story on CNN, White Wolf Publishing, creator of a number of MMO games including Vampire: The Requiem and Mage: The Awakening, was recently hacked. The hackers threatened to release customer data on the Web unless the company pays an undisclosed sum of money. Rather than pay up, White Wolf have decided to go public and released a statement on their website.

Like many other well-known companies of the last few years, White Wolf was the target of an attack by international hackers on Sunday December 11th. These hackers are attempting to extort money from us with the threat of posting user data to the internet. We have no intention of paying this money, and are in contact with the FBI in an attempt to bring these criminals to justice.

We are choosing to make this public so that our users and fans can take any precautions needed to protect themselves. We are recommending that if you have used your White Wolf user password as the password for any other services you use on the internet, that you change them immediately.