Gamer's Hell reports there will be no demo for S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl, said Alexey Savchenko, the PR Manager for GSC GameWorld in an interview posted on Oblivion Lost.

Acclaim has released an updated, pre-release demo of Juiced, superseding their earlier beta sample of the upcoming street racing simulation by Juiced Games. As before, this demo reportedly contains the San Ricardo track drivable in a selection of three cars.

Just announced on the Rage3D forums is that Doom 3 has scored an astounding 94% in the latest issue of PC Gamer, which has just shipped to subscribers. They say the atmosphere rocks and that the graphics are top notch, but the few attempts at humor fall short. Nonetheless, they say it's a must buy!

EuroGamer have news of the hardware requirements for Half-Life 2 and over at Half-Life 2 Fallout Mr Chimp's has posted his Half-Life 2 hardware Q&A article! Here's a snip from EuroGamer.

Valve boss Gabe Newell has revealed the hardware requirements for Half-Life 2, ahead of the game's expected late summer release

Planet Half-Life are reporting several people are reporting to us that they have been in touch with Gabe in response to his "Steam" emails, and that Gabe has been revealing an RC (release candidate) by month's end.

I haven't had a chance to speak to Gabe yet, but I will confirm this with him as soon as possible.

What do you think? has Tribes Vengeance gone Gold!

PlanetDoom has a pic of the Doom3 cd's and case.
One pic says more than 1000 words:

Doom3 box/cd shot

Doom3Center are reporting DooM fan Dr. Hoshi is presently working on a new modification he calls "DOOMED." Judging from the following screenshots, this Max Payne 2 total conversion is doing a great job of emulating id Software's masterpiece so far.

Gamespot has published #2 in its series of designer diaries covering the RTS Warhammer 40.000: Dawn of War from Relic Entertainment(creator of the Homeworld games). The article includes som amazing screenshots.

Here's a snippet:
"You could say that real-time strategy games used to all follow the same formula. Basically, you would collect resources, build a base, and build an army to squash your opponents as quickly as possible. Fortunately, many developers are breaking from this time-worn format to try something new. Take, for instance, Relic Entertainment, which is currently hard at work creating Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War."

This new ad in a magazine confirms Doom 3 is done along with other interesting info.

3D Gamers reports that Ubi Soft sends along a small patch for the version of Splinter Cell, their original third-person stealthy action game, that came bundled with Creative Labs cards in the US. This fix addresses an unspecified problem in the game, but further details are not available.

Bungie have released another 3D shot of the game - and this time, rather than just showing a freeze-frame, the Quicktime image shows off a Hog in the process of being blown to pieces.

Doom 3 has been billed as one of the biggest games of 2004. With a massive fan-base and a huge 4 year development time, John Carmack and the wizards at id software hope to have created something that will rock the gaming world. Indeed, even if Doom3 itself is not the success it hopes to be, the parts which make up the game should live long in the PC gaming world. A preview is up at gameSlave and offers some food for thought as we await this highly anticipated title.

Immerse yourself in the largest massively multiplayer online role-playing game in North America. For a limited time only, Sony Online Entertainment is offering EverQuest Classic plus two expansion packs, The Ruins of Kunark and The Scars of Velious, including up to 30 days of gameplay, as a FREE download to people with registered Station Accounts which do not currently and have not had an EverQuest account. Certain Restrictions Apply.

Half a year after the US edition, Atari has released a European edition of the XMP (Extended Multiplayer) add-on full install for owners of Unreal II - the Awaking, expanding Legend Studios' sci-fi first-person shooter. This release deploys the latest version (7710), and as before it's a standalone game that requires a Unreal II Play disc to install, and features eight maps, three vehicles, and three character classes.

IGN-PC reports that while it may not be a copy of Half-Life 2 in your hot hands, this is fun news nonetheless: Valve announced today that beta testing for the much-anticipated Counter-Strike: Source will commence later this summer. Players at CyberCafes hosting Valve software will be the first to have a chance at the beta, followed by owners of Counter-Strike: Condition Zero. The beta will be distributed over Valve's Steam distribution client.

Open Mortal is a parody of the once popular coin-up fighting game, Mortal Kombat, for Windows and Linux. It is currently playable, has 16 playable characters, some more in the making. New characters can be added, so be a Open Mortal actor today!

DreamCatcher has now released a new patch for Painkiller, bringing the frantic first-person shooter to version 1.3. This release adds enhanced networking code, performance tweaks, support for All-Seeing Eye, gameplay improvements, bug fixes and more, and it's accompanied by a standalone Win32 server that allows server operators to host games without requiring to install the full game.

We have released a utility for those users who unfortunately lost their saved games and profiles after applying the 1.0.0.7 patch. The SaveFixxer utility will allow users to recover the lost save files by importing them into any profile created after the 1.0.0.7 patch has been applied. For those users who have lost their profiles as well as their saved games after installing the 1.0.0.7 patch, this utility can be used to recover the saved games from the deleted profiles as well.

Blizzard Entertainment invites you to be among the first to experience the World of Warcraft? in Europe. We?re looking for a few mighty heroes to help us beta test the game and tune the performance of our dedicated European server network. Official closed beta sign ups commence today, 5th July and will end after three weeks. A few thousand randomly selected applicants will then be emailed advance keys to enter the online, massively multiplayer World of Warcraft.