This Call of Duty® 2 update is recommended for Windows 2000/XP users with Intel Hyper-Threading Technology (HT Technology) enabled processors, multiple processors, or systems with a dual core processor. This update will bring any supported version of Call of Duty 2 up to version 1.01. This upgrade will not affect pure server, and will not affect your ability to join or host multiplayer games with version 1.0 players. Infinity Ward worked closely with Intel to improve Call of Duty 2 performance on systems with HT Technology, multiple processors, or dual core processors. If you do not know whether you have a multi-processor, dual core, or HT Technology enabled system, please see the ReadMe file for simple instructions on checking your system.

Please note that Call of Duty 2 is a very graphically intense game. The greatest performance increase from this upgrade will be realized by selecting Optimal System Settings in the Options menu.

This update supports US/UK English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Polish, and Russian language versions of Call of Duty 2 only.

This patch updates any US, English, French, Italian, German and Spanish versions of Starship Troopers to version 0.5.24. This patch will update both the original installation and any previous patches.

This patch adds three new multiplayer maps, and four new deathmatch and team deathmatch maps. Notable bug fixes include a workaround for driver problems with the Creative Audigy series cards, as well as a workaround for a driver issue with the NVIDIA 6600 and 6200 series cards causing persistent glow trails.

• Battlefield 2: Special Forces: Tour of Duty on 1UP.
• Hitman: Blood Money on 1UP.

• The Chronicles of Spellborn on 3D Gamers.
• Hitman: Blood Money on 3D Gamers.
• Larian Studios Next Game on their Official Website.
• Pirates of the Burning Sea on MMORPG.COM.
• Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends on the Official Website. Thanks Frans.
• RF Online on RPG Vault.

• Xbox 360: Back to the Drawing Board.
• Halo 3 close? Pre-orders open.
• Atari Heats Up The Streets With Details On Driver Parallel Lines.
• Kojima Planning True Online Metal Gear. Thanks Frans.

• Apple Moving Away from Macs.

• InterAge Begins Fourth Stage of Tsunami Victims Project. Thanks Sally.
• FireFox Mozilla Seeks Filmmakers For Ad Contest.
• Google, Microsoft Settle Dispute Over Kai-Fu Lee.
• France Lawmakers Endorse File-Sharing.
• AOL Tests Toolbar, Web Mail Upgrade.
• Jews for Jesus sues Google over blog.
• Google founders are FT's men of the year.

• Microsoft Corrects Patch Day Glitch with SUS Update.
• Security Symantec Says Vulnerability Hits 63 Products. Back to Norton Antivirus 1942.

• Vice President Cheney's Apple iPod recharge takes precedence aboard Air Force II. Thanks Digg and Ant.
• `Battlestar Galactica' special to premiere on iTunes.

• Ultima V: Lazarus is now available, a Dungeon Siege mod that remakes the classic RPG...
• Following up on some of the big gaming stories of 2005 on CNN Money...
• Jack Thompson Buys Shares in Take-Two...

The Battlefield 2 expansion pack planned to be launched during spring 2006 is now replaced by two booster packs. The change means slightly lower project revenues during the fourth quarter 2005 than during the third, due to a lower development budget. The anticipation though is that this will be compensated by higher royalty revenues during the first six month 2006.

The expansion packs in the Battlefield series have new maps, vehicles and weapons. Each Battlefield booster pack will have new but fewer maps, vehicles and weapons. Instead they are sold to a lower price: 9.99 USD. An expansion pack is usually sold at between 19.90 USD and 29.90 USD. Today at least two Battlefield 2 booster packs are planned for spring 2006.

Bellevue, WA. – December 22, 2005 – Valve, a leading entertainment and technology studio, unveiled a 64-bit version of its Source game engine technology today. The first 64-bit Valve games released will be native 64-bit versions of Half-Life 2 and Lost Coast, and have been developed to take advantage of AMD Athlon™ 64 FX processor-based systems - the ultimate 64-bit gaming platform for PC enthusiasts.

The 64-bit versions of these games are being offered to all Half-Life 2 owners via Steam™, Valve’s online platform for delivering games and digital content directly to users around the world.

Montreal, Canada. December 22, 2005. Software publisher Strategy First, Inc. a wholly owned subsidiary of Silverstar Holdings, Ltd. (NASDAQ: SSTR), and top Russian publisher 1C Company announced today that “Cuban Missile Crisis: The Aftermath” has shipped to retailers nationwide.

The time has finally come to rewrite History. “Cuban Missle Crisis: The Aftermath” challenges gamers to survive the nuclear aftermath of 1962 gone wrong. In this version of history, nuclear strikes have devastated cities across the globe, along with the tiny island nation that triggered the incident.

“We are happy that “Cuban Missile Crisis: The Aftermath” is now available to North American customers,” said Nikolay Baryshnikov, International Sales Director at 1C Company. “This game is a worthy addition to any strategy fan's collection".

“After its success in Europe, I'm excited to announce that “Cuban Missile Crisis: The Aftermath” will be available to gamers in the United States and Canada,” said Pro Sotos, Business Development Manager at Strategy First. ““Cuban Missile Crisis: The Aftermath” is an addictive strategy title that effectively combines real-time and turn-based gameplay.”

VSDA frankly takes no pleasure in this decision. The injunction was inevitable, as is a final ruling that the law is unconstitutional. It is indeed unfortunate that the state of California has wasted precious taxpayer dollars in pursuing this legislation, when the outcome is so predictable: This law will never go into effect.

The ruling marks the second time this month and the sixth time in five years that a federal court has prevented a law that attempts to restrict video games from going into effect. It should now be abundantly clear that these types of laws will never be enforced because they amount to unconstitutional government censorship. It is time for legislators to move beyond the rhetoric uttered in support of passage of such censorial legislation. We call on them to work with video game retailers and the video game industry to help educate parents about the existing video game rating system and encourage parents to use those ratings to make informed decisions about which video games to allow in their homes.

• Battlefield 2
  The Battlefield 2 Q&A on Total Battlefield 2 talks with DICE’s Armando Marini about recent and future patches for their military shooter sequel: "The process of addressing issues in patches is kept very flexible. If there are fixes that the community would like to see in 1.3, let us know about it. There are no guarantees, because everything is prioritized depending on what aspect of the game if affects, who is requesting the fix, the amount of work involved, the risk of affecting other elements, etc, etc, etc. I should also point out that there has been no word as of yet whether there is anything planned after 1.3, but then again, there was no plan for patch 1.2 or 1.3 until a few months ago. These types of things are very dynamic and are usually driven by customer support. The more demand and support we get from the community, the more support we can provide in return."
• Auto Assault
  GamerGod's Q&A with Scott Brown and Valerie Pann Massey talks with a couple of the devils from Netdevil about their upcoming road rage MMORPG: "We came up with a working theme for each part of the game and then tailored those parts to the theme. All art for each area is unique, so is the weather and other elements. We are going through those pieces one at a time. The delay from our beta was not about adding more features to the game, it was about going over the game as it is and refining what we have."
• Neverwinter Nights 2
  Dungeons and Dialogue Trees on RPGDot talks with Obsidian's Chris Avellone about the story in NWN2, while RPG Vault's Neverwinter Nights 2 Q&A, Part 2 continues this interrogation of Obsidian lead designer Ferret Baudoin about the upcoming D&D RPG sequel: "Our game uses 3.5 edition Dungeons and Dragons - which is a robust and fun system. Wizards of the Coast did a great job of rebalancing things for 3.5 edition D&D to make character development more even. Some classes (like the ranger) had all their goodies front-loaded, and later on, there were levels that weren't quite so filled with gamey goodness as the beginning ones. Now, you progress in levels and there's almost always a new shiny toy just out of reach. A delicious and sinister design - how excellent."
• Star Trek Online
  The Daron Stinnett Developer Profile on MMORPG.COM introduces the executive producer on Star Trek Online, Perpetual Entertainment's upcoming MMORPG: "We are in Pre-Production which means we’re doing a lot of planning and prototyping. The design team is exploring and documenting our major game systems such as economy, character progression, travel, etc. The art team is busy doing look development to establish visual quality expectations for our many diverse environments. And the engineering team is beginning work on our first major gameplay prototype that will explore our riskiest and most interesting gameplay feature: starship combat.
• Games In 2005-2006
  Gamecloud's Games In 2005-2006 year-end questionnaire series continues by surveying Adrian Chmielarz of People Can Fly and Mark Skaggs of Trilogy Studios about the state of gaming.

• Tycoon City: New York on Computer and Video Games.

Electronic Arts recently signed a six-year, $44.2 million exclusivity agreement with the NHLPA, but nobody told the NHL itself, according to an article in the Sports Business Journal (subscription required). The deal reportedly only covered third-party games, so Sony could continue its licensing of the Gretzky NHL series.

Upset by the notion that the players would try to go behind its back and essentially impose exclusivity on the deal, the league refused to extend its own licensing agreement with EA unless all parties returned to the negotiating table and found a way to cut Take-Two Interactive in on the deal. Take-Two publishes the NHL 2K series of games through its 2K Sports label, while Electronic Arts has published NHL games dating back to NHL Hockey on the Sega Genesis in 1991. In that stretch of time, the company only once made a game with the Player's Association license but not the league license, NHLPA '93.

• Microsoft looks to beat Google with the desktop. Or bats and sticks.
• E.U. threatens to fine Microsoft 2M euros a day. Are you threatening me?
• Apple, Intel Clam Up on Macworld.
• DirecTV's DVRs run into snags.
• ATI posts increased revenue in positive Q1 results and (or?) ATI Technologies' Q1 profit sinks. It's all in how you spin it.
• ATI Say Bye-Bye to Paper Launches, Hopefully. Though no real reason to think so is actually offered.
• U.S. Behind Taiwan, Korea in Digital Living.

• Unreal Tournament 2007 to be PS3 launch title.
• Xbox 360 Giveaway At Overstock.
• Metal Gear Acid 2 Preview.
• Sakaguchi Developing New Action RPG for Xbox 360.
• Xbox Economics, Part 2 - More reasons Microsoft isn't charging enough for the season's hot game console.

• Children to teach adults on Safer Internet Day.
• Apple's Web Site Among Fastest Growing.
• AOL-Google Partnership Intensifies Competition For Internet Ads.
• A Firefox for music?

• Nanometer CMOS chip design takes PSP model route.
• Ubisoft brings Exit to PSP in February.

• Digital Content Security Act.
• Oscar hopefuls 'already pirated'.
• Security checkpoint of the future tested at San Francisco airport.

• And Then There Were None on GamersInfo.net.
• The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe on GameSpy.
• Half-Life 2: Lost Coast on Gameguru Mania.
• Heroes of the Pacific on GameSpy.
• Peter Jackson's King Kong on Gameplanet NZ.
• Shattered Union on GamerGod.
• Starship Troopers on Gameshark.

• Arctic-Cooling Freezer 64 Pro Cooler on Legion Hardware.
• Club 3D GeForce 6600 256MB Passive Edition Video Card on Elite Bastards.
• Crucial Ballistix PC3200 2x512mb RAM on EclipseOC.
• HIS X1800 Series Video Card on 3DAvenue.
• PowerColor X800 GTO 16 Video Card on Bjorn3d.
• Samsung YP-U1Z 1 GB MP3 Player on TechTastic.
• Sapphire Pure Crossfire A9RD480 Video Card on LostCircuits.
• Sicuro DEC-900 Cardbus TV Tuner with FM Radio on ThinkComputers.
• Toshiba TS803 - 3G Music Phone on TrustedReviews.
• X-Ray Thunder 8 Mouse Pad on TECHNIZ.CO.UK.

• Age III Designer Weighs in on Reviews on Next Generation. Bruce Shelley on scores. Thanks Frans.
• Played Out on Designtechnica. On releasing almost every new game of the year in the same 12-week stretch.

• Vietnam retracts ban involving online games. thanks Mike Martinez...
• World of Warcraft players use virtual snowballs to deal with Gold Farmers. Thanks Mike Martinez...