British rally racing champion Richard Burns, who won the World Rally Championship in 2001, has died at the age of 34 after a long illness, on the fourth anniversary of his title win. He was diagnosed with a brain tumor after passing out behind the wheel in 2003. Last year Eidos released Richard Burns Rally, which was applauded as one of the best racing titles available on all platforms, widely considered better than his real-life rival Colin McRae's namesake title.

In an interview with German financial newspaper Euro am Sonntag Microsoft executive Chris Lewis revealed that it will have approximately 300,000 Xbox 360 consoles available throughtout Europe for its launch on December 2. Industry analysts' estimates of 300,000 Xbox 360s available at launch "were not far removed from reality," said Chris Lewis. After selling out merely hours after launch in North America, Microsoft expect the European launch to be equally successfull, and aims to deliver up to 3 million units within three months of launch.

German developer Silver Style, known for The Fall: Last Days of Gaia, revealed that it has signed the rights to develop a fourth installment in the classic Simon the Sorcerer adventure game. The previous title, Simon 3D by Vivendi, was heavily criticized for having outdated graphics, mainly due to the project being shelved for a few years, so Silver Style opted to develop its own state of the art 3D engine. Lead Designer Carsten Strehse said that the new title will mainly focus around logical and challenging puzzles, with barely any action parts, the controls will be similar to other point & click adventures like the more recent The Westerner and Ankh. Simon The Sorcerer 4 is tentatively scheduled for Q4 2006.

Shadowgrounds is an adrenaline-pumping action game featuring upgradeable weapons, lighting based gameplay and an epic storyline with strong characters. Finnish developer Frozenbyte released a demo allowing you to try out 2 missions (thanks 3DGamers). Read more for download links ..

In Gene Troopers you are in the heart of a unique, vibrant and living universe. Explore amazing new worlds, develop your character into a stealth or battle professional, control supernatural powers, make friends with powerful characters and lead them into battle against the forces of evil. Experience a captivating sci-fi story, high-paced action and thrilling game play in a setting never seen before.

Danish developer Zero Point Software has revealed the first details of its brand new next-gen first person shooter Project IM. Currently in pre-development phase Zero Point Software has licensed Epic's Unreal Engine 3, and is currently looking for investors, potential publishers (thanks NoFrag). Until more information becomes available, check out the teaser screens & trailer.

Call of Juarez is situated in 19th-century Wild West America and requires a combination of both intelligent stealth and pure shooting. Fast-paced revolver duels using historically accurate firearms, horseback riding, and memorable locations combine with top-notch graphics and an enthralling soundtrack to immerse both casual and hardcore players.

Back in September we already revealed that EA was working on a third addon for The Sims 2, and today some more information trickled in. Titled The Sims 2 Open for Business, the new addon will revolve around setting up businesses and making money.

Nuclear Nightmare is a dark post-nuclear single-player horror game with RPG elements independently developed by Element115 Entertainment. The development of Nuclear Nightmare officially started in June of 2005 and it's being developed using the Torque Shader Engine from GarageGames (thanks RPGDot).

Another day, another batch of game trailers was released. Instead of giving them all their own posts, we grouped them, and so far there are trailers for :

• Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures - Trailer #3
• TOCA Race Driver 3 (PS2/Xbox/PC) - Trailer #4
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  We will update this throughout the day when new trailers become available. Read more for download links ...