In Pirates! you take the leading role of a Pirate Captain in the 17th century Caribbean trying to become the most revered and feared pirate in history - exploring high seas and exotic ports, overtaking enemies in fierce naval battles, engaging in duels and attempting to seize valuable booty. In this designer diary lead animator Steve Chao talks about the animation process and "even the odds," a new mode added for the Xbox version of the game.

Ubisoft has released an new update patch for Blue Byte's 3D RTS game 'Settlers: Heritage Of Kings.' This patch brings your retail game to v1.04 and adds ubi.com ladder support, as well as a few minor improvements. Read more for download links.

Black Bean Games has released a patch for the German edition of G5 Software's cold war RTS The Day After, previously known as Cuban Missile Crisis. No details available as to what it exactly fixes are available at this point. Read more for download links ...

Vicious Cycle Software announced today the upcoming release of the Vicious Engine, a complete middleware solution for game development on the PS2, Xbox and PC. This exciting technology is one of the first engines to offer full support for the PSP platform.

Four NBA teams will head to Europe for a competition against top European basketball clubs in October 2006 and 2007 as part of NBA Europe Live presented by EA SPORTS, the NBA and Euroleague Basketball announced today. As part of a two-year partnership agreement with Electronic Arts and Euroleague Basketball, the four NBA teams will compete in five European countries.

Namco announced today that Dead to Rights: Reckoning has gone gold. A brand new adventure created exclusively for the PSP, Dead to Rights: Reckoning features a new selection of hard-hitting moves and disarms, an original storyline and wireless multiplayer action for up to four players.

Bringing its heritage of being the definitive cricket game series, Brian Lara International Cricket comes ten years after Codemasters launched the original Brian Lara game and over five years since the series appeared on any platform. Read more for screens or check the new trailer.

Strategy First and Pocket PC Studios are happy to announce a new contractual relationship that will make Strategy First's PC titles available on the Nintendo DS.

Alpha Prime is a first person action game with an emphasis on the single player experience. At its core is a Science Fiction story written by the foremost Czech Sci-fi author Ondrej Neff. Game play will be a varied balance of combat and more technical activities such as hacking and remotely controlling robotic devices.

Chaos League: Sudden Death, developed by Paris-based Cyanide Studios, takes up where the original Chaos League left off, bringing with it a host of improvements and enhancements which make take the real-time, role-playing strategy sports title into a whole new bloody battleground.