Gathering of Developers a division of Take-Two Interactive has just flipped the switch on the "Stronghold: Crusader" website. All the latest screenshots, downloads, features, and support are available. The second installment in the series, "Stronghold: Crusader" is a dynamic "castle sim" that combines the best aspects of a city builder and a real-time strategy game. The game is set to ship this late summer 2002.

Sierra and MadDoc Software today announced that starting Monday, August 5th, thousands of gamers will have the opportunity to participate in the public beta test for Empire Earth: The Art of Conquest, their upcoming expansion pack for last year's runaway hit real-time strategy game, Empire Earth. The beta test program will focus on multiplayer play balancing and load testing to ensure the best possible launch for the ambitious expansion pack.

Rage just let us know that Gun Metal, a robotic shooter for the Xbox, blasts off to your local gaming store (distributed in North America by Majesco). Featuring 25 different missions, Gun Metal challenges the gamer to fight a variety of enemy units ranging from foot soldiers to enormous citadels by ground, and then takes them to the air to battle Hover Tanks and Fighter Crafts. We have cooked up an in-house in-game action trailer for your enjoyment. Read more for link where to grab this puppy ...

The Marksmanship pack takes players to the U.S. Army's Sniper School in Fort Benning, Ga., for training missions. In order to progress to this advanced level, players must qualify as an "Expert" in the Rifle Range single-player mission. In the Army, relatively few Soldiers attain an "Expert" qualification badge, so meeting the requirements to proceed to this level in America's Army is not easy. Read more for details and links where to grab it...

Codemasters send out 15 brand new screens from their newly released Operation Flashpoint: Resistance demo. Check them out and you can grab the demo here. Njoy!

Croteam has updated their website with some more details on the upcoming Xbox version of their smash title Serious Sam. Turns out that it will NOt be a mere conversion/port from the PC game but a WHOLE lot more than that. Most interesting is the fact that they will incorporate the 2 Serious Sam PC games into 1 Xbox version and the multiplayer will be something to look out for as well .. read more for details ... (thanks Voodoo)

Missed this one yesterday, but Crave Entertainment announced that its latest Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) title, UFC: Throwdown for Nintendo GameCube computer entertainment system has shipped to retailers. Crave shipped UFC: Throwdown for the PlayStation2 earlier this month.

Ubi Soft and ubi.com unveiled the details of a first-ever limited edition Shadowbane pre-order box which will contain a code to unlock three restricted races in the final version of Shadowbane. Shadowbane is the highly-anticipated, fantasy-based massively multiplayer online (MMO) game scheduled for release this November.

Just noticed over at Dungeon Siege that they have added a new Siege University class that covers Teleporters and Displacers. In addition Siege University 200 now has several new definitions and Siege University 204: Moods has been updated with a "Practical Exercise" which illustrates how to make a new mood and an associated trigger. Njoy.

As an added bonus and thank you to all IG2 players, the level designers in Ebensee have restructured the mission levels so that they are suitable as endless games. Mission Bart County is now available for all fans of endless games. The original structure was maintained as far as possible. Get the redesigned 'Mission Bart County' here.