Metal Gear Solid fans may be pleased to hear that they can now download the beta version of Konami's Metal Gear Online via the PlayStation Store on the PS3. The download is free and weighs in at 741MB, although you'll have to wait until 21st April to play it, with the beta running until 6th May. The final version of Metal Gear Online will be bundled with Metal Gear Solid 4, which is scheduled for release on 12th June this year.

The beta phase features two maps, four gameplay modes, the SOP System that encourages up to 16 players to team up and share information, and deep skill-customization. Also equipped with auto-matching and training modes, the game offers players a sneak peak of this totally new approach to console-based competitive gaming.

Launched two years ago, TrackMania Nations became a true video game phenomenon. The free downloadable racing game attracted an unbelievable number of players around the world who were obsessed with the game's fast cars, spectacular tracks single- and multiplayer play and simple yet powerful tools for creating tracks and race videos. For the past two years, it has been installed more than 30 million times and nearly four million players have created an account to play the game online on the game's servers.

Its highly awaited sequel, TrackMania Nations Forever, is now available as a free download. TrackMania Nations Forever offers a new complete "Forever" version of the Stadium environment, a complete solo mode and 65 brand new, progressively difficult tracks. TrackMania Nations Forever will unite an even larger number of players thanks to its engaging multiplayer modes, innovative online functions and revolutionary interactivity between players.

Ubisoft is delivering a slate of more than 40 action-packed games to Steam, including Assassin's Creed and the Tom Clancy series. Two fan favorites are now available to customers in Canada and the United States: the acclaimed action shooter, Far Cry, and the debut game in the groundbreaking stealth action series, Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell. Save 10% on either game when you buy before Tuesday, April 8th.

Rockstar Games has uploaded what is the be the final trailer for Grand Theft Auto IV before the game's release on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 at the end of next month. Titled Good Lord, What Are You Doing? AKA Everyone's a Rat, you can stream the trailer from RockStar's website or download the 70MB HD trailer here.

Epic has today released a bonus pack for Unreal Tournament 3, which includes three new maps for the game. Gamers may already be familiar with Morbias and Facing Worlds, whilst Searchlight is an all-new capture-the-flag map. You can download the bonus pack from here, which is just under 160MB.

Gears of War was among the first games to make use of the Unreal Engine 3, so Epic Games has decided to show-off how much the engine has been improved since then. At a recent press conference the company used Gears of War 2 to demonstrate various improvements such as better lighting, improved efficiency, more realistic water effects, soft body physics and destructible environments. If you want to take a look at the video, which is just over six minutes long, head over to Shacknews.

Game developers have been gradually trying to create more-open games over the past few years, but it looks like Bethesda is planning to take a huge leap forward with its upcoming title Fallout 3, which will feature over 200 different endings to the game. The company's executive producer, Todd Howard, said:

Being that we are Bethesda, everything gets a bit big, so as of last week we're over 200 endings. That's not an exaggeration.

He explained that small changes and additions to the endings are multiplied by other factors influenced by the player's choices and decisions in the game, adding:

Fallout is probably twice the size that we originally had on paper. We've definitely gone overboard... It won't end up being as big as Oblivion, but it's approaching that. The game is easily a hundred hours.

Gearbox Software has reached a deal with advertising company Double Fusion to bring in-game advertisements to some of its future titles. Double Fusion will be providing the developer with dynamic advertising technology to deliver the ads and integrated sponsorships, although Gearbox has not yet disclosed which games will contain these adverts. The companies commented that they will "work together to ensure that all advertising programs are appropriate and add value to the gamers' experience." In-game ads look set to become more common over the next few years, with big names such as Microsoft and EA already having agreed to similar deals.

It looks like reports that Acer is planning to make its own games console are wrong and simply the result of misinterpreted quotes. A UK spokesperson said:

That was a major misunderstanding as JT [James T Wong, Acer's senior vice president] was wrongly interpreted. Acer is not going to release any game console but the idea is to develop a high-end PC (so not a console) targeted at the serious gamer.

The original story claimed that Acer was working on an open console format to compete with the proprietary systems from Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony.

Rockstar Games' Grand Theft Auto IV is almost certain to become one of the biggest hits of 2008, and now some details about the game's online capabilities have finally been released. According to Spain's official PlayStation magazine, the game will support up to 16 players on one server, offering a choice of 15 different game modes. Each of the modes will be set in the single player maps, with options including deathmatches, races, mafia work, turf wars, cops 'n' crooks, car jack city, bomb da base II and free mode. GTA IV is scheduled for release on both Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 on 29th April, although the online features may vary on each console. As you would expect, options such as weapon selection, police interference and traffic density can all be modified.

Following months of disputes between Rockstar Games and the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC), the Video Appeals Committee has finally given the go-ahead for Manhunt 2 to go on sale in the UK. The BBFC originally refused to give the game an age rating, essentially preventing it from being sold within the UK, feeling it was too gory for children and 'vulnerable adults'. However, having taken the matter as far as the English High Court, Rockstar has now been given permission to sell the title with an 18 certificate.

Following failed talks with Take-Two's management, games developer Electronic Arts has instead decided to directly approach shareholders with its takeover bid. EA has kept its offer at $26 per share, which would give the deal a total value of around $2 billion. EA's CEO, John Riccitiello, said:

This is a great opportunity for Take-Two shareholders. We believe Take-Two investors will see our tender offer as the best way to maximize the value of their investment in Take-Two. This tender offer provides a clear process to complete the proposed transaction. For EA shareholders, the combination would add additional intellectual properties to our already strong portfolio and welcome Take-Two's talented creative teams to the great development organization we've built at EA.

Take-Two has issued a notice to all of its shareholders urging them not to accept the offer, but EA has set a deadline of 11th April - two weeks before the release of the eagerly awaited Grand Theft Auto IV.

Valve has revealed that Atari has become the latest big name addition to the list of publishers distributing their games via Steam, with a number of well known titles going on sale. Nine games are now available for download; Act of War: Direct Action, Act of War: High Treason, ArmA: Combat Operations, Atari 80 Classics in 1, Death to Spies, Desperados 2: Cooper's Revenge, Indigo Prophecy, RollerCoaster Tycoon 3: Platinum and Tycoon City: New York. Two more major titles from Atari which will go on sale in the coming weeks are The Witcher and Neverwinter Nights 2. Nizzi Renaud, Atari's Vice President of Online Entertainment, said:

Atari is excited to team up with Steam and deliver great games through a digital platform that our fans have asked for. We look forward to making an extensive collection of games, across many genres, available to Steam's extensive, globally-connected community.

According to a graph compiled by Next Generation, Sony Computer Entertainment America managed to achieve the highest average game rating for titles released during 2007, edging out Nintendo and Capcom. SCEA attained an average score of 77.9%, with Nintendo close behind on 75.1% and Capcom in third place on 74.2%. EA and Microsoft didn't do too badly, managing 71.3% and 69.2% respectively, with two of the biggest disappointments being Ubisoft and Activision, which came in with average scores of 63.1% and 61.9%. I've attached the graph of results below, along with graphs from 2005 and 2006. The graphs are based on data from Game Rankings, which collects average review scores from a number of online gaming sites.

Sony Computer Entertainment's UK boss, Ray Maguire, has confirmed rumours that Sony plans to include in-game messaging in one of its upcoming PS3 firmware updates. Sony initially sparked rumours when it uploaded a "Friends & Messaging" icon onto its website, which commented about using a USB headset or Eye Camera to engage in voice and video messaging. Maguire told MCV:

Our momentum will continue with the introduction of in-game communication in the summer [and] firmware update 2.4.

Maguire also revealed that Sony has managed to sell over one million of the consoles in the UK.

Given EA's somewhat criticised reputation for takeovers (Bullfrog and Westwood come to mind), Grand Theft Auto fans may not be best pleased to hear that EA is now making a bid to acquire Take-Two Interactive. Take-Two has a number of major subsidiaries, with some of the best known being developers Rockstar and Firaxis, responsible for the GTA series and Sid Meier's more recent games such as Civilization IV; along with publisher 2K Games. The company is also responsible for other well-known titles such as Manhunt and Bioshock. EA is offering $26 per share, giving the merger an approximate value of $2.5 billion. The full press release can be read here, and you can read on to see a statement posted by EA's CEO, John Riccitiello.

The Crysis SDK, or a compilation of Crysis mods, user created content, and other goodies, was recently punted out the door of Crytek studios. If you click "read full story", there's a big letter from the president of Crytek as to why this SDK came so late. If you'd like to nab yourself a copy, head on over here.

The Nintendo Wii has become a strange source of physical exercise, with worldwide reports of gamers shedding pounds while sweating to Wii Sports. Seeing the extremely lucrative business that exercise can be, Nintendo decided to build upon previous success and make a Wii game sheerly built around exercise. The game, Wii Fit, requires a special controller. This controller, which has been redesigned for an American and European release, can hold 150KG and allows users to better interface with the system. Over one million copies of Wii Fit have been sold since it was released in Japan on December 1st. Expect to see this game in America by May 19, and in Europe by April 15.

Today at the Game Developers Conference (GDC) 2008, Microsoft Corp. provided an exciting glimpse at what promises to be another landmark year for games and online entertainment on the Xbox 360 platform and officially announced the launch of "Gears of War 2," exclusively for Xbox 360 this November.

After creating RPG masterpiece Mass Effect, author BioWare went on to win several awards for their work. Now, BioWare is confirming that they plan to spread the love: a PC version of the game is due out sometime in May 2008. The best part about BioWare being responsible for both writing and porting the game is that BioWare will fix many issues in porting. Among the most obvious tweaks...

• PC-centric controls (aiming with your mouse?), with customizable hotkeys
• Higher quality textures; PC version will be capable of higher resolutions
• New decryption mini-game (for hacking turrets, etc.)
• New GUI for the inventory system

You can check out some current screenshots here.

While not nearly as epic as Halo 3, sales-wise, the sequel to one of the most popular Nintendo-based multiplayer games has hit it big. Super Smash Brothers: Brawl, where gamers throw famous characters from classic games at each other, sold 800 thousand copies in the first week of sales. This puts the game at the top of all current game charts, outselling Sony's Devil May Cry 4 by several hundred thousand units. Other than those two games, here are the top five games in Japan right now:

• Super Smash Bros. Brawl (Wii) - 819,647 units
• Devil May Cry 4 (PS3) - 205,390 units
• Tales of Destiny: Director's Cut (PS2) - 116,928 units
• Suzumiya Haruhi no Tomadoi (PS2) - 114,335 units
• Wii Fit (Wii) - 73,325 units

With violent video games such as Manhunt 2 causing controversy, the British government is reconsidering the exact rating system. At this point, games are given to the British Board of Film Classification, who slaps an appropriate rating on the game. Selling games to children under the rating's age class is grounds for arrest. However, up to 90% of games needing a high-class rating bypass this system by getting their games rated by the much more relaxed PEGI system. And so, the British government decided that it was high time to change things around. No matter how things turn out, the British government wants their citizens to know that this is being done to "protect children from damaging games". They also want you to know that their definition of a damaging game involves "gross violence towards humans or animals, human sexual or excretory activity, or scenes that would show people how to commit a crime".

A few days ago, we reported that Rockstar was in talks with a movie studio and rap star Eminem to make a movie based on Grand Theft Auto. Rockstar has a statement in regards to this. Apparently, instead of a movie being just about certain, negotiations were fouled up from nearly the start. Dan Houser, vice president of creativity at Rockstar, had this to say on the whole GTA movie idea.

Some movie producers were trying to put something together to entice us to make a movie, as studios and production teams frequently have done in the past. This proposal was no more interesting than the numerous others we receive. We never entertained proceeding with the project.

Houser also emphasized that a GTA movie is of no interest to Rockstar at this point.

It's apparently the season for oddball game pitches. Except, this time, the game pitch has already been accepted and is in development. Publisher Mastiff recently took up the concept for a game that will be called "Major League Eating", based off of what some call America's favorite past time. The game itself sounds like something out of a 7-year old's dream. The contest of the "world's greatest gurgitory athletes" will play much like many other fighting games, such as Mortal Kombat. However, instead of using swords and fists, the aforementioned athletes will attack and defend using "burps, belches, and mustard gas", all while making sure that they get their fair share of munchies. Mastiff's announcement did not mention any timeframe for release, or finalize any platforms.

2007 was an epic year for games, as over 1500 were submitted to the ESRB for rating. The ESRB recently released all the ratings they have given games in a pretty pie chart. According to the pretty pie chart, a lot more games than you'd think were actually E-rated. 59% were for "everyone", 15% were for "everyone 10+", 20% were for "teen", and only 6% were for "mature". It should be noted that this chart includes all games, not just blockbusters. It should also be noted that this chart includes all games released on all platforms, even "edutainment" platforms designed specifically around little kids.