Getting straight on with our brief E3 Expo hands-on impressions, targeting the major companies and titles to watch at the show, we've made it to the Electronic Arts booth. Read on for info about selected titles featuring James Bond, Gimli, and those pesky Sims..

Ever since the Microsoft press conference at the outset of E3, various audience-filmed videos of the Halo 2 demo showcased there have been circulating, but we've been waiting for more stable mirrors before posting. So, you can find the full trailer at IGN.com if you're a subscriber, and they have freely downloadable smaller excerpts. Thanks also to Tim Grube for pointing out this 85mb MPG Halo 2 for Xbox trailer, courtesy Gaming Horizon. Finally, and most usefully, there's now a 39mb WMV BitTorrent of the trailer up at Gametab News.

Continuing our 'brief impressions'-based look at the major titles and major publishers at E3 in Los Angeles, here's a look at SquareEnix's booth. Read on for info about a cornucopia of Final Fantasies, plus the new Star Ocean and the mysterious Drakangard...

Slashdot Games is continuing to report on the E3 expo in Los Angeles, and we're working our way around the major booths, doing brief overviews of the major titles on each. Check out earlier stories for looks at Nintendo, Microsoft, Sony, and Sega, but now we turn our attention to Capcom. Read on for info on Gregory Horror Show, Onimusha 3, Viewtiful Joe, and more..

As part of the continuing announcement-based madness that is E3, Atari have announced that they're partnering with Turbine Entertainment to make Dungeons And Dragons Online. This is especially interesting since developers Turbine, the makers of Asheron's Call 1 and 2 for Microsoft, have also just announced they're creating Middle Earth Online (previous Slashdot story). Which one are you going to be playing?

Slashdot Games is still camped out at E3 in Los Angeles, and having finished hands-on reports on the Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo booths, we're going on to look at some of the other major exhibitors. Next up is Sega, so read on for more info about new Phantasy Star Online, Sonic, Worms, and Virtual On titles, plus the rather smart Billy Hatcher with his Giant Egg.

Slashdot Games is continuing its look at the major booths here at the E3 Expo. The last of the major hardware manufacturers to give us a hands-on look at their software is Microsoft, after earlier articles on Nintendo and Sony. Read on for info about all the new Rare titles, Brute Force, Halo 2, and more..

trub writes "The new Doom III trailer is out now on Gamespot.com (registration required). It's worth it.. don't mean to sound like a fanboy, but 'words can't describe...'" There are also mirrors that don't need registration via PlanetQuake3.net, and a BitTorrent link courtesy Gametab News for this 31mb DivX file. The game has also been officially confirmed for Xbox at E3, and you can check out more E3 news at Slashdot Games.

Slashdot Games is continuing to cover events from the show floor at the E3 Expo in Los Angeles. After covering Nintendo's booth, our next subject is Sony, who backed up the information contained in their pre-E3 press conference with a bevy of playable titles. Read on for what we found at Sony, including Gran Turismo 4, Resident Evil Online, and the very cool Eye Toy.

Slashdot Games is here on the show floor at the E3 Expo in Los Angeles, and over the next three days, we'll be doing brief hands-on impressions of the major games in each booth. First up is Nintendo, following up our earlier press conference summary with a chance to see and play the games in detail. Here's what we found at Nintendo, including Mario Kart, Metal Gear, Starfox, and.. Wario insulting us?

Earlier today, Sony's pre-E3 press conference here in Los Angeles announced their PSP handheld console, as we've already covered at Slashdot Games. But there were plenty of other important and interesting announcements in the Sony briefing that we can summarize here, in the same way as we've done for Nintendo's and for Microsoft's pre-E3 press conferences. Read on for info about Gran Turismo 4, Eye Toy, the next Grand Theft Auto, and more..

Nintendo's pre-E3 press conference earlier today in Los Angeles revealed a whole lot more forthcoming goodness for Gamecube and Gameboy Advance, spanning Zelda, Mario, The Sims, Pacman, Metroid, and more - here's a summary. Don't forget to check our previous, briefer story about Microsoft's press conference, and watch out for a round-up of Sony's press event later this evening.

JayBonci writes "According to News.com, in a news conference before this year's E3, Sony announced its plans to release a new gaming handheld called PSP, slated for release late next year. Presumably, this would be to compete against Nintendo's Gameboy Advance, a clear winner in the handhelds department for years now. The games come on a new media format, half the size of a CD or DVD, holding 1.8 gigs. Other Gameboy competitors such as the Neo-Geo Pocket Color have suffered from small game libraries and the inability to get over the GBC/GBA's entrenched marketshare. Despite all of this, Sony isn't SNK, and obviously has a lot of muscle to push its way to where it wants to be. It will be an interesting fight."

It seems that Nokia's 'mobile game deck', the N-Gage has lured John Romero and his Monkeystone Games posse back from reliving their 2D shareware glory days with Hyperspace Delivery Boy, and onto his 3D shareware FPS glory days, with their own adaptation of THQ's first-person shooter Red Faction. Here are links to the new Red Faction N-Gage trailer in MPEG-4 and Quicktime.Update: 05/13 15:58 GMT by H : We had a story on N-Gage a couple months back.

Obiwan Kenobi writes "I know we see game announcements everyday (especially with E3 in full swing), but this is a biggie: The Sam & Max Sequel, Freelance Police has officially been announced. This fantastic (and hilarious) game finally gets its 3D-outing. Check out the nice trailer and stop by the official site for concept art and more." The original game is one of my fondest game memories, and this looks pretty promising.

Ignorant Aardvark writes "Wired has an article out about the upcoming Multiplayer Games Summit at E3. Some of the interesting parts of the article: 'The Sims Online has sold 125,000 copies retail, has been discounted from $50 to as low as $20 on Amazon and has 97,000 active subscribers.' Compare that to EverQuest, with 470,000 subscriptions. Investment analyst Michael Pachter says of TSO: 'They took a very popular franchise that's a single-player game in which you play with dolls, and when you play with dolls, they follow rules and behave in predictable ways. With The Sims Online, you're playing real people, and real people don't behave the way you'd expect them to.' And here's the gem of the article: 'Consumers might not be responding well to paying individual subscriptions for single online games, but might react better to cable TV-like pricing in which they get access to a number of offerings for a flat fee.' Does anyone see this pricing system as being more successful?"

Thanks to Shacknews for pointing to the brand-new Microsoft E3 press release that accompanies their press conference this evening. Highlights include the announcement of three Rare titles exclusively for Xbox, including Grabbed By The Ghoulies (!) and Conker:Live And Uncut, confirmation of Halo 2, Counterstrike, Project Gotham Racing 2, and a new Crimson Skies game for Xbox, plus the full info on the Xbox Live expansions, including XSN Sports and Music Mixer.

HardcoreGamer writes "Today ATI shipped its Radeon 9800 Pro 256 MB DDR-2 card in time for E3 and nVidia announced the NV35-based GeForce 5900 which will be available in June. Early tests seem to say that while nVidia edges ahead of ATI in specific areas, overall ATI still has the better card. The caveat is that the next generation of DirectX 9-based games (like Doom 3 and Half-Life 2, demonstrated with ATI at E3) will truly determine which is the better card. Lots of coverage at PC Magazine, PC World, The Register (ATI) (nVidia), ExtremeTech, InternetNews, and Forbes/Reuters. Either way, at $450-$500, serious gamers are about to get another serious dent in their wallets."

colaco writes "After more than a year waiting for the 1.10 patch, Diablo II gamers now have an inside scoop at changes that it will implement. Most of the info on new items and gameplay rules (eg: ladder characters) have been available on Arreat Summit for the past few hours, and are now displayed on DiabloII.net. Blizzard has also offered some clarification. Sources inside Blizzard indicate that more info will be given at E3."

Asriel86 writes "GamingHorizon has a leaked trailer from Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater. Expect more details from E3 next week." The trailer confirms the name of this much-awaited title, as well as showing some spectacular action, apparently in a jungle setting. Other articles and mirrors include this one at IGN.com, and this one over at Gaming Age.