All major actors from the upcoming X-Men movie have signed up to lend their voices to the accompanying game. Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart, Alan Cumming and Shawn Ashmore will reprise their role as Logan/Wolverine, Professor Charles Xavier, Kurt Wagner/Nightcrawler and Bobby Drake/Iceman in the X-Men game.

The game has a storyline which serves as a bridge between the second and third X-Men movies, allowing players to control Wolverine, Iceman and Nightcrawler powers.

The X-Men game is scheduled for release on May 16 for the PS2, Xbox, Xbox 360, Gamecube, DS, GBA and PC.

Below are three screenshots showing some action between Wolverine and Silver Samurai.

NCSoft Europe’s first development project in the region is Soccer Fury which it is creating in collaboration with Digital Legends Entertainment.

Being worked on as a part of the company’s online gaming hub, Soccer Fury is a three-on-three arcade action game combining street soccer with fighting techniques. Players will be able to “tap into a devastating arsenal of martial arts, trick moves and team tactics as you power your way up the field and tear down the opposition in epic online pitched battles.”

No release date was released, but further information is expected at E3.

Lighthouse Interactive has announced that it has acquired the rights to Ship Simulation 2006 in a deal with VSTEP. Here’s a bit on the game:

Ship Simulator 2006 is a revolutionary new game that puts players at the helm of some of the most varied and detailed ships to be found at sea, where they will need to perform a multitude of tasks, all set within a stunning 3D environment. Players will take control of a wide array of ship types, from massive cargo ships to speedboats, yachts, water taxis and even the mighty Titanic. The waters you sail are also as varied as the ships, from the biggest harbours in the world, such as Rotterdam and Hamburg, to the calm aqua marine waters of the Thai Phi Phi Islands. Gamers will experience how challenging it is to steer the Titanic through shallow water, or just how it feels to navigate a cargo tanker or tug boat - including how diverse the controls are.

The game lets players play with 8 different ship types in 700km2 recreated harbors in 40 different missions. There will also be a mission editor, ship exchange, dynamic weather system and credits to earn.

The PSP has been updated to v2.7 with a new firmware upgrade available through Sony’s website.

According to the company’s announcement, the upgrade adds Flash support to the PSP’s web browser, letting those who browse the internet view animations, as well as play web games through the portable. The upgrade also allows users to stream podcasts to the PSP and save them to the Memory Stick. The 2.7 upgrade also adds support for more popular music formats, enhancing the media playback capabilities of the device. And last, but not least, the upgrade prepares the PSP to act as a receiver for LocationFree, a Sony innovation that allows users to watch TV, play back recorded programmes and set up future recordings through mobile devices.

As an incentive to upgrade, Sony has made available a Loco Roco demo that only runs on 2.7 PSPs.

Bringing a graphically shoddy game to the Xbox 360 is Namco Bandai who announced Mobile Ops: The One Year War. A mech-shooter exclusive to the Microsoft console, Mobile Ops has players battling for independence from The Earth Federation.

The game will have players donning “metal suits,” aka mechs, to go up against other such metal suits in hand-to-hand combat or with weapons. There will be Xbox Live support for multiplayer, letting players modify suits with robust customization options, among other things.

Mobile Ops is scheduled to launch this Holiday season.

Delayed to start during the week of E3 is SUN’s open beta test. Webzen announced that the open beta which was originally intended to start on May 2 will now start on May 15, with the 2nd pre-open beta testing data shifted to commence on May 8 to May 12.

In the SUN open beta test, not only a spacious field map will be added, but also a new concept of a detailed quest system will be introduced. Also, newly integrating the mission and competition elements as the main composition, the game will provide a ’survival mode’, which the users will have to compete which other in order to survive, and the ‘time attack’ mode, where the users will hunt as many monsters as possible during a limited time. The users will also be able to enjoy the vivid PvP element, and the ‘ranking system’ which will be provided regularly within the game.

The AC (Area Conquest) System, where the user can receive various benefits depending on the amount of contribution by the user in its corresponding area, is another factor the users will enjoy during the open beta.

Meridian4 has announced plans to distribute Shadowgrounds via Steam, Valve’s online digital content distribution service. The action-shooter will be available early this month for $25 through the service.

Square Enix has announced its lineup for this year’s E3, which consists of big names such as Final Fantasy, along with quite a few mobile games. The publisher will be holding a preview event and reveal special product announcements (oh, please God, let it be a PS3 Final Fantasy 7!) during its press briefing on May 8. Square Enix will be set up at booth #746 in the South Hall.

Below is the announced lineup:

PS2

• Dawn of Mana
  
• DIRGE OF CERBERUS -FINAL FANTASY VII
  
• FINAL FANTASY XII
  
• VALKYRIE PROFILE 2: SILMERIA

• FINAL FANTASY XI: Treasures of Aht Urhgan

• FINAL FANTASY V ADVANCE & FINAL FANTASY VI ADVANCE

• Children of Mana
  
• DRAGON QUEST HEROES: ROCKET SLIME
  
• FINAL FANTASY III

• VALKYRIE PROFILE: LENNETH

• BEFORE CRISIS -FINAL FANTASY VII
  
• FINAL FANTASY I
  
• 3D Space Invaders
  
• Chase H.Q. 3D
  
• Elevator Action 3D

Atari also announced a new DBZ title - ‘Super DBZ’ for the PS2. Unlike any previous DBZ game, Super DBZ will feature an all-new arcade-style fighting system. Developed by former Street Fighter II producer Noritaka Funamizu’s new studio, Crafts & Meister, the game promises to have incredible on-screen damage and lots of intense combos.

The game will feature unique fighting moves and styles for every character, including Goku, Gohan and Vegeta. Players will be able to battle on air or on ground, performing super-fast combos.

Super DBZ will ship throughout Europe this June.

In the first of two announcements, Atari sent word of Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 2 exclusively for the PS2. The sequel to the “explosive” fighting series that moved 10 million units across Europe and America, Tenkaichi 2 offers over 100 characters, 15 destructible environments and a total of 9 different game modes to choose from.

In addition to the above, players will be able to trigger transformations from the DBZ movies and TV series in real time. Tenkaichi 2 is set for release in Europe this November.

THQ has announced its 2006 videogame lineup for its Nickelodeon brand of games for kids. The lineup consists of the following titles:

• SpongeBob SquarePants
  
• Avatar
  
• Nicktoons (working title)
  
• Barnyard
  
• Unfabulous
  
• Danny Phantom Urban Jungle

Another Half-Life mod has gone pro: Mindscape has announced The Ship, a first-person “maritime gaming experience” set aboard a fleet of 1930s steam liners. Originally developed as a mod for Half-Life, The Ship is going to be a stand-alone single and multiplayer game that is being worked on by Outerlight, an Edinburgh-based studio.

Blending traditional first and third person gameplay with a Sims-style day-to-day needs system - including food, sleep and social interaction - The Ship offers exploration, investigation, survival, stealth, intrigue and murder across beautifully crafted decking and highly-polished interactive environments.

On the Poop Deck, The Ship proudly boasts a number of modes of gameplay including Arcade Mode offline and Hunt, Elimination, Deathmatch and Duel, all online.

The Ship’s gameplay revolves around ‘the Hunt’. The rules of the Hunt are simple. Each player is given the name of one of the other contestants on-board and must hunt them down and kill them with any weapon they can find. Depending on the game mode, either the last hunter alive is the winner or the one with the most money in their bank account wins.

To be successful in the Hunt players will need to know their way around all of the liners in the fleet. Each Ship has its own secrets, including hidden rooms, passages and tunnels, extra weapons in special locations, environmental traps and triggers and ‘extra special’ ways of murdering.

The Ship is powered by Valve’s Source Engine and will be released for PC this September. It will be demonstrated at E3 in less than a week in stand 2400 in the West Hall.

Yes, another World War II title has been announced, and this time it’s from IDDK and G5 Software. Titled “WWII Battle Tanks: T-34 vs. Tiger,” a tank simulation, the game tells the story of the great triumph of the Soviet army during the summer campaign of 1944. According to the announcement, players will be able to experience “Operation Bagration” in two playable campaigns - both Russian and German - where control over the Russian T-34 or the German Tiger can be taken over.

Players will fight in realistic locations, modeled after the Belorussian landscape during the time period. The tanks were built using the “most detailed technical documents”, resulting in realistic tank movements, transmissions, gear-ratios and other such terms familiar to gear-freaks.

Battle Tanks will feature a non-linear mission structure, large scale missions and multiplayer support via LAN and Internet. The game is scheduled for release in Q1 2007 in Russia. No North American dates were revealed.