Bandai have teamed up with Tsutaya, a Japanese video rental store, on a new WonderSwan promotion. Gamers will be able to rent a WonderSwan, along with the cracking puzzle game Gunpey, for a week at no cost. Yes, you read that correctly – no cost! Gratis! Free of charge! Are Bandai the nicest hardware manufacturers in the world, or just shrewd business types? Probably the latter, but who are we to argue with a deal like that? The promotion will begin later this month in Japan.

Those jammy Japanese gamers seem to get at least one new PlayStation RPG per week. This week’s offering is called Bardysh and comes from Imagineer. Described as a ‘treasure hunting RPG’, Bardysh involves scouring dungeons and ancient ruins for valuables, with a bit of monster bashing thrown in for good measure. And dating. Oh yes, the Japanese dating game obsession continues. In Bardysh you’ll need to garner vital clues by dating different girls in each town. For a snog they’ll give you some advice on beating the nasty monsters, but what will you have to do to find out where the best treasure is hidden?

ASCII are planning to release Derby Stallion 99 for the PlayStation on September 30. The sequel to their best-selling horse racing simulation will feature a whole host of new features, most notably PocketStation compatibility, allowing for a spot of breeding on the go. Sounds good to us, so why don’t we ever get to see games like this over here? Konami are working on a new racing title called Breeding Stud 99, scheduled for an autumn release. Well, we think that it’s going to be a racing title (cough).

Future Gamer and GT Interactive have teamed up to offer you lot some lovely Total Annihilation: Kingdoms goodies. To be in with a chance, head on over to the Future Gamer website and answer a couple of easy questions. Go on… you know you want to.

Bandai’s ‘Novel Theater’ series of WonderSwan titles kicks off on August 5 with the release of Terrors. The pocket-sized horror adventure game features high quality stereo sound and gruesome graphics. It sounds very much like one of those old role-playing books – you make a choice at the end of each chapter that determines the path the story takes. Plenty of different endings are promised, along with a ‘Terror Point System’ which measures the degree of terror in the game, based on your decisions.

This autumn will see the release of Half-Life for the Macintosh. The Mac version of Valve Software’s PC phenomenon will feature all the action and storytelling of the PC version, while taking full advantage of the latest Macintosh hardware. This version is being developed by Logicware, one of the premier game publishers for the Mac.