Articles in the archive contain broken links because outdated files are removed.

Heretic II Demo Bug Page  [6:22 PM EST]
An update to the Heretic II Demo Bug Page adds a new messageboard function to allow users to more easily leave reports on topics not covered by the old page, as well as to foster general discussions.

Giants Preview, Shots  [6:22 PM EST]
There's a Giants preview on PC.IGN.COM, as well as four new Giants screenshots on Gamer's Alliance.

RBR Interview  [6:22 PM EST]
Doom 2 All Star Competition page has an interview with some of the Rebel Boat Rocker guys about the Doom 2 competition tomorrow night. Here's my interview with myself on the match: Blue, how many frags do you expect to rack up? A: I'll be lucky to get one.  =]

Sin Gold  [5:45 PM EST]
Sin has gone gold (to manufacturing) for real. After a couple of premature reports, Mark Dochtermann's .plan says we can expect it in about a week, along with Ritual's end of the Charlie Wiederhold announcement (and Mark's opening campaign promises for the upcoming election, which you can read in the full .plan):

- Sin is Gold - expect to see it on store shelves in 7 days. A big thanks goes out to the Sin Team for doing such an excellent job.

- All of us at Ritual are sad to see Charlie Wiederhold go, but we wish him the best over at 3D Realms. Charlie was an integral member of the Sin team and the game would not have been the same without him. And Charlie, remember the secret rendezvous code, this will be your only point of contact ;)

Other Ritual .plan updates: Tom "ParadoX" Mustaine, Charlie Wiederhold's last Ritual update, Scott Alden, Don "onethumb" MacAskill, Beau Anderson, Joseph Selinske,

Zoom  [10:31 AM EST]
Off to the FRAG2 in Dallas. The CPL already has photos of the setup posted, fun for those of us who enjoy watching others work. Now, it's off in the BlueJet, thanks Jugger for passing along some Good Advice for Halloween travel (and other kinds of travel, too).

Mouse Rate Checker  [9:25 AM EST]
Oliver Tscherwitschke sends along a little mouse rate utility (4 KB) that can tell you the sampling rate of your PS/2 mouse. This utility goes hand-in-hand with the recently released mouse rate changing programs, but also brings up a question about NT sampling that sounds familiar. Does changing the mouse sampling value in the registry actually change its rate under NT? Here's how it came up:

On Win NT there is a registry key...which could control the rate of a PS/2 Mouse. It defaults to "60". But if I change this, nothing happens, the rate still is 60Hz, at least at my computer. If you know how to change the Mouserate on NT, please let me know.

Heretic II Console Commands  [9:25 AM EST]
OverLord is going wild digging through the Heretic II console commands. He's updated the list of commands posted here, and re-organized it to boot.

Genesis 3D BMP Converter  [9:25 AM EST]
The FvF Multiverse has posted a small Windows front-end that allows editing types to batch convert the Genesis3D engine's GFX files to BMP format and vice versa, apparently a real time saver.

Unreal Update  [7:14 AM EST]
The Unreal Technology Announcements page has an update on some resources for server ops now that more Unreal servers are going online (apparently their ranks are growing by about 20% a day). Included are links for a new page on how to get listed in GameSpy and other querying tools, a page of Server Administration Tips, and word of a new "Server Administration" forum on the Epic Message Board where Steve Polge, Brandon Reinhart, and Tim Sweeney "will be answering questions from server administrators and people writing server-querying tools." Thanks Unreal Kingdom.

Tim Sweeney Interview  [7:14 AM EST]
Speaking of Tim, An interview with the lead programmer of Unreal is a conversation between Epic's Tim Sweeney and Andrew Smith up on PlanetUnreal that talks a lot about licensing issues and the like. Again speaking of Tim, today's GrandMaster B offers a little back and forth between Tim and id's Brian Hook on points made recently in the age-old OpenGL versus D3D debate.

Dave Perry Interview  [7:14 AM EST]
Speaking of interviews (okay, I'll stop with the segues right now), a Gaming Age Special Interview With Dave Perry is up, talking to the happy shiny person about Shiny's games, MDK, Wild9, Messiah, and more.

Trick or Paint!  [7:14 AM EST]
The Quake Innovations News page has word on their Halloween project, The Ultimate Paintball - Halloween Special Edition. This version of their Quake II PaintBall mod will include a theme map, sounds, and also a Paintball PumpkinBot (which works with the team that shot it last). This Special Edition will be released tonight/tomorrow at the stroke of midnight, Eastern time. There is also a beta of the mod already available.

Q2Gamma  [7:14 AM EST]
Q2Gamma is a new Quake II utility to allow separate brightness control for red, green, and blue color levels in Quake II, much like idGamma. Thanks VE.

Carmageddon Demo  [7:14 AM EST]
An updated (but for the most part apparently unchanged) Carmageddon 2 demo is up on 3DFiles.com. Thanks Sharky. The demo, around 22 MB, offers the opportunity to be almost as dangerous behind the wheel of a car as a NYC cab driver ("I love drivin'...").

Shogo Review  [7:14 AM EST]
Shogo is reviewed by GameSpot TV in a video review. RealPlayer, or equivalent, required. Thanks Mediaphiles.

KHG Review  [7:14 AM EST]
GameCenter reviews Star Trek TNG: Klingon Honor Guard giving this Unreal-engine game four out of five X's

Q2Config  [7:14 AM EST]
The first public beta of the Q2Config Quake II configuration editor, is now available. The program uses drill down menus to help configure your console commands.

GameProxx  [7:14 AM EST]
Version 2.05 of GameProxx is up on Jeff Debrosse's Home Page. GameProxx is a freeware proxy client that offers the opportunity to connect to the Internet from any client on the LAN, as long as the LAN is connected to the Internet. The new release offers support for Heretic II.

BEAST Drivers  [7:14 AM EST]
New Hercules Terminator BEAST Drivers are out for the S3 Savage3D-based card. Thanks Billy "BEAST" Wilson at Voodoo Extreme.

Game Armor  [7:14 AM EST]
If making like Vincent Vega in action games turns you into the gimp, you may find relief in a product called Game Armor, which is a wrist brace to prevent cramping from "controller clutch," or as we put it in our clan, "the craw." Thanks Aubrey Burbine.

Shooters Lite  [7:14 AM EST]
Hrm, seems the Shooters archive from last nigh runs all of about eight minutes. I don't know what the deal is with that, or if it can be repaired, but I'll look into it.

Out of the Blue  [7:14 AM EST]
The BlueJet is fueled and waiting, I'm off to Dallas for the FRAG2 at midday today. Thanks Cool for the "cool" Halloween logo ("Pretty scary, huh kids? Owoooooo!!!!"). Along the same lines, here's an image of the day from Matt Carlson in line with the season. On the quote game: First, I can't believe I got one of them as wrong as I did (most are from memory, so maybe I shouldn't be so surprised), considering it was a favorite, but ("Wine... alright?") from the other day should be ("food... alright?"). Thanks Steve Masters for the correction (even though I didn't believe him at first). Also, thanks to Seth Isenberg for helping tweak  the accuracy of yesterday's quote (Monty Python and the Holy Grail). The (one-time) clue for those who write in asking about where to find these quotes: They're always in parentheses and italicized.

Blood2 Demo Tomorrow  [10:52 PM EST]
Blood2.com has the announcement of the release of the Blood2 Demo, as they put it at "the stroke of Midnight (Pacific U.S. Time) on Friday night!" Taken literally this would be in a few hours, but they actually mean Friday night/Saturday morning. The Blood2 demo is planned as two single player levels (no multiplayer), and will be about 35 MB.

The Unreal Future  [10:52 PM EST]
Epic's Unreal is On The March is an article that looks at the future of Epic's shooter now that, in their words, "Unreal internet support is finally what it should be." Thanks PlanetUnreal. The article has a bunch of tidbits from a conversation with Mark Rein, including word that the long-promised demo is still upcoming "not too far away," a beta 2.19 is expected in the next couple of days, and a big announcement from them is also upcoming "sometime in the next four to six weeks."

BlackMagic 3D Drivers  [10:52 PM EST]
The BlackMagic 3D Drivers page has new WHQL certified Windows 95/98 drivers for STB's Voodoo2-based cards. Thanks Voodoo Extreme.

Shooters  [5:52 PM EST]
Tonight on Shooters (new URL) we will drag a couple of the busy bees over at Raven away from finishing up Heretic II to talk about their progress, as well as the demo, and of course the usual other stuff (TM) that we tend to discover along the way. The fun begins live at 7:00 PM Eastern time (new time as well), RealPlayer, or equivalent, required.

Unreal Multiplayer  [5:36 PM EST]
Epic's Brandon "GreenMarine" Reinhart updated his .plan with encouragement for those disappointed in Unreal's performance on the Internet to give the beta 218 patch a try. I have to say that I think they have finally broken through on this one. In my couple of experiments I have been able to play nice, smooth games on the Internet. Though I do have a 112 Kb double-barrel ISDN connection, a lack of midday servers made the best ping I could find be a 180, and the game was about as smooth as I would expect from QuakeWorld or Quake II with a similar ping. If you dig Unreal and were disappointed in the poor multiplayer play, I highly recommend getting the 218 beta patch and giving it another whirl.

Wieder to 3D Realms  [5:36 PM EST]
George Broussard updated his .plan talking about Duke Nukem: Time to Kill, their upcoming PlayStation offering, and also gives a mention that Charlie Wiederhold has joined the Duke Nukem Forever team. I don't recall previous mention of Charlie leaving Ritual.

Half-Life Preview  [2:22 PM EST]
GameSpot UK's Half-Life Review is up. They took a look at a build of the whole game, but their preview mostly centers on the Day One OEM demo so they can be certain that they are discussing things that will be in the final game.

SGI Quake II Eraser Bot Beta  [2:22 PM EST]
The SGI Quake page has a beta version of the Quake II Eraser bot for SGI. It's a beta because it does not read existing (generated on Intel systems) route files (.rt3), because of a byte swap problem in the route handling code.

RiX Interview  [2:22 PM EST]
An Interview with Four Frag 2 Contenders on AVault offers a RiX interview that talks to feared cyberathlete Dan Hammans about the differences between Quake and Quake II going into issues like weapon balance, as well as computer games as sports and stuff like that. Thanks Brad.

Blood2 Demo Update  [1:15 PM EST]
Jay "Shade" Wilson updated his .plan with word on the Blood2 demo availability, which is "definitely by the weekend:"

Just a quick update. The demo is pretty much done on the content side, and is very cool. We're just working out a few of the bugs. Should be released very soon, definitely by the weekend. We've got an army of GT muscle ready to promote it for us, so once it goes up it should be available from a large number of sources. That's it. :)

Die By the Sword Add-on  [1:15 PM EST]
GamePen Review's Limb From Limb the add-on for the hack and slash game, Die By The Sword ("Look, it's just a flesh wound."). Thanks The Gaschamber.

Vampire: The Masquerade  [1:15 PM EST]
My force-fed pals over at Jedi Knight .Net have one of the first updates about what Nihilistic Software is up to on their Vampire RPG project since its announcement, giving some insight into the hardware-only custom 3D engine they have in the works, as well as a few more tid-bits.

More Half-Life Pics  [11:11 AM EST]
GameSpot UK's Half-Life Gallery has been updated with still more screenshots, in part to make up for the way some of the shots uploaded yesterday (story) ended up corrupted. The garbled shots have been fixed as well.

Viper 550 NT Drivers  [11:11 AM EST]
Diamond Multimedia Viper V550 Series Drivers page now has Windows NT drivers to go along with the recently released Win95/98 drivers. Thanks Sharky.

Descent 3 Interview  [10:23 AM EST]
The latest edition of the PyroPimps Show talks to Craig Derrick, producer at Outrage about Descent 3, the upcoming iteration in the Descent series. PyroPimps is a well-done RealPlayer format audio show that offers gaming news, snappy banter, and loads of sound effects (like an audio "Dream On").

FreeSpace 1.05  [10:23 AM EST]
Speaking of Descent, the Volition Inc. page has a new version 1.05 patch for Descent FreeSpace. The new release can be installed by hitting the "Update FreeSpace" button in the game launcher, or by downloading it from their Updates Page.

Half-Life Review  [10:23 AM EST]
Glamour guns and a flood of games is an article on MSNBC that looks at three upcoming games giving Tomb Raider III 3½ stars, Turok 2: Seeds of Evil 4½ stars, and Half-Life five out of five stars. Thanks Redwood.

Jason Hall Interview  [9:38 AM EST]
Billy's interview with Monolith's Jason Hall is up on Voodoo Extreme. It seems Billy may have been sober when he wrote some of the questions, because only four out of the 13 are about sitcom stars and Monica Lewinsky, the rest talking about stuff like games and the LithTech engine.

Giants Glimpse  [9:38 AM EST]
Sharky Extreme's first glimpse at Giants offers a preview of this upcoming game from Planet Moon Studios that allows you to live the life of a giant you always dreamed of, as "Eating, burning, drowning, kidnapping and burying your victims should all be in a day's work."

Trespasser Review  [9:38 AM EST]
AGN3D's Trespasser review is up, calling it "one of the strangest games [they've] ever reviewed."

SBLive! Drivers  [9:38 AM EST]
The Creative Labs FTP site has a new Windows 95/98 driver update for Sound Blaster Live! audio cards. Thanks BetaNews.Com.

MiroHISCORE 3D Drivers  [9:38 AM EST]
Windows 95 Drivers for the miroHISCORE² 3D and miroHISCORE 3D are available. Thanks Billy at Voodoo Extreme.

Newer NT PS/2 Mouse Rate  [4:18 AM EST]
Jamie Hankins sends along a newer version of his PS/2 mouse rate program for Windows NT (6 KB), (original story). The update includes a read me, and now offers even more verbal abuse for Windows 95/98 users when they execute it.

Unreal Tech  [4:18 AM EST]
An update to the Unreal Technology page offers the latest on the status of Direct3D support with a card-by-card rundown of video support issues. Thanks DarkViper. Word in the update is that the number of GameSpy unreal servers has increased by 225% since the release of the 218 patch.

Freeze Tag  [4:18 AM EST]
Quake II Freeze Tag version 1.75d for Linux is now available. The Linux server is included in the freeze175d.zip archive with the Windows version. ZBot checking is disabled in the Linux version because it doesn't work.

Sin Preview  [4:18 AM EST]
GameSpot's Preview of Sin is up. Thanks Ant.

Trespasser Review  [4:18 AM EST]
Next Generation Online's Trespasser review is up basically raking Dreamworks' newly released Lost World game over the coals.

TNN Pro Hunter Site  [4:18 AM EST]
Shhh, be vewy, vewy quiet... I'm hunting Skaarj. The TNN Outdoors Pro Hunter website is online, offering the latest on this upcoming Unreal-engine hunting game.

New TweakIt and DirectControl  [4:18 AM EST]
The BGR Software page has updated versions of their DirectControl for DirectX and Matrox Overclocking Utility programs. Thanks Billy "Overclocked" Wilson at Voodoo Extreme.

MultiRes  [4:18 AM EST]
Also on the video tweaking front, 3DFiles.Com has a new version of MultiRes, a third-party replacement for QuickRes that works under Windows 95/98 and Windows NT.

SoundBlaster/Ensoniq Drivers  [4:18 AM EST]
New Windows 95/98 drivers for the Ensoniq AudioPCI are available on the Creative Labs FTP site. Thanks BetaNews.

Win Shogo  [4:18 AM EST]
CPR Extreme is running a contest with a copy of Shogo: Mobile Armor Division as the prize for the most creative reason why you should win posted to their message forums.

Raven Review  [4:18 AM EST]
Voodoo Extreme's Quantum3D Raven Review is up, looking at Q3D's Voodoo banshee-based offering.

Editing - SkyPaint & Competition  [4:18 AM EST]
Impulse 98 Wireplay LAN Championship map making competition ends in one week. Also, the Wasabi Software page has new versions of SkyPaint and SkyPaintGE, designed to help create 3D backdrops like sky textures for Quake levels, and other game related projects. SkyPaintGE, the shareware version, no longer inserts "watermarks" into images.

But Does it Play Quake?  [4:18 AM EST]
Gore Unveils World's Fastest Computer. Thanks Anyware.

Out of the Blue  [4:18 AM EST]
Happy Birthday (belated) to John Romero, 31 years old yesterday, and Bill Gates (I know he reads every word on the Internet. so hey Bill), shares the same day as well (go figure) thanks SailorScout.... I happily stand corrected, you CAN stamp on the rats in the Heretic II Demo, you just have to jump on them, or step on them twice (thanks to all those that pointed the latter out). Actually it's more fun to lure them into the water an watch them drown (hey, don't get on me if you're an animal nut, I am too, but these are rats, and I live in New York City), of course don't try this at home, rats are spiffy swimmers in the real world.... Thanks for all the (many!) responses on the HTML question, though many offered solutions that will just prevent the page from being cached (rather than the images on it). It seems there's no HTML-only solution, and a script is required... Homer? DOH! Now there's a spokesman!... A better image of the Can o' Whupass (thanks BigImp). Yesterday's Quote: Pretty in Pink.

NT Mouse Rate & New PS/2 MouseRate  [8:36 PM EST]
Jamie Hankins sends along a mouse rate utility for Windows NT (local copy - 12 KB), which updates your registry with a new sampling rate for a PS/2 mouse. Also, a newer version 0.4 of Juha Kujala's PS/2 mouse rate utility for Windows 95/98 is out on the Qizmo site. Here's a local copy of that one (111 KB) on GamesNET FTP. The new version features a dialog based interface, it can now automagically update Startup folder ("make default"), and has fixes for VIA chipset motherboards (SOYO). Both these programs serve the same function: to make PS/2 mice more responsive by increasing their default sampling rate.

Trespasser Out  [4:01 PM EST]
I've gotten a couple of emails with Trespasser spottings, so if Dreamworks' Lost World inspired action/adventure game is not available near you now, it should be soon.

Half-Life Gallery  [2:27 PM EST]
The Half-Life Gallery on GameSpot UK has been updated with some new screenshots, as they put it, "from the game everyone is talking about."

Messiah Slips to Mid-1999  [1:51 PM EST]
According to a report on FGN Online, the release date for Shiny's cherubic action game Messiah, previously stated as fourth quarter this year, has slipped to mid-1999. A similar delay was also announced for Earthworm Jim 3D. Interplay chief Brian Fargo is quoted saying the delays are necessary "to ensure that these titles meet the quality standards that we and consumers expect."

Requiem Screenshots  [1:32 PM EST]
Eric Robson, designer on Cyclone Studio/3DO's upcoming Requiem: Avenging Angel, has posted four new screenshots from the game on his Requiem page (which still has the older Wrath of the Fallen tagline as of this writing).

Quake II Ground Zero Survey  [11:59 AM EST]
Rogue Entertainment's Ground Zero Survey gives an opportunity to give some feedback on Rogue's Quake II mission pack in an easy to use web form (no number 2 pencil required).

morbid, Charlie, Gary, & Giggler, Inc.  [8:34 AM EST]
Jack "morbid" Mathews updated his .plan with word on his plans to leave 3Dfx and join ex-Ritual killers Gary McTaggart, Charlie Brown and Mike "Giggler" Wardwell in a start-up gaming company:

This might come as a yawn to a lot of you, but it should spice up things from the boring ol "Patch this" and "Mouse that" of .plans lately :). I'm leaving 3Dfx to work with Charlie Brown, Gary McTaggart, and Mike Wardwell. This decision has been quite a long time in the making, and it's just now come to the right time.

Before anyone wonders if I'm "jumping ship" from 3Dfx for stock or any other reasons, that's not it at all. I'm happy as a clam at 3Dfx, it's a great place to work, and there's absolutely wonderful people around me. It's just that opportunities like this don't come around very often, and I'm following my heart and taking a leap to do what I really want to. 3Dfx's stock price, working conditions, or salaries had absolutely nothing to do with this decision, so please don't be posting around stuff like "See how shitty 3dfx is doing jack mattttttttthews is leaving its proof that my conspiracy theory was right along."

I won't thank people at the company one at a time, as there have been too many nice people to name off, but I want to thank them for putting up with the arrogant bastard I am, and for the incredible amount of learning I've done. It's been the most incredible experience of my (albeit short) life.

For those wondering, I will still remain as I have been with GameSpy. I can't think of a compelling reason to leave that endeavor, as it's something I enjoy doing and hope to continue doing for awhile. Plus, Joe and Tim stuck with me during a few months when I didn't know how to balance responsibilities... Can't let them down now :)

Hmmm, yeah, think that's about it. :)

New Heretic II AVI  [8:34 AM EST]
Activision's Heretic II page has a new post-demo release movie of Heretic II in both AVI and RealPlayer formats. Thanks DarkViper.

More Heretic II Codes  [8:34 AM EST]
the.overlord sent along an updated list of Heretic II console commands that is tons more complete than the previous version. Thanks, overlord!

Shogo Server List  [8:34 AM EST]
Quake Domain's Active Shogo Server list is up. If you have a server to submit, use this form.

Heretic II Demo Tip  [8:34 AM EST]
John Scott's .plan has a tip on the userdir parameter for launching Heretic II.

Chaos DM  [8:34 AM EST]
Chaotic Dreams has version 1.11 of Chaos DM for Quake II. The new release fixes some minor bugs and adds a new grappling hook. A new Linux port is also available, and word on the page is that they plan on releasing a stand-alone version of the mod's Quake II bot, the Havoc-bot.

Assimilation  [8:34 AM EST]
Version 2.1 of the Assimilation Quake II mod is out, offering the joyously trendy (and hopefully effective) feature of ZBot detection.

LavaCam  [8:34 AM EST]
Version 1.11 of the LavaCam for Quake II is out, offering several new features for this camera client, including Dynamic Camera Allocation (DCA). and yes, ZBot detection.

Brian Hook Interview  [8:34 AM EST]
There is a brief interview with id's Brian Hook on Gamer's Dimension on some offbeat topics. It probably says something when your favorite Simpson's character is Nelson, though I'm not sure what.

TF2 Robin Walker Interview  [8:34 AM EST]
The newly opened TF2.com is planning an interview with Robin Walker of TeamFortress Software. In order to give an effective third degree about their upcoming Half-Life add-on, they are soliciting suggestions for questions from readers.

Shogo MAD Review  [8:34 AM EST]
GameCenter's Shogo Mobile Armor Division review is up, giving the game four out of five X's.

Spec Ops RTB Review  [8:34 AM EST]
Sharky Extreme's Spec Ops Ranger Team Bravo review looks at the Spec Ops add-on that adds new missions and multiplayer capabilities.

Three 3D Offerings  [8:34 AM EST]
Today's GameSlice editorial gives hands-on impressions of three new or imminent 3D games, Klingon Honor Guard, Trespasser, and Heretic II calling one a total dud, one a noble attempt, and the other a sure-fire hit (it's like a match-up game, I scored 100%).

3D or not 3D?  [8:34 AM EST]
From Art To Action is an interesting article that discusses why the graphics in 3D games of different genres are so different in quality, looking at the trade-offs involved in creating flight-sims versus shooters, etc.

SS2 Site  [8:34 AM EST]
Looking Glass Studios System Shock 2 page is up. Thanks Ducky ("I am now, and will always be, a duck-man"). I thought I mentioned this before, but I confused it with Irrational Games' System Shock 2 page.

Extremities, Heavy Gear II Giveaways  [8:34 AM EST]
Activision's Heavy Gear II page has word on how you can win a new PC from Compaq, simply by quickly registering the Heavy Gear II playable demo after its release on November 2. Also, Sluggo's Mod Central is holding a contest to give away a copy of id's upcoming Quake II expansion pack Extremities.

New Sonique  [8:34 AM EST]
Terribly off-topic post of the morning: Version 0.60 of the coolio Sonique .mp3 player is out. Thanks Manpreet Jagpal.

Out of the Blue  [8:34 AM EST]
The image of the day is from Eric Biessman's .plan (watch out Phoebus!). My loyal minion MrCoffee came by last night and I got to try my first Heretic II Demo deathmatch. What a total trip (though those maps are not suited to one-on-one)... MrCoffee shocked me when he told me he hadn't yet downloaded the demo because of the third person perspective, and he was suitably blown away by what it adds. All I can say is that there are aspects of this game that would not work the way they do from the first person (at least it's hard to picture them working as well), like all the rolling and pole vaulting and stuff. Kudos to the Raven guys for a tremendous effort, and for breaking the mold with this copy of the Quake II license (now if I can talk to you guys about the obsession with pest control in single player? The next time I see a spider or a rat in a shooter, I want to kill it with my shoe powerup and get on with the game). A follow-up on yesterday, here's the rebuttal to Bobby D's .plan file (Bobby's winning by my scorecard). Finally, an HTML question (forgive me) is there really no way to make sure a browser loads a graphic from the source (not the cache) just using HTML and no JavaScript or anything? Any insights are appreciated (yes, if you've been having troubles with the site in the past day or so, it may be JavaScript problems, tough the 'net's been a little funny lately, as well).

Heretic II Demo Help Page  [4:36 PM EST]
John Scott (AKA the slain Pagan, or something like that), updated his .plan with news of a Heretic II Demo Bug Information page that offers a list of known issues with the game, as well as solutions to problems some may have, as well as the opportunity to report problems not listed on the site.

Giants Art  [4:26 PM EST]
There's some original concept art from Planet Moon Studios upcoming Giants: Citizen Kabuto on their Giants page.

PS/2 Mouse Util Tutorial  [4:26 PM EST]
Based on the questions he's received, ION's Brian "Squirrel" Eiserloh updated his .plan with a rundown on details about the PS/2 mouse sampling program (story) as well as a brief tutorial on its use. As he notes (this has been confusing some people), the utility does not work on serial mice.

Windows 2000  [4:26 PM EST]
ZDNN NT 5.0 renamed Windows 2000 -- due out in early 1999. Go figure. Thanks Sean 'Hamburger' Hall. Here's Microsoft's announcement. Thanks BetaNews.

Barrysworld ZBot Kicker  [3:34 PM EST]
Zarjazz's Homepage (Sorta) has word on version 1.23 of Barrysworld ZBot Detection & Admin Plug-In DLL for Quake 2 (BW Admin DLL), described as a transparent DLL that adds the following to any existing Quake II mod: ZBot detection and kicking; Rate capping; Player IP and NAME banning; as well as other server admin options.

H2 Demo Deception  [3:34 PM EST]
Raven's Rick Johnson and Mike Gummelt each updated their .plans with word that someone is logging onto Heretic II DM servers and telling the admins they are from Raven and that running a DM server is in violation of the license agreement. While this would be an exceptionally efficient way to make such an announcement, it turns out that this is, in fact a hoax, and it is perfectly legal to run a DM server with the Heretic II demo, though Mike's .plan warns that running the single-player Canyon map in deathmatch is probably a mistake at the moment, but he's working on a server fix to make it practical.

Heretic II Demo Freezeworld Command  [2:32 PM EST]
Raven designer Jeremy Statz updated his .plan with word on a cool command in the Heretic II demo called "freezeworld." Also, Rob Gee updated his .plan as well, mentioning the Heretic II thrashings attendees of the FRAG2 have to look forward to. Here's the skinny on freezeworld:

Something neat to try with the demo:

alias +freezelook "freezeworld 1; +lookaround;"
alias -freezelook "freezeworld 0; -lookaround;"

Then bind a key to +freezelook. This is something Josh Weier first did... it freezes the game world (all the effects, animations, etc) and frees the camera so that it can move freely around the character at the same time. Release the button and all goes back to normal. Really cool for taking screenshots, and getting a good close look at the gore.

More on the PS/2 Mouse Sampling Program  [12:27 PM EST]
Brian "Squirrel" Eiserloh updated his .plan with an endorsement of the PS/2 mouse sampling utility in Qizmo mentioned yesterday (story), and for good measure, a local copy of the Win95/98 PS/2 Mouse Sampling utility (12 KB) from the Qizmo site. Here's a Squirrel's-eye view of the best thing to happen to your PS/2 mouse (this does not work with serial mice) since the doohickey:

Oh daddy, oh daddy.

I thought the universe had finally gone from Bad to Good the day that I got my USB mouse. I was right.

It just went from Good to Better.

If any of you missed the mention of it on Blue's yesterday, there has been a revolutionary breakthrough in the world of mouse performance:

Qizmo.

The latest version of Qizmo (a QuakeWorld proxy) has a feature which, among other things, claims to increase the sampling rate of your ps/2 mouse to values MUCH higher than the normal 40hz. Would you believe 100hz? How about 200hz??

It's absolutely true. And you can feel the difference immediately, as much as you did with a USB mouse.

We've often remarked how dumb it is that serial mice are so slow under windoze, and yet their ports have always been capable of much higher data transfer rates. Well, somebody finally wrote a program to right this.

Please, if you have a ps/2 mouse, download this and try it for yourself. You'll thank me in the morning. (This program is the mouse-only portion of Qizmo).

http://www.students.tut.fi/~zibbo/other/ps2rate/ps2rate.zip

Kudos and a half to Juha Kujala for writing it.

*happy sigh*

Vigilance in Stores  [12:27 PM EST]
Word from SegaSoft is their first-person action/strategy shooter Vigilance is now available in stores worldwide. Thanks Prophet.

New Qtracker - Shogo Support  [11:39 AM EST]
The Qtracker Homepage has version 2.2 beta 7 of Qtracker, which adds Shogo: Mobile Armor Division support to this server browser that can scour the 'net to find your most playable servers in Quake, Quake II, QuakeWorld, Hexen II,. Jedi Knight, Mysteries of the Sith, Unreal, HexenWorld, and the Sin Demo, as well as limited XvT support.

New EGN - Shogo Support and More  [11:39 AM EST]
The Enternet Global Network has released an updated version of EGN, their namesake program. EGN is a gamer-friendly ICQ-type dealie that offers the ability to find multiplayer games on the Internet, with the new release capable of searching for HexenWorld, Shogo, and Unreal servers, in addition to the Heretic II demo, Hexen II, Quake, Quake II, QuakeWorld, and the Sin.demo.

Perspective on the Third Person  [11:39 AM EST]
Raven Programmer Pat Lipo made a .plan update offering some thoughts on Heretic's third-person perspective ("this is not a first-person shooter with a third person perspective, it's a third-person shooter. Big difference."). Pat also takes the blame for bugs in the demo and installer, promising that they are doing"anything we can to make sure that people don't have to go through downloading 38MB again," finishing off with some thoughts on the code update that will follow the retail release:

Gamespot said that in my finger from a couple of days ago that custom skins are "not decided on yet". Sure they are! They'll be in the code update. I really am sorry that this feature did not make it into the final retail build, and I felt it was paramount that nobody felt they were somehow "cheated" out of  something they had expected in the box, something that seems to be plaguing other games in the industry (I'm taking about the sentiment, not criticizing  the products themselves, so don't get jumpy :-). The code update will also allow us to release the player movement code (for client and server) to the public as well, to join the "game" and "client effects" code bases that we will release in the box. We wish to support Heretic II as much as we possibly can. We've got a lot of ideas for things we would like to bring to the game even after it ships, and would like to add enough to make it fresh for many months to come.

MDLView  [11:39 AM EST]
The MDLView Homepage has version 1.0 of this Java applet which allows websites to display 3D views of Quake and Quake II models in their native file formats.

QuakeWorld Console Colored Font  [11:39 AM EST]
The OCRANA (warning midi music with no apparent "stop" button) has a colored font for use in the QuakeWorld console that they say is useful for team games, as you can message your teammates in colored fonts.

CPU Booster Add-on  [11:39 AM EST]
KCS Spintel Card Review on the Fast Graphics Site looks at a small cheap ISA add-on card that the manufacturer claims can boost performance on a PC of any configuration significantly by intercepting certain commands and optimizing them (apparently in real-time). Sounds to good to be true, but the card did improve benchmarks on their test system by up to 45%, just as the ads claim. Waiting for the other shoe to drop? Okay: The card currently does nothing to accelerate 3D or DirectX performance, so the improvements shown are all in 2D benchmarks. 3D gamers might want to keep an eye on future revisions of the product that will supposedly add more enhancements like DirectX acceleration.

Unreal Issues  [6:51 AM EST]
Tim Sweeney updated his Unreal Technology page again with a list of known Unreal issues, and links to all the video card manufacturers so you can check for the latest drivers (hey Tim, you don't see me going and coding games, do you?). Word on the known issues page is that they're considering a Linux server based on what seems like popular demand. Tim suggests signing the petition on the Unreal for Linux Project page to show support.

Quake II Extremities Mailing List  [6:51 AM EST]
A forum to subscribe to a mailing list for discussion of id's upcoming Quake II expansion pack Extremities is up on this page.

Blood2 Add-on & When is B2 Late?  [6:51 AM EST]
Jay "Shade" Wilson updated his .plan with a further examination of whether Blood2 will technically be late if it comes out after Halloween. Also, there's a quote on Voodoo Extreme from Shade saying they'll be releasing a Blood2 add-on sometime after the first of the year.

MacUnreal Update  [6:51 AM EST]
This Westlake Interactive news blurb gives the status of MacUnreal, which is still catching up to the 2.17 code changes before they can begin integrating the 2.18 changes. There is currently no timetable for the release of MacUnreal 2.18. Thanks DarkViper at Unreal Kingdom.

Wheel of Time Update  [6:51 AM EST]
Due to popular demand, the weekly update to the Wheel of Time what's new page offers a full size shot, suitable for wallpaper, of the thumbnail image offered last week. Thanks again DarkViper at - Unreal Kingdom.

Cavedog Interview  [6:51 AM EST]
The LAN Scene Q&A with Kellyn Beeck of Cavedog Entertainment is their seventh such interview, this go round talking with this senior producer about the current and future state of the LAN scene, rather than discussing specific games.

Generations  [6:51 AM EST]
Version 0.93 of Generations is now available. Generations is the cool Quake II mod that, when complete, will offer a family reunion between all the main characters from id's first-person shooters (the Doom and Wolfenstein-3D characters have not yet been implemented). The new release offers more bug fixes and some new maps, and word there is they are looking for a modeler/skinner to help complete the project.

Quake II BoTS Maps  [6:51 AM EST]
Map Pack #11, a new four-level map pack for Quake II Battle of the Sexes, is up on Spinoza's Quake 2 Mods Page.

DirectX 6.0 FAQ  [6:51 AM EST]
Microsoft DirectX FAQ, official and everything. Thanks Billy "Gates" Wilson at Voodoo Extreme.

Shogo, I-War Reviews  [6:51 AM EST]
Next Generation Online Shogo Mobile Armor Division Review, as well as an Independence War review.

Spec Ops RTB Review  [6:51 AM EST]
The Adrenaline Vault reviews Ranger Team Bravo, the new expansion pack for Zombie's Spec Ops.

Spectra Drivers  [6:51 AM EST]
New Windows95/98 and Windows NT drivers for the RIVA TNT-based Canopus Spectra 2500 are up on Spectra Software Download Page.

Heretic II Editing Info, Fun Names  [6:51 AM EST]
HereticII.com has posted an email exchange with Heretic II Lead Designer John Zuk giving some of the dimensions for Corvus and his world for editing/modeling types to get an early jump on doing the magic they do. Also, Wmned has a patch available to add Heretic II support to this "Windows (or Wacky) multi name editor." Finally, back on the pure editing subject, here's an email from Ted Mielczarek:

At the insistence of a guy who really wanted it, I coded up a PCX -> M8 converter. It preserves the palette present in the pcx file, so you can make non-quake2 new textures for Heretic II. It borrows code from Trey Harrison's PCX2WAL and from Brent McLeod's wal2m8, both of whom have been credited. It can be found at http://www.Lehigh.EDU/~tam4/pcx2m8.zip.

Competitions  [6:51 AM EST]
The Invite Capture Ring is gearing up for another season. GameGirlz.com is running a one-on-one female Quake II ladder and a message board to support it.

Out of the Blue  [6:51 AM EST]
On a story that's been loosely followed since its inception, Motion Denied - Rio To Go On Sale is the mp3.com headline announcing that the new mp3 player will be allowed to go on sale after all. Thanks Manpreet Jagpal. When feeling brain dead, but hoping for something amusing to post down here in the foothills of the site, it's always comforting to know you can turn to Bobby Duncanson's .plan for humor (if not political correctness).

Unreal Update  [9:16 PM EST]
Tim Sweeney updated his Unreal Technology page describing his pleasure at the results of the latest Internet fixes for unreal in the 2.18 patch. He also requests more feedback, both in the PlanetUnreal performance survey, and in bug reports sent to unreal218@epicgames.com. Thanks Redmeat. The update also goes into the world of 3D API support, looking at how much code goes into support each of several different APIs.

Blood2 Update  [9:16 PM EST]
Jay "Shade" Wilson updated his .plan with a lengthy Blood2 update, including word on whether missing Halloween constitutes being late, what would be in the approx 35 MB Blood2 demo ("2 single player levels, about 5 creatures, 6-7 weapons, and since it is single player you can only play as Caleb"), and what isn't ("We've cut multiplayer out of the demo for size reasons"), touching quite briefly on the issue of gore (I wish he'd clarify this once and for all), system requirements (P166 minimum, P200-233 & Voodoo recommended), 3DNow! support ("3DNow! support will be added in a patch."), and coop play and CTF ("Not initially. We'll be releasing a patch that offers co-op play and ctf.").

New Viper 550 Drivers  [9:16 PM EST]
The Diamond Multimedia Viper V550 Series Drivers page has new version 4.10.01.0239 Windows 95/98 drivers for the RIVA TNT-based Viper 550. Thanks hansel.

Fusion BIOS  [9:16 PM EST]
The Diamond Multimedia Monster Fusion Drivers page has new flash BIOS files for boththe AGP and PCI flavors of Voodoo Banshee-based Monster Fusion. Thanks Billy "Monster" Wilson at Voodoo Extreme.

New Litestep  [9:16 PM EST]
Just an off-topic heads-up that the new version b24 of Llitestep, the shell replacement for Windows95/98/NT is now available. Thanks Eric Anderson.

3DMark 99 Released  [7:23 PM EST]
Futuremark's new benchmark 3DMark 99 is available as an exclusive download from GameCenter (around 15 MB). Like its predecessor Final Reality, the new program is designed as much as a way to test your hardware as to show it off, offering much in the way of eye candy special effects. Thanks Redwood.

New Qizmo - Mouse Sampling Program  [5:00 PM EST]
Qizmo, the shareware QuakeWorld proxy, has always been a dicey program to report on because a couple of the features (timers, etc.) were considered to be borderline (or past the borderline for some) cheating. Thankfully the new version 2.5 eliminates these features, allowing me to report on this truly useful program with a clear conscience. In addition to disabling the powerup timers and the second hand on the HUD clock, new to this release are such cool doodads as model checking (to see if others are using models/sounds to cheat), improved compression, an mp3 player(!), and a function that they say can raise the Windows sampling rate for a PS/2 mouse from the default  40 Hz all the way up to 200 Hz. This last, much sought after feature is also available as a separate Win95/98 program here.

Heretic II Dial-up Fix Revisited  [5:00 PM EST]
John "Pagan" Scott updated his .plan with word that the Heretic II DUN workaround posted in his previous .plan turns out to be successful. The problem turns out to only effect MSIE users, who can fix the problem by going to the view menu on Explorer, go to "Internet Options" then the connection tab, and select "connect via LAN" instead of "connect via modem." After doing this you will have to connect to the Internet manually. As a bonus, we learn the secret origin of the Slaine name. Kudos to Squid56 who posted this solution to the Hexenworld messageboard (though I don't know if that's where Pagan found it.

Blood2 Shots  [5:00 PM EST]
Sharky Extreme Blood 2 screenshots. So there.

Matrox Drivers  [5:00 PM EST]
The Matrox Mystique G200 Windows 95 and Windows 98 drivers page has new version 4.26 drivers for the G200 series. Thanks TestPilot. Included in the new drivers are optimizations for Unreal and Final Reality.

Rancor  [5:00 PM EST]
Version 0.93 b of the Rancor competition mod for Quake II is out, offering support for the "id" command, tweaks to the HUD and menu system, and stat output to the HUD on a per-weapon basis (hit %).

AoE Expansion Versus its Creators  [5:00 PM EST]
Hail Caesar! In one of the more interesting off-topic side dealies from the FRAG2, Ensemble Studios is accepting sign-ups on their website for a session of Rise of Rome, their upcoming Age of Empires expansion pack with the packs designers. The get-together will be on Saturday night (October 31 at 10:00 PM at the Hyatt Regency Dallas, 300 Reunion Boulevard.

Quake II Extremities  [1:57 PM EST]
id's Anna Kang sends along an announcement about their upcoming Quake II add-on, Extremities, that answers some questions about the pack, including what mods will be included. She also sent along a .jpg of the box art.

Just wanted to drop a line that we're nearing the final packaging design for Extremities. Activision has been very supportive of our efforts and Focus2 has created some of the coolest designs for this compilation. Extremities will introduce many people to the works of some very talented authors. We hope this cooperative effort will be the first in a line of products that increases public awareness of the Quake online community. We've gotten great responses from the mod authors. Each of the chosen authors will be receiving royalties in addition to the well deserved credit for their great efforts. We are all looking forward to the release of Extremities.

The following is the list of contributors to Extremities: Player models and skins by: Rowan "Sumaleth" Crawford Deathmatch Maps by: Sten 'Ztn' Uusvali and Daniel 'Trebz' Nolan

The mods: - QWar2 - Kick - Capture! - PowerBall - Rail Arena - Red Rover - Rocket Arena 2 - Action Quake 2 - Eraser Bot by Ridah - Jailbreak by Team Reaction - C.H.A.O.S. Deathmatch by Chaotic Dreams

* CTF will be included with the latest patch update of Quake II.

Trespasser Review  [1:10 PM EST]
OGR's full Trespasser review is now up, offering a complete look at the game along with some new screenshots. I've been curious about the nature of gameplay in this one, and this passage seems to give a good idea for the feel:

The sense of accomplishment when you finally figure out a way to get past an obstacle is pretty great - more so than in most other games. By contrast, the act of killing dinosaurs (which becomes pretty common as the game progresses) is rather dull compared to most action games. The movement rate and the necessity to keep your distance from the dinos as much as possible (as well as take your time to aim carefully) keeps the adrenaline level pretty low. Besides, you're no match for a raptor, so even when firing an automatic weapon, it's best to outthink them than outgun them.

Kick Engine and 3DNow!, New Demo Friday  [12:50 PM EST]
The Kick Engine page has an announcement that they are working with AMD to natively incorporate 3DNow! technology into their 3D game engine. Their first 3DNow compatible demo is expected in a couple of weeks, but in the meantime, another new technology demo is promised this Friday showing off their volumetric water, and offering a 20% speed boost.

Really Final Keys2  [12:50 PM EST]
If the keymasters at the Keys2 Web Site are to be believed then the third final version of their Quake II teamplay mod is the actual final version. Also, version 1.93 of Keys2 for Solaris is also now available.

Experience Shots  [12:50 PM EST]
Billy at Voodoo Extreme has hooked up with four screenshots from Experience, an upcoming 3D shooter/adventure game.

Interviews: Alienware, Holy Wars  [12:50 PM EST]
Sluggo's Mod Central has an interview online conducted with Paolo "Nusco" Perrotta and Roberto "TaZ" Bettazzoni of the Holy Wars mod as the first in a new weekly interview feature over there that will talk to the authors of popular Quake II mods. Also, Interview with Alienware's Nelson Gonzales talks with the head Alien over there about their products in an interview conducted by John "Dirty Harry" Callaham.

loonygames Issue 10  [6:00 AM EST]
Here's what's in store for readers of issue 10 of loonygames, as always, published in segments throughout the week according to the odd ticking of loonyboi's odd internal chronometer. Here's the poop on what's going on this week:

• Still Sick of Games: Jeff Solomon returns with this follow-up to his popular "Sick of Games" article, incorporating reader feedback, as well as recent research into the issue of 3D games and motion sickness. [Monday]
• Guest Editorial: In the spirit of newsworthiness, Jonathan Clark, programmer (and owner) of the sadly defunct Crack.com speaks his mind! [Thursday]
• From the Mouth of Madness: Jason "loonyboi" Bergman discusses the state of the industry in the light (or lack thereof) Crack.com's closing. [Monday]
• Community Profile: Stephanie "Bobbi" Bergman interviews none other than the infamous Evil Avatar, about the gaming community, his news page, and why some people just can't stand him.
• PLUS: More "Pixel Obscura" [Tuesday], a review of Shogo: Mobile Armor Division [Thursday], Paul Steed's "Thinking Outside the Box" [Tuesday] and of course, much, much, more! And then some more!

Unreal 2.18 Beta  [4:29 AM EST]
Tim Sweeney sends along word of the release of the Unreal 2.18 patch, available on the Unreal Updates & Patches page, here's a local copy (2.1 MB) on GamesNET FTP. Here's the word on the patch from Tim:

Unreal 218 is now available. I've posted it along with release notes at http://unreal.epicgames.com/versions.htm ~

Important: 218 is not network-compatible with previous versions, so players and servers will both have to upgrade in order to take advantage of it.

Since our T1 line is perpetually saturated, if anybody is able to mirror it, that would be greatly appreciated.

Our testing session, including a lot of 28.8K players, and even some overseas players with modem connections, went very well! We're looking forward to hearing what the rest of the community thinks about the improved network play. If their experience mirrors ours, then we'll be beyond Unreal's big internet problems, and ready to go into incremental refinement & tweaking. We have a lot of further enhancements in the queue, along with some cool surprises.

New PingTool - Shogo Support  [4:29 AM EST]
Version 2.3 Beta 3 of PingTool is now available, adding Shogo: Mobile Armor Division support to the recently implemented Heretic II Demo support for this Internet server browser.

Heretic II Demo Server Exploit Fix  [4:29 AM EST]
Raven's Pat Lipo (CodeKing) updated his .plan with word on a Heretic II Demo exploit. Here's is a local copy of the patch he describes for server operators (360 KB). Here's the update:

Note to all of you out there cool enough to run a deathmatch server for Heretic II. We have found that certain... ahem... individuals have learned of a way to... ahem... cheat and mess up game servers. One very cool dude let me know about the problem, so I went about and fixed it. This is a single file that is only needed by people running servers. It's okay, players don't need the update (unless they really want it).
Incidentally, in addition this fix also keeps people who are ghosted from being identified by show_player_names, and people in very dark areas should also not be pointed out by the player names. A bit less cheating then, no? You can download this new DLL at Rick's download directory: http://www2.ravensoft.com/users/rjohnson/download/Heretic2 Demo Server Patch 10-25-98.zip Heretic2 Demo Server Patch, 369,195 bytes

Those of you running servers, please let me know if you have any other problems.

Heretic II Demo Dial-Up Workaround, Fun Names  [4:29 AM EST]
Also, if you're having the problem where the Heretic II demo tries to use Dial-up Networking whenever you run it, Rick Johnson updated his .plan mentioning the server exploit (above), as well as a possible workaround for the DUN problem, which is clarified in John Scott's .plan, along with word (as he put it a "titbit" on fun name support:

To clarify Ricks finger, you might have better luck with "-noudp 1" and "-noipx 1". This may fix Heretic 2 wanting to connect to the internet at startup, but I won`t be surprised if it doesn`t :(

We are also trying to set up an internal web page FAQ to handle the bulk of the bug replying. Apologies for not giving a personal reply to every email, but we do get so many, and we are trying to finish coding the game !

Another little titbit for you. Type "conchars" at the console to view the full character set. You can use these in your nick if you edit the name entry in the config.cfg file in your user folder. You can get lots of funky characters like "®©ß§È³" for those l33t names :) Hold down the alt key and press numbers on the keypad to get them. eg alt 0174 is ®.

Heretic II Demo Double-Binding  [4:29 AM EST]
Raven's Josh Weier has a tutorial on Heretic II key binding in his .plan showing how to bind keys to double taps.

H2 Demo Server List  [4:29 AM EST]
TeleFragged's Heretic II Server Listing is up. Submit servers here for inclusion on the list.

Rainbow Six Mouse Utility  [4:29 AM EST]
Billy at VE sends along a utility cooked up by Nils Magnuson to adjust the mouse sensitivity in Rainbow Six. Here's a local copy of the Rainbow Six Mouse utility (1.5 MB).

Matrox Overclocker  [4:29 AM EST]
An updated version2.04 of the Matrox Overclock utility is now available. Thanks again Billy at Voodoo Extreme.

Heretic II Editing  [4:29 AM EST]
Nihilitic's Brent McLeod points out that Quake II BSP's can be loaded into the Heretic II Demo. Here's the update he passes along about that from the Heretic II editing utils release:

It is possible to load Quake2 levels into Heretic II, and is also possible to make new Heretic II levels with standard Quake2 level compiling utils. Below is a link to a few texture conversion utilites to help people get started. Pat Lipo has stated that the BSP format was left the same intentionally.

http://home.ienet.com/~veldrin/h2utils.zip
>From the readme.txt:

Heretic II Editing Utils v0.01

This zip contains 2 utils:

- m82tga: Converts the Heretic II .m8 format textures into .tga format. These can then be loaded with QERadiant. The catch is that you need to set: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\QERadiant\Radiant\Prefs\HiColorTextures to 1 to have the .tga's load. As far as I know qrad3 doesn't support .tga's for computing radiosity light values, so you'll have to use point lights. (else all emitter textures will emit white light)

- wal2m8: Converts Q2 .wal format textures .m8 format, with the palette in tact.

You can compile Heretic II levels with the standard Quake2 utilities. Enjoy.

Of course the textures come out funny if you just load the Q2 maps into H2, as this screenshot sent along by Rick Barkhouse demonstrates:

Edited glDoom Log  [4:29 AM EST]
An edited log of the Chat session with glDoom author Bruce Lewis is now up, though, because it's on an FTP site, tends to return server too full messages.

Out of the Blue  [4:29 AM EST]
From yesterday: Yes, as dozens of you pointed out, Ferris' girlfriend was named Sloan (or Sloane), which you'll have to agree is something like Slaine (which is all I said). Only one respondent on the Quote yesterday (Matt Dimmic) which was from Clockwork Orange. Hey, do I  offend? Readership is up, and feedback is positive, so is it just lack of pimpage that has Blue's News drifting down that World Charts Foundation Internet Websites Top 100, or am I doing something wrong? (Or is it a side effect of their accidentally dropping the site from the chart for a week a while back?..). Oh well, I'll get over it (*sniff*). Actually, I'm being a jerk, #5 is five times better than deserved, but after all those weeks at #1...Okay, I'm over it now. As for Marcus Whitlock -- never fear, I knew you were kidding (and I assume most who followed along did too).

H2 Demo Bugs and Features - No Team DM  [5:13 PM EST]
Raven programmer Pat Lipo, sorry, Pat "CodeKing" Lipo, has updated his .plan talking about several programming issues from the demo, even touching upon John Cash's demo (story) dissing John's chickenmatch skills. Raven programmer Marcus Whitlock also updated his .plan saying that the outcome of Cash's H2 Demo demo is a feature (as opposed to a bug, this man has a future in operating system development). Here's part of Pat Lipo's update that talks about Glide versions, game saving, coop, whether or not they will create a female Corvus (Corvette?), and the news that Heretic II will not feature team deathmatch or custom skin downloads, check the full update for more on known bugs:

Some things:
--If you have any problems with your Voodoo cards I can almost guarantee that you need an updated Glide driver... This was put in because of relability concerns, but my only regret was that the error message that comes up wasn't bigger... Voodoo 1: v2.43 Voodoo Rush: v2.45 Voodoo 2: v2.53 Voodoo Banshee: v2.60

--As has been stated, we didn't want to support game saving in the demo until we were sure it was 100% solid. Yes, you can bind these at the console, but do so at your own risk. Coop mode is the same... we've got it in the demo, but it isn't supported. Good luck!

--We've got support for demos in the game, and some of you may have downloaded the one that John Cash apparently made... Cool that you made one, John, but what the heck was that? He just shot the fireball (which quickly ran out of ammo and started firing wimpy "out-of-mana" shots) at the chicken from two inches away!!! You coulda at least taken out the staff and did a pole-vault kick or something. I thought I was going to see the super-chicken in deathmatch!!!! Well, that just means we have to make some cool-ass demos showing each weapon in action! We will get some together ASAP so y'all can see the stuff as it was meant to be used!

--Two things that I will warn you right now that won't make it by ship date. We NEVER promised these in to be the box, so don't get in a huff, but nonetheless we know what your average Quake player expects and want to deliver. These things are team deathmatch and custom skin downloading. The custom skins particularly met with some complications early on, due to us switching to a system that allowed us to maintain damage skins AND plague variations on those skins. It is our intent to provide gamers with an update as soon as possible for these features. As, to add a sugar to your medicine, expect some additional surprises as well!

--While people have talked about adding a female model (The thought is intriguing, but we can't promise to add a feature so involved off the cuff), there is one thing that I'm afraid we won't be able to offer veteran Quakers, custom downloadable player meshes. With all his intricacies, model parts, skeletal bones and animation frames, it would just be prohibitive to have these be dynamically downloaded during play. Imagine, you're playing in a deathmatch server, having a great time, when suddenly--- BAM! Somebody new's joined in and you have to wait for a 3MB model to download. I don't think so.

--I have been implementing and tweaking weapons left and right, and really want to make sure they're balanced and perfect. Any thoughts on the current weapons, their balance, their effects, and any future weapons and spells would be most appreciated. Email me please at plipo@mail.ravensoft.com

Assimilation  [5:13 PM EST]
Version 2.0 of Assimilation for Quake II is now available. Assimilation is a four team (red, blue, yellow, and green) deathmatch mod that features all weapons at all times (like Rocket Arena), and off-hand grapple, a ranking system, streak counters, and much more.

glDoom Chat Log  [5:13 PM EST]
Here's a raw log from today's glDoom chat with Bruce Lewis on DoomNation (Bruce joins the chat about 25% into the log).

Q2FE  [2:55 PM EST]
Q2FE 3.0-SR1 Final is out on the Q2FE page. Q2FE is Quake II Front-end, a program to provide a way for Quake II server administrators to configure their servers fast and easily without having to remember all those nasty DMFlags settings and other commands.

Lionhead Chat  [2:55 PM EST]
Tonight is another edition of the monthly chat with members of the Lionhead Studios team on 3DNet IRC. Thanks Gino at The Game Complex. Today's chat, at 8:30 PM GMT (this may be in a few minutes if I figure my time zones properly), is with Peter Molyneux. More details are on the Lionhead on IRC page.

Heretic II Codes, Local Demo  [2:00 PM EST]
Man I gotta lay off the crack: I made two different posts yesterday about Heretic II cheat codes, without realizing I had already posted a perfectly good list of them in a listing of all sorts of command line options sent along by sent along by wm_jaron, so I HTML-ized it up and re-posted it here. Also, here's a page with links to local copies of the demo files, both in one big zip (~40 MB) and split up into four files. These are from the updated version of the demo that isn't time locked.

Worldcraft DX6 Update  [2:00 PM EST]
I posted a warning earlier for Worldcraft users about DirectX 6.0 conflicts possibly causing crashes. Somberfire at ACD Systems says he doesn't know of any issues with DX6 (ha and the Valve guys are using it with WC with no problem), so if you are a Worldcraft user who is experiencing such problems, he'd like you to please email him at worldcraft@acdsystems.com.

Monster Fusion Review  [2:00 PM EST]
Sharky Extreme's Monster Fusion review looks at Diamond's Voodoo Banshee offering.

New Winamp  [2:00 PM EST]
The Winamp download locations page has version 2.04 of Winamp. Thanks James H Koh.

Rainbow Six Randomizer  [11:56 AM EST]
Warchest For Rainbow 6 is a mission randomizer for Rainbow Six. The current release is described as a pre-beta that will add random terrorists to the first mission of the game. Thanks Vaugn.

Saxs Interview  [11:56 AM EST]
A Saxs Persson Interview (or as they put it, Sax Perrson) on RIVA 3D talks with TeamEgo's lead programmer about Messiah, Shiny's upcoming third-person game featuring Bob the possessive cherub, as well as his favorite all-time games, previous works, etc.

AvP Demo News  [11:56 AM EST]
Final Conflict, a dedicated Aliens versus Predator news page, has word they say is direct from Fox Interactive that the game's current planned release will be a the end of February "at the earliest," and that a demo will be available in gaming magazines this January in three different parts, a marine demo, and alien demo, and a predator demo. Thanks John Bergerud.

Action2 TeamMapPack, PainKeep MapPack  [11:56 AM EST]
A couple of map compilations, the Action Quake2 Map Depot (AQ2MD) has the Official Action Quake2 Teampack called "With a Vengeance" containing six teamplay specific maps, two new models, and 19 new skins. Thanks LrdVaderX. Also, MagixX has posted the fourth of their map packs of maps converted for use with PainKeep, offering five levels newly compiled for this classic Quake modification.

Linux/Wine Heretic II Follow-up  [11:56 AM EST]
A follow-up to the note here the other day about playing the Heretic II Demo under Linux using Wine (story), is a note on LinuxGames with more detail, saying since Glide 2.43 is required (morbid points out that it's actually 2.53 that's required), only software mode works. There is also word there on how to run a dedicated Linux server using Wine. Thanks DarkVein. ("Wine... alright?").

Another Final Keys2  [11:56 AM EST]
The Keys2 Web Site has a post-final release o