The playable demo for Psygnosis' upcoming Drakan: Order of the Flame is up on GameSpot. Word is the demo requires a 4MB or greater video card. The demo is being distributed via a Gigex dealie where you can resume broken downloads. Here's a bit on what's included:

Played in third-person perspective, Drakan combines hand-to-hand combat with a flight engine that allows you to battle it out against other dragons. This online demo includes a portion of the Wartok Canyon level. The goal is to open the Troll Gate: to reach it, you must survive the perilous canyon filled with spiders, orcs, wartoks, giant ballistas and crow dragons.

More of these than you can shake a stick at (provided stick shaking is your idea of a good time):

• Todd Porter responds to rumors on the Gamer's Voice in a short Q&A again stating he is still with ION, saying "...Rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated."
• There is a short interview on DarkNews with Joel Huenink, one of the rulers over at 4D Rulers about their forthcoming Gore.
• Freespace2.org interviews Jasen Whiteside talking with the lead artist on Freespace 2.
• The Hive interviews Gestalt talking to John Bye, head Warlock of the Coven, and BarrysWorld interviews Gestalt, about the Coven's work, as well as his role as content director at PlanetQuake. The second piece features a pair of screenshots from the Coven's forthcoming DeadLode.
• Jake Hughes Represents: A Daily Informant Interview is an ION Storm Q&A with their own Jake "Strider" Hughes, producer on the Anachronox team.

No, not a black & white movie as in film noire, but rather another movie posted on BW Wire showing off gameplay from the upcoming game of that name from LionHead.

Thief editor download page on the Looking Glass Studios' Home Page has the first release of DromEd, the Thief: The Dark Project level editor. Thanks Zac Levine. They have also released editable versions of the missions included with the game, since the versions on the game CD have had info essential for editing the files stripped from them.

The Gore Images page has a new screenshot showing off this upcoming gory shooter from 4D Rulers.

Valve Software has released a version 1.0.1.0 patch for Half-Life, as both a patch to update version 1.0.0.5 (21.5 MB), as well as a patch for version 1.0.0.9 (2.5 MB), the local copies are of the English-language patches, and there are flavors of the patch for various international releases, as well as the non-violent version of the game (hey Barney, lets go talk with them!) on the mirror sites as well. The planned 10:00 AM Pacific time release for this patch was jumped by a bunch of sites (I'm not sure why that was), but as it's now that time, it's likely the in-game auto-updater should work soon, if not now. Word is the Linux server package will be posted this morning. Here's the dirt on the new release:

• Dedicated server has been optimized and requires less overhead to run a server. This means that latency values for clients will go down since the server is not working as hard.
• The dedicated server is now a console application, which will allow server operators to more easily administer their server remotely.
• Updating your server list through the server browser uses less bandwidth, making it much faster.
• Starting a LAN server will not attempt to connect to the Internet.
• Fixed a bug where latency values were incorrectly reported in the server browser.
• Underwater prediction code optimized.
• Fixed a bug in the mod browser at the request of the mod development community.

Xtreme Tribes has posted a couple more TRIBES2 shots on the heels of the spate posted yesterday. One of the shots shows off the exact effect I was describing with the shots I posted yesterday (story), a shot of Slacker getting struck by lightning (much like what I assume an actual photo of such an event would depict, it's mostly a picture of the lightning). There are also four news TRIBES 2 shots on PlanetStarSiege, one of them showing off one of the new ground vehicles.

Another update to John Carmack's .plan gives the skinny on the most recent changes he's made in Quake III Arena. My favorite checklist items: "data cheating protection" (hate dem cheaters), "added one more shotgun pellet" (love dem pellets), and "increased the forced respawn time from 10 to 20 seconds" (like dem breaks after dying).

• Thresh's FiringSquad's K7 revisited offers a follow-up after all "the heated debate that we've been following via email and message board activity ever since we posted our K7 Hands-On Preview."
• P3D previews the Canopus Spectra 5400, Canopus' TNT2-Ultra offering.
• Beta 6 of version 3.40 of HyperSnap, the 3dfx screenshot capture utility, is now available. thanks BetaNews.
• Sharky Extreme News has word of the bundle to be included with Guillemot's TNT2-based Maxi Gamer Xentor accelerator, which will include an OEM version of Interplay's Kingpin: Life of Crime and Ubi Soft's Speed Busters.
• Intel has posted some IA64 Developer Information for those of you eager to get started on your Merced-specific coding (thanks Chris Janek).

MGON previews The Wheel of Time looking ahead at this action/strategy game based on the immensely popular series of books by Robert Jordan. Thanks Apache. Also, BarrysWorld's Warren Marshall interview talks to the man known as TaskMaster about his work at Legend Entertainment on Wheel of Time.

An off-topic subject covered here enough that I guess it's actually on-topic, a pair of new releases from a pair of the most popular .mp3 players: A new version 2.22 of Winamp is available (thanks Tung) offering SHOUTcast 1.1 support, improved WMA support, Audiosoft secure ASFS support, and "lots of bug fixes and stability improvements." Also, a new version of the Sonique player is out (thanks Selector), though I'm taking this on faith, as the site is not responding for me at the moment. Word is the new release also supports streaming Internet broadcasts, as well as their "own Stardust MPEG Audio Decoder for superior quality mp3 playback."

• The Linux Game Tome is giving away copies of the new commercial Quake packs for Linux every Friday in June (to qualify, you have to find the picture of the turnip somewhere on the site).
• The deadlines in the $150,000 Make Something Unreal Contest have been extended.
• Participants in the QuakeCity poll have a chance to win some Quake II toys from Resaurus.
• Cynic that he is, Old Man Murray is holding a cynical Press Release writing contest relating to the recent ION Storm rumors with an Intensor chair as the prize.

• Sharky Extreme's Aliens versus Predator Review.
• Sharky Extreme's Diamond Viper V770 TNT 2 Ultra Review.
• Sharky Extreme's ASUS V3800 DELUXE Review (decaffe Sharky, decaffe!)
• HardOCP reviews the Voodoo3 2000 in their typical wacky style.
• Gamezilla's Requiem Avenging Angel review. Thanks Frans at 3D Action Gamers.
• Gamesmania reviews Blood 2 The Nightmare Levels. Thanks again Frans at 3D Action Gamers.
• GamePen reviews Recoil. Thanks once more, you-know-who at 3D Action Gamers.

• Click. Bang. It's Only a Game is a Washington post article about gaming violence, talking extensively to Rituals' Robert Atkins about Sin and F.A.K.K.2. Thanks Quintie. On a similar vein, looks like the first Columbine-related lawsuit has been announced, with the parent of the alleged shooters named as defendants in a US$250 million suit (thanks Fusion)...
• Interactive Magic Divests Its CD-ROM Activities Company Focused Entirely on Internet Growth is the announcement that iMagic's CD-ROM line is now owned by Ubi-Soft, who will now be the international distributor for Mortyr, among other things. iMagic will now focus entirely on their "Internet entertainment communities," though they will also be the online distributor of these CD-ROM titles (including Mortyr). Thanks Mortyr.Net...
• Computer games to end dyslexia reports the Register. Thanks Jeff Magill...

There was an episode of the pop culture game yesterday from Caddyshack, Chris.J. Meyer offers this in return: "So I said, 'Hey, Lama, how 'bout a little, you know, somethin' for the effort?'" Great stuff. Looks like something on the Internet spit the bit at some point yesterday, I got a few mails from folks describing having a tough time connecting to the site, but it appears to have abated.

Some congrats: Happy Birthday 3DRealms' Chris Johnson, a truly fun guy (if not one of the scariest drivers you'll ever ride with), and congrats to loonyboi, who marks one of the rites of passage into loony-manhood today, as he is graduating (aw, hell, while I'm at it lemme congratulate my bro, WalterEgo, who also just graduated after going back to school, we're all very proud of him).

Link of the Day: Levelord's Home Page.