KiRiON|FL| who sent word of the Skout shots from earlier also sends word of an AVI format Skout movie showing off gameplay from this upcoming Shooter now in production in Germany. Here is a local copy of the Skout AVI (8.1 MB) with a mirror courtesy of Walnut Creek CDROM.

Planet Kingpin has posted a real update on the upcoming Kingpin demo to make up for the previous false report. Another report on Gangland.org gives word from Xatrix' Greg Goodrich (via email) that there will be no multiplayer in the demo. Here's the update from Xatrix' Drew Markham:

There are still some details that need to be taken care of, but all in all the first episode (which makes up the demo) is looking great. Remember, we have added a ton of new features to the QII engine and the FPS genre in general, so its a bit more laborious to make sure that everything is working properly. The other good news is that the first episode represents about 85% of all of the mechanical elements that are in the game, so future scenaric coding is all based on the existing code-base.

We want to make sure that everything is "right" for the demo, so we're taking the amount of time that is necessary to get it done; no more and no less. We will, of course, keep you guys posted as to the progress.

As for the fake postings on the Interplay message board, all I can say is that the person who did this must lead a pretty pathetic life if that's their idea of a joke. This incident has forced us off of the Interplay message boards for good, as there is no way to guarantee the authenticity of official Xatrix postings. We will make all future posts regarding Kingpin on the PlanetKingpin and Gangland message boards, as they require all members to be registered.

To all of those out there who got duped by this little fiasco, just hang in there! We'll have the demo out as soon as possible."

There is a preview of Experience, on Voodoo Extreme, looking at this upcoming shooter from The Whole Experience, offering an interview with Patrick Moyniham of The Whole Experience along the way. The preview has a couple of new pieces of artwork and some new screenshots.

DEviews interviews Graeme Devine in a three question Q&A with id Software's new designer that touches on the leaked Q3A IHV test.

Subsequent posts to the Kingpin forum seem to indicate that the story that follows this one about a demo release today, is in fact a prank.

Xatrix's Greg Goodrich made a post to the Kingpin forum announcing that a Kingpin demo will be released later today (thanks Planet Kingpin and Gangland.org). Update: It turns out this post was a spoof.

Soft Enterprises has posted some new screenshots on their page (mostly German), showing off Skout, an upcoming first-person shooter title described as using a "4th Generation GraphicsEngine." Here's a quote translated by Tom at TeamEvolve to improve upon the crude translation from AltaVista Translations that I originally posted:

In the distant future, the SKOUT, a heavily armoured special agent, is sent to the Planet Lugubrios, together with his combat drone, to free it from the Cybernoids. No easy task, because SKOUT must show tactical skill at the same time: not all of his opponents can fight him face-to-face. Some can only be overcome in close combat, while others can only be damaged by the combat drone. The most varied of tasks await him - hostages must be set free, generators reprogrammed, and the drone must be mastered.

There are eight exclusive Mortyr screenshots on GA-Source showing off action from Interactive Magic's upcoming shooter.

Unreal Nation has posted some new screenshots and info from Hired Guns, an upcoming Unreal-engine game, giving a status report along the way. A feature with all the shots they've received is due soon, perhaps today. Thanks Billy at Voodoo Extreme.

Though not yet on The Kali Homepage, the Kali FTP Site has version 1.63 of the Kali server-browser/chat tool. Thanks Guildmaster.

There are a pair of new ION Storm interviews on GameWire: A Bobby Xcalibur Pavlock Interview and a Rich "Zdim" Carlson interview.

PlanetStarSiege has posted a zip file with an updated RegisterObjects.cs file for all interested in editing TRIBES maps.

A new version of Terror Quake2 is out fixing a major crash bug that slipped through the previous release, as well as adding a distance modifier for grenades. Also included with the distribution is their Qoole entity set, in case editing types want to have a crack at TQ2 maps.

Sloshy Software Inc. has released revision 1 of their Eraser Bot Wizard version 2.34 fixing a handful of bugs.

The D0gz Pack has posted Tribestats, a UNIX-only program that, when used in conjunction with Fragstats, tracks and outputs player stats from TRIBES games in web-friendly formats. A Windows version is expected soon.

• PCVelocity's Wages of Sin Review looks at the newly released mission pack for Sin from 2015.
• 3DGaming's South Park Review is up looking at Acclaim's beefcakey shooter.
• PlanetQuake reviews Songs for Deathmatch, a CD of music designed to play while playing action games.
• AGN Hardware's 32 MB Rage Fury review.

• An Aureal Reverb Survey on 3DsoundSurge, while not technically a competition, is offering three (3) sets of Sennheiser headphones to be awarded to three randomly selected participants from the completed survey submissions to encourage participation.
• A sCary interview talks with sCary about this upcoming international competition he's gotten himself involved in (America's Ambassador to the world -- eeek!). Details on the match are on the True Gamers Network.

The BattleZone 2 shots I called new yesterday (story), were, in fact, not new. thanks Graham Nardone. Also, the N64.IGN.COM that was the source of the article I was quoting about Turok arena yesterday (story) doesn't actually say the title will be that, but rather, "a sort of Turok Arena" (emphasis mine) specifically saying the project is still without a name. Thanks Epstein.

• Netscape Communicator 4.51 is up on Netscape's FTP site. Thanks Ant...
• Version 1.9 of the Quake 2 Scene Builder is now available, allowing you to pose models for Quake II (and Quake, Sin, and Half-Life) to create images. Perfect for future fashion photographers (that's it baby, pout for me)...
• Don't compare processors using Null driver tests, a warning for those who use synthetic benchmarks, in this case 3D Winbench in particular. Thanks Sean "Hamburger" Hall...
• Ritual's Murphy Michael's .plan has a call for "little people" (after a revision to the posts language) to entertain at this year's E3 (I'm not making this up)...
• Some Site Seeing: The Bot Board Forums have re-opened at a new location offering discussion forums for all of the major games that feature (or will feature) bots (commercial or otherwise). Gamers Link, a gaming resources search database has re-opened at its new location. Finally, historical community site (sorta) w00d.com (home of Candy the Llama, among other things) is set to go away. If you have any wonderful ideas about what to do with the domain, contact James.

I got a nice late start this morning, it just worked out so that I crashed and burned, and slept in (sorry, but it was good: I kinda needed it).

I think we should work out some of the remaining kinks with Blammo! search sometime today: Problems have been identified in entering dates, and a problem where the search highlight messes up hyperlinks, as well as the gnarly "last 2 days" link that skips yesterday. Minor problems aside, I can't believe how useful I'm finding the search function, and I believe some readers are finding it helpful as well, since I seem to be getting fewer emails reporting things that have already appeared on the site.

Link of the Day: Thanks to an old pal o' Blue's Chris "Mopar" Lemos for digging though the still-unsearchable HTML archives to find the Quakarena (from March 16, 1997), the original all-singingest. all-dancingest, wacky link of insanity.

An article on Shugashack has news that when Quake III Arena becomes available, the Linux version will be sold in stores as a separate release, rather than the way previous Linux Quake/Quake II releases were handled, which were free, but required buying the DOS/Windows versions of the games. The article offers an interview with Zoid on hardware support and other Linux Q3A issues. Here's a quote from John Carmack on the subject:

All ports so far have been just for the heck of it, but we will be rolling out real commercial linux versions of several products in the next couple months. I think the market is good enough to make real money in now.

The linux boxes will definitely be on some store shelves. Places that have existing linux OS packages will probably have the game boxes.

The Adrenaline Vault News has some new info on BattleZone II straight from Activision giving details on this action/strategy sequel, currently expected "late summer." The article includes three new screenshots.

The BattleCruiser website has a new version 2.05 patch for BattleCruiser 3000 A.D. Here's the Version Control file with a complete rundown on what's new.

A new version 0.12r003 of the Crystal Space 3D Engine, called a "New Official Release" is now available. This version fixes lightmaps in Glide, has better project files for VC/Windows and also fixes a bug with bots. Thanks AGN3D and VE. Also now available are new executable archives for BeOS, NextStep, OpenStep, and Rhapsody, and the Macintosh executable archive has been updated to 0.12r003. Crystal Space is a free 3D engine (not a game) that supports most state-of-the-art features and offers extensive cross-platform support.

The Adrenaline Vault News interviews Graeme Devine, new id Software designer. The Q&A talks about Graeme's departure from Trilobyte and his position at id, basically, as they put it, "answer(ing), as well as side-step(ping), a few questions." Here are a couple of interesting Q's and A's:

AVault: What are your personal goals at id?

Devine: I'm anxious for id to break into the FMV market. Seriously, my goals are to move this genre forward. We had some children in the other day looking at our test level that has a player standing in front of a mirror. We shot that mirror up and scratched and marked it rather well and felt proud of all our graphic splendor. The child looked on, but then asked the simple question, "Why didn't the mirror break?" Why indeed.

AVault: Does your employment indicate a renewed interest in the single-player experience at id?

Devine: As far as I can tell there has not been a moment here when the single-player experience has not enjoyed a high level of interest.

The Apogee/3D Realms Site has word of an announcement on Megadeth's Official Site that the band has recorded the theme for Duke Nukem Forever:

The band has recorded the theme song for a future Duke Nukem video game. Further details have not yet been released, as is the case regarding with details on A Tout Le Monde II. More to come as it's released...

The Apogee Site goes on to confirm this, saying:

We've been working with Megadeth (and GT) to record the opening theme song for Duke Nukem Forever. So far, things kick ass, and they are going to record another version of the song soon. We'll release more info later regarding the song, but rest assured it will be cool.

The Requiem site has posted a new movie (titled "the sick movie") showing gameplay from 3DO's upcoming shooter in QuickTime Format, as well as some Multiplayer screenshots, three of which were posted here, but one (the fourth one) is new (at least I haven't seen this stuff before, I don't know what's with the dates there). Thanks George Wagner.

Some new Decay Screenshots are up on the Insomnia Software Site. Thanks Billy at Voodoo Extreme.

Version 1.6 of the Gamers Extreme Tournament Mod for Quake II is now available. The new version is built on the Quake 2 v3.20 codebase and fixes some bugs and tweaks some features.

Those new Quake III Arena screenshots are now up on id's Quake 3 Arena site. Here's a page with local copies, enjoy.

PC.IGN.COM previews Sanity an upcoming LithTech (or LithoTech according to the preview) engine game they say "resembles a cross between Diablo and Sanitarium." Though the game is still apparently in early development, the preview offers a bunch of impressive screenshots.

There are ten new Shogo walkthroughs on PlanetShogo giving tips on how to get through single-player play.

There will be another AnachroChat this evening offering a chance to participate in a live IRC session with Tom Hall and the members of ION Storm's Anachronox team, who will be chatting about their upcoming Quake II-engine RPG. The session starts at 8:00 PM CST (9:00 EST), and you can join with an IRC client using www.ionstorm.com as the server, and #ion as the channel, or through the Ion Storm website by clicking on the Online button and then selecting the Chat Lobby button.

Computer Games Online's Team Fortress 2 preview is up, saying: "With Team Fortress 2, Valve Software hopes to do for multiplayer gaming what Half-Life did for solo play."

The MSK Entertainment Homepage has some new screenshots from Planet of War, an upcoming OpenGL
3D space combat flight simulator. Thanks GA-Source.

Version 1.1 of the Fast Card TNT/3Dfx Overclocking Utility is now available.

Diamond Multimedia Monster Fusion Drivers page has updated Windows 95/98 drivers for their Voodoo Banshee-based accelerators. Thanks Billy at Voodoo Extreme.

A report on FGNOnline reports plans for the next installment in the Turok series will be, you got it, Turok Arena. here's the report:

N64: An Acclaim source has revealed that a new Turok game will arrive this December as planned, but it won't be called Turok 3. According to IGN64, Turok Arena is in the works. As the title suggests, the game will focus on multiplayer mayhem, including weapons and levels developed with four-player madness in mind. It is said Acclaim is also working on a Turok 3 title for release in 2000-2001 for Nintendo's next generation machine, though this is unsubstantiated.

There's now a TRIBES OpenGL FAQ on Datumplane::Starsiege answering questions about the new OpenGL support, and mentioning other issues with the 1.3 update.

There's a TeamFortress Classic & TeamFortress 2 preview on GameSpot UK looking ahead at both the TeamFortress Classic free add-on for Half-Life, and the upcoming stand-alone TeamFortress2.

RipSide.com has posted three more of their stash of Quake III Arena screenshots (while grumbling about sticky-fingered sites snagging their shots without credit).

There are eight new exclusive Expendable screenshots on GA-Source showing off Rage's upcoming third-person action title.

Arcadia interviews John "Gestalt" Bye trying to get to the gestalt of Gestalt, the leader of the editing team known as The Coven.

A version 2.01a of Server Watch is now up with a fixed .dll for the version released earlier (story). You only need this if you get a message that says "The SERVER WATCH 2.0.EXE file is linked to missing export MFC42.DLL:6907."

CPU Scaling is an article on Fast Graphics that puts the performance of different video cards across a range of CPU speeds in perspective, benchmarking a crop of 2D/3D combo cards (TNT, Banshee, XPERT 128, Savage 3D, and the Matrox G200) at dozens of increments along the CPU scale, even offering an example where a 240 MHz CPU outperforms a 400 MHz CPU (using certain odd multipliers).

Dhabih Eng sent along word of his latest piece of art. The new piece is not game-specific, but certainly up to his standards:

Version 2.01 of Server Watch is now available offering an update to this system tray utility (as they say on the site themselves "just what you need, another icon in the task tray") that can alert you when a multiplayer game has launched on your network. Server Watch currently supports Quake, QuakeWorld, Quake II, HexenWorld, Hexen II, Sin, Heretic II, and Half-Life, with the promise of more to come.

GX Message Boards Developer's Corner covers the topic "If I were a game developer I would" described as a forum for future game developers to talk about development with current industry developers and exchange ideas. The board was begun by Robert "CruciFX" Holm, recently hired by Legend Entertainment as animator for Unreal 2.

The Infos & Downloads zu Q-Start & Q2Start page (German) has the first freeware release of their Q2Start Quake II front-end. The new release supports up to eight mods, two more than had been supported by the shareware version.

Ars Technica Reviews InWin Q500A, one of their high-end case reviews. Well-rounded Entertainment reviews South Park declaring "Oh my God! They've killed the franchise!"

• A couple of stories on the Pentium III CPU ID issue: Fear and Loathing in Cyberville is another Adrenaline Vault article on the PIII by Marcia & Barry Press, and Intel What's Really Inside is a HardwareCentral report, also on the controversial ID number...
• Ars Technica boggles over the specs of the upcoming PlayStation2, offering some analysis, as well as some new info from a source at Sony...
• MagixX is temporarily offline (to return March 15)...

From the "you can't make this stuff up" file: Rags to Riches in Ultima Online is an AVault report that talks of an alternative form of professional gaming, where a UO account with five characters armed to the teeth and a half-million gold pieces was sold at an eBay auction for over $500.00 cash. Thanks DaFragsta. Then there's this from our buddy, ace pixel pusher Walter |2| Costinak, who points out that if you send an email using Outlook 2000 with the word "Q3A" in it, the word the spellchecker suggests is Quad. Freaky, eh?

Link of the Day: The Quake Dance. You knew it was coming didn't you? Quite the suitable end to the dancing whatever theme. Actually, that's the Quake II dance, but we did already have the Quake Macarena waaay back when, so a sequel is only fair.