It's London calling again, as EuroGamer News has another batch of coverage from the 1999 European Computer Trade Show, serving up a look at Unreal Tournament, an X-Com Alliance preview, and more, with plans on still more, with profiles of Vampire The Masquerade, FAKK2, Soldier of Fortune, Dark Reign 2, and KISS : Psycho Circus planned.

The British invasion of info coming out of ECTS in London to help you feel like you've attended the event continues in BarrysWorld's ECTS 99 page, which offers all sorts of coverage from the event, including the Unreal Tournament party and loads more about the games and hardware being shown off at the show. Also, their affiliate Quake Nation is covering all the Quake tournaments at the show.

Bob's ECTS News has been updated with even more TF2 info with photos of screens showing the Character Models in TF2 (including "the cool neck movement"), and a page of new TF2 info. He's also added new Opposing Force screenshot photos showing off the weaponry and more in Gearbox' upcoming Half-Life add-on.

U-Game's Soldier of Fortune Preview is up as part of their ongoing coverage of the well-covered European Computer Trade Show. The piece offers impressions of face time with the game, as well as the shots and stuff from the Activision press CD.

Saw on The Descent Chronicles that a thread called UK Release delay on the Volition, Inc. Bulletin Board offers reassurance from Volition's Philip Holt that the UK version of their upcoming FreeSpace2 will be released simultaneously with the North American version, although the German version would indeed follow after:

The North American and UK versions will be a simultaneous release. You won't have to wait to play in the UK. The German version will come out shortly after...

Saw on PlanetUnreal that a new build 55 of RealCTF, the capture the flag mod for Unreal, is now available. The new version includes the first public beta of RealCreeper. Word is that build 55 is not backward compatible with previous builds, so if you're an avid RealCTFer you'll probably want to keep the installer for the prior version handy until all the servers make the switch-over.

Steve Goldberg and Frans at 3D Action Gamers both point out that the Rogue Spear movie in the GamePower's first look at Rogue Spear mentioned earlier (story) is indeed new (I was uncertain, being unable to view it). Frans passes along a brief description, saying the movie "runs for 2:22, has lots of gameplay footage with a detailed overview of the various features, with a voice-over commentary." The movie is in VIVO format.

More ECTS happenings, as ActiveWindows ECTS News has posted 30 screenshots from NovaLogic's upcoming space opera Tachyon - The Fringe, which will feature the voice talents of perennial gamers' favorite Bruce Campbell (story).

Q3Test Shots on a VideoLogic Neon 250 showing off the visual quality on a PVRSG-based Neon 250. The shots are in 1024x768, 32-bit color, and while they don't provide benchmarks, they describe it as "perfectly playable -- getting some good frame rates" (obviously a subjective judgment that varies with the individual). Word is to expect a preview with benchmarks and impressions soon.

Datumplane::Starsiege sent off a question to Dynamix Programmer Tim Gift asking whether there were plans to include the ability for mod authors to compile their scripts for Dynamix' upcoming Starsiege TRIBES2, which might allow them to execute faster, and would discourage, if not prevent, the theft of code from mods. The answer Tim provided them talks of a way this could be handled, concluding, "As we get closer to ship time, we'll see if code 'stealing' is still an issue."

Command & Conquer Renegade takes over ECTS reports the hyperactive GameSpot UK - ECTS99 coverage with a look at Westwood's upcoming entry into the third-person action genre, accompanied by four screenshots.

Also on the US GameSpot is a new Preview of Diablo II giving a seven page look ahead at the sequel to Blizzard's smash-hit written by Elliott Chin. This actually is the first in a four-part series of previews, broken down like this: The current article is "about the game in general, including the interface, gameplay mechanics, the new map, as well as some multiplayer features." Next week will be about "the three acts, revealing quests, NPCs, and monsters." Followed the week after with details on the five characters, capped off a week later with a "a comprehensive beta report, because by that time, the beta will have been in full test."

1.6GHz Alpha to be fastest Quake chip on planet is a headline of interest on THE REGISTER, known for often being one step ahead of the techie news scene, but consequently known for often being led astray by false conjecture as well. I saw that on The Shugashack along with another story that says AMD to intro K8 at Microprocessor Forum, saying AMD will announce details of the 64-bit successor to the Athlon next month.

• Guillemot has announced their first card based on the GeForce 256 chipset from NVIDIA, which they're calling the 3D Prophet. Details are available on 3DGPU.com.
• LeadTek has announced their GeForce 256 card as well, called the WinFast GeForce256.
• Fast3D reviews the Voodoo 3 3000 AGP card.
• SystemLogic has posted an editorial titled, "Is the Floppy Drive Dead?" which seeks to answer this question that keeps popping up ever since the iMac's debut without a floppy.
• 3dfx has been promoting their T-Buffer technology at this weekend's ECTS show, as GameSpot UK is reporting.
• Tom's Hardware Guide has posted part two of their 32 Graphic Card Meltdown, which pits 32 cards against each other using Shogo, Q3Test, and Descent 3 as benchmarks.

The sharp-eye newsies at Captured.Com noticed an update from a few days ago on the Playspoon website with the first new version of the SpoonBot for TRIBES in over two months (the next release is promised without so much of a delay). The new release is still considered a beta, as there are still "issues" remaining, but there have been so many bugs squashed since the last release, the author felt it was time for a new release. While the bot is described as "by no means a replacement for human opponents," word is they "become more and more human-like, and for the first time they are able to make dead meat of enemy turrets too ;-)" More details are on their TRIBES page.

Saw on PlanetUnreal (by way of DNF World) that Sgt Hulka's Bootcamp recently posted some more IRC interview stuff that offered some insights from 3DRealms' George Broussard on why Duke Nukem Forever, their upcoming Unreal-engine shooter, will not offer support for cooperative multiplayer play, along with more on the general reason this seems to be a common theme in current shooter development, which may not make coop fans feel any better, but perhaps explains why it isn't a conspiracy against them either. Here's the quote (thanks again Sgt Hulka's Bootcamp):

Ghostinmy: Georgb3dr--- yeah is duke foreva going to have co-op support :-)

GeorgB3DR: DNF coop: Probably not due to the single player level structures. Once you get beyond simple levels like Doom or Duke 3D and have cut off points and scripted stuff you can't do co-op well anymore

This Adrenaline Vault Downloads Patch page has "Bonus Pack #3" for Dungeon Keeper 2. The bonus consists of a new two-player Skirmish and Multiplayer level, described as a "real mano a mano test, you'll need to find the secrets and rescue the Mistress to tip the balance in your favor." To touch on some other RTS-related news, there are some new WarTorn screenshots on Gamer's Alliance Strategy, and finally, Ellipse Studios and NetGames have announced that Ellipse will be implementing support for the Free Standard Game Server (FSGS) in its upcoming real-time strategy title Submarine Titans, including all the features of FSGS like team ladders and tournaments. FSGS is described as "an innovative multiplayer online gaming system that supports a number of popular PC titles and is freely available to users worldwide."

S.A.S's Guide to Tribes offers a strategy guide for Dynamix' online multiplayer shooter, Starsiege TRIBES. Check down the sidebar for a fairly comprehensive list of tips, hints and strategies that will have you and your teammates shouting "How'd that feel?" until you're exhausted from celebrating.

Logitech Debuts Force Feedback Mouse News reports GameSpot UK's ECTS coverage announcing the Logitech force-feedback mouse, a breed of gaming peripheral that I think many of us have puzzled over whether it will help or hurt players of action games.

GameSpot UK - ECTS99 coverage offers four new Tomb Raider The Last Revelation screenshots showing off the next in the ongoing adventures of cover girl Lara Croft. Also, GameSpot UK - ECTS99 Final Fantasy VIII screens continues their relentless coverage with seven new screenshots from the PC version of the popular RPG series. There are also new Star Trek Klingon Academy Screens.

EuroGamer News is offering heavy live coverage of ECTS in London. Also, Speedy 3D's ECTS report is online with all their sped-up three-dimensional thoughts on the big show in London, including the following reports: Half-Life: Opposing Force, Incoming: Forces (in-progress), TeamFortress2, Unreal Tournament (in-progress), Quake III Arena (in-progress), C&C: Renegade, WarCraft III ,Starsiege: TRIBES2 (in-progress), Delta Force2 (in-progress), Dreamcast (in-progress), Final ECTS Report (in-progress), GeForce256 sneak peak (in-progress), and G400 on the stands (in-progress). Finally, Fragtasic's ECTS screenshots offer looks ahead at Carmageddon III: TDR2000, Titanium Angels, and more.

ECTS99 - Hitman Puts A Contract Out On Eidos announces a new game from Eidos Interactive, "a brand new third person action blast in which gamers get a chance to enter the murky world of staging hits, carrying out contract killings and 'whacking' unsuspecting marks.*"

Another of those ever-so-dangerous gold reports, GameSpot UK - ECTS99 coverage reports that Prince of Persia 3D, for which we've already had one false gold report (story) that was corrected (story). This report looks like the real deal however, as it is on-the-spot at ECTS.

John Carmack's .plan has word that he's decided to implement a skeletal modeling system in the Quake III engine (albeit not a hierarchical one), along with his latest work log. Here's the poop:

It looks like we are going to go to a skeletal model system. Jim Dose of Ritual had already started on an exporter from character studio, so we decided to just meet in the middle.

I implemented the loading and rendering support this weekend and tested it with a couple hand-inserted bones, so now we just need to write the glue between character studio and the new .md4 format.

The new format is bone based, but it is NOT hierarchial. Each vertex just has an arbitrary weighted list of the bones that influence it. Bones are just 4x3 matricies of floats.

A hierarchial skeleton has some advantages (angles instead of matricies, ability to do IK, etc), but this is a direct and simple replacement for our existing infrastructure that doesn't require any cached state per model instance.

A single .md4 file holds multiple level of detail surface sets, which all share the same bone frames.

In use, it is exactly like the existing models (interpolate between two frame numbers), it just saves a huge amount of space.

I used perl to generate my test data, and it was definately faster than having a separate msdev open and doing it in C.

I am trying to use parenthesis on all perl functions, but when I type "print", my fingers seem to have a flashback to applesoft basic fifteen years ago, and I wind up with bare quotes on prints and parens on everything else...

Does anyone know if there is an existing msdev syntax coloring file for perl? (no, I don't want to switch to a different editor!)

* md4 model loading and displaying
* removed clip models from cgame, use renderer models instead
* fixed mover pushing again
* fixed bug with culling of mirrors made of multiple faces
* fixed quad on spinning machinegun
* surfaceparm alphashadow This causes q3map -light to check individual texture pixels on transparant surfaces for light shadowing instead of making the entire surface either cast or not cast shadows

GameSpot UK's ECTS99 Black & White preview is a preview based on a private showing of Lionhead's upcoming 3D god-game at ECTS. The piece offers several quotes from Peter Molyneux, Lionhead's founder and director, and the designer of Black & White.

Bob's ECTS News has some face to face impressions of several games at ECTS including Valve's upcoming TeamFortress2 and Gearbox' upcoming Half-Life: Opposing Force. There are screenshots of each game, though not very high fidelity, as they are photos of the screen, but they do show off the games and give a sense of what was being seen at the show.

BarrysWorld THQ ECTS Screenshots shows off more of the shots that were released at ECTS this weekend with shots from THQ International showing off Summoner, X: Beyond the Frontier, and Sinistar: Unleashed. Thanks A Talent For War.

GamePower's first look at Rainbow Six Rogue Spear offers a hands-on preview of the upcoming sequel to the Tom Clancy-inspired tactical shooter. The article includes a video in VIVO format, as well as some screenshots. I'm not sure if the movie is new (my browser seems to dislike some ActiveX on the page), but the only other Rogue Spear movie I can recall is that 35 MB intro released couple of weeks ago (story), so at worst this is a more bandwidth friendly version of that. Thanks Vapor at Outcast Central. Among the things they discuss are the sequel's improved graphics. Here's a bit:

Just booting the CD lent credence to Red Storm's claim of an entirely new graphics engine. The original game wasn't shabby, but neither was it an Unreal. Much of Rainbow Six's graphical acclaim could be attributed to press by hexagonally rooted war-game reviewers who weren't used to the graphical splendor of Unreal or Quake 2.

But Rogue Spear is a polygon of an entirely different color. The game supports -- or should I say revels -- in resolutions as high as 1600x1200. The graphics engine draws entire villages and blazing opera house chandeliers, team members crunching across fresh snow leaving bootprints in their wake, MP4 submachine guns...

AnandTech's September 99 Desktop CPU Comparison is online, offering a round-up of nearly all the many processor options now available, along with insights into some of the factors in trying to create apples to apples comparisons (figuratively, of course, this is a PC roundup with no Apple Computer products), with things like 3DNow! and SSE factoring into the equation. The article compares Intel's Celeron, Pentium II, and Pentium III as well as AMD's K6-2, K6-III, and Athlon.

IPlayGames First Look at Giants Citizen Kabuto is online with a short preview of PlanetMoon Studios' upcoming third-person action adventure where you play your choice of a topless sea maiden, a hungry giant, or four hyper-caffeinated little space men.

A Talent for War is holding a chat with several developers of Space Sims. Here's the poop:

The latest of ATFW's developer chats is now set. It's scheduled for this Saturday, September 11th at 1 PM EST/10 AM PST/6 PM GMT. If you need a translation to your time zone, hit CNN's time zone converter (Javascript required). Guests at the third dev chat include representatives from Jumpgate, Klingon Academy, Parsec, Starfleet Command, Starlancer, and Tachyon. As always, the chat will be held in the #space-sim channel on Gameslink's IRC network. For your nearest server, check out their Servers page). The chat will also be mostly moderated; for more info, check out the Chat FAQ.

The Skull Hunters page has the first release of the Skull Hunters mod for Heretic II, bringing the teamplay mod first introduced as HeadHunters Quake, and then revived with TRIBES Hunters, to Raven's Quake II-engine third-person action slash-fest.

PlanetStarSiege has narrowed down their demo competition to five finalists. You can grab the demos of the finalists on this page, and you can use them as research material if you wish, since they plan on holding a poll in the next few days to collect votes for a tie breaker for the grand prize, which is a coveted spot on the TRIBES2 beta team. Also, as I often do, let me stick in a reminder that our New Trivia contest is underway, so if you're feeling lucky (well do ya punk?), head on over and see if you have the mad trivia skillz. Boo-yeah!

• The Adrenaline Vault reviews Drakan Order of the Flame.
• Electric Games reviews DarkStone. Thanks Frans at 3D Action Gamers.
• 3aG - 3D Accelerated Gaming reviews the ERAZOR 3 eXtreme.
• Extreme Poodoo reviews the Everglide Large Attack Pad versus the 3m Precise Mousing Surface.

• The PowerZone Beta Testers page seeks beta testers for a new 3D action game "The Dead Planet," there's a form to fill out to apply. Thanks New Reality Gaming for the heads-up, and Beta Bites for the reminder...
• The Home of the Jumbot Launcher has a new version 0.2 of this front-end for the Jumbot for Half-Life. Thanks Planet Half-Life...
• MagixX has posted 12 new PainKeep maps, maintaining their long-time interest in this classic Quake mod...
• Synchroplay has a 52 model pack for Quake II for download as well as a 150 Kingpin skin pack and a 122 skin TRIBES skin pack. Also, The West Australian Gaming Zone has posted a pack of what they feel are the finest in Quake II models...
• The Adrenaline Vault Downloads Demo has Expert Pool, which "...is the only computer pool game to capture the atmosphere, style and intensity of a live pool game," though I can't see how they can work the smell of smoke in there...

Okay, loony and I are both stuck with a similar problem, so I was hoping maybe it was worth a shot that someone out there has experienced it as well and could offer some advice. We each have a startling amount of email in various mailboxes in our Eudora Pro email clients. Each of us has been unable to even see if we want to switch to Outlook 2000 because we each end up crashing Windows with a GPF upon trying to convert our old mail (we each presume due to the unavoidably large mailboxes involved). So the question is, does anyone have any specific experiences that may help here? Not to be a begging chooser, but we've run the gamut of logic, so educated guesses (and alternative suggestions) will probably not be as useful as help from someone who has actually experienced this and has found a solution (provided there is one). Thanks!

Link of the Day: Desktop Yoga. A combo legit RSI prevention, and crack up (go ahead try #12 and #13 in your office while people are around). Thanks sneaker.
Image of the Day: Astronomy Picture of the Day-August 30, 1999 - Looking Back on an Eclipsed Earth. Or is that Los Angeles? Thanks Ant.

* "Have a cookie..."

The first four screenshots from Command & Conquer: Renegade, the first 3D action title in the C&C universe, have been posted at GamesZone News, a German games site. The text is all in German, of course, but you can always stick a babel fish in your ear if you need a translation. Thanks Ant by way of BattlegroundTS.

The final version of KeyGrip 2, the graphical Quake II demo editing program has been released. This version adds support for non-GL video modes, the ability to change the block number for a camera, and auto-splitting of multi-level demos among other things.

Sharky Extreme has posted their comprehensive preview of Apple's recently announced G4s. The preview features a rundown of the two different motherboards in the new line, as well as the various processors (including a detailed explanation of their unique features).

A new version of Æstats, a log parser that outputs to HTML has been released and is available for download on its homepage. This new version features Action Quake II support and incident filtering, as well as enhancements to games already supported.

I.AM/TFC has posted 70 new demos from Team Fortress Classic, replacing the ones they had before the new patch (as of 1.0.1.3 old demos no longer work). The new demos range from freaky fast speed runs, to combat action to special techniques for each class.

U-Games' Incoming Forces Preview is another preview from the U-Gamers running abut at ECTS in London offering a few pages of their impressions of the game to go along with the 14 screenshots they posted earlier (story).

I.Am-TFC's Team Fortress Classic Strategy page has been updated with new strategies for playing TFC. According to Halflife.net, where I saw this, "It seems a lot of them are related to sniping on certain levels, and there's some new strategies for the HWGuy."

They may be running out of steam, but they aren't through yet, GameSpot UK - ECTS99 Messiah Screens serves up no less than 27 new screenshots released at ECTS from Shiny's upcoming Messiah.

The Entron Deathmatch and Single Player Gaming Resource has the release of "the complete collection of Entron goodies," which includes a deathmatch pak, single player maps, Topaz's scripting tools with full source, a huge texture pak, and a sound pak. This is the Open Source release of what was originally slated to be a commercial product called Entron: Freedom's Edge. To celebrate the whole shebang, they are having an IRC shindig, even as I write these words, so if you read this before about 8:00 PM EDT today, you can still catch the festivities (details about where to join are on the page).

Delta-Force2.Com has posted a whole bunch of stuff from their ECTS experience, including a pair of new Delta Force 2 screenshots (here's one and the other), as well as "BoneHead's" ECTS report, photos from day one, and an update on DF2 release dates, including an updated German release date of November 1999 (the US date is October 1999, and the rest of Europe is scheduled for February 2000).

In addition to the shots of Ragnar, the hero from Human Head's upcoming Rune we posted earlier (next story), The Adrenaline Vault News has posted three shots of their own, one of which is different than one of ours (I guess that means we each have an exclusive, whoop!).

HumanHead sent along three new screenshots from Rune, their game of Viking glory, which was recently revealed will be running on the Unreal 2 engine. These are the first screenshots from the game that feature Ragnar, their main character. They're pretty cool looking, and one character even looks like a Wumpus to me - check 'em out.

U-Games' Half-Life Opposing Force Preview is up with their impressions upon checking out Gearbox Software's upcoming Half-Life add-on at ECTS.

• On the heels of the new PowerStrip (story), the PowerStrip-GX Construction Site has a new version of the PowerStrip/GX: Performance Tuner, described as a "hybrid graphics tweaker," the new version includes revised Savage4 support and improved Windows 2000 compatibility. Thanks BetaNews.
• Thresh's FiringSquad's Upgrade Price Guide has been updated.
• ALive!'s Editorial on the new Sound Blaster Live! Platinum discusses hints at another upcoming Sound Blaster Live! card, Live!Ware 3, "as well as a 5.25" front-panel device which consolidates all the digital inputs and outputs into the front of the PC casing."
• Bxboards.com reviews the ELSA 3D Glasses.
• Bxboards.com reviews the Elitegroup P6BXT-A+ Rev 1.3b motherboard.

Here's two stories I forgot to post the other day (don't blame Blue - he assumed they were already posted). AVault has posted a patch for Interplay's Starfleet Command. This patch contains a number of gameplay tweaks, so I'd recommend downloading it if you're planning on playing the game. Westwood revealed the story behind their action RPG Nox the other day, and Gamer's Central posted the press release along with four screenshots (although only two of them appear to be new).

Epic's Brandon "YelloMarine" Reinhart updated his .plan with word on the festivities at London's The Playing Fields gaming center (rather, centre), where they have been, and will continue to be, playing Unreal Tournament with attendees of ECTS, including some described as "hard core Quake and Quake2 players." Here's what's happening:

I'm updating from a machine here at the Playing Fields in London. This place rocks. Its a pub/gaming pit with a bar and a bunch of old wine cellar style booths around it. You can check out their website at

http://www.theplayingfields.co.uk/

Last night we set up a bunch of machines with UT to test everything out for tonights party/tournament. It was a lot of fun. A bunch of people from Qamex are situated around here and played with UT. They were quite pleased! I was sitting back in the second cubby watching people play, at one point. There were people just saying how amazing they thought UT was and they didn't even know who I was. Its a hell of a lot of fun to watch people play your game and really get into it.

http://www.qamex.com/

A bunch of the guys were hard core Quake and Quake2 players. They were skeptical at first, but as soon as they had played some DM, CTF, and Assault they were converts. :)

Tonight is the big party and tournament. We are going to run 5 elimination rounds followed by a series of finals matches. The winner gets a huge steel trophy of the UT trophy symbol from the ads. Its sweet. I want one!

The machines here are Athlon 600s with dual Voodoo2s.

Matrox G400 3D Gaming Enhanced "Game" of the week is Egerter Software's PowerRender3, described as "a general purpose 3D API which supports all of the features the Matrox G400 can deliver, including Environment Mapped Bump Mapping, DualHead displays, stencil buffer shadows, multi-texturing, and 32-bit color. The API comes with utilities for importing and editing materials, so developers can create and display fully bump mapped objects with no programming involved." Among the shots that show off the API's power, is one showing off a level in Quake II using environmental bump-mapping. Word is Power Render 3 will be available to developers for licensing in mid-September.

U-Games' Team Fortress 2 Preview is online after some face time with Valve's upcoming multiplayer teamplay shooter at ECTS. There are no new screenshots, but the believe they are getting some to post soon. I originally called this a SoF preview, sorry for the confusion (as luck would have it my system went haywire after making the error, delaying its correction).

The relentless GSUK ECTS coverage continues, as ECTS99 Max Payne Screenshots on GameSpot UK with a half-dozen shots (that I believe are new) from Remedy and 3DRealms' upcoming third-person game inspired by the John Woo school of action.

Well looks like ECTS is going to make this a busy day, whether the world has changed, or not. GameSpot UK - ECTS99 Black and White Exclusive Screens show off a rather mind-boggling 63 screenshots from Lionhead's upcoming 3D god game. As sCary once pointed out, you get that many shots, you're tempted to break out the old .gif animator and see if you can make a movie.

Exclusive Soul Reaver Screenshots on GA-Source shows off a dozen new screenshots from the PC version of Eidos Interactive's just-gold 3D vampire action-adventure, Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver.

Still raging with the machine, ECTS99 Hostile Waters Screens on GameSpot UK offers (brace yourself) 47 new images from Rage's upcoming action title. They've also posted the 14 Incoming forces screenshots mentioned in the following story as posted on U-Games.

GameSpot UK ECTS99 coverage gives word on a new game announcement out of ECTS from Rage, who have unveiled Incoming Forces, which, as the name suggests, is a sequel to Incoming, set 20 years after the original. On that subject, there are a bunch (14) of new Incoming Forces Screenshots on U-Games showing off the first look at action from the action game. Also raging about Rage's upcoming titles at the show is PC Arena's Expendable Preview which has posted a 17 MB movie preview of Rage's upcoming Expendable in QuickTime format, and their Hostile Waters Preview offers a 16 MB QuickTime preview as well.

New V3800 beta drivers, a new PowerStrip, and more on DX7's release date in this morning's bits:

• There are new version 2.25 beta 2 ASUS V3800 drivers for Win 9x and for WinNT on their Beta Testing Enthusiast Graphics Card Driver page (I love that title). Thanks Billy at Voodoo Extreme.
• The PowerStrip site has a new version 2.51.08 of PowerStrip, the shareware monitor/video card control utility for Win 95/98/NT/2000. Thanks BetaNews.
• A follow up on the rumor reported yesterday that DX7 might be debuting later this week comes in GameSpot UK's ECTS99 coverage, which says "Microsoft sources promise that the latest version of its popular application protocol (sic) interface (API) should be ready by late September," but the main gist of the story is to point out that the new version of the API was not being shown off (apparently as expected) at this years ECTS trade show in London.
• Nintendo's Dolphin to Use Pioneering SRAM is a NGO report saying "So-called one-transistor SRAM technology will be used by Nintendo in its Dolphin game console, due to debut in fall 2000."

U-Games' WarCraft 3 Preview is up with a complete transcript of the announcement of WarCraft III by the game's producer.

This press release has the world changing announcement of the day, which gives all the details WarCraft III, the sequel to the successful RTS' along with details on how different from previous RTS' it is, hence the world changing part (convinced yet?). If you aren't, Gamecenter's WarCraft III The First Details tries to shed even more first light on the situation. The part they're all excited about is the addition of role-playing elements to the RTS genre, and they're calling gameplay in WCIII Role-Playing Strategy.

Computer Games Online previews Interstate '82 describing the sequel to the funky driving game Interstate '72 like this: "Mad Max meets Miami Vice to uncover a web of conspiracy." I loved I '76, but even the words Miami Vice still make me shudder... I guess we'll see. The preview is illustrated with several new screenshots. There are also some Heavy Metal F.A.K.K.2 screenshots there, but they're the same four that were posted here last week.

Unreal Universe has posted three more Wheel of Time screenshots showing off Legend's upcoming Unreal-engine action/adventure based on the book series by Robert Jordan. UU is promising a full preview of the game this week.

The ReDeMpTiOn Main Page has a new version 1.16c of the ReDeMpTiOn bot for Sin. The new version uses new route file format, so your old one will need to be discarded and re-started with the new version. Thanks Redwood. Also word there is that The Quake2 Crew Home Page has posted a ReDeMpTiOn bot front-end program. Also, I see on the bot loving Bot Epidemic that numb has "re-released" version 1.2 of the Holywars + Frogbot for Quake with "new stuff" here (I don't know why that's a "re-release" rather than a new version). Finally, there's a new version 0.11 of the Jumbot Launcher front-end for the Jumbot for Half-Life.

gBi0Tch's Home Page has a new version 0.08 of his log analyzer, which parses logs for Q3Test and Half-Life Counterstrike servers. The new release adds Q3Test support, the preliminary "CLAN MANAGER," and more new features, as well as some bug fixes.

nV News' Tweaking Quake 3 Test Graphics offers a guide to mucking around with the graphics in Q3Test, describing various settings, showing the impact of their use on your framerate with benchmarks, and illustrating their impact on the game's appearance with screenshots.

In a previous update, RSE predicted a demo for their upcoming Rainbow Six: Rogue Spear sometime before the full game's release on September 15 (story). Now, word on RainbowSix.Net has news (via mplayer.com) that true to that promise, the demo is expected this Tuesday:

Forget the latest offerings from the Backstreet Boys or Marilyn Manson, the mere mention of the Rogue Spear demo is music to ears of every Rainbow Six fan out there. The full retail version of Rogue Spear doesn't ship until later this month, but if all goes well Mplayer.com will have the multiplayer demo available this Tuesday, September 7. Spread the word--this is not to be missed!

Wolfs Unreal has posted a basic tutorial on editing and getting started using UnrealED. Also, Wastelands, "A Kingpin Mappers Resource," has opened for business, to start with they've posted tutorials on skies, pawn-o-matics and lighting, with a promise of guides to making cameras for cut scenes and safes for bagman to come. Saw both of those on Rust, where they never sleep, trying to bring you all the latest in game editing news.

Descent4.net's Texture contest will include the best original submission of a 512x512 texture in the upcoming Descent 4 (if this works out well enough, someone's going to make a whole game that way). Don't forget, all three of you mailbombed loony into submission, so our new trivia contest is up, as well.

The usual thanks to Frans at 3D Action Gamers:

• Review Zone reviews Kingpin Life of Crime.
• GameSpot reviews Braveheart.
• GamePower reviews Outcast.
• PC.IGN.COM reviews Drakan: Order of the Flame.
• PC.IGN.COM reviews Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun.
• ESCMAG reviews DarkStone.
• RIVA 3D's reviews the Athlon 600.
• Wicked PC - reviews the Matrox Millennium G400.
• Sharky Extreme reviews VideoLogic Systems SonicVortex2 Sound Card.
• The Tech Zone reviews the Xitel Storm Platinum Gamer's Pack.
• Sharky Extreme reviews the Net-N-Dude Celeron 550MHz Supercool Combo Kit.

• Proving that if you make a game, someone will modify it, 3D Portal has word that the Lights Out website has posted Tonight Never Ends, a brand new TC for Shadow Warrior 17 months in development. As the name suggests, there's some sort of James Bond twist...
• A pair of second reports from Asheron's Call beta testers: BetaBites' Staff AC Beta Journal Part II is up, and the slightly less reverent Chet's Asheron's Call Beta Log, the second journal on Old Man Murray Game Reviews. Also, SystemLogic's Asheron's Call Screenshots gives 10 looks at the beta of MS' massive online RPG...
• Breaking their promise that the last version was the final one (that's okay, we're in a forgiving mood), 3DFiles has posted a newer version of their sound pack for Starsiege TRIBES that's a still big 9.6 MB, but still smaller than their 14.9 MB whopper, which is also still available. Both pack include a tutorial on how to make your own TRIBES sound pack...

Hey, yesterday was a pretty snappy news day, for a Saturday, especially on a holiday weekend here in the US (Labor Day-I'm told it's also a holiday in Canada, thanks Creeker). Today might have some activity as well, as Blizzard is threatening to change the world again today (I was so excited at the prospect I briefly had the post up about it a second time today). For those keeping score, this is the second time this week the world will have been changed. In case this one turns out to be a dud, I will reveal I have plans of my own. I won't be changing the world, but I do plan on changing my toothbrush on Monday, or maybe it was my briefs.

Oh yeah, Pac-Man chomps its way toward 20 (thanks to all the many who sent that in), don't you think it's time he put on some pants? BTW, congrats to skinner Rorshach, who just announced his engagement.

Link of the Day: Money.com Wise Guy on Microsoft vs. Spain. Thanks Belgarion.
Story of the Day: Melissa brings a blush to the cheeks of Lara Croft. That's right... Lara's been mailing virii. Thanks TonyT.
Image of the Day: Planet RIVA where their B.O.S.S. feature offers an artist's depiction of a mixed media battle between Quake III Arena's Visor and the dreaded Predator.