I finally got the local downloads of the Half-Life demo, the Thief demo, and the Thief patch, to the following stories. The local FTP downloads are currently limited to 32 users (I believe, even though it says 128), but there's a link to the mirror on Walnut Creek (as well as other mirrors) for each as well.

The Thief The Dark Project demo downloads page on GameSpot has an updated demo for Thief the Dark Project with the Assassins level. Here's a list of local download locations for the demo (53.5 MB), as well as mirror sites. As earlier, ftp.bluesnews.com currently has a limited number of logins, while the mirror from the fine folks at Walnut Creek CDROM, of course, has considerably more.

Looking Glass has released a patch for Thief: the Dark Project (thanks Billy at Voodoo Extreme and Thief-DarkProject.com). Here are local copies (10.1 MB). Word is the 10 MB patch includes cheat codes, EAX support, joystick support, bug fixes, and more.

As promised yesterday (story) PC Gamer Online has posted a playable demo of Half-Life, titled Half-Life Uplink, that contains all-new material, not included in the registered version of the game. Here is a list of download locations for the demo (48.5 MB), where it can be found at ftp.bluesnews.com (right now with a severely limited number of logins), the fine folks at Walnut Creek CDROM (with considerably more logins), and some mirror sites. Word is Half-Life: Uplink will appear on the May PC Gamer disc. Here's word on the demo from PC.IGN.COM:

This new demo features a brand new stand-alone mission that even owners of the Half-Life game will want to download (it's 100% new levels). To grab it you can either jump over to PC gamer Online, or download it right here.

In order to play, you're going to need at least a P133Mhz with DirectX 6 and 24 MB of RAM. Keep in mind also that this file is HUGE (50MB compressed!) and it's probably going to take you quite a while to download the game. Be patient.

The ION Storm website has a reminder that today will be the second chat session about Mplayer's upcoming Daikatana Deathmatch challenge, today featuring Daikatana level designer Stevie "KillCreek" Case in a live IRC session. The chat is at 4:00 PM Pacific time today in the Chat with Stevie "KillCreek" Case chat room in Mplayer's "On Stage" Chat Lobby. More details are on the Mplayer Daikatana Deathmatch page.

Wally's Home has a new version 1.34 of the Wally texture editing tool. The new version adds full Quake 1 support to its lengthy list of compatible game-specific formats.

Pick up the HTML archives of news of February 12 and earlier here.

A Tim Sweeney update to the Unreal Technology page mentions an article on Atomic Half-Life for people who want to play direct modem-to-modem multiplayer under Windows, saying that it will work for Unreal, as well as most Windows multiplayer games that are playable over the Internet (though both parties should be aware that in such games, the host/server machine has a distinct advantage with its near-zero ping). Thanks Anyware.

Sharky Extreme 1998 Hardware Awards are up, offering the crack SE staff's crack-free opinions on the winners of the past year.

The En-Riva News Page has some info from Leadtek on NVIDIA's upcoming TNT2 chipset I don't recall seeing before in an announcement they've posted about Leadtek's upcoming S320 TNT2-based accelerator. Here's what they've put up:

• nVIDIA RIVA TNT2 3D accelerator
• Ultimate 3D experience with 250M pixels/sec and 5M triangles/sec
• AGP 4x/2x with full sideband support, ready for future motherboards
• No-compromise 3D image quality at frame rates
• 250MHz RAM DAC resolution up to 1920x1200 True Color 75Hz
• 16/32MB high speed video memory on board
• DDWG (Digital Display Working Group) compliant Digital Flat Panel output up to 1280x1024
• Video output for NTSC and PAL TV output support

Tonight on Lilith & Eve, self-described as "the first ever show about games by women, for women," the ladies will play host to Activision's Steve Stringer (not, to my knowledge, a woman), about Heretic II, the upcoming H2 enhancement pack, and more. The show begins at 7:00 PM, RealPlayer, or equivalent, required.

Saw on Voodoo Extreme that version 1.0.7 of the TNT/3Dfx overclocking utility Fast Card, has been released, offering NVIDIA Detonator driver support, Unreal Direct3D settings support, Voodoo2 core speeds up to 110 MHz, revised Banshee support, code optimizations, redundant code removal, and visual tweaks.

What does Pentium III bring to the party? is a CNET/News.com article examining the prospect of upgrading to the PIII from the PII, questioning the impact of the 70 new "Katmai" multimedia instructions, citing the lukewarm support MMX has received up to this point. Thanks Redwood. BTW, Intel is an investor in CNET.

The Crystal Space Beta Release page has a new version 0.11 of the Crystal Space 3D Engine. This beta release (please remember this is an engine, rather than a game) is said to be "MUCH better than the current official version," and is described as being "really close to the next official release," though its beta status is stressed. Crystal Space is a free (LGPL) 3D engine that supports curved surfaces, colored lights, mipmapping, portals, mirrors, alpha transparency, reflecting surfaces, 3D sprites, scripting, and more, and offers portability to Windows, Linux, and Mac platforms.

Quake III Arena: Living for the Death-match is a new Houston Chronicle article on id and their work on Q3A (the article includes a sidebar called Once-raucous game maker tones down corporate culture that discusses the "corporate culture" at id, and there's a Q3A screenshot on the Technology front page). Thanks Disco Stu (who, as you should recall, "doesn't advertise"). The article discusses what the game will entail, and goes into a history of id's games (accurate, no less, since Dwight Silverman, the article's author, is an actual follower of this scene, though the description of Blue's News having quickly evolved from a hobby into a serious business is flattering, but not really the case). Here's word on the subject of "when it's done:"

Even though Quake III Arena is not due out until mid-year, the game already is stable.

"We could ship this today if we wanted to -- it's been playable for months," said model designer Steed. "We're just polishing and polishing. We want to get it right."

id Software Announces Continued Support for AMD's 3DNow! Technology with a quote from id Software CEO Todd Hollenshead talking about planned Quake III Arena support for AMD's 3DNow! technology. Thanks GA-Source. Here's the quote:

"Quake III Arena has been developed from the ground up to take advantage of the latest technologies such as the 3DNow! technology, to deliver the next level of gaming experience," said Todd Hollenshead, CEO of id Software.

3Dfx has issued more info on their upcoming Voodoo3 family of accelerators, including the announcement of the Voodoo3 3500 (some sharp-eyed readers spotted this news when I accidentally posted it prior to its official release--sorry for having to mysteriously delete that post--if I wasn't going to repost it so soon, I would have noted it). Here's the lowdown on what's been announced about the V3 2000, 3000, and 3500:

For $179.99 (suggested US retail price), the 166MHz Voodoo3 3000 AGP board is expected to generate 7 million triangles and 333 Megatexels per second at resolutions of up to 2,048 by 1,536 pixels. Manufactured by STB Systems, Inc., Voodoo3 3000 designed for true 3D game enthusiasts, will feature a 350MHz RAMDAC, TV/S-Video Out capabilities as well as a yet undisclosed game bundle featuring best-selling titles. The Voodoo3 3000 will also feature 16 MB of SDRAM. The Voodoo3 is expected to lead in real-world game performance by delivering super-fast frame rates for the most popular games.

At $249.99 (suggested US retail price), the 183MHz Voodoo3 3500 AGP board is expected to deliver up to 8 million triangles and 366 Megatexels per second at resolutions of up to 2,048 by 1,536 pixels. Designed to support the latest digital flat panel displays, the Voodoo3 3500 will include 3Dfx's proprietary flat-panel support, LCDfx. Manufactured by STB Systems, Inc., Voodoo3 3500 will be available in limited quantities for consumers who require flat panel support. Voodoo3 3500 will feature a 350MHz RAMDAC, TV/S-Video Out capabilities as well as a yet undisclosed game bundle featuring best-selling titles. The Voodoo3 3500 will also feature 16 MB of SGRAM.

A Tim Sweeney interview on The Beauty of Madness, Andrew Smith's re-revived website. The conversation is centered around the future commercial release of the Unreal editor.

Beta Bites has posted 15 new SEED Screenshots as well as a preview of SEED, the upcoming first and third-person shooter from Human Soft.

Gazpacho has posted a new version 1.06 beta of the Crusher utility which is a 3D model viewer that can save files in the Unreal file format, which will allow for the conversion of Quake II models for Unreal. The release also includes the source code, and there is also a step-by-step instructions on using the crusher.

The Adrenaline Vault reviews Turok 2: Seeds of Evil. Thanks Killjoy.

• Tomorrowland on 3DGaming.Net offers a triple threat of mini-previews, with brief outlines of upcoming action titles, Prey, SEED, and Werewolf: The Apocalypse...
• 3DsoundSurge is back online after some technical difficulties...

Can whoever runs the CombatNJ TRIBES servers (and all other TRIBES server ops for that matter) please update the server to version 1.2!! There, I feel better.

I got the buttons and listings below cleaned up (finally). It's worth noting that every one of the department pages is undergoing an overhaul, so those should be popping up in tweaked form soon. More on the subject of the buttons below, you may notice the missing World Charts Foundation button. The button went when Blue's News dropped from #56 to #69 on the chart this week after receiving 114 votes, falling behind a site that moved up from #66 to #61 behind zero votes, while another site receiving five votes moved from #48 to #10. My support for such projects is by no means predicated on this site's ranking, but that just doesn't seem fair, and I just can't see supporting them further at this point. But as for support, thanks to all who have been voting (futilely, it would seem), and the amazing support for such frivolity that had us atop that chart for so long.

Link of the day: More TeleTubbies. Thanks Ant.