PlanetQuake interviews Christian Antkow talking to Disruptor about his work as a level designer at id, Quake III Arena, and what to expect from it.

There's a preview of Team Fortress Classic on GameSpot that offers up nine screenshots, as well as descriptions of the weapons and classes in this upcoming free add-on from Valve/Team Fortress Software for Half-Life. Thanks Ant.

Beta Testers Champion Daikatana Deathmatch Demo is a report on The Adrenaline Vault that talks of the merits of the upcoming deathmatch only Daikatana demo offering enthusiastic endorsements from beta testers.

Creative Technical Support Download Files page has new 3DBlaster Banshee BIOS and Win95/98 drivers for Creative Labs' Voodoo Banshee based board. Thanks Voodoo Extreme.

A follow up on a story posted earlier: Intel links alleged Pentium flaw to software is a Reuters story covering Intel's announcement that the discovery by a German magazine of a way to turn the Pentium III serial number on without the owners knowledge or consent was due to a flaw in software, not the chip itself. As for what this ultimately means about the problem is unclear, as the article says "Intel said it is still in talks with the German magazine, Computer Technology, which on Tuesday alleged a flaw in the software Intel provided for turning off the serial number, to determine what, if anything is wrong with its system."

Epic's Cliff Bleszinski updated his .plan with a rundown of what Unreal Tourney is all about written by Brandon "GreenMarine" Reinhart to help get out the word, since "it doesn't really get attention from the various news sites." Here's the poop:

Brandon "Greenmarine" Reinhart posted this to our messageboard (megaboard.epicgames.com) and I think it says a lot about UT:

"I think its really important to reiterate that UT isn't just multiplayer. I've been spending a lot of time working out the code and story for the single player side of the game. You don't have to have a net connection to enjoy UT, you don't have to play online. The single player game consists of a ladder through each of the four game types, plus a special ladder at the end. Every map has a bit of story that describes how the various environments fit together. Before entering a team game you have a chance to customize your team and view the bio's for enemy bots. The bio's are very cool. You might run into a criminal from the Mars Prison Colonies who is a total psycho. His description will tell you that he enjoys close quarter fighting...likes to rip his enemies up and when you play against him he'll move in close with the Impact Hammer. Or maybe you'll run into one of the Necris Phayder. The Necris are a new race (human, but with dead pale skin) who are attempting to destabilize the New Earth Government through guerilla warfare. The Phayder are a dangerous secret society of Necris assassins. The bot combat in Unreal Tournament isn't just a training mode. Its an actual single player game. Sure, you aren't running through the normal single player environments, but you are playing an organized series of games. Each match has a bit of story behind it. (More than, say, a Mortal Kombat match.) The skill levels in UT are very controllable. If you really suck at deathmatch you can play on the lowest skill level and feel like a frag master. We've also included tutorials for every gametype (including deathmatch) to get people started. Of course, if you are a badass, you'll be hard pressed to beat the game on the hardest skill level. Anyway, I thought I'd take a chance to describe exactly what that side of UT was. Since it doesn't really get attention from the various news sites. If you have any questions feel free to ask. Oh, one other thing. For team games in the single player where bots are on your side, there is an orders menu that lets you deploy the bots as you see fit. You can tell them to guard specific locations or general tasks like "roam and attack."

Gamers.Com's Half-Life config guide is up offering suggestions on how to bind your keys so your keys can keep you out of binds.

3DNews.Net's Industry Interview continues, with today's questions for the insider roundtable about "graphic junkies" and company size.

Tonight's PyroPimps Show (fun audio program with a multimedia "Dream On" kind of feel) offers an interview with Kali author Jay Cotton.

Dynamix' David Scott updated his .plan with word that Starsiege, the game of Herc (giant robot) combat set between the Earthsiege series and TRIBES, has been approved for duplication. The update offers some acknowledgements, and a confirmation that the only OpenGL support working out of the box is for the RIVA TNT, with plans for a patch to support other cards ASAP, possibly before the game hits shelves. In a semi-related note, The Adrenaline Vault is reporting that MechWarrior III has entered (private) beta testing. Finally, in our cavalcade of games, word from Acclaim is that South Park for the PC is shipping, and should be on retail shelves about March 1 (if they said April 1, I'd be bracing for a Terrence and Phillip game).

sCary has posted some high resolution versions of some recently released Quake III Arena screenshots on the Shugashack, one of them in a whopping 2048x1152 resolution.

After the Sin has Sung is a new article on Ritualistic by Ritual's own Levelord offering up his opinions on what went right and wrong during the development of Sin, and how that impacted the way the game turned out.

GameLinks.Net interviews Scott McNutt, Raven Software level designer, about Raven's upcoming Soldier of Fortune game.

Rust Interviews Scott 'Dr. Rigormortis' Dalton, Legend Entertainment level designer, about their upcoming Wheel of Time game, and lots of other stuff in a freewheeling conversation.

CNNfn's report on the Intel Pentium III security flaw speculates that Intel may actually recall the PIII's already in the pipeline that are due to be unveiled in just a few days. Thanks Scatterblak. The big I is quoted as saying they are unsure the flaw, based on the results of some experiments by the German magazine Computer Technology (c/t) exists, but they will work with the magazine to see what's been done. c/t says they can demonstrate that the embedded serial number in Pentium III chips can be turned on remotely without the user's knowledge. The serial number scheme announced for the PIII has come under heavy fire from security and privacy groups, whose protests resulted in Intel's decision to make it so the ID number can be switched off.

The Heretic for the Macintosh page has a new release of Heretic for the Macintosh. The port is made from the source code recently released publically by Raven, and is said to be the equivalent of DOS Heretic verison 1.3. It requires a PowerMac and has been tested on System 7.5.5, 7.6.1 and 8.5.1., and it should work fine on System 7.1.2 and up. If you want to hear music, you need QuickTime 2.5 or later, and the optional MIDI files.

Drakan.Net has posted an exclusive movie with 15 seconds of gameplay from Surreal Software's upcoming third-person action title, Drakan: Order of the Flame. The 2 MB movie is in AVI format, and showcases the Fire Ring effect (very cool). Here's a local copy of the movie (2.1 MB), used with Drakan.Net's kind permission, mirror courtesy of Walnut Creek CDROM.

Version 1.09 of the Fast Card TNT/3Dfx overclocking utility is now out. Thanks Voodoo Extreme. It's possible the next version of this utility will include Rage 128 support.

More news about the rumor that may yet be a movie, Doom, the motion picture, comes from a post on the Coming Attractions Doom movie page. Thanks Violator. Here's the poop, which, even if it's nothing, is still fun, discussing casting suggestions:

Doom producer Moe Lospinoso has asked Coming Attractions readers to offer their suggestions as to who they would cast in a Doom movie, as well as what director they think would be perfect for the job. With development stepping up a notch now that Todd McFarlane Productions is involved with the project, Lospinoso is interested to hear what the fans out there have to say.

You can email your comments under the subject heading 'Doom' using Coming Attractions scoop feedback request. We'll then in turn forward them on to Moe Lospinoso to read. He asks that no one send in any story ideas whatsoever; just observations and suggestions (and reasons!) why you think your favorite actors and directors should be in Doom.

Action Arena previews Kingpin: Life of Crime giving a good rundown of the game's planned features as well as a ton of screenshots and some new images showing off the game's cover art.

This press release on the Whole Experience site gives word that their upcoming actin game Experience will use that RTIME technology to connect offer the Internet. The release also announces: "NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ: NVDA), a leading manufacturer of 3D graphics processors, has also selected “Experience” to showcase their next-generation of graphic capabilities of their award-winning 3D RIVA family of graphics processors," and The Whole Experiences Patrick Moynihan (no relation to the NY Senator as far as I know) sends along this intriguing comment that this is not TNT2, but something actually "far cooler":

One thing I will clarify -- the "Future nVidia" technology mentioned is not TNT2 -- It's far cooler than that. Wish I could tell you more...

Both The Adrenaline Vault's Interview David Grenewetzki and GA-Source's Dave Grenewetzki interview talk with the President of Sierra about the recent closing of the offices and planned relocation of Sierra subsidiary Yosemite Entertainment (whose site ironically still touts the company's location as a strength). The Q&As discuss the status of Yosemite's games in progress such as Babylon 5, and talks of it as a positive move. In contrast, the Black Monday page is a forum for former Yosemite employees and anyone else to voice their feelings, email addresses or job leads. Thanks GA-Source. Finally, I received word from someone who works over there (who did not request anonymity, but I'll provide it anyway) who says that at this point the Unreal-engine Navy SEALs project is "on hold as of now."

Speaking of B5, PC.IGN.COM previews Babylon 5 showing some screenshots of this upcoming game based on the TV series.

The STARSIEGE Players Website has word that Starsiege, the upcoming prequel to TRIBES will offer OpenGL support out of the box, but not for all cards. Also, Gerald Harrison updated his .plan with word on how you can download extra pilot pictures for Starsiege that won't be on the game CD when it's available (along with a hint about finding Easter Eggs).

The RetroGear mod for TRIBES is out, offering new weapons, or rather old weapons, as it replaces the game's futuristic armaments with weapons and armor based on present day weaponry. Thanks tANG at PlanetStarSiege.

Speaking of TRIBES mods, Elmer Fudd's TRIBES Server Resources page has maps and mods for TRIBES server ops in a convenient mall of mayhem. No word on a wabbit hunting mod.

The Terror Quake2 page has a patch for the Q2 Terror Quake beta that fixes several bugs.

QuakeStarter's Official HomePage has a new version of this Quake and Quake II front-end that fixes a bug that caused a file not found error, and adds support for a couple of new mods.

I received word from Take-Two Interactive subsidiary Rock Star Games that they will be offering a DreamCast version of Max Payne sometime after November of this year, and they will also be doing a new Duke Nukem game, a third person action shooter on "a yet to be specified next generation platform."

Word is that the highly-anticipated upcoming online RPG EverQuest has gone gold. Final release of the game is planned for mid-March. Thanks GA-Source. Also there's a new Red Baron 2 patch on 3DFiles.Com.

There's a "New CPUs from AMD and Intel" article on Tom's Hardware Guide talking about the latest from AMD and Intel. Thanks ruiner at AMD Zone. Also, SE vs 3DNow is an AnandTech discussion of the Pentium III that offers a comparison of the new Streaming SIMD Extensions (SSE) to AMD's 3DNow! extensions.

3D Spotlight interviews Paul Crossley from S3 talking about the Savage4 accelerator.

The Rage 128 Windows 9x Drivers page has new Win95/98 drivers for ATi's latest. Thanks Voodoo Extreme. Also, the 3Dlabs Permedia Driver Download Page has new Win95/98 Permedia2 reference drivers. Thanks Mr. John Gotti from ClanWorld.

• GameCenter reviews Turok 2: Seeds of Evil.
• GA-Source reviews the Yamaha Waveforce 192 Digital soundcard.

• Bored with talk of Windows 2000 yet? John Dvorak serves up Microsoft's Secret OS Plan that is already gearing up for Windows 2001. Thanks Brett. Of course that's a tentative name, it will be Windows 1901 if the Y2K patch fails...
• Games.Net's The Mod Files Volume IV is up offering a look ahead at a crop of upcoming mods for Unreal, Sin, and Half-life. Thanks Online Gaming News...
• Those who create their own levels may be interested in Tribe One's "How do I make a 5 Star map?" which explains the criteria by which they judge maps they review. Related reading is an article there called Inspiring Awe in 3D Environments...
• There's an interview with sCary on FPS Spectator talking with sCary about being 'leet and stuff...
• There's a hands-off Quake 3 Arena Preview on 3DGaming.Net...
• Webdog has ceased active development, the update on the site describing a lost enthusiasm for the project. The Webdog .plan and news trackers will continue to operate for the foreseeable future. Another project that's called it quits is litestep.net home of the Windows shell replacement (the program which continues on, just not the site)...

I added the search text box (or actually, the "Search!" text box, at the exclamation point obsessed loonyboi's suggestion) to the menu bar at the left, it seems like a good spot for it (I have no idea why the search box has an extra line below it under MSIE). From yesterday: My apologies to both Purdue University and Perdue Chickens for using the chicken spelling in place of the college version. I asked if folks have objections to thumbnails of screenshots on the newspage, and was surprised that so far no one (at all) seems to mind the idea enough to comment on it, and I was further surprised at exactly how much enthusiasm some expressed for screenshots in general. I have never actually requested screenshots from game companies, a policy this response has me re-thinking.

Sharky Extreme's exclusive preview of the Metabyte TNT SLI has the scoop on plans to offer SLI-mode TNT accelerators (two cards used in tandem) to offer increased performance, and from the report it sounds like this is a breakthrough that will offer SLI mode for any card they choose to implement this with. Here's an excerpt to give a feel for what this is all about:

Metabyte's engineers have been working on an undercover technology that allows not only nVidia chipsets to be SLI'ed in tandem, but virtually any future chipset from any vendor that hits the market.

The internal code name for the Metabyte project is "Wicked3D Stepsister" (don't ask us, no one we talked to remembers where this name originated from) and it heralds a new dawn as far as linked high-powered video options go. Our Metabyte sources answered "Yes, yes, and yes" when asked if it was possible for the Wicked3D Stepsister program to be adapted to work with the S3 Savage 4, 3Dfx Voodoo3, TNT2, or another brand new chip architecture. Although it's unlikely in Metabyte's mind that they'll do a Savage4 or Voodoo3-based SLI product, the TNT2 is a whole different enchilada. Later in this article we'll break the news on two possible TNT2 SLI solutions, but for now let's look at the Step Sister technology itself.

Here's the way the system will work:

Metabyte is going to sell both PCI and AGP versions of their TNT SLI capable cards separately for between $125 and $150 for each 16MB card. Much like the Voodoo2 SLI setups that we all know and love, the Metabyte TNT SLI system works similarly but differs with two possible SLI combos: 1 AGP TNT + 1 PCI TNT 1 PCI TNT + 1 PCI TNT

The AGP + PCI version of the Metabyte SLI rig will offer slightly faster performance (about 5 to 10%) than the 2 TNT PCI cards when linked together. This is due to the way that Metabyte has chosen to implement SLI, to maximize their driver's capabilities. Instead of rendering each 3D image's odd or even lines in succession the way 3Dfx's SLI system works, Metabyte's process separates the entire 3D image into two halves: The top half of the on-screen image, and the bottom half of the on-screen image. This supposedly reduces the CPU overhead versus the odd/even 3Dfx approach while making the whole operation smoother and more seamless.

The Coming has posted an interview with Michael "Saxs" Persson talking with this Shiny programmer (as opposed to the grubby type) about their upcoming third-person action adventure, Messiah.

There are a few new screenshots from Drakan: Order of the Flame on Drakan.Net, and two more new shots on The Flamelands.

Gangland.org has posted six new screenshots from Kingpin:Life of Crime, Xatrix Entertainment's upcoming gangster-inspired Quake II-engine game.

id Software's Tim Willits made a rare .plan update with word on how to order hockey-style Quake III Arena Jerseys like you can see the id guys wearing in the photos in the recent print edition of Next-Generation.

A chunk of new Quake III Arena footage was unveiled as part of a piece on the Pentium III launch. Verbatim sent along this copy of the Quake III Arena footage (3.9 MB) in QuickTime format, FTP mirror courtesy of Walnut Creek CDROM, and it can also be seen with the accompanying report in this ZDNN Silicon Spin report (in RealPlayer format), where the Quake III Arena footage begins just past the 1:30 mark. Thanks fRy.

Two cool new screenshots from Activision's Charlie Hill showed up in my mailbox, both from their upcoming Heavy Gear II. I'll thumbnail them here, and if anyone is concerned about the spoiler aspects of posting thumbnails on the news page, I'm interested in hearing from you, otherwise I'm going to assume it's okay to post shots occasionally like this. These 32-bit color shots are from one of the game's outer space levels, "asteroid shipyards" showing off a new weapons effect on the Light Particle Accelerator:

Ritualistic has word from Ritual programmer Scott Alden that barring any unforeseen problems, they would be releasing a 1.03 patch for Sin sometime this week. Thanks Voodoo Extreme.

3DNews.Net continues its big ole interview with a bunch of folks in the industry, asking the panel of Adrian Chmielarz from Metropolis, Scott Herrington of Shiny, Robert Stevenson of Interactive Magic, Paul Steed from id Software, Raven's John Scott, Paul Butterfield of Monolith, Legend's Glen Dahlgren, and ElectroTECH's Alan Gassanov their opinions about 3D sound, and eye candy.

GameFan Online has posted an Aliens vs. Predator feature that offers 65 screenshots, as well as mpegs and artwork showing off each character class.

Soldier-of-Fortune.com has a new screenshots section up with all the known shots that have been released from Raven's upcoming Quake II-engine game, with a couple more new shots thrown in to get the whole thing kicked off right.

There are some new screenshots on The Wheel of Time site. Thanks Tal Rhen.

There's a preview of Oni, Bungie's upcoming action game on MacAddict. Thanks Scandalon.

If you missed it yesterday, here's my Voodoo3 Preview. There's an ATI Xpert 128 review at Fast Graphics. Thanks Tzeng.

The link was down quite a bit yesterday, presumably because of heavy interest, but there's still time to enter that 3Dfx contest where you can win a Voodoo3. This year's ACM Quakefest has been announced, the event formerly known as the Purdue Quakefest.

• Version 1.1 of Wadtool, the texture management tool for the Mac is now available...
• Heatsink-guide.com can help you cool your burning Celeron. Thanks Tzeng...
• Birdman's Lair has files to support Turok2 and Blood2 on the SpaceOrb 360 controller. Thanks 3dAddiction. Word there is that Thief Sporb support is a possibility in the future...

Happy belated birthday to Raven's Jake Simpson, subject of a special birthday Q&A on Raven-Games. I'll be out during the day today and tomorrow, today's absence due to what is hopefully the last lengthy visit to my Dentist, the able Dr. Toothy, so expect some of those special pain-killer influenced postings from me upon my return.

As soon as I said it was no longer a beta, it turns out there are a couple of bugs in Blammo, most vexing is that the link to "previous 2 days" is skipping the previous day (or at least is was yesterday). If the problem persists, hopefully you can use this stuff to find what you need, conveniently located under today's LoD, provided by Lithium:

Link of the day: Apparently at one time this was an actual e-bay ad.

or enter a date: Day: Month: Year:

or enter a search phrase: