The latest update over on ION's Daily Informant page has a big ol' update on the status of Deus Ex, Warren Spector's first person RPG (thanks Billy "latin-boy" Wilson). There are a bunch of really interesting quotes from various members of the team...here's a sample:

The design, code, and art are, at last, coming together, giving the team their first real taste of gameplay. As programmer Scott Martin remarked in a recent .plan update: "Deus Ex is no longer a glorified technology demo; now it's beginning to look like a game..."

Designer Steve Powers agrees. "After spending a couple of days playing missions one and two (over and over), I am very pleased to see how our game is shaping up," he said. "I mean, here we are in April and I am already playing Deus Ex!"

After several months of waiting, Quake 2 Late Nite episode two has been released. If you missed the first one (still available from the Late Nite page) the whole idea is that Late Nite is a talk show, complete with zany hosts, and special guest. In this episode, David "crt" Wright of KeyGrip, Rocket Arena 2, and more recently, MP3Spy fame sits in the virtual couch. This episode was actually edited by StarFury, of the well known Clan Phantasm (those guys behind such Quake 1 classics as "The Artifact" and "Devil's Covenant") and is, as to be expected, well worth the 8 MB download.

Tonight on Lilith & Eve, "the world's only weekly show covering the gaming industry from a uniquely female attitude and perspective," the ladies are joined by Gabe Newell and Robin Walker (neither of which are women, you'll note) from Valve Software. The kids will be talking about Team Fortress Classic, and other girly things. Like giant rocket launchers and beer. Listen in at 7:00pm EST (Real or compatible player required) and go to effnet channel #allgames.com to suggest questions.

Two signups to watch out for...tonight's the rescheduled sign up for QuakeCon at 9:00 PM EST...that'll be over at the QuakeCon site...also, show up tonight at 5:00 pacific time in mp3spy, channel bastard's beatdown for their "Phat Online Party" followed by registration at 6:00 on their site. While i'm on the subject of Bastard's Beatdown, I just have to point out the hilarious intro to their web page...if you've got Shockwave and a decent connection, be sure to check it out. It's a scream. Of course, for all your LAN party needs, point your browser to our LAN parties page, which has tons of these from all reaches of the globe.

UnrealTournament.Net has been updated with this week's new weapons, the Pulse Gun and the Flak Cannon. In addition to the normal shots, there are now zips of the original, hi-res screens from each weapon on display ("Just what you see, pal") for wallpaper, etc.

PC Zone's Kingpin Life of Crime preview is up, offering a look ahead at Xatrix' upcoming Quake II-engine game that puts you in the role of a hood trying to claw your way over a bunch of icehole gangsters ("now I'm really angry.... this is fargin' war!") to become the crime boss. The piece offers interviews with the team, and a bunch of exclusive screenshots. To prevent registration problems that popped up on their Q3A preview, that URL has a generic login built in to assure access.

GA-Source interviews Tim Williams talking to the Creative Director of Giants about Planet Moon Studios' upcoming action/adventure game.

Hidden and Dangerous preview on CombatSim.com offering a look ahead at this realism-oriented World War II shooter in the works from the Czech-based Illusion Softworks, offering new screenshots, as well as exclusive Q&A with Petr Vochozka, the game's producer.

The Adrenaline Vault News has a follow up on reports yesterday that some stores (Best Buy is offered as an example) will not be carrying Interactive Magic's upcoming back-to-the-future WWII shooter, Mortyr (story). The story confirms the report, but says the decision was based on the game, rather than the content:

However, according to Best Buy’s corporate public relations representative Joy Harris, the retailer, which carries several games containing equally visceral content, this is not the case. Harris said the company, which does not offer a comprehensive selection of titles, has decided not to sell it because they feel the game falls into an overcrowded genre and is not representative of the best selections.

The UK multiplayer online service Wireplay has announced that they are going the route of some other such services before them by dispensing with connection or subscription fees, other than local phone charges.

• RIVA3D's RIVA 3D TNT-2 Review offers benchmarks run on a K6-2 450 versus a K6-3 450, with both a V3 and TNT-2.
• TennMax Announces Stealth V3 Fighter for Voodoo3 Chipset.
• If you're an Abit BX6 rev. 2 motherboard owner, and feeling a bit daring, Billy at VE sends word that there's a new BIOS update on Abit's Asian FTP server.

Tactic sends along word that the official Aliens vs. Predator page has gone live (Shockwave Flash required). Kicking it off, is an interview with David Stalker, Fox Interactive's AvP Project Manager, although half the interview seems to be David interviewing LoPin, his interviewer about the new site.

Here's a bunch of news for you on those uber-powerful consoles coming your way...FGN is reporting that the Dreamcast will hit European shores on September 23rd, going for the slightly more expensive price of £199 (US$320)...Dreamfiles.com, possibly the first of many such sites, has opened its doors, allowing you to download saves, and even entire games onto your VMS device...Ken Kutaragi, the new CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment has given an interesting interview where he talks about their plans for the PSX2...here's what he had to say regarding the frightening power of their new system:

The next PlayStation's power to depict images will take it out of the realm of simple gaming machines. Current gaming machines can only show prepared things which, to the user, only seem to be created when he or she is playing. It's a distorted world -- not real at all. With the next-generation machine that "world" will be created there and then, as the user plays. People will look like real people, cats will look like real cats, and smoke will look like real smoke.

Okay, so maybe not that...I think I'd settle for Andromeda Quake. Jurassic Park Author to Create Video Games is a PR Newswire piece that reveals that Michael Crichton will be making "next generation computer games" via his new company Timeline Studios (thanks Lorne Beaton for the tip-off). Long time Crichton fans will note that his 1969 novel, The Andromeda Strain featured a strangely named program called "deathmatch" which searched a global database of well...corpses. Funny how things work out, isn't it?

Version 1.0 of Real CTF, the cleverly named Unreal CTF mod, has been released. In order to play, you'll need to download both the map pack and the client, making this a big ol' 23 meg. Also available on the page is a GameSpy custom tab, and links to two 24/7 dedicated servers.

There's a new Slave Zero preview on Computer Games Online with an extensive look at this upcoming third-person game where you can live large as a giant cyborg. Thanks Apache at Computer Gaming Review. Here is a bit from the piece about the game, and its Ecstasy engine:

To match its dark, foreboding story, the environments of the Megacity are vast, dark, highly populated and incredibly violent. As Slave Zero, you'll be put through firefight after firefight and if the action shown off in the pre-alpha is any indication, then saying this game will have wall-to-wall action is something of an understatement. The power behind all this mass carnage is the game's 3D engine, dubbed the Ecstasy Engine, which does a lot more then just make pretty lighting.

The Ecstasy Engine was made specifically for Slave Zero, but one of Accolade's big goals for the engine was to create a technology that could be used for future products. "The main features of the engine are its ability to animate many objects in the world, provide a lot of interactivity in the world, no restriction (from a technical sense) on size of the world or world layout, and a tools chain that allows designers and artists to create and modify the game easily," Matt Powers, Slave Zero's Producer, explains. "The goal of Slave Zero and the Ecstasy Engine was to create a large, populated and animated interactive environment, and to have a lot of action on screen at the same time."

The bleem! page has a new version of the demo of this PlayStation emulator that is due for a full release soon, now that they have staved off an attempt by Sony to get a temporary restraining order preventing the program's distribution (story). Thanks Billy at Voodoo Extreme. The updated demo fixes a couple of things, and "by popular demand," fixes support for Castlevania, Tomb Raider II, and the Street Fighter Collection.

N64.IGN.COM has posted some info on Redstorm Studios' upcoming Nintendo 64 version of their tactical combat shooter, Rainbow Six. According to the article, rather than a straight port, the N64 release will contain "levels from the original version of Rainbow Six with a mission or two from the recently released add-on pack Eagle Watch for a 'best of' compilation of sorts." Thanks The Rainbow Six Retreat.

I was asked why the Hardware Bits weren't bulleted. Truth is, it's because I'm not crazy about the bulleted lists, and was hesitant to add another, but I guess fighting what's been proven a practical approach to group postings is counterproductive, so as of this morning, I'll bite the bullet:

• A new version 2.41.04 beta of the PowerStrip monitor/video card control utility is now available. Thanks Tweak3D.
• Merger Declared Effective is a 3dfx Interactive press release announcing that the 3dfx/STB merger is now official. Thanks Sharky Extreme.
• Overclocker's Workbench pushes a PIII 500 to PIII 620.
• 3D Rant overclocks a 143 MHz Voodoo3 2000 to 175 MHz.
• The brouhaha of the day yesterday: This Web and File Server Comparison sponsored by Microsoft shows NT outperforming Linux as a web server, while this article in the Register takes a skeptical look at the results. Thanks Lost Clusters (who I'm considering fixing up with my friend chkdsk).

The Lithium II Mod for Quake II page has the new version 1.24 of this Quake II mod. The new release is "finally" based on the Quake II 3.20 game source, and fixes some bugs, including one that caused version 1.23 server to crash. Lithium is one of my favorite Quake II mods, offering a bunch of features that can be toggled on or off, including: strength, resist, regen, haste, and vampire Runes, and an improved HUD offering info like your frags/hr.

The Blackmoon development page has word of an unusual Quake II modification called Quake 2 2, which allows you to play a two player Quake II deathmatch on one computer using a windowed mode for each player, somewhat like the split screen deathmatch offered by some console shooters. The newly-released version 1.1 offers support for Catch the Chicken and Quake 2 Basketball, and other mod authors that want the mod to support their work should email kingblake@x-stream.co.uk.

Just a final clarification about the Mortyr movie and preview from yesterday (story, and original follow-up): Neither the preview, nor the movies were new, the confusion was on our end. Sorry about that.

• GA-Source Contests gives away 10 copies of Starsiege.
• Cybernetic Productions League declares: "Four-man teams from banks (yes, banks) in London will fight to the death in Quake II. Once a London champion is found, they will head to New York and Tokyo, striving for global domination."
• Gamezone DUEL is a big Quake II tourney in South Africa holding their finals today. Results and demos are available at the site.
• Quake 2 Fragfest Interview celebrates the first anniversary of the fest (which I'll mention is located here, since I read in the article we were down here for a chunk of the day they were mentioned here previously).

• PC Paradox' X-Wing Alliance review.
• Fresh 3d reviews the Dreamcode motherboard, featuring on-board RIVA TNT and Yamaha Sensaura 3D Sound.
• Overclocker's Workbench reviews the ATI Rage Fury 128.

• The recently announced lawsuit against several game and media companies was a subject discussed on Politically Incorrect. Here's a URL to the transcript of that show...
• Black&White Wire has posted some new info about the engine from Black & White, talking with Lionhead Programmer Scawen Roberts about KNI support and more...
• The redesigned Shotgun Messiah's Homepage has a re-worked version of their extensive skin tutorial...
• .txtGen is a site for level designers that automates the process of creating a readme.txt to include with their levels...

Most folks with mailing lists seem to have caught up with the change, but I wanted to post one more reminder that news items submitted here would be better addressed to news@bluesnews.com, rather than blue@..., which of course, still works, but loony won't see it (useful for talking behind his back).

Image of the Day: This swanky Quake III Arena desktop wallpaper sent along by Chris "DaFragsta" Sparks.