It's time for our weekly collection of wackiness that we like to call the Mail Bag. In this week's hermetically sealed edition: joking about the Virginha Incident, Dhabih Maul, lame id interviews, and (gasp) challenging the Teeny Print^TM. Swing on by and check it out.

Sierra sends word the official Team Fortress2 website is now online, offering the latest on Valve's upcoming multiplayer teamplay game, Team Fortress 2: Brotherhood of Arms. The site has new shots up from the award-winning demo given at this year's E3, as well as new information about the game.

The Activision Game News page confirms the in-store date for Heavy Gear II, Activision's upcoming game of giant robot (gear) combat (or as loony put it earlier, Rock-'em Sock-'em Robots), will be this Friday, June 18. Thanks Grifter1.

There's a new SWAT 3 Screenshot on GA-Source giving a look-see at SWAT 3: Close-Quarters Battle a tactical simulation shooter currently in the works at Sierra Studios.

Epic's Cliff Bleszinski updated his .plan with some enthusiasm for Legend Entertainment's just-completed Unreal Mission Pack, Return to Na Pali, and a little more on gaming and DVDs. Here's the part about Return to Na Pali:

Kudos to the homies over at Legend for completing their most excellent Unreal level pack "Return to Na Pali." I have played this pack several times, and it more than holds up to the orginal Unreal, in many ways exceeding it in ass kicking gameplay and visual splendor.

For more information on "Return," check out the website:

http://www.gtinteractive.com/unreal/missionpack/

Raven's Kenn Hoekstra updated his .plan with word that the Soldier of Fortune movie that was yanked from the E3 show floor will be available for download soon:

The Soldier of Fortune AVI trailer that was banned from E3 should be making an appearance on the net soon. We're still working out the details of who is going to post it and exactly when, but it will be coming your way soon. The trailer shows some of the gameplay and some enemies being gunned down by our mercenary hero... It's pretty slick! I'll post more details on the AVI release as they become available. =)

The Developer's Corner sends word of a chat session today with Shiny's Dave Perry. here's the lowdown:

David Perry Development Forum, Today!

DP will be speaking at the "Developers' Corner" website today about everything and anything concerning game development, game design, starting your own company, or just getting a job in the industry! If you've ever wondered how games are made, this chat is for you!

WHEN: Tuesday, June 15th, 1999.
WHERE: The Developer's Corner Chat Room (www.developers-corner.com)
START TIME: 4pm Pacific Standard Time (7pm EST)
CHAT OVERVIEW: General game development and game design chat session. This is not a promotional event for any particular Shiny title in development, but some may be used for examples of Dave's design theories.
TOPICS WILL INCLUDE: Game Development and Design Theory | Dreamcast vs. PlayStation 2 | 3D Hardware | Future of the PC Industry | Trends | Violence, Games, & Kids

There are some Freelancer Sketches on PC Paradox showing off concept art from this eagerly-anticipated space sim from Microsoft and Digital Anvil.

There's a short (two question) Messiah Q&A with Scott Herrington on GA-Source asking the Shiny PR guy (as opposed to a shiny PR guy) about what's involved in creating the PlayStation port of Shiny's upcoming third-person cherubic action game, Messiah. Word on the release of the PSX port is "With luck, we'll have the PSX version out about 2 months after the PC version." That answer goes on to mention that this will hopefully coincide with a multiplayer patch for the PC version: "Our schedule is PC version, then PSX version, and while the PSX version is coming out, a multi-player patch for the PC version should hit about the same time."

Raven's Chris Foster updated his .plan with some news on the state of their Star Trek Voyager game, currently under construction using the Quake III engine. We haven't heard much details on development of this game, so here's the whole update:

Now, that I'm out from under the shadow of scheduling and planning for a day or so I thought I'd update this thing.

We're currently halfway through production on the Scavenger Base areas. I've nearly completed the exterior portion of my airlock level, where Munro and others will hopefully get the chance to utilize their Starfleet vac suits for a short spacewalk.

Most of the areas of Voyager have been completed in their raw form, just waiting to be realistically roughed up and damaged.

Our design team is doing a terrific job of fitting the extremely complex areas from Voyager into the sometimes restrictive limitations of a game engine. Quake3 is the only engine that I would even want to try this in!

Any questions? Mail me!

PC Zone's Diablo II Preview is online, like their previous efforts, this one is full of content, including interviews with the development team, and several screenshots showing off action from the game (again, the URL provided has a generic guest login built-in to prevent the problems that can occur there when it starts asking all visitors for registration information). Speaking of Diablo II, the busy beavers at DiabloII.net have posted a French PC Soluces Diablo II Movie, that's right, another gameplay movie from a foreign language publication, this on the heels of the Chinese Diablo II movie they posted yesterday (story).

There are nine new Codename Eagle Screenshots on TotalGames.com showing off action from this upcoming shooter from Take 2 Europe where "you play a special agent sent to defeat a power crazed Russian Emperor in his attempt to dominate the globe. With loads of weapons, vehicles and a game spread across Russia" Also, Billy has posted some new Drakan: Order of the Flame screenshots on Voodoo Extreme showing off more of Psygnosis' upcoming third person game.

Here you go kids, two new screenshots from Accolade's upcoming Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots title, Slave Zero. Enjoy!

The Adrenaline Vault News gives an update on the status of Mortyr, which has been acquired by Ubi Soft, who say they are not going to publish it. The piece goes into detail about the status of finding a new publisher, and the reasons behind the decision not to publish the game, and Ubi Soft's other plans in the action gaming area.

A post on PlanetUnreal describes the Unreal Mission pack as having just gone gold (off to duplication), citing the Wheel of Time page as the source of the information (Legend Entertainment is behind both projects). Thanks Vængr3I=. When checking the WoT page, however, I cannot find the update to which they refer, so the post may have been pulled, which may mean there is a problem with the accuracy of this story (Update: the update is back on the WoT page, it seems there was just a temporary glitch). Here's a portion of the update:

First, even though this isn't strictly WoT-related, I must congratulate the Unreal level pack team on a job well done. They went gold over the weekend. While the pack may appear to dwell in WoT's shadow a little, there's no question that it represents a significant milestone in Legend's history. Heck, our last release (and most of the titles that preceded it) was a strict adventure game. The Upak represents our first shipped product in the FPS genre. My hat is off to everyone who worked on it; the end product shows a lot of time, effort, and long nights filled with superheroic tales of hostess advertising.

The Battlezone 2 Center has posted a new screenshot showing off Pandemic Studios' upcoming sequel to Battlezone. The shot shows off an "ISDF Assault Tank letting one rip," and is labeled as a "weekly screenshot," suggesting such shots will be a regular feature.

OpenGL ICDs, minidrivers and standalone drivers is an article on OpenGL.org by ex-id Software programmer Brian Hook with a detailed outline of the differences between the different kinds of OpenGL drivers. Thanks zerolight.

• Ars Technica Clocking and hacking the BX chipset "explores how the BX chipset generates clock signals for the various components in a system. It also looks at a couple of interesting hacks that allow some serious overclocking action."
• Gamasutra: Curved Surfaces Using Bézier Patches is an article about the technology behind those cool curved surfaces.
• Ars Technica K7 benchmarks hit the wire is an article about the K7, that is "a little less than enthusiastic about all the reviews being published with preliminary data from the manufacturer."

Holy Wars for Quake 2 page has version 1.2 of the FrogBot for HolyWars (for classic Quake) for download, allowing you to conduct your own holy war, even if you can't recruit any zealots to join you.

• The Demo Plex is holding a Quake II CTF tourney, slated to begin in July. The competition is an invitational, but there are wildcard slots available for teams that wishing to sign-up.
• Gameart's Win a Voodoo2 SLI contest looks to reward artwork with a pair of Voodoo2 cards.
• Quake3.dk is giving away some prizes, including a pair of Voodoo3s, though the contest is only open to Scandinavians.
• Remember, our fourth trivia contest went up yesterday, between the questions, the concept, and the small print, providing a test of your knowledge, patience, and eyesight.

• GA-Source reviews Aliens Vs Predator.
• The Hive reviews MechWarrior 3.
• 3DGaming.Net's Baldur's Gate Tales of the Sword Coast Review.
• FPS3D.COM reviews the Everglide Large Attack Pad.
• Universal Gaming Network 3D reviews the Voodoo3 3000.
• Gamers Depot compares the Asus V3800 TVR & Elsa Erazor3 Stereo Glasses in a side by side test of stereo vision.

• Ministry of Development's interview with Shov of Borderline talks to one of the team behind The Russian Front mod for Half-Life...
• If you've lost track of Stayne's House of Demos, that location is new, please change your bookmarks accordingly and return your stewardess to her original upright position. Thank you...
• The Computer Graphics Cafe describes itself as the "1st Open Portal(TM) on the World Wide Web for all things computer graphics." What does that mean? Hell, I don't even know how a website can be a cafe, but hopefully if this is significant for you, you can work it out...

I'm still not sure if the iFrame browser reloading glitch is a problem on the server, or certain clients' ends, but recent theories are that iFrame has certain bugs, and that if it's browser-specific, it crosses corporate lines, because certain MSIE users are reporting it as well. Just to add complications, I've received a couple of notes pointing out that our theoretical all-browser support is not 100% as there seems to be a problem with this site and the KDE browser for Linux, but I'm not aware of any HTML problems that would cause this (perhaps it's related to the iFrame thingy?). I don't think there are all that many KDE users out there, but I'm certainly open to any theories about the problem.

Link of the Day: NECCO introduces "CyberSpeak" They're actually over a year-old, but these floppy disk shaped variants on the old heart-shaped Valentine's Day classics are too crack-addled to pass-up on a chance at a mention. Thanks Latkey.