GamesMania Germany posted a giant 138 MB demo of the Shamazaar level of Outcast

As far as I can tell without actually downloading it over my modem for the next 18 hours or so ;) , this demo is in English.

Unfortunately, they included a full DirectX6 install (all languages). I've rezipped the demo without it, bringing it down to a mere 116 MB :) This also provides two US based ftp servers, as GamesMania's ftp is not very speedy across the big pond.

• A new version 2.51.05 of the PowerStrip uber-control utility for video cards and monitors under Windows is now available from Entech Taiwan. Thanks Tweak3D.
• The full version 3.42.00 of the HyperSnap screen capture utility for Windows 95/NT is now available for download. Thanks Frans at 3D Action Gamers.
• AMD has updated their 3DNow! Technology Partners list that shows current and future games that support 3DNow! technology. Thanks AMD Zone, where they say S3 has told them are probably going to have Athlon (K7) support in upcoming drivers, and they have also posted a quote from Derek at NVIDIA saying he "believes" the new NVIDIA drivers already have Athlon support.
• Word is the post this morning (story) about the 2.08 NVIDIA drivers is incorrect, and they do, in fact, work on original TNT cards. Thanks Morgan. Sorry for the confusion.

Eugene, OR - (July 12, 1999) - Think you've got the TRIBES™ Mission Editor down pat and you've created that fast-paced mission with awesome gameplay? Here's your chance to put your hard work to the test. The TRIBES™ Development Team at Dynamix is geared up and ready to collect entries in the first ever TRIBES™ "Open Call". To help get the creative juices flowing, the TRIBES™ Team has reserved a few positions for those high quality user-created missions to appear in the upcoming release of TRIBES™ Extreme. The superior user-created missions selected will get game credit for their mission in TRIBES™ Extreme plus other additional prizes to be named at a later date.

While TRIBES™ Extreme significantly enhances the multiplayer online experience, it also adds "whatever you need to know" about how to play TRIBES in its entirely new single-player campaign against computer opponents. Jeff Tunnell, executive director of TRIBES™ Extreme and founder of Dynamix said it best, "TRIBES has taken the online world by storm, but many action gamers hesitate to jump online without perfecting their skills. TRIBES™ Extreme gives them an incredibly fun campaign to cut their teeth on - and team missions so they can form a squad and practice their match skills. We want everyone to see how fun and easy it is to be an online warrior."

The TRIBES™ Development Team will begin taking submissions on July 12, 1999. All submissions must meet the following mission entry and art specifications. Users may also enter their own skin sets. Each of the 17 bitmaps, including armor skins, team logos for buildings and doors, flags, and so forth must be modified, sized appropriately, and remapped to the correct palettes - in other words, everything should be ready to just drop into the game. Users who have their skins used in the game will be given credit for them. All submissions must be zipped and available to us at the player's own site. Mission files and skin-related art files should be in separate zip files. A SHORT text file that may point out a neat mission feature may be appropriate in certain circumstances. For more information on the TRIBES™ Extreme Open Call or to submit an entry, go to www.tribesplayers.com.

I haven't updated my finger in awhile. We've been so busy on SoF. Everything is coming along great. The art for the game is nearly complete!

Unfortunately, I must announce my departure from Raven come August 1st. I've decided to pursue my film career in Austin, Texas. This will in no way hurt Soldier of Fortune as our art alpha date is August 1st. Almost all of our work, barring tweaks, will be done by that date. I want to say that the Soldier of Fortune team is the best group of people I've ever had the privilege of working with. I will miss Raven very much. I also want to thank the guys at House of Moves, our motion capture house in L.A., who were a joy to work with as well.

Joe Koberstein, a tremendous leader in the art department, will take over my responsibilities for the last weeks of the project. Eric Turman will continue his outstanding work as Senior Animator. As work dwindles, most everyone else will move on to Star Trek.

Keep your eye on Soldier of Fortune, everyone. I think the industry is in for a nice surprise come October!

No longer are Mac gamers relegated to second-rate status with PC-centric online multiplayer services- now, they have one of their own. Using GameRanger, Mac gamers now have their own way of finding other gamers to compete against and trade info with.

GameRanger provides a completely customized Macintosh-friendly environment for players to meet worthy opponents, organize and play games, discuss strategies, and exchange tricks and ideas. Persistent player accounts, profiles, chat rooms, game rooms, audio voice chat, paging, server lists and powerful filtering are just a handful of the features GameRanger offers.

Right out of the gate, GameRanger offers support for 11 popular multiplayer Mac games: Civilization II Gold, Dark Vengeance, FutureCop: L.A.P.D., Jazz Jackrabbit 2, Quake 1, Quake 2, Quake 3, QuakeWorld, Railroad Tycoon 2, Unreal and Warcraft II.

Apparently, there seem to be some rumors on the street that Monolith has been sued by another company over our upcoming first person action game code-named "No One Lives Forever..."

These rumors are false. End of discussion.

One thing that is awesome is that I have noticed that the experienced gamer can certainly discern that NOLF is still very early in development and it is constantly undergoing continuous design changes and content refinements. He/she realize that the final lines for this game have not been drawn, which is why I have had a lot of people ask me about this and ask "What the heck??"

Oh well. Anyway, know this -

The core goals we have for the gameplay always remain at the center of what we are doing, but there are still many things that are up in the air. The gameplay is feeling awesome and you can bet your bippy that we’re totally excited about the game and working really hard on development as we speak.

Another day, another rumor...

As you have heard, we are working on releasing another version of the test. This new version of the test will require you to download all of the data again. Many of you might not immediately see this as a good thing, but it is!!! This gives me the opportunity to make some minor bug fixes to Q3test1. If there is anything in the map that you feel is a "bug" please drop me an email and I'll try to fix it before the next test release.

Examples of some good bug fix suggestions:

1. Sometimes when I round the corner out of the rocketlauncher room towards the plasma room I see a vis error at the top of the steps.
2. I get stuck when I back into the corner on the left side of the steps leading up towards the rocketlauncher in the courtyard.

Examples of some bad bug fix suggestions that I DON"T want you to email me:

1. This map plays nothing like Q3test2 and it basically sucks.
2. Make it more like the Edge, that's my favorite map!!
3. I can't believe you put two rocketlaunchers in the map.You are dumb!!

Thanks again for everyone's feedback on the test and the levels.

Tim Willits

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Personal note:

A few weeks ago Joe Rogan, (actor/comedy) from the television show "News Radio", paid a visit to the id offices. During a smack talking who can kick who's ass I told him that if he beats me in a 1 on 1 that I would I mention my defeat in my next .plan update. I lost by a point so there I go..... Him and his comic sidekick Chris McGuire are currently touring the country performing live stand-up comedy. The show is very funny and I recommend seeing them if they are in your town.

No, unfortunately we are due to start a new project in a few days, and that's not enough time. Kingpin has a very capable navigation system built-in, however, so building a bot from the existing AI routines (once the source is released) would be a relatively simple task (maybe a few weeks hard work).

• Motion blur
• True quadratic bezier surfaces with level of detail (lod)
• Colored volumetric fog
• Support for Quake II models (.md2) with frame interpolation
• Support for Quake I map (.bsp)
• Support for 3dfx and Glide 3.0
• Completely written in C
• And more...

Sweeney says Epic has the PlayStation documentation from Sony and has signed an agreement to obtain a development system, which should happen soon. This, combined with continuing development on the Unreal Tournament engine, will provide them to start the process of porting their technology to the upcoming machine. Interestingly, Sweeney says there will be benefits as well as tradeoffs. “The PSX2 is very capable technically of running Unreal engine games, though there will be some tradeoffs, such as lower resolution textures, since memory, especially video memory, is more limited. On the plus side, there will be higher polygon counts,” he clarified.

Their plan is to bring the Unreal Tournament engine up to speed for the console while remaining binary compatible with the PC version, which is useful for both development and running game servers. Imagine a 3D game that enables both PC and PSX2 gamers to battle it out on the same servers, once and for all determining which system is superior. Until they have a development system in their hands, though, Epic is doing research and development on the PC side, including getting skeletal animation up and running, and porting the server to Linux using the GNU-EGCS compiler, which will expedite progress on the PSX2 since it uses the same compiler.

• SuperMicro has released TNT2 drivers, version 2.08 (direct link), as usual, these are considered to be "unofficial", but according to Tweak3D, they do "fix several bugs and supposedly boost performance." the drivers are also available on DIMENSION 128, RivaZone, Riva3D, and Reactor Critical, where I see a note that these don't work on a plain TNT, just the TNT2.
• Tweak3D's TNT/TNT2 Tweak Guide has been updated with more info on BIOS settings, AGP aperture size guidelines, a huge driver installation guide, Super-7 tweaks and fixes, registry tweaks, optimal NVTweak settings for Direct3D and OpenGL, overclocking information and instructions, recommended speeds for overclocking, and still more.
• LightSpeed2000.com has posted a new version of their RAGE 128 tweaker. Thanks Billy "Rage" Wilson.
• How to convert a VEK 12 to work with a Celeron explains how to convert a Global Win VEK 12 heatsink to work on any Slot 1 Celeron CPU.
• The USB Workshop's USB Networking Guide is an intro to this new variation on the black art of computer networking.
• The Sharky Extreme Hard Drive Guide is up giving the latest on Winchester technology.
• Part one of the BIOS Optimization Guide on Adrian's Rojak Pot is online.
• 3DsoundSurge's The Progress of the A3D 2.0 Engine looks at sound performance.

• The newly opened Panther XL Website is celebrating their grand-opening by giving away 100 (that's right, one hundred) Panther XL joysticks as of 1:00 PM Pacific time today. As they put it, this is "Getting ready for Quake 3's next test release with advanced controller support!!"
• New Jersey Quake is accepting sign-ups for a 100 person, four day LAN party/BBQ held on Labor Day Weekend.

• Computer Games Online reviews the Unreal Mission Pack: Return to Na Pali.
• The Adrenaline Vault reviews Kingpin: Life of Crime.
• Ear On Games reviews Heretic II from an audio point of view (or, rather, hearing).
• Extreme Hardware reviews the Logitech Wingman Gaming Mouse.
• Thresh's FiringSquad reviews the 3Dlabs Oxygen GVX1.
• SystemLogic reviews the Iwill BD100-Plus motherboard.

• Richard Smith updated his .plan with word that the on-again-off-again Webdog project is off again, and all the files and source have been deleted (not sure what happened there, there's not much else he has to say), though word is their .plan tracker will continue as always. Thanks Oxygen Tank...
• This Introduction to the Console on I.Am-Half-Life helps you learn that the Half-Life console is your friend...
• Boum's Q2 Box has a new version 0.7 release of their Insult-Q-Matic program, which serves up random taunts to your opponents in Quake II, and now, Q3ATest games...
• Cries From The Other Side, an Editorial on 3D Action Planet by the irrepressible Andrew Smith, this time responding to recent comments from Brandon Reinhart and Mark Rein about illegal reviews of Unreal Tournament...

Link of the Day: This Onion Article. Thanks General WarT'. Warning: the article uses the "s" word more than an Eddie Murphy concert, but I'm hoping you can handle it.