Epic's Brandon Reinhart updated his plan with word that the results from the planned Unreal Tournament showdown between Epic Games and NetGames USA (story) are in...and it's a win for Epic with 71 frags to NetGames' 43. The full stats are available on NetGames' page, featuring a full rundown of the players.

Mike Wilson updated his .plan with word that two games from the Gathering of Developers will go gold this week, as well as some details on a side project he's working on. Here are the details:

2 games going gold this week... FLY! and Darkstone. Big week at the church.

We have a side project of the non-commercial, prototype variety that we need to build a library of 3DStudio models for asap. Buildings mostly, but characters/vehicles/items would also be quite welcome. I can't say too much about what we'd be using these for just yet, but I can assure you that any models we use for the prototype may become part of a major project than means money and credit for the modelers. Please only send stuff you own the rights to.

Submit questions (not about what we're doing with these) and models to: info@godgames.com

Tom Hall has updated his Anachronox Diary over at Anachronox.com (hit "Game Information" followed by "Design Diary" to read it). Amongst the topics in this installment are how cool Lee Perry's particle effects are ("coooooool" according to Hall), and word that some Anachronox content was used in a local play titled "Shiner" about an executioner. Yeah, you read that right...go over there to understand it.

There's a new SoF Screenshot on GA-Source with another look at Raven's upcoming Quake II-engine game. The shot shows off a female raider, one of the enemy terrorists from the game.

GA-Source questions Jason Halls Sanity, not that they're worried about him losing his marbles, but rather it's a conversation about Sanity, Monolith's upcoming LithTech-powered RPG.

A post on Mortyr.Net indicates that in spite of Mortyr's uncertain status regarding who will publish it, a playable demo of this first-person World War II shooter "later this week." word is the demo will contain a single level, and will be about a 20 MB download. Thanks Frans at 3D Action Gamers.

Dynamix' Mitch Shaw updated his .plan with both an on topic, and an off-topic section 9conveniently labeled). The on-topic part has a general update on the stat of TRIBES, TRIBES2, and TRIBES Extreme, so I'll reproduce it here:

Everything seems to be going along pretty smoothly on the projects. Some excellent new artwork has been incorporated into T2 lately, and TRIBES Extreme is shaping up nicely as well. And the 1.6 patch should be relatively imminent, QA is (I believe) finishing up their OpenGL testing on the latest candidate.

Good luck to TRIBES artist Weston Tracy, who has left for a job at, as Dave Letterman would say, "another network".

Unreal Kingdom has posted a pair of new Unreal tournament Screenshots courtesy of Brandon "GreenMarine" Reinhart showing off a new "InstaGib DM" Mutator play mode, which he describes as being "about having a good aiming hand and is very fast paced."

GameLinks.net has posted a massive preview of Planet Moon's oddball (yet mighty cool) third person title Giants: Citizen Kabuto. The piece is illustrated with an incredible 63 screenshots, and while i'm not entirely sure how many (if any) are new, it's still a great way to get a glimpse of the game's striking visuals.

There are a pair of new Soldier of Fortune screenshots on Soldier-of-Fortune.com showing off gameplay from Raven's upcoming Quake II-engine game of mercenary action. Word on the page is to expect a movie from the game in AVI format "coming soon."

TacticalPlanet has posted the last in their recent string of new Spec Ops II shots in their "Target Acquired" box (not to be confused with a pic of the day).

The Quake 3 Arena Skin Archive has posted a reply they received from id Software's Kenn Scott, who, while temporarily declining an interview offer, does provide an interesting tidbit about Q3A skin editing that I hadn't seen mentioned before:

"...We have seperated alot of characters faces from the rest of the bitmap to make it easier for folks to cut and paste their own faces on clan skins, etc. though it'll still take a lot of art editting to fit. We've done it here a few times for fun (and abuse), so it's not too difficult. :)"

A new version 1.3 beta 1 of the Bleem (or bleem!) PlayStation emulator for the PC is up on the Bleem (or "bleem!") site. Thanks GameDev.net. Among the many changes from the last beta, are "Significant Direct3D Speed Optimizations," and "Significant Direct3D Texture Improvements." The beta version of bleem needs a CD Key to function, just like the full version. Any original bleem CD Key will function with bleem FULL and BETA releases.

• Creative Labs Developer Relations Linux Support page has new SBLive! drivers for Linux. Thanks BetaNews.
• Sharky Extreme's Motherboard Guide has been updated.
• The Maxi Gamer Xentor 32 Support page has an overclocking utility for Guillemot's TNT2 cards (meant to mention this a couple of days ago, sorry). Thanks Thomas.

Before It's Done interviews Seumas McNally of Longbow Digital Arts talking about LDA's upcoming Tank racing game, Tread Marks.

Epic's Brandon "GreenMarine" Reinhart updated his .plan with word that the gang at Epic is embarking on an Unreal Tourney deathmatch today to help show off the info-packed coolness of NetGames USA's statistical analysis, which the game will support out of the box. Details on the festivities are on ngWorldStats Epic Games vs. NetGames USA page, where the aforementioned stats from the match will be on display. Word is the action kicks off tonight at 9:00 PM CST (CDT, actually).

Gaming Entertainment Monthly's Prince of Persia 3D Interview talks with Lead Designer Todd Kerpelman about the upcoming 3D-enhanced third installment in the PoP series.

Sharky Extreme's Sinistar Unleashed Preview looks at this up-to-date sequel to the arcade classic.

The Genesis3D page has the "Pre-Alpha Preview" release of the Genesis 2.0 editor, GenEdit. Thanks Voodoo Extreme. This release is described as "fully functional and totally kick ass!," but "not feature complete by any means," so they are looking for a lot of feedback.

The Shotgun Quake 2 page has a new version 2.0 release of this server-only Quake II modification that glorifies the beloved boomstick above all others. The new release offers CTF and Linux support. Liquid, who sent this along, is putting out a call for crack mentions on news pages, just to feel old school, but if he thinks there haven't been any such references lately, obviously, he's on crack.

Version 7.0 of Super Capture the Flag (Sctf), a variant on Zoid's Threewave Capture the Flag for Quake (1), is now available, offering a min-boggling 26 weapons and 63 runes (each with two powers!).

The Quake Info Pool has a couple of updates: Some new bugs have been added to the bug list, they have a request up for feedback on the "shotgun shooting at multiple targets bug," and there is also a new version 1.4 of Gerard "Numb" Ryan's URQWP as well as word on a new server running the patch.

• I imagine that most readers of this site with an interest in Half-Life already own it, but just in case, 3D Gaming.Net's I Wanna Play Half-Life Too! Contest offers a chance to win a copy of Valve's already-classic shooter.
• Remember, our new test your knowledge contest is up, so fire up that brain and head on over.

• Computer Games Online reviews Heavy Gear II.
• CTNews reviews Descent 3 (damnit).
• UGN3D reviews Dungeon Keeper 2.
• UGN3D reviews Intel Celeron® 433.
• GA-Source reviews the Matrox Millennium G400.
• PC Benchmarks reviews Creative Labs 3D Blaster Savage4.

• Act Three -- Screen Shot 18 is the new Diablo II shot of the week...
• There's a SWAT 3 Mini-FAQ on the Sierra Studios Message Boards. Thanks TacticalPlanet...
• The DEMISE public patch 3 (3.3) is now available for this OpenGL accelerated RPG. Thanks Voodoo Extreme. Word is "this version WILL DELETE ALL CHARACTERS"...
• The Aliens Vs Predator Tech Support-Cheats Site has been updated with "a bunch of new solutions for voodoo cards and AMD motherboards."...

After a while without an entry in the pop culture game there were a pair of quotes yesterday: The Lemon Twist was offered by Serge (Bronson Pinchot) in Beverly Hills Cop, and we learned how to pronounce "Nu-cu-lar" from Homer Simpson. On the subject of TV and Cinema, another long awaited DVD release rolled in yesterday, the Criterion version of an all-time favorite, Terry Gilliam's Brazil, offering two versions of the film and a ton of documentary material spanning three disks (wheee!). Interestingly, the set's original Battle of Brazil documentary is credited to a Jack Mathews, complete with the proper (one "t") spelling. Truly, morbid is a renaissance man.

Acclaim, one of the very few game developers here in the greater NY area, is showing off some of their games today. If things go according to plan, both loony and I will spend a couple of hours over there in the early afternoon, I still may stay behind out of guilt about leaving the newsdesk unattended, but it's possible we'll both be away simultaneously -- but if so, it will be for a fairly brief span.

Link of the Day: Jesse Ventura To Swap Governor's Office For Ring. You've gotta love American politics. Thanks Apache.
Bonus Link: Bangladesh Cops Rescue Drug Monkeys. Another link from the actual news of the day. You can't make this stuff up! Thanks Cannelbrae. BTW, it's cough syrup they were peddling, so these aren't actual crack monkeys.