Changing The Playing Field A Night At The Half-Life Mod Expo is a 3D Action Planet article by Sluggo (of Mod Central HL) taking in all the action at last week's Half-Life mod expo, where a bunch of new Half-Life mods were unveiled. Word is to expect reports on this stuff all next week, but he kicks things off with a look at the whole event, including some Q&A with Valve's Harry Teasley and Erik Johnson, and a few newsworthy quotes from Valve's Gabe Newell like the following:

"We're going to be releasing a new version of Half-Life next week...The new release, basically, is due to conversations we've been having with mod developers - they need some functionality specifically for bot technology. So, next week, there will be two bots released for Half-Life."

Games Domain Review previews System Shock 2 with a heavily-illustrated (with screenshots) hands-on look ahead at the sequel to System Shock, the classic science-fiction RPG.

Beta Bites sends word of their Rogue Spear Preview that offers a hands-on look at this upcoming tactical shooter saying it makes its predecessor (Rainbow Six) look like a Commodore 64 game.

The cinematic types at Zarathustra Studios have teamed up with the speed freaks over at Quake done Quick to release a set of recamed movies of the Quake2 done Quick2 speed demos. The downloads are available at either site, along with the unedited originals. This is still not the full-blown "official" QdQ speed run through Quake II, which is still in the works, but it is the world-class Q2DQ2 run reshot from a spectator's point-of-view, likely to give a better vantage point of the action.

A new version 1.04 of GameStalker is now available. GameStalker is a server browser program for both Linux and Windows with an emphasis on speed, and the new version adds an editor for creating custom queries to find only the games you want, making it "even faster than before." Also, there are two GameStalker related mailing lists: One for users (email minordomo@zero-ping.com with a subject of "subscribe gs-discuss"), and one for developers (email minordomo@zero-ping.com with a subject of "subscribe gs-dev"). Finally, if you are a server operator running any platform that supports Java (Linux, NT, Solaris, etc) and are interested in running a Zpdb (Zero-Ping Database) server, the database server back-end which enables GameStalker to find games so quickly, please contact them.

The Science and Industry page has the debut version 0.94 of the Science and Industry mod for Half-Life. While this initial release only contains one map, a second map is expected, perhaps as soon as tomorrow, and there is also a map kit in their maps section to encourage others to design more maps, which they are soliciting for inclusion in version 1.0. The manual for the mod is online to give a comprehensive look at this mod, and here's a short description to start on:

Science and Industry is a teamplay mod for Half-Life, in which players assume the role of Security Officer at one of two rival corporations striving for domination in the cutthroat world of chemical and weapons research and development. The player's job is to protect and acquire scientists, who develop weapons to use against the other corporation. The more scientists a team has the faster they'll make new discoveries, but the only way to get new scientists is by kidnapping them from the competition. Science & Industry features interaction with NPC's in multiplayer, new weapons, and a bunch of new gameplay features.

PlanetUnreal interviews Alexander Brandon, the music composer for both Unreal and Unreal Tournament. The short Q&A comes on the completion of his work on U.T., and as you can imagine, mostly discusses music.

Kokak's Doom Page has a new version 0.8 of DoomGL, an OpenGL compatible port of id Software's Doom. Thanks Billy at Voodoo Extreme.

So many mods are announced and abandoned, that we usually don't turn too much spotlight onto community-type projects until they're released. There seems to be too much ado about the announcement of the Fortress Europe project to let it pass unmentioned, however (especially on a weekend ). Fortress Europe is planned as a World War II mod set in Normandy using the Starsiege TRIBES engine. The homepage has info and shots of the mod, and PlanetStarSiege Fortress Europe Interview with Optimizer and WarMonger talks with part of the squad behind the mod about what it's all about. Though there is no projected release date, word is that the project has been in development for four months, and a release is expected "soon."

PC Paradox' Messiah Interview with Dave Perry talks with the Messiah-maker about Shiny's upcoming diaper-wearing third-person action game that puts you in the role of Bob, a cherub with a problem with possessiveness.

3D Unlimited has posted an interview with Rich Fleider, talking to Rogue's Vice President and Lead Artist about his work on the N64 port of Quake II, the early days of Rogue, and lots of other stuff he can't talk about right now.

GASource has posted four new images from the unfortunately titled Varginha Incident 2, the sequel to the original Varginha Incident, which was notable for being the world's first Brazillian first person shooter. Varginha Incident 2 differs itself from the original by utilizing an original, fully 3D engine that takes full advantage of Intel's new Pentium III processor.

A typically slow Saturday gives another off-topic post a chance at prominence. The Microsoft Windows Update page has a new version 6.4 beta (at the bottom of the page) of the MS Media player. Saw that on BetaNews.

There are a couple of notes on PlanetStarSiege about the newly released version 1.7 patch for Starsiege TRIBES (story) that describe reports of problems with some older 3dfx chipsets, including Voodoo RUSH, Voodoo Banshee, and some Voodoo 1 cards (specifically mentioning Pure3D cards). There's no word yet on fixes or workarounds, but if you are a user of one of those cards and are experiencing problems with the new patch, that is the explanation.

Billy "SEEDling" Wilson has posted his exclusive SEED demo by HumanSoft. This 22.7 MB demo contains one level, with two enemies and three weapons, and is meant to introduce the game to the public. While we won't be making a local mirror out of respect for Voodoo Extreme's exclusive on the demo, it should be pointed out that it is also available for download on the official SEED homepage.

The Acid Reign Site has a public release of version 1.0 of the Blitz engine. The released source does not contain the MMX-optimized version of the engine (as it's been lost), and contains some un-optimized routines. Word from the author is "The aim of this release is to provide people with some help and a starting block to build their own kick-ass engines. It contains code on BSP Trees, S-Buffering, Portal rendering, Z-Buffering, Translucency, Particles, Direct Draw programming, Direct Input Programming, Surface Cacheing, Collision Detection and most importantly, my completely hand crafted 16-bit realtime span level RGB interpolative rasterizer (Surface cacheing at run time)." He also sends word that the mailing list subscription for the Blitz Engine "now works" and the site also contains a new tutorial on spherical volumetric fog.

Spectra Software Download Page has new version 3.10.01 Windows 9X drivers for the Canopus Spectra 2500/3200. The drivers are available in two versions, one with just the the drivers and the other with the drivers and the utilities. Thanks P3D.

As promised, PC.IGN.com has posted their exclusive Jane's Fleet Command Demo, a playable demo of this air-sea operations combat flight-sim dealie. The demo is about 45 MB. Thanks Frans at 3D Action Gamers.

3D-Unlimited interviews Harvey Smith talking with ION Storm's "Witchboy" to fill them in on what Deus Ex, ION's upcoming action/RPG will be all about.

It seems like everyone and their brother's posting articles on 3dfx' new technology, but PC.IGN has posted not only a detailed explanation of the new gee whiz features, but also a few MPEG movies to illustrate them.

Next-Generation Online has posted an interview with Looking Glass Studios' Steve Pearsall, talking about their sneaky sequel Thief 2: The Metal Age.

Registration has opened up for the Descent 3 LAN tournament being hosted by the Cyberathletes at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas. The space is limited to 250 computers, so if you're planning on attending, sign up now or never.

Well, the Blair Witch Project opened nationwide last night, on a whopping 1000 screens. If you haven't yet, I recommend going to see it. I'm going to be dragging the girlfriend to see it tonight, and I'm definitely looking forward to seeing it a second time myself. Actually, we tried to see it during its limited run here in NYC, but it was sold out days in advance (and apparently it's breaking records left and right). Pretty cool stuff.

Link of the Day: Tom Hall vs. the World. One of those parodies that just had to be made - leave it to Tom Hall to do it.