Next-Generation Online has posted a Q&A with Wes Eckhart, Nova Logic's producer on Delta Force 2. The questions are of a general nature, but Wes does talk about the competition a little, and there's some interesting talk about the gameplay as well. Here's an excerpt I got a kick out of, since it was something I certainly wanted in the first game:

"Another feature that's going into the game by popular demand is bullet penetration. Some Delta Force players wanted to be able to shoot enemies hiding in tents, for instance, so in DF2 bullets will go through certain structures where it makes sense. A layer of waterproofed canvas will no longer provide cover against the M4 carbine, much less a hail of slugs from the SAW."

Black & White Wire has posted the log from their chat with Lionhead's Jamie Durrant, talking about their really strange but still totally cool game Black & White. The chat touches on a number of B&W related topics, including a number of details about the multiplayer component of the game, which looks to be massive, to say the least.

Unrealism has posted a brief, hands-on preview of Hasbro Interactive's oddball Unreal engine title, Nerf Arena Blast, complete with three screenshots.

The Rogue Spear Retreat has posted an interview with Red Storm Entertainment's Greg Stelmack, talking about the measures being taken to prevent cheating in Rogue Spear, the sequel to Rainbow Six. Here's an excerpt:

"Game developers walk a fine line between letting people tweak the game and preventing cheating. The constants file caused a lot of cheating issues, so we've completely removed it for Rogue Spear. All those constants are now rolled into the executable. We've caught lots of other configuration files and made sure that the server sends them across so that everyone has the same values. I'm sure there are still some server side cheats (e.g. the server customizing one particular gun), but if you can't trust your server in a multiplayer game, you can't trust anyone. We can't eliminate those without preventing people from editing weapons or making other mods."

In their continuing coverage of games that aren't Quake, Quake2000.net has posted an interview with Jarrod Showers, animator on Raven Software's Soldier of Fortune. The interview covers Jarrod's background in the industry, GHOUL (Raven's animation system for SoF), and the status of the game, which he says is in an alpha state, and will ship in late fall (of course, these things are always subject to change).

GA-RPG has posted an interview with Christopher White of Big Rock Entertainment, the developers of N'Evaria: Keligem's Legacy, a role-playing game in development that utilizes Monolith's LithTech 2 engine.

Today is the day for completing strategy game production, on the heels of the announcements earlier today that C&C Tiberian Sun and StarFleet Command are gold, comes word on Gone Gold (where they live for this sort of news) that the US version of Braveheart, the turn-based strategy game where you fight for FREEDOM(!) has gone gold as well.

AVault is reporting (by way of a telephone interview) that John Romero has returned to designing single player maps. Up until now, Romero's role was simply as the game's designer, overseeing the production of the game, but not making any levels himself. Here's what John had to say:

“I am now involved in designing single-player maps,” Romero told us in a telephone interview this afternoon. “I get to the office around 10:00 a.m. and stay until 1:00 in the morning most days. Last night, I was here until 4:30 a.m.” Additionally, he is still involved with his supervisory role, something else that no doubt contributes to the long days during the current crunch mode.

GA-Source's Spec Ops 2 Green Berets interview is online talking with Zombie Designer John E. Williamson about gameplay in this upcoming game of squad-based tactical operations. The piece includes a new shot of the Green Berets in their desert camouflage.

The Wheel of Time™ page has been updated with the weekly Tuesday (formerly Monday) update about from Legend's upcoming Unreal-engine action title. The update talks of progress on the game, describes some recent web-based coverage of the game, and offers up no less than 20 new screenshots. Thanks Infiniti.

RSONE.COM has been updated with 15 new screenshots from Rogue Spear, Red Storm Entertainment's upcoming sequel to the Tom Clancy-inspired action & tactics title, Rainbow Six.

PC Arena's Messiah preview is up looking ahead at Shiny's upcoming third-person 3D action title, offering a bunch of screenshots.

PC Gamer Online's Prince of Persia 3D preview is up looking ahead at the third installment in the formerly side-scrolling adventures of the baggy-pantsed prince, now fleshed out into three dimensions.

You know 'em you love 'em you can't live without 'em, it's time for the the Diablo II screenshot of the week, this week intriguingly titled Act One - No. 126.

On the heels of the C&C news comes word on another RTS game (for those that like that sort of thing) going gold, as the Star Trek Starfleet Command page has word of the game going gold, saying: "Make sure to get your pre-order in so you can play the full version next week!!" Thanks Warren Schultz. While I'm here I'll mention a StarFleet Command update on PC Arena with three new shots of ships from the game.

The fine folks at Pair believe we had a hardware problem that caused the outages on the server earlier today, so the most recent interruption was for the installation of a new motherboard, so we'll see if this settles things down. Our apologies for the interruptions.

PlanetShogo has posted a fix for a server-side cheat in Monolith's Shogo: Mobile Armor Division. Rather than kick cheaters, the mod detects them and instantly kills them.

SpecForce has posted a few new screenshots from the upcoming Green Beret action and tactics game, Spec Ops II. A couple of the shots show of a little recon look at an enemy base.

Sorry, server has bounced up and down a few time this afternoon, there are currently folks busily throwing rocks at it to settle it down in the time-honored manner.

The Adrenaline Vault interviews Surreal Software's Alan Patmore talking about Surreal's upcoming dragon-riding third-person epic, Drakan: Order of the Flame, discussing the rapidly-approaching completion of work on the game.

PC Zone's Ultima Ascension Preview is up with their usual complete treatment of analysis, screenshots, and conversation, this time around offering a look back at the Ultima series, as well as some pearls straight from the bearded lips of Richard "Lord British" Garriott.

The Adrenaline Vault News has posted four new screenshots from Verant Interactive's upcoming persistent real-time strategy title Sovereign.

Dynamix' own Oz resident, Tinman, updated his .plan with more details on his new TRIBES mission type, the HeadHunters-inspired Flag Hunters. The update describes programming changes and a key-binding that can feed players more game-state information, as well as a couple of gameplay balancing tweaks he's added, including a change that makes it harder to hoard flags.

ZorWolf sends along a set of GameSpy3D Q3Test 1.08 Filter Tabs for users of the new Q3Test release and GameSpy3D, offering a separate tab for the new version, one to find free-for-all games, one for teamplay, and one to find servers running tourney mode. Also, George sends along a a PingTool Q3Test 1.08 Filter Tab for PingTool users to help zero in on servers running the latest version. As in the past, these already miniscule files are zipped to avoid upsetting your browser's delicate digestive tract, rather than for size considerations.

Saw on Doomworld that the wHeretic homepage has a new version 0.4a build 2 of this Win32 port of Raven's Doom-engine game, Heretic. The update fixes a problem with 3D sound that causes sounds to fade when using hardware sound acceleration.

A Venom Demo Update on GA-Source gives a response from the developers of the just-released playable compatibility test demo of Venom (story), an upcoming first-person shooter that uses the Vital Engine LZ. Word from the update is to set "always run" to on in the demo, to toggle the CAPS lock. They also offer commands to make the player four times stronger, and another that makes all the monsters speak Russian.

Voodoo Extreme has posted a Q&A with Irrational Games' Ken Levine, talking about System Shock 2, which recently went gold and should be showing up in stores Real Soon Now.

With my own copy of the new Q3Test 1.08 releases (story) in hand, I can pass along the notes from the what's new file. First, the file stresses "You MUST delete all previous versions of Q3TEST for the game to run properly" (with no less than six exclamation points). Here's the full scoop:

You MUST delete all previous versions of Q3TEST for the game to run properly!!!!!!

• fixed marks fading properly in fog volumes
• show weapon in fov >90, adjusting position down as needed
• update scoreboard info while at intermission
• print "waiting to play" for tourney spectators
• fixed tied rank with 0 score and spectators
• return to roaming spectator when a followed client quits or spectates
• release windows cursor when running windowed and the console is down
• log all client transitions, item pickups, and kills
• changed joystick axis to act just like arrow keys so they can be bound in the controls menu for strafing. Yes, this does remove slow walking from joystick movement, but it makes everything a lot cleaner.
• fix up PantherXL trackball support
• tournament queuing of spectators to enter the game
• track wins and losses as long as you stay on a tourney server
• spectators are now in fly mode instead of noclip, and use teleporters
• pass serverTime instead of msec for command timing, prevents timescale cheating
• fixed rcon

id Software Designer Graeme Devine updated his .plan with a mention of the new Q3Test releases (below), and word on the included consolation prize: a Sarge model you can access through the console (a console-ation prize, perhaps?):

Q3Test 1.08!!! Go bring down your favorite Internet site.

Because it's once again a full download, we've included a new model (Sarge) with this version of the test as a consolation prize. You need to select him from the console using the "model sarge" command.

As promised below, here are local copies of the new Q3Test 1.08 release. Here's the Win32 version, along with a list of mirrors, and the Mac version, again, with additional mirrors as they come in. Each file is a bit over 33 MB.

Win32 & Mac Q3Test version 1.08 are out on ftp.idsoftware.com. I'll get local copies, a list of mirrors, as well as what's new posted ASAP.

IPlayGames Interviews Greg Zeschuk talking with the president and joint CEO of BioWare in another Q&A about progress on MDK2, their upcoming sequel to the third-person game of the same name, minus the "2." MDK, of course, stands for Mildly Distinguished Kellogg.

Apache sends word of a couple of messageboard posts he's summarized on Unreal Universe that have Epic's Jack "Mek" Porter and Pancho Eekels talking about Unreal Tournament network performance.

After some recent false alarms in a couple of places, the Westwood Studios page has been updated with word that Command & Conquer Tiberian Sun is gold, and the latest edition of their RTS franchise should be in stores soon. Thanks Tom Evans.

You thought that said screenshots for a second, didn't you? ActionXtreme.com interview Matt Powers, the guy with the perfect Astronaut's name (and also the producer on Slave Zero), about Accolade's upcoming giant robot combat game.

The sixth installment in RadPipe's The Road To QuakeCon '99 is up on the QuakeCon '99 Site talks with id Software's Anna Kang (that is in the parts RadPipe didn't just make up) about QuakeCon, giving away here Doom chess set, and stuff like that.

AGN3D has posted a slimmed-down G2 RealPlayer version of the Prince of Persia 3D movie released yesterday (story) that now weighs in at a mere 2.4 MB.

Fahrenheit not so hot anymore, and new Wicked3D drivers among this morning's offerings:

• SGI cutting back key projects reports job cuts at SGI in advanced graphics division engineers, and a backing away from the once much-hyped Fahrenheit technology. Thanks Jawed Karim.
• The Wicked3D Drivers page has new a new uber-driver setup for Wicked3D Voodoo2, Wicked3D Vengeance and Wicked3D eyeSCREAM setups. Thanks Voodoo Extreme.
• Sharky Extreme's Memory Guide Part 5 is up, discussing System Timings.
• The Shrine 3d Website has new screenshots of Shrine 3d, a project to "create an engine that strays from conventional methods of rasterization and organization." Word from Joe "Platinum" Bertolami, the author, is that "this project primarily for educational purposes, and I do not expect it to reach any commercial level for at least 6 months."
• Abtons Shed has a new TweakAll 1.2 Public Beta. Thanks GameDev.net.

Amid all the optimistic reports out of the recent MacWorld Expo comes a naysayer report from GameSpot's Macworld Exposé which declares: "Problems with engineering, retail distribution and divisiveness within Apple continue to keep the company at the back of the pack for gaming. And despite words to the contrary, it seems to be getting worse."

The results of Playground 99 have been posted along with photos of the event, which attracted more than 4000 attendees (word is that Tyler, the winner of the Descent 3 competition, is heading to Vegas for the $50,000 Descent 3 Championships). The folks at Teamplay.Net point out that they hosted the entire final round of the Playground '99 TRIBES tournament, making use of their "Tournament Management Engine" (TME) to generate the tournament bracket for the 9 teams participating in the final event, and that the entire Playground '99 final TRIBES final event, all the way down to the championship match, was broadcast live with full statistics tracking.

The results of last week's boffo Test Your Game Knowledge are online, and we've reloaded the chambers in our three-round trivia revolver with three id Software inspired questions in the special QuakeCon edition of the Test Your Game Knowledge game. The new schedule for the trivia and the answers is Tuesday morning, but next week's results will go up on Wednesday in the aftermath of QuakeCon.

• CTNews reviews the Unreal Mission Pack 1, Return to Na Pali.
• 3D Alpha Hardware Station reviews DoomGL 0.8.
• A Better Mouse Surface is a BX boards review of the everglide, which does the same thing I try to do with all mouse pads: fit them onto my oddball mouse arena.

• SiN Post has posted a five map pack of Sin deathmatch maps that have been seeing a lot of action lately...
• A later update by Dynamix' Tinman to his .plan makes it clear the TRIBES mission he was working on mentioned earlier (story) called Flag Hunters is based on HeadHunters for Quake...
• UnrealEngine.com's Community Q&A: Zen Tao Interactive talks with the developers of the unusual Unreal-engine project, Extreme Wing Chun VR, "the world's first interactive "encyclopedia style" application designed to teach the fundamentals of Wing Chun Kung Fu..."
• Greedo does Half-Life in an odd development side-note in Gearbox' Randy Pitchford's .plan...

As I mentioned when loony's trouble getting properly connected to the Internet, when his connection was straightened out (as it is now), I would try to get to updating the site for the first time of each day closer to midnight, to allow for more continual posting of news through the night. Now that loony's ISDN is in, I'm trying to keep to the new schedule, we'll see how well I keep it (my apologies if out of the Blue seems more (or less even!) coherent, now that it's not being written in the middle of the night).

To follow-up on something previously reported in this space: movies.IGN.com reports the Matrix to be sold on VHS after all, starting November 26 (thanks Ant). Woah!

Link of the Day: Furniture Porn!! Thanks rufees. Nice legs on that chair, huh? Don't forget to wear your slip-cover for protection!
eBay Item of the Day: Rare Louisiana Voodoo Soil. Thanks Jonathan Cole. Work your mojo! "Its dark dark brown, and has a slight 'earthy' smell to it."

Gigex has posted a 23 MB trailer for Prince of Persia 3D, both as full download on this page, and as a small stub program that will allow resuming interrupted downloads. Thanks MeccaWorld and Frans at 3D Action Gamers. On a related note, GamePen's Prince of Persia 3D preview is online.

Stevie "KillCreek" Case sent this .plan update from ION's Steve Ash (just added to the Blue Tracker) which should clarify the reasons for Ash's departure from the Daikatana team (story):

Not this rumor stuff again ;)

It's true, I am leaving ION, but only for boring personal reasons, I'm afraid. I've had a lot of fun working at ION for the past few months. I got to add a lot of cool tech to DK, and now that that's done, I'm heading back to Cali. It's been cool working with John and everyone else here, and I wish them all the best!

Now go away!

As part of Quake2000.net's coverage of games that aren't Quake, they've posted an interview with Dynamix' Nels Bruckner, former programmer, and current manager on Starsiege: TRIBES.

John Romero updated his .plan with word that Steve Ash, former lead programmer on ION Storm's Daikatana, has decided to part with the company. Taking his place is Shawn Green, who many will recall is an id Software alumnus. Here's the scoop, straight from The Romero himself:

Alright, before all of the news sites start going nutty with this information, I just want to thank Steve Ash, my lead programmer, for all the excellent work he's put in on Daikatana. We're past the "adding tech" stage and are working on finishing up the game, so Steve decided to move on and get back to California where he can actually USE his Ducati motorcycle on the winding mountain roads instead of watching his tires melt on the hot Dallas pavement. Heh. Good luck Steve, and thanks for everything. :)

The new lead programmer on Daikatana is Shawn Green, whom I have known for eight years or so and has been doing a great job on Daikatana since its inception.

Dynamix' Dave Moore updated his .plan with word that the recently released Starsiege: TRIBES 1.7 (which was supposed to fix palette errors on 3dfx cards) is causing palette errors on 3dfx Banshee based boards:

Erk! Ok, there have been reports of palette problems on 3dfx cards with only one TMU (Voodoo Graphics, Rush, Banshee). Mea maxima culpa, all my fault. I goofed a logic test (Morgan's law? Something like that. The one that goes ![A && B] => [!A || !B]). We're aware of the problem, and a fix is in QA at this time. This is especially embarrassing, since 1.7 was supposed to fix a palette problem on Voodoo 2's and Voodoo 3's. Sigh.

AGN3D has posted a brief Q&A with James Schmalz, game designer for Digital Extremes (Epic's collaborators on Unreal and Unreal Tournament). Also of note is Unreality.org's interview with Andy Frazier, the composer behind the music in Legend's Unreal Engine game Wheel of Time.

This Seattle Times report sent along by Stillwater refutes the report posted earlier (story) that Bill Gates plans on donating his entire fortune to charity. The article quotes Gates' father, the alleged source of the original report, as saying "I didn't say that...It isn't accurate," and goes on to say "The elder Gates speculated that the Sunday Times writer misunderstood him."

This week's edition of 10 Questions with Sam Hell features everyone's favorite little devil interviewing Mike Nichols (hey, didn't he direct The Graduate?), creative director on Drakan: Order of the Flame. Topics include the game's engine, the competition, and some gameplay questions.

Raven Artist/Animator Rob Gee updated his .plan with word on progress on Elite Force, Raven's upcoming Star Trek Voyager game using the Quake III engine. The lengthy update goes on to describe the reception of SoF and Elite Force at the Activate Conference in Scotland and a welcome to their new artist Andy, but I'll just quote the part about the Star Trek game:

Elite Force is coming along nicely. The newest mission area (undisclosed at this time) is in the
final stages of defining it's overall look. The designers and artists have most of the "major" areas
done and have been tweaking out textures, architecture and lighting effects for final approvals. The
entire mission area is really looking great - the original concept sketches were done with Quake III's
curved surface capabilities in mind. Needless to say, it won't be a very friendly neighborhood when
it's done ;).

While I'm waiting for some model approvals to be reviewed, I've spent some more time setting up some
additional animations for the scavengers. We've been fortunate to have access to the SoF animation
data base, as well as using the CHIMAERA system for our humanoid models to apply the animations to.
We're using a fair number of the mo-capped scenes that Scott and Eric set up with hOuse of mOves.
But unfortunately, there are a few animations we can't use. Most Star Trek races have a very distinct
body language and just wouldn't look right doin that gang bang thang. Klingons just don't go talkin
smack while they cap :) A big thanks to Eric Turman for the ungodly hours he put into setting up the
CHIMAERA system. He has much honor.

Shubes is working on the creature that will be found hanging around the newest levels, mentioned above.
Brian P. is working with Bill to get our official website finalized - it's really looking pretty sweet.
Mark has been doing more concepts, as well as helping Brian get the story boards done for future cinematics.
Lampo has been a big help exporting all the anims for me so that Mike can edit and reclip them into the
game. Kim has been working with Les to get the characters' heads and faces done. B'elanna is looking hot.
hmmmmmmm.... B'elanna. Les has been busy making models and working with Steve R. on some new effects that the
designers will be able to set up in their levels. Todd, Mark, Kim, and our newest artist - Andrew Trabbold -
have been creating some very impressive textures for the new levels.

So, as I said, things are coming along nicely.

id Software CEO Todd Hollenshead updated his .plan with an excited blurb about this coming weekend's festivities at QuakeCon '99. The update warns of how badly over-crowded the small town of Mesquite, TX will be due to the event, and suggests attendees without accomodations get on the ball.

Bleem!'s President Vents is a GameSpot Q&A with David Herpolsheimer, president of bleem! LLC discussing life after the launch of Bleem!, the PlayStation emulation software. The article discusses the legal battles with Sony the product is enduring, and talks about what it will take to make Bleem a mainstream product.

Also on GameSpot is an article called Half-Life MOD Heaven that looks at the doings at last weeks event to show off seven of the best Half-Life Mods currently in production, briefly describing Action Half-Life, Chemical Existence, Counterstrike, Gunman, Kanonball, Science & Industry, and USS. Darkstar.

The Tectonic Latest News page has word of a new version of the TecArena Q3Test front-end program. The new release fixes a "stupid bug" in the last version which prevented the launcher from actually launching Q3Test (which is a problem for a game launcher).

The Croatian Quake3 Arena Scene sends word of their new Quake III Arena User Benchmark Page. A majority of the benchmarks on the page are user submitted, which sacrifices some control over the data, but allows for the widest variety of tested systems. The goal is to to see what hardware is best for Quake III Arena, and is meant to be especially useful to those considering upgrades.

Before It's Done interviews Greg Zeschuk posing ten questions to the CEO of BioWare about their upcoming sequel to the quirky third-person action game, MDK, which, as we've pointed out before, stands for Math Don't Kompute.

The press release for the Quake III US Tour has been well, released, with some more details on the event (or events for that matter). If you're wondering what's going to go on at the bus stops, the PR has this bit of information, "at some locations, lucky players will get to challenge top professional guest-gamers" although nobody specific is named. I also enjoyed this quote quite a bit - actually it kind of scared me:

"You never know where the bus might stop -- there are a lot of routes between cities," Welch continued. "One day it might pull into a cyber cafe or a parking lot and just let people in to play -- it might even be at your house. You always have to be ready. Watch the Web. "

Including a new video card announcement from Bitboys Oy(!):

• Bitboys Oy have announced their new line of Glaze3D video cards, which sport gigatexel fillrates and embedded DRAM.
• 3DWars has posted an article chronicling the battle between 3dfx and NVIDIA for dominance of the 3D market.
• Matrox has posted a Q&A with Chris Satchell, Technical Manager at Silicon Dreams Studio Limited, the developers of Warmonkeys, which will utilize their environment-mapped bump-mapping.
• Ars Technica has posted an article explaining how the Dual Celeron SMP setup works.
• Sharky Extreme has updated their 3dfx Next-Generation Technology article with new images of the in-house demo they saw.

GASource has posted a Q&A with Bungie's PR screwball Doug Zartman, talking about their Anime influenced action title Oni. Some of the questions focus on the gameplay balance, which is an odd mix of hand to hand combat and good old fashioned gun toting mayhem.

The Italian games site Games on Line has posted a new Black & White preview (actually, the preview's in color, but...oh, never mind) complete with 27 screenshots (almost all of which are new, and quite impressive looking). As the preview's in Italian, you may want to stick a Babel Fish in your ear before heading over there.

GameMaster Gamer's Paradise has set up a new Quake II master server all the way over in Holland (mmm...Quake with hollandaise). The server's at www.games.hetnet.nl:27900, with a server listing available at http://www.games.hetnet.nl/quake2/gamespy.txt. So update those server browsers if you're into that sort of thing.

Dynamix' Tinman ("yes, dammit, that is my real name!") updated his .plan with word that he's created a new mission type for TRIBES that's up for testing as we speak. Here's the scoop:

However, I finally decided that everyone else was having too much fun creating their own mission types, so I decided to get in on the action. I've created a new mission type for Tribes: "Flag Hunters"! (It may look familiar, the idea came from some other game I'll leave nameless).

The object? Kill everyone of course, but besides that... Everyone spawns with a flag. If you die, you drop your flag and someone else can pick it up. If you had picked up several flags before dying, you'll drop them all, plus the flag you spawned with. The object is to take as many flags as you can to the "alter". Scoring is additive, so the more flags you bring at once, the higher your score. e.g. 1 flag = 1 point, 2 flags = 1 + 2 = 3 points, n flags = 1 + ... + n points.

This hasn't been released, so the only server you can play this on is: "Kidney Thief's Domain" (address "IP:198.74.33.53:28001")

So... check it out. Keep in mind that I'm not a mission designer, so I'd appreciate any *suggestions* about which maps (I've set up 5) work, which need improvement, and which just plain suck. Also, any bugs. Please keep in mind that this was just a pet project, and not an officially sanctioned Dynamix release.

The Flamelands recently posted a new shot from Psygnosis' upcoming Drakan: Order of the Flame. The shot, of Tahkora, "the renowned skeletal dragon," is the sixth in their series of seven shots showing off the various dragons that are featured in the multiplayer game. Thanks Drakan.Net.

This thread on GT's Unreal Tournament Forum has a a couple of posts from Epic's Jack "Mek" Porter describing the possibility that Epic will conduct a similar program to Valve's Half-Life Primary Server program where free copies of the game may be distributed to server operators who have "demonstrated they can run quality Unreal 1 servers for a reasonable period of time," to help make sure UT server propagate quickly. Thanks Apache from Voodoo Extreme.

Dave at The Adrenaline Vault News sends word that the AVault is going to be hosting a chat with Terminal Reality's Nocturne development team to chat about this upcoming third-person Lovecraftian game. The chat will be this Thursday, Aug. 5 at 7:30 EDT on the AVault's IRC server. Instructions for joining the event will be announced soon.

The London Sunday Times is reporting "Gates to give away £65 billion fortune," quoting Bill Gates' dad (administrator of the William H. Gates Foundation) saying the younger Gates, the slightly well-off co-founder and CEO of Microsoft, "plans to become the biggest single benefactor in history by giving away his £65 billion fortune to help rid the planet of diseases such as Aids and malaria." Props to BetaNews for getting the scoop on this yesterday (they attributed it to Reuters where I couldn't find it, thanks to The AVault for the pointer to the Sunday Times).

Like bookends:

• Thresh's FiringSquad's Pentium III 600 Review.
• Review Zone's Intel Pentium III 600 Review.

Version 1.13 of the ReDeMpTiOn Bot for Sin is now available, offering "a seriously improved combat engine that includes Aim Leading code." Saw that on the Bot Epidemic.

The Myth of the Bugless Game is an AVault guest editorial by Jeff Morris, Programmer and QA manager for Firaxis Games talking from a developers point of view about the complaint that computer games are buggy .

Raven's John Scott updated his .plan with a worklog of his own, detailing progress on Raven's Quake II-engine game-in-progress, Soldier of Fortune. Here's the update:

* Fixed "Failed command checksum" bug
* Fixed alpha surfaces in bmodels not being rendered properly (still not perfect - but should be good enough) and not moving.
* Sorted alpha surfaces, quads and alpha bmodels properly.
* Made undulating surfaces shade smoothly
* Added screenshots to savegames.
* Routinified lightmap creation code and surface rendering - multitexture used in more situations now.
* Used sorted texture chains if multitexture available to reduce texture thrashing (previously it only rendered by texture if there was no multitexture available).
* Went out and got completely blasted Saturday night.

Just a note to say that The Blair Witch Project is bleeding awesome - thoroughly recommended.

I'm also completely hooked on the Sequencer CD by Covenant.

• Hot Hardware's 3dfx Technology Summit gives their report on their recent visit to 3dfx.
• Likewise, Beyond 3D's 3dfx Technology Summit article is online.
• Digital-Clips.com goes to Digital World Expo 99 in Hong Kong, starting the report off with the very salient question "What the hell is Digital World Expo 99?"

Quake 3 French Olympics has info (in French) about this competition (in France) that will feature two-on-two and four-on-four duels, as well as free-for-all competitions in Quake III. Just for completeness, here's the usual link to AltaVista Translations in case you are curious about the proceedings, and your Français is a bit rouillé.

• Singularity Features a MidTown Madness Vs Need for Speed: High Stakes Shootout (in spite of the non-shooting nature of the games).
• Better late than never, UGN3D reviews Turok 2: Seeds of Evil.

• There's a new screenshot posted as a BattleCruiser 3020 AD Shot of the Day, implying there may be daily shots to follow...
• The Skynet Project Tactical Combat Simulation page has some new screenshots of this Half-Life mod in progress. Thanks Killjoy...

We had another blessed event at the Blue Tower yesterday, as the first of our second pair of mourning dove eggs hatched in the flowerpot on the fire escape (can you imagine climbing down 245 flights of fire escape ladder in an emergency? There's a downside to living in the tallest building in the world). As small is the hatchling is, it's still hard to believe it came from something as tiny as the unhatched egg next to it, which is the size of a large gumball. I'd describe the mother feeding the newborn, but some of you are probably eating right now yourselves.

Link of the Day: B1FF#S K3WL H0M3 PAG3!!! As Joel , who sent this along, says: "Everything that's lame about the Web wrapped up in one page!" Also, as he did when passing along the link, let me apologize in advance.
Image of the Day: The Worlds Biggest LAN Party? Thanks Ryan.
eBay Item of the Day: eBay item 140092659 - The Blue TeamFortress Fort. Thanks Nicholas Ryan. Sure bidding starts at $10,000,000, but it's a fort, dammit! Besides, it's blue...