Epic's Jack "Mek" Porter has posted to GT's Unreal Tournament message board with some details on Unreal's new demo recording feature (thanks Dan 'Neurobasher' Gomes). Here's what he had to say:

I've been working on client-side demo recording today. I hope to have it ready by the time we ship UT. At the moment client-side demo recording is working but the first person view isn't very smooth, and I've got a few sound and message issues to sort out.

GameSpot has posted a brief preview of Interstate '82 based on a hands on test they were given. It's illustrated with eight screenshots, so put on some Men Without Hats and safety dance your way on over there.

During my foray into the isle of Manhattan earlier today, I spotted the recently shipped (story) Outcast on the shelves at two different locations. It would appear that they've wasted no time in getting this out to retailers. I also looked around for Drakan: Order of the Flame, which also has begun popping up in stores, but was unable to locate it. The game's official street date is tomorrow, so most places will be putting it out then. Just for kicks I looked for Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun, but of course it's not there yet (personally I refuse to believe the game has gone gold at all until I see it with my own eyes). Look for that to arrive in stores soon - but not now.

To clarify the Quake III Arena Image he sent along yesterday (story), Paul Steed sent along some dialog that could serve as the image's caption:

Been getting a lot of kudos for the background pic. Glad people like it. Since I've had a couple questions along the lines of 'why', etc, I wanted to explain the picture by some simple dialog:

Visor: "Baby, why do we fight so?
Slash: "Oh shut up and kiss me you fool."

Heh. Now it should make perfect sense.

Hope you aren't too bored with my board stories, but since we're feeling this out as we go along, it may continue for a while longer. Anyway, there's now a General/Miscellaneous Gaming board, for posts that don't fall into the categories covered by the other messageboards.

Saw on Billy's House o' Spice that Windows98 SE Patch to fix the problems some users have shutting down after updating their OS. The page recommends you try the How to Troubleshoot Windows 98 Second Edition Shutdown Problems before applying the patch, which I can attest to, since I had the shutdown problem and following the page's tip to change the fast reboot setting in my registry fixed it without the use of the patch.

I guess these boards are going to create themselves as we go along. I found a help wanted ad from Electronic Arts in the News messageboard, so I created a Help Wanted board and moved it there. Until the want ads section returns, this can serve in its place (perhaps this will be a permanent change). Anyway, if you need help with your game project or website for fun or profit, head on over and make with the posting already.

Dynamix' Tinman has updated his .plan with word that version 1.1 of his TRIBES mod Hunters has been released, and is available from the new Hunters page on Datumplane (as well as a TRIBESCon report). Here's the scoop on the new version:

Whew! Another busy week. Where to start... well first off, Hunters v1.1 is now available - from the Official Hunters Website! Check it out: http://hunters.datumplane.com. Much thanks to James and Schnoz over at datumplane, they've been working hard, and the site looks great!!!

Version 1.1 has a few bug fixes (what?!! bugs in *my* code?), and few new features:

- The funk that happened when switching from Hunters to another mission type (like CTF) has been cleaned up. This includes restoring the team names, restoring the team damage voting, that weird message in red that shows up when you switch teams, and the banned inventory items have been reset.

- Ever notice that once in awhile, your firing is off in "UndergroundTesting"? Well, it's fixed. Don't ask, just be happy :)

- Record flag returns are now persisted out to a file, and a new kind of record, the "Honorary Greed Award" is given to whoever *dropped* the most flags during that mission.

- A few other odds and ends - capture messages of 5 or more appear in red now, inv stations are named...

As I mentioned we might, I've gone ahead and set up two more messageboards to expand our stress test of the CGI, while providing a forum for some of the off-topic posts that have been spilling over into the Quake Arena Road Tour board. Here is a Hardware board for questions and comments about gaming machinery, and a News of the Day board, which, in light of some opinions being expressed about the opinions expressed in the editorials linked earlier, seems to be quite timely, and should serve to as a forum for such dialog until we get messages in reply to specific stories working. Enjoy!

Chess King Tom Hall updated his crezzy .plan with the latest on his mastery of the original turn-based strategy game (Chess), as well as word on the state of Anachronox, which I am going to trim down in the time-honored tradition of movie reviews (I hope Tom doesn't mind):

"Anachronox is looking spiffy...dang if it don't look pretty....And the stuff you get to do is pretty neat. Everyone's psyched...crezzy stuff...spiffy!"

The French ProMac Webzine has posted an Unreal Tournament preview that offers a look ahead at the game en Français (here's the customary BableFish link for your translation needs), along with eight new screenshots (worth the proverbial 8,000 words in any language).

Strong feelings expressed in the following pieces do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Blue's News. Here are some articles voicing discontent with some of what is going on with the direction of Quake III Arena:

• What looks to be the final update to Mad Dog's CFG page takes issue with the removal of the Alias command, unhappy that John Carmack is now sympathetic to the opinion that aliases are a form of cheating. Thanks Doug Chopin.
• Can id Software Make a Real Game is a DarkNews editorial calling id's gamemaking skill into question. The article's history is not 100% accurate, though that doesn't mean the author isn't entitled to hold that opinion.
• Who Watches the Watchmen is an editorial by ace skinner Rorshach (looks like the title of his article covers the pop culture game on this one) complaining about the Q3Test EULA's restrictions on modifications. Again, his history is not truly accurate -- id has always permitted heavy modification of their retail games, but has always restricted modification of their demos and shareware in order to preserve the reasons for buying the full releases.
• While posting what may be controversial opinion pieces, I'll pass along The Smoking Gun, written a while back by Andrew Smith delving further into what he believes to be the inner workings of GameSpy Industries with an almost inexplicable scrutiny.

Some bot updates, all gleaned from the pages of the Bot Epidemic. First, Adion Coolman's Quake Homepage has the second release of the AdionBot for Quake II (version 0.15). This is a test release, and the author says it may not provide a great challenge, but the new version supports teamplay "and can already roam through the level and use most of the items. Only things not working are walking up stairs and other slopes." Also, a small update to the The Jumbot for Half-Life should clear up the problems some were having running it. Finally, there's word there of a small update to the CronosBots for Quake, but I can't seem to get though to that page.

Westlake Interactive has posted a follow-up to the newly released beta 6 of MacUnreal version 224. The update reiterates that they are unable to provide technical support, so they've posted a troubleshooting page for MacUnreal. The page is an effort to cut down on the flood of emails asking for help, which they say is the only way they will be able to settle down and finish their work. Here's their report on why this is so necessary:

We still have tentative plans to try to do a final update of Unreal, rolling in changes from Unreal Tournament that may help stability. Whether or not we are able to do this will depend a lot on how much time we have to spend answering email from people asking for help. After providing free updates for a year on Unreal, while the PC version continues to change and force us to re-write our code, we can say the frustration level with Unreal is pretty high (probably close to that of people who have trouble getting it to run). When the frustration becomes too much, we may have to cut our losses (literally) and end work on Unreal Mac.

Datumplane::Starsiege has posted a response to a question the sent off to Dynamix programmer Mark Frohnmayer inquiring about TRIBES2 support for 3DNow!, and "all the other alphabet soup processors ... (SMP, MMX)," receiving the following amusing reply:

Mark: Yes, tribes 2 will be fully acronym compliant.

GameSpot's The Inside Dope offers gameplay tips from several prominent game developers, focusing on strategy-oriented games. The piece offers tips on Age of Empires, Imperialism II, Total Annihilation, Heroes of Might and Magic II, Railroad Tycoon II, Grand Prix Legends, StarCraft: Brood War, and more, from figures in the industry such as Ritual's Richard "Levelord" Gray, Valve's Gabe Newell, Firaxis' Brian Reynolds, and Blizzard's Bill Roper.

AMD and Intel both making news today:

• Athlon Test Results Called Into Question is a TechWeb story saying that AMD may be fudging their benchmarks: "According to FutureMark, AMD modified the 3DMark 99 MAX test by optimizing the DLL test code for its recently released Athlon. AMD's own test results demonstrated that in one of the two 3DMark tests, the 600-MHz Athlon outperformed the 600-MHz Pentium III by over 30 percent. Of the 13 test results accompanying AMD's Athlon press release, the 3DMark figures were among the highest in favor of the chip." Thank Steve.
• Intel retreats from graphics chips reports CNET News.com that says: "Intel is getting out of the business of making discrete graphics chips for personal computers, according to a company spokesman, a market it entered less than 18 months ago to fanfare and dismal sales." Thanks Larry Huffman and Jacek Fedoryñski.

There are some newly posted System Shock 2 cheats on Computer Games Online. I don't know if there are any new cheats listed here that weren't in the GameWinners.com list we posted the other day, but there it is if you're too stuck to continue (as always, trying to muddle through without the codes is recommended, but obviously it's your call).

Make it so! Okay, wrong Trek series. Anyway, there are ten Star Trek Voyager Screenshots on Computers R Us showing off action from Raven & Activision's upcoming Quake III-engine Star Trek game.

On the heels of their preview, there are a bunch of New Codename Eagle Screenshots on GA-Source showing off gameplay from Codename: Eagle, an upcoming 3D-action adventure game from Take 2. They describe the game as looking to "blend the adventuring of the Tomb Raider series with action/strategy of N64's GoldenEye."

Rounding out our batch of screenshot stories comes word from Beyond 3D that they've posted a bunch of shots showing off the capabilities of the PVRSG-based Neon 250 from VideoLogic. The shots show action from System Shock 2, Castrol Honda Superbike 2000, Drakan: Order of the Flame, and X - Beyond The Frontier. Finally, Bigkid.com.au has posted some GP 500 screenshots and a gameplay movie. This a racing game (I just thought I'd mention it while talking screenshots).

SimHQ.com interviews David Seeholzer, producer of the upcoming tank-sim dealie, Armored Fist 3, about progress on the game, as well as stuff about NovaLogic in general.

The Adrenaline Vault News has word on what's expected in the first patch for the new Diablo-like action/RPG. Darkstone. No date is set for the patch release, but they give a rundown on planned features and fixes and describe the end effect like this: "Overall, there will be improved object management, with none of the lost or duplication of objects some users have reported. And characters will no longer be able to shoot through doors, also an isolated occurrence."

Planet Half-Life has word on updates to the Command Center's unabridged list of commands and variables over on the Commands Page to reflect the additions and changes in the yesterday's new Half-Life patch. The cmds and cvars list now has info on how to kick and ban players (there's a detailed explanation on the new ways to kick and ban people on the How to page). They have also extracted some info on how to set an LPB or HPW-only server. Also, word from I (Randy, actually) at I.Am-Half-Life is that he's busily updating his own Half-Life Console Help page to reflect the new version, as well.

GASource has posted a development update from Bryn Bennett of The Xyla Development Team, with the latest update on their action title Disfigured. The game uses a third person perspective, but also contains a first person view, as well as a "fighting game" mode for hand to hand combat. There are two new screenshots up as well to help illustrate the different modes.

GameDaily has posted an interview with Looking Glass' managing director Paul Neurath (thanks Through the Looking Glass). The interview focuses largely on his background, as well as some of their upcoming and current titles, including System Shock 2, Flight Unlimited III, and Thief 2.

AVault has posponed this evening's planned Unreal Tournament chat (story) until Thursday, August 26th. They're also saying that new details regarding the chat will be released on Monday, August 23rd.

Version 1.6 (which may be the final version) of Heretic II CTF has been released, and is available for download over at HereticII.com (thanks Frans). This version has a ton of changes, including new free for all and team DM gameplay modes.

There's a Gabe Newell Interview on Silent News talking to Valve's co-founder and Managing Director about life at Valve, games in general, and Half-Life in particular.

The first installment in IPlayGames' Kingpin Mapping Guide is up giving a rundown on "the basics" of creating levels for Xatrix' Quake II-engine life-of-crime game.

SingNet Games News sends word of a problem some Linux server operators may be having because of an early build of the Half-Life dedicated server they downloaded through the primary server program. Here's a description of the problem, and a solution they offer as an alternative to going through the whole download again:

Just though I needed to share some important info on the new halflife server patches. This concerns only the LINUX primary server programs. Apparently, the earlier ones by fileplanet and WON (ver 3013) are of (Aug 9 build 1019) as compared to the ones on the WON website (ver 3014) (Aug 17 build 1027).

The latest build of the server program is more stable and does a decent proper shutdown. I have checked the 2 server builds and the only difference lies in the 2 binaries.

So, for server ops who have downloaded the earlier version, I have extracted the 2 binaries from the file hlds_l30133014.tar.gz found on WON website. Server ops need just to copy and overwrite the existing 2 server binaries. The file can be found on our gamesadmin website. Alternately, FileLink: http://web.singnet.com.sg/~quake/hlds3014.zip

PlanetUnreal has posted a five question Q&A with Epic's Jack "Mek" Porter talking about the way the HTTP administrative interface for Unreal Tournament servers will work, showing the interface off with a few screenshots.

A new version of the ReDeMpTiOn bot for Sin is out, ported to the Wages of Sin add-on for Sin. Version 1.00 of the port is said to be about three months behind the regular Sin version, and does not yet offer support for the WoS hoverbikes. Thanks Bot Epidemic.

Uwe Girlich's Demo Specs page has an updated version 1.1.2 of the recording FAQ and a new version of the MUlti-Level DEmo Repair kit (MULDER), which can now remove download sections in DM2 demo files and strips commands that disturb demo playback. There's also a new version 3.2.9 of The Little Movie Processing Centre, the uber-demo utility. Finally, Uwe mentioned how he plans on handling his passion for delving into demos when Quake III Arena is released:

Some comments on the DM3 support in LMPC: I'm working on it (Who really didn't expected it?) but the source code and the resulting binaries are not included into the distributed packages (legal reasons).

I.Am-Half-Life has a few warnings up for folks updating their half-Life to version 1.0.1.3, these two seem worth passing along:

• The update will overwrite your TFC autoexec.cfg file, so be sure to keep a backup of Half-Life/tfc/autoexec.cfg to avoid having to re-create all of your binds, aliases, and scripts. Your Half-Life/valve/autoexec.cfg and any TFC map- and class-specific configs (spy.cfg, 2fort.cfg, etc.) should be safe, but I'd back them up too just to be sure.
• Demos recorded under previous versions cannot be played back by the Half-Life v1.0.1.3. Attempts to play old demos will give an error message similar to: ERROR: demo protocol outdated, Demo file protocols 38N:4D, Server protocol is at 39N:D. I hope whatever "Demo playback fixed" means is worth the hassle :)

Computer Games Online's Blast Radius asks the musical question: 3D shooters—what next? The column examines the crop of upcoming first and third-person shooters, and discusses whether such games can offer an exceptional experience for both solo and multiplayer play.

PC.IGN.COM previews Interstate '82 with today's second look ahead at the sequel to I'76, where you again drive and shoot your way through your adventures in the finest Starsky and Hutch tradition. The piece offers their extensive impressions from playing the most recent build, talking of how impressed they are with its progress in the year since they posted their first preview of the game.

If you're feeling *flinch* tweaky. There's a bit in the G400 Tweak story for registered Matrox developers:

• G400 Tweak & Driver Development
  The Matrox User's Resource Centre has an updated version of the G400 Tweak utility that gives G400 owners access to some of the PD 5x registry settings. New in this release is the ability to install it has a Display Properties panel as well as a control panel as in the previous version. On a more techie note, the Developer Relations section of the Matrox website has the WARP driver development kit for registered developers. "The DDK will allow third party developers to write drivers that take full advantage of the hardware acceleration of the G200 and G400."
• Powertweak 2.0
  A beta version of Powertweak 2.0 is available, supporting optimizations for AMD K6, K6-2, K6-3, Pentium Pro, II, III, and Celeron CPUs. Thanks Tweak3D by way of Beta Bites.

Next-Generation Online previews Interstate '82 offering a few short paragraphs about Activision's upcoming game of road rage that picks up six years down the road from Interstate '76, along with eight new screenshots. I'82 is currently expected to ship sometime this Fall.

A reminder that The Adrenaline Vault is hosting an online chat session with some of the gang at Epic Games to discuss progress on Unreal Tournament. The chat is slated for tonight at 7:30 EDT, and presumably details on where to go to check this out will be posted sometime today.

3DsoundSurge interviews Stuart Denman and Tim Ebling of Surreal talking about the use of sound and music in their just-released Drakan: Order of the Flame.

Power Gamerz Interviewz Nick Triantos talking to this developer from NVIDIA about the current state-of-the-art in video accelerators.

A new version 0.2 of The Jumbot for Half-Life is now available. Apparently one of the new features in the new version 1.0.1.3 of Half-Life is enhanced bot support, and the Jumbo takes advantage of this. The new release also fixes all known stability problems, a Windows NT incompatibility, and a weapon selection bug, the bots now use secondary fire much more intelligently, and there are many other new features and enhancements. There are also tips there to try to help if you are having problems running the bot.

GA-Source's First Look at Codename Eagle looks ahead at this upcoming first-person shooter from Take 2 offering eight screenshots giving a feel for what the game looks like.

3D Wars Voodoo3 3500 TV giveaway offers a shot at one of 3dfx latest boards. Thanks GBFan.

Four of the six finalist in the Female Frag Fest 1999 have been determined, the finalist have won the right to compete in the finals at the upcoming Ground ZERO LAN event in NYC. The site has commentary from the participant about the competition. While on the subject, Norwell9 sends along a big Midwest LAN party update pointing out that there is a LAN party scheduled in the Midwest USA during each weekend in September: First week: Stompfest 3, Second week: SOGA Campus Mayhem, Third week: Lan-O-Trauma, and Fourth Week: LanWar.

• Gamecenter's Separated at Birth II offers more comparisons between computer game characters and some real-life counterparts...
• GA-Source's First Look at AIWars examines AIWars- The Awakening, an upcoming first-person 3D action/strategy cyberpunk game using Eclipse Entertainment's Genesis 3D engine. the piece includes eight screenshots...
• PC Zone's Bill Roper interview talks about what's going on in Blizzard's upcoming Diablo II. Also, meant to post this earlier, Act One - No. 130 is the most recent Diablo II screenshot of the week...
• Pentagon Looks for High-Tech Help from Film is a NY Times article describing plans to recruit film and video game makers to help create military simulators. Thanks Kevin McGuire...
• Search engines can be tricked into serving up porn sites is an MSNBC article that quotes the AVault/CPL's Angel Munoz describing how he searched for his site and got pr0n instead...
• "Two of the Team Fortress Community's oldest and most obnoxious radio personalities" are preparing to do a marathon ShoutCast show: you can find servers and locations for Radio Free Tampa (Formerly Radio Free Falconeer), a four hour shoutcast broadcast with Falconeer and The Sentinel, by visiting #tfbarandgrill on west.gamesnet.net or east.gamesnet.net tonight at 8:00 PM EDT...

Just gonna blather about the new messageboard again for a bit... it looks like the CPU is holding steady, and since folks are using the Q3Tour board for off-topic posts, we'll probably launch a couple of other more general boards today (suggestions on this are welcome) to cover the overflow and expand the stress testing. Furn tells me the only evidence of any problems anyone may be having is a glitch for MSIE 3.0 users (it whacks ampersands into HTML), and it sounds like the solution for this seems to be to upgrade your browser.

Happy Birthday to sCary.

Link of the Day: Technology News from Wired News reports on a "Plasma-Powered Trip to the Stars" (thanks DNapalm). More real science meets Star Trek: "the Mini-Magnetospheric Plasma Propulsion system, or M2P2, has a maximum speed of 180,000 miles per hour, or 4.3 million miles a day...Although it cannot be used within earth's atmosphere, the system could theoretically shoot a spacecraft across the continental United States in just 10 seconds." Okay, it's not quite warp speed, but it beats walking.

Jenni from Valve sends word of a bit more news about patching Half-Life to version 1.0.1.3 that may help owners of the UK Game of the Year edition. There are also eight new mods available on their mod server. Here's the poop:

The new update to the Half-Life client (v. 1013) is now posted at: http://www.won.net/gamerooms/action/half-life/.

Also, in support of the mod community, we have posted 8 mods to our mod server, including Counterstrike, Action Half-Life, and Science & Industry. (Click refresh in the mod browser to view the new mods.) With the new features in HL v. 1013, it's now even easier to find and download mods.

We have posted the v. 1013 update for the UK version of the Game of the Year at: http://ftp.won.net/pub/half-life/english/10111013.exe. This will fix the problems some UK users have been experiencing today.

The MacUnreal 224 beta 5 with the mouse problems that was "yoinked" earlier (story), has been replaced by a new MacUnreal 224 beta 6 on the Westlake Interactive website. Like beta 5, beta 6 "mainly adds tweaks for RAVE (to try to make the game more stable)," includes high-resolution support for Voodoo3, and additionally fixes the problem in beta 5 that caused the mouse to stop working. For space reasons, UnrealFinder is not included in the beta, but you can download it here.

GA-Source sends word that they've received the news that the US release of Outcast, Appeal's third-person voxel-loving action/adventure title, has shipped and should be in stores by the week's end. I also noticed on The Outcast website that they've got that whopping huge Outcast demo for download, now split into a whole bunch of 10 MB chunks (you're talking a big demo when the small chunks are that size).

Frans at 3D Action Gamers sends word that WON has released one more Half-Life patch. This newest patch upgrades the English version 1.0.1.1 to the new version 1.0.1.3. Version 1.0.1.1 was the version that shipped as the "Half-Life Game of the Year" edition (thanks nova for clearing that up). This latest patch, and all the international versions released earlier (story) are now mirrored on 3D Action Gamers if you were having trouble with the downloads when they were from a single source.

It's awfully quiet at the newsdesk at the moment, so I thought I'd post a reminder that tonight's Talkspot GameDive talks with Dynamix Programmer Mark Frohnmayer, and former TRIBES designer Scott Youngblood. The conversation will discuss TRIBES, TRIBES2, TribesCon’99, and Scott’s recent departure from Dynamix. Everything kicks off at 10:00 PM EDT (7:00 PDT), RealPlayer required.

Billy posted word on Voodoo Extreme that Gathering of Developers and Delphine are preparing to release a playable demo from their isometric-view RPG, perhaps as soon as next week. The demo should be about a 30 MB download.

The Starlancer/Freelancer HQ has posted a Q&A with Eric Peterson, lead designer on Starlancer (thanks AGN3D). It includes this tidbit, which sort of explains the relationship between the two different "lancer" games:

...Starlancer is the first of a trilogy that all preclude Freelancer, so hopefully you will see two more Starlancers in the future.

The GibPile has posted a ten question Q&A with Human Head's Mike Werckle (it doesn't say it there, but I did some of that patented Blue's News reconnaissance work and discovered his identity) talking about their Unreal engine Viking fest RUNE. Pull up some grog, grab a wench, and take a read.

Whee! It's time for this week's Mail Bag. In this week's action packed installment: QuakeCon gripes, System Shock 2, Delta Force cheating, the Blue's News effect, and what the heck is "Mike Abrash's Winnie" anyway? Wacky stuff...be sure to check it out.

Westlake Interactive has temporarily yoinked that version of MacUnreal that was released earlier today (story) due to a bug (thanks Lockup). Here's what the page currently reads:

*** Links are temporarily disabled while we track a problem in B5 with mouse look ****

Thresh's Firing Squad has posted a side-by-side comparison of shots from the maps in Q3Test with images from Thresh's visit to id way back when. While there's nothing earth shatteringly new here, it's an interesting glimpse into the development of these levels.

Kali.net has news of the release of a new revision B of the Kali II beta. Thanks dragor. In addition to solving some problems with the previous beta, the new release adds the following:

• Added support for: Darkstone
• Fixed DirectPlay and custom games bug.
• Can now choose whether TCP search results go to a popup window or to main chat window.
• Rewrote mail (now appears as an index in the main tree list on the left).

There's a Glaze 3D & Bitboy Interview on The Tech Zone talking to this Finnish 3D-graphics company about their recently announced Glaze3D, an upcoming accelerator that promises ground-breaking performance according to preliminary specs.

Apache, high-falootin' new editor at GameFan sends word that he's posted an interview with Epic's PR machine, Mark Rein. The topics covered include the status of Unreal Tournament, the demo, possible console ports, "and more..."

The Intel Owner's Club Goodies page has been updated with new info on their upcoming exclusive debut of the Battlezone 2 demo mentioned earlier (story). Instead of being available this Friday, a new release date has been posted: the following Friday, August 27. Thanks Judo Chop. In the meantime, there are screensavers and wallpaper at the Intel Owner's Club Goodies page to tide you over.

Duane at WON sends word of a bunch of patches they've posted for users of the International version of Half-Life along with some Linux releases, etc.:

Here are links to the new half life files that just went up.. You can see the language in the URL. The file names tell the version changes (1005 to 1013) the ones that start at 1005 are 20Meg, the others are less than 2 meg.. The files are still pushing to the outside world.

http://ftp.won.net/pub/half-life/english/10051013.EXE
http://ftp.won.net/pub/half-life/english/10091013.EXE
http://ftp.won.net/pub/half-life/english/10101013.EXE

http://ftp.won.net/pub/half-life/french/f10051013.EXE
http://ftp.won.net/pub/half-life/french/f10111013.EXE
http://ftp.won.net/pub/half-life/german/g10051013.EXE
http://ftp.won.net/pub/half-life/german/g10111013.EXE
http://ftp.won.net/pub/half-life/italian/i10051013.EXE
http://ftp.won.net/pub/half-life/italian/i10111013.EXE
http://ftp.won.net/pub/half-life/korean/nv10051013.EXE
http://ftp.won.net/pub/half-life/korean/nv10101013.EXE
http://ftp.won.net/pub/half-life/spanish/s10051013.EXE
http://ftp.won.net/pub/half-life/spanish/s10111013.EXE
http://ftp.won.net/pub/half-life/server/win32/hlserver4013.exe
http://ftp.won.net/pub/half-life/server/win32/hlserver10124013.EXE
http://ftp.won.net/pub/half-life/server/linux/hlds_l3014.tar.gz
http://ftp.won.net/pub/half-life/server/linux/hlds_l3013upgrd.tar.gz
http://ftp.won.net/pub/half-life/server/linux/hlds_l30133014.tar.gz
http://ftp.won.net/pub/half-life/server/linux/hlds_l3013.tar.gz

Westlake Interactive has posted a new version 224 beta 5 patch for the Macintosh version of Unreal. This patch only works with a beta of MacUnreal 224 previously installed, and mainly offers fixes for RAVE (to increase stability) and added support for Voodoo3 cards. The file is also available on 3DFiles Unreal patches page.

As promised, Valve has released a version 1.0.1.3 patch for Half-Life, in three different flavors: Here are local copies (with mirror lists to be updated as they are reported) of the version 1.0.0.5 to 1.0.1.3 patch (21.6 MB), the version 1.0.0.9 to 1.0.1.3 patch (1.9 MB), and the version 1.0.1.0 to 1.0.1.3 patch (1.2 MB). Here's the lowdown on the new version:

• The mod browser now supports .zip file decompression.
• We've added a new feature for server operators called 'TF Stats', which takes server log files and creates a web page with the results of your TFC match. TF Stats also gives awards for various feats accomplished during the game, like the "Swiss Cheese" award for the person with the most kills using the assault cannon, and the "Kamikaze" award for the player who dies the most times by his/her own hand. (Refer to \halflife\tfc\manual\TFStats.htm for instructions.)
• The server now allows banning by WON uniqueid. (Refer to TFCServer.htm located in your \halflife\tfc\manual folder.)
• We've updated the TFC manual with information about running a TFC server.

We've also included these fixes:

• We fixed the problem where too many packets were being sent at sign-on (this was causing problems for cable modem users).
• Team 4 can now score on 4-player TFC maps. -
• We fixed the Soldier's nail grenades in TFC.
• Demo Playback is fixed.

The following fixes (which were released earlier with the HL v. 1012 Primary Server Release) are also included:

• Userinfo overrun is fixed.
• Spies feigning death in doorways will no longer drop all clients on server.
• Grenades will no longer detonate if you change teams.
• The dedicated server no longer requires hw.dll for authentication.
• The dedicated server will heartbeat with +map in the command line.

The official Unreal Tournament FAQ has been updated with a single new bit of information (as usual, spotted by sharp-eyed Frans at 3D Action Gamers'). The answer to the question "When is Unreal Tournament coming out?" has been changed. Where that formerly read Spring 1999 (the horse is obviously out of the barn on that now), the answer now reads: "Fall of 1999...can't be more specific than that."

Saw on Unreal Nation that there's an update on Witchboy's Cauldron from ION Storm Designer Harvey "Witchboy" Smith talking about pop culture, and offering a "Generic Update" on the progress of ION's upcoming Unreal-engine action/RPG, Deus Ex. Here's the G.U. on D.E.:

things are going well for deus ex. we have missions 01-03 in a playable state. some of the later missions, out of sequence, are about as far along. the game is a *lot* denser now with minute-to-minute interactions due to some of the game mechanics we've added. this has consumed most of our time lately. and our story elements have gotten a lot cooler in the last couple of months due to some re-focusing and the excellent job our new writer (sheldon pacotti) has done. it feels like the team is really on a roll now.

A Shadow Man Demo FAQ is now online to answer common questions about the demo for Acclaim's third-person game of Voodoo mojo. Thanks Frans at 3D Action Gamers'.

Version 2.0 of The Heretic Fortress, a teamplay mod for Raven's Heretic II, is now available. Their updated list of changes page and updated gameplay section give the full lowdown on the mod, and what's new. Thanks again Frans at 3D Action Gamers'.

I mentioned earlier that both loony and I might be away for a while this afternoon visiting EA, but with a Half-Life release on the way, I stayed to hold down the fort, so you're stuck with me.

AVault has posted an in-game movie from Sierra that shows off their upcoming space battle game Homeworld. The movie is available in Microsoft's Media Player streaming format in different bandwidths from 28.8 to 300k.

We've received word that Psygnosis and Surreal Studios' Drakan: Order of the Flame has begun appearing in Electronics Boutique stores. Word from the publisher is that it was set to appear in stores by Friday, so check back tomorrow if it hasn't shown up near you yet.

PSX.IGN is reporting that the PlayStation version of Quake II is almost finished, and should be moving on to Sony's QA department for final testing in the next couple of weeks. If that happens as planned, the game will be on store shelves in September.

Human Head's Mike Werckle updated his .plan with word that they're looking to hire animators for their game in progress Rune in the near future. Here are the details (for full contact info, read the full .plan):

I would like to make contact with animators who are interested in coming to work for Human Head Studios in the near future. A strong art background, solid character animation skills and a willingness to relocate to Madison, WI are a must. Experience with games and with Softimage are plusses.

We are a small team-oriented company that is committed to quality. No corporate non-sense, no politics or in-fighting, no contracts. Just honest hard working people, flexible hours, free pop and snacks, and much more.

Well-Rounded Games has posted an interview with Red Storm's Greg Stelmack, one of the game designers on Rogue Spear (the sequel to Rainbow Six). Lots of stuff is discussed here, including the debate over the Kosovo mission (which is a bone of contention with some), the new weapons, and lots of other gameplay issues.

Paul Steed was nice enough to send along an "exclusive" Quake III Arena image that was created for magazine advertisements. Here's the BMP version on our FTP server (849 KB) for you purists (it unzips to close to 4 MB), and here's a thumbnail link to a jpeg of the 1280x1024 32-bit color shot, along with Paul's description.

This is something I did for an advertisement idea to be in magazines sometime in the next few months or so. With the exception of a few minor Photoshop enhancements, the characters are rendered from their in-game model selves featuring cool Kenneth Scott skinnery. Makes a great windows background...

Saw in IPlayGames that this page on Descent-3.com has what's new in the upcoming Descent 3 version 1.1 patch.

The version of the day on Q3Center's Q3Tweak page is Q3Tweak version 1049. Thanks Voodoo Extreme. The new release of this tweak util for Windows Q3Test users fixes a "stupid bug" with a busted path to the executable, fixes some other bugs, and adds a few new features, including a VISE installer to avoid problems users have had with the WinZip self-extractor.

Epic's Brandon "Don't Burn My Pokemon" Reinhart updated his .plan and included news on his own efforts at coding an Unreal Tournament Linux client, echoing the words of Outrage's Jeff Slutter about Linux Descent 3 posted earlier (story). Here's that part of the update:

Some people have asked me what the status of the UT Linux client is. Well, the answer to that is to refer you to Joe Slutter's recent comments on the status of the Descent 3 Linux Client:

"Some things left to do on it before release. No sound yet. No joystick yet. A few minor bugs here and there, nothing major (that is known). Oh yeah, some thread issues need to be solved for internet name lookup too."

That's pretty much my status exactly. Wonder if he's been lookin at my code? :P

As the second part of the Nocturne preview they kicked off yesterday, Thresh's FiringSquad interviews Terminal Reality talking with Mark Randel, president and lead programmer and Jeff Mills, Nocturne production lead about their new horror game, Nocturne.

Saw on the Bot Epidemic that version 0.97 of the Cajun Bot for Doom is out, offering an update to the AI opponent for the true old-school deathmatcher. Thankfully, I don't believe it offers an Adam Sandler/Cajun Man skin or sound pack.

Billy sends word of a post to the Descent BulletinBoard by Outrage Entertainment's Jeff Slutter announcing that he's been working on a Linux Descent 3 client, which he plans on releasing as soon as he works out a couple of features and squashes a few bugs. Here's the poop:

Question:Is there a D3 client for linux? I know there is a dedicated server.

Jeff (Outrage):Heh, funny you should ask. Yes there is one, but no it's not released [yet]. I just built it again today for the first time in awhile and played a little multiplayer on PXO with it.

Some things left to do on it before release. No sound yet. No joystick yet. A few minor bugs here and there, nothing major (that is known). Oh yeah, some thread issues need to be solved for internet name lookup too.

I hope to start working on it again...to get it out there. Glide is pretty stable. OpenGL works, but I've only tested it with my 3Dfx card and I know it needs a little more. I just installed a G400 on my machine so I can test with that too hopefully.

This Intel Owner's Club Goodies page has word they will have exclusive downloads of the BattleZone II demo on August 20, 1999, "Only at Intel® Owners Club." The system requirements on the page note that "This is a US game demo only." Thanks Geoff Stafford. The Intel Club is also passing along some of the questions readers submit on this page to the director of Battlezone II, George Collins, with the answers to be published with their next newsletter.

Phase 1 of Glide Underground's GenCon wrap-up is up offering photos and product previews, with a promise of interviews, "and perhaps an MP3 of the press conference with Walter Koenig," still to come. Also, GenCon Follies is the Gamecenter wrap-up of the event, posted last Friday.

• Adrian's Rojak Pot's BIOS Optimization Guide has been updated, and now offers a new comments page for readers to add their relies. Word is AJP is celebrating their first anniversary on the 20th, so cheers to them (I'll drink to that).
• Thresh's FiringSquad's Vantec P3D-5030 Heatsink Review.
• Chip Testers' Weekly Hardware Price Update.
• RIVA Extreme's What is Oxygen Project? is an article that describes this "multimillion-dollar, five-year project that involves some 30 faculty members from the Laboratory for Computer Science, working in collaboration with the M.I.T. Artificial Intelligence Lab. It will help people do more, by doing less." Sounds good to me.

Axis Productions has posted the new version 1.3 of their Rock/Paper/Scissors (RPS) mod for Quake II. The new release offers a "new 'cube-holding' effect, cube respawning problems fixed, removed quad and invincibility, and numerous minor bug fixes." RPS is a server-side mod, so clients do not need to download anything to play.

• Exxtreme3D reviews DarkStone.
• Extreme Hardware reviews the VideoLogic SonicVortex2.
• 3D Spotlight reviews the ELSA 3D REVELATOR Glasses.
• Freak! reviews the 3DLabs Oxygen VX1 Graphics Adapter.
• AnandTech reviews the Tyan Tomcat i810 motherboard.

• Beta Bites Staff Asheron's Call Beta Journal is up with impression of this RPG currently in testing...
• The G Spot has some replacement icons for all three generations of Quake...
• Converted^2 has posted an interview with the team behind the Star Wars conversion for Quake II, still in the works. More mod news: The RadioActive Software Chronicles page has new screenshots from this upcoming Half-Life "expansion pack"...
• The Adrenaline Vault Downloads Patch has a new version 3.22 patch for Braveheart. They have also posted a Microsoft NFL Fever 2000 Playable Demo...
• NovaWorld Cheat Resolution Announced is a follow-up on AVault to the story linked yesterday about online cheating...
• Part three of Computer Games Online's Dungeon Keeper 2 strategies are online...

I can't be more pleased with the response to the new Quake III Arena Bus Tour message board, my hat is off to furn, our resident boy genius™, for his usual yeoman effort at hand-coding the board from scratch. His code shows its usual lean meanness, the CPU load barely budged when the boards came on line (a feat perhaps only other website operators can really appreciate). Stay tuned for more on what features are planned for the future which will lead to the launch of other boards. I also want to thank the ever-amazing Walter |2| Costinak for the terrific logo for the messageboard, and I think that Anna from id deserves special thanks from all for the effort she's putting into answering so many posts on the board.

There will probably be a gap this afternoon with no updates, loony and I have a chance to check out some new stuff with Electronic Arts. Since they are visiting our fair metropolis, we'll probably both make the trip to see what they've got for us to see, though I'm feeling a bit ill (hence the slightly late start this evening/morning), so I may beg off. P.S. More anniversary schtuff: Cheers to Clan Steel Maelstrom on their third anniversary, and still going strong.

Link of the Day: The Onion, where a front-page story reads "Quake Claims 500 Hours" Thanks Mongrel and Amergin. It's a sad tale: "Rescue workers are still searching frantically for any signs of unwasted time in the wreckage of high-school student Jeremy Fanshaw's life, following a devastating Quake game that claimed an estimated 500 hours of his time." Damn do I love the Onion. Have you seen their paperback book? Highly recommended.
Bonus Link: BALLOON-BORNE INSTRUMENT COLLECTS ANTIMATTER. That's right, more real science straight out of Star Trek. Thanks cannelbrae.