GameCenter has posted a preview of Sierra's upcoming tactical shooter SWAT 3 (thanks VE). The preview contains a number of images which show off the game, and one can spot a definite Rainbow Six influence in them.

SinEd Omega, a new version of SinEd based on the source code, has been released and is available for download at the Sincest site. This new version adds a 2015 texture submenu, so all the mission pack textures show up separately, a command prompt option for easy access to the map directory, as well as several other enhancements and fixes.

GamePen has posted an interview with Gearbox Software's Randy Pitchford, with Geoff Keighley asking intelligent questions about their upcoming official Half-Life add-on Oposing Force. Here's an excerpt with some info about the NPC interaction in the game:

Patrick, our programmer, has spent a good deal of time making the squad combat very fun in OpFor. The first big difference you’ll notice is that instead of just two NPC’s being able to follow the player, Cpl. Shephard can gather a whole squad together and bring them into action. Sometimes you’ll be able to talk to other soldiers over the radios you find scattered around the base and work out how to link up with them. Other times, you’ll come across a fight in progress and can jump in to help your team. We spent some time improving the AI so that the new larger squad of soldiers can act more intelligently. I hope that our programmers can spend even more time with it before release to make them even better at working as a group and avoiding damaging the player and each other.

Version 0.4a build 3 of wHeretic, a Win32 port of Heretic has been released (thanks Billy "hermetic" Wilson). This version adds new config file options, fixes issues with the MIDI code, and has a bunch of other new optimizations and fixes. To show off the new code, there are some benchmarks showing its improvements over previous versions posted on the wHeretic home page.

PCGamer Online has posted a preview of Sinistar: Unleashed, the 3D remake of the 1983 arcade space shooting classic, complete with a handful of new screenshots.

The Official System Shock 2 site has been updated, and the FAQ now features questions related to the upcoming patch as well as answers to common tech support issues. Here are the details we received regarding the upcoming patch from Irrational Games' Ken Levine, just so you know what to expect:

The primary issue to be addressed in the patch is the addition of multiplayer capabilities. The patched game will support 4 player co-operative multiplay. The patch will also include several bug fixes to problems that have become apparent since the game shipped.

In response to requests, the patch will enable some new configuration variables which will allow you to adjust gameplay elements such as weapon degradation and monster respawning. These gameplay adjustments are not recommended or supported by Irrational Games, Looking Glass Studios or Electronic Arts.

The patch is currently in final testing. It will be released as soon as we have finished the verification process.

Saw on Datumplane::Starsiege that the official TRIBES Extreme Development page is up on The Tribes Players Page, where they have also posted a "Would You Enter A Renegades League/Ladder" poll on their screenshots page.

There is now a new version 0.3 of The Jumbot for Half-Life. In the new release, bots have full use of ladders, some bugs are squashed, and the bots perform better with waypoints under water.

Freespace2.org has posted an interview with Dave Baranec, lead programmer on Freespace 2 at Volition. The interview covers a variety of topics, including the technological differences between the Freespace 2 engine, and a FPS engine like Unreal or Quake's.

Intel exiting stand-alone graphics chip business is a Reuters story that confirms the CNET News.com report from the other day (story) that Intel is leaving the graphics chip market after only one year. Thanks The Adrenaline Vault.

A new version of hlds_l_admin, the Half-Life Dedicated Server Admin program for Linux has been released (thanks Planet Half-Life). This version adds compatibility for the new 3.0.1.4 server.

Ridah made an update to the Kingpin Beta Testing page announcing that: "The Kingpin patch beta testing program is now complete. Thank you to all who participated, and especially to those who helped out with bug reports, and suggestions. Look for the official v1.20 patch to surface soon, on the official Kingpin Page."

Some strategic patching to be done: Rex from AVault sends word that the The Adrenaline Vault Downloads Patch page has an 11-some MB patch to update Dungeon Keeper 2 to version 1.5 (with a link to the original download location, as well). It is warned that the update will affect your saved games, so read up on the patch before installing it. Also, a version 3.22 Braveheart Patch has been released by Eidos, also for the North American version of the game ("if the box the game came in has a flap, you have the correct version"). This patch updates your game from version 3.09. Again a caveat about saved games -- your saved games will no longer work after applying the patch.

The Sincest For SiN page has the public release of the source-code for their Sin front-end/launcher with the terribly politically incorrect name.

Pandemic Studios has posted a new screenshot "of an ISDF Assault Tank tak(ing) one in the face." Thanks The Battlezone Nav Beacon. BattleZone2, currently in development, is the sequel to the critically acclaimed BattleZone, offering a blend of first-person action, and real-time strategy.

The DiabloII.Net Network sends word that Blizzard has released a pair of photos of prototypes of the just-announced Diablo II action figures (I love stuff like this--I still desperately need one of those Quake II Tanks). Here's a shot of the Barbarian, and here's a shot of the mummy.

Why Being a Computer Game Developer Sucks is a Slashdot feature that's generating a great deal of interest (at least judging from all the mail about it we're receiving--thanks Ant for being the first). The piece is written by Talin, a veteran game developer with over 15 years experience in the industry to back his premise.

N64Planet Interviews Joe Viviano of Raster Productions talking about their work on the Nintendo 64 port of Quake II, which also benefited from the contribution of the rogues over at Rogue.

Volition's FreeSpace2 site has two more new images of ships from their upcoming space-opera sequel, FreeSpace 2. Thanks Voodoo Extreme. The shots are presented as traditional screenshots, and alternatively as "an actual 3D model embedded within the web page using MetaStream technology," which requires the installation of the MetaStream plugin.

The mainstream gaming violence article of the week is Violence Is Where the Action Is from today's LA Times (thanks devilbunny). The piece talks about games like Grand Theft Auto, and Postal, and finishes off discussing Xatrix' Kingpin: Life of Crime. Also sent along by devilbunny is Linux gamesters, a Boston Globe article talking of the spread of penguin-powered PCs in the gaming world.

Alienware Technology is making version 1.05 of First Contact available, which is the first public beta of their new program to offer real-time voice communication to players of multiplayer games over the Internet. Games must be played on their servers, info on where to play will be sent to applicants along with a password to activate the program. Currently their test servers are all running TeamFortress Classic. This version has a 15-day evaluation period.

GASource has posted three new screenshots, showing off the outdoor levels in Venom. They're also reporting that GSC will release a Venom demo on September 1st that will feature two playable levels.

Westwood has posted a "mini-movie" from Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun, showing off gameplay footage from this soon-to-be-in-stores game. It's also available on OnlineCombat.com, if Westwood's site's a little slow.

• Adventure Gamer has posted a preview of The Longest Journey, which seems to have left quite an impression on the author.
• RPGXtreme has posted a brief preview of Septerra Core, a Japanese style RPG that Monolith is set to publish.
• GameLinks has posted a preview of Soldier of Fortune.
• Gamer's Central has previewed Wizardry 8, complete with eight new screenshots.

Gamer's Central has posted an interview with Ken Levine, the president of Irrational Games (the folk behind System Shock 2). Topics discussed include the possibility of a Shock 3 ("I wouldn't be surprised if System Shock 3 eventually happened"), his start in the industry, and other games he's playing.

id Software's Paul Steed sent along another version of the Quake III Arena Visor/Slash image he sent along the other day (story), saying "That image I gave you was screwed up for some reason. It may not be worth your time, but here's a better one..." Not sure what was wrong, but since he went to the trouble to send it along (and you know how artists are about their work), I certainly thought it was worth passing along. Here's a copy of the whopping 4 MB bitmap on Blue's News FTP (902 KB zipped), and here are the original description, the thumbnail (linked to a leaner, but still spiffy, jpeg), and the new caption Paul Sent along yesterday:

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...

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

Stu from Surreal just sent an email to say the problem pointed out in the story below this one has been fixed (I think his saying the problem would be fixed "shortly" has proven accurate). Here's the deal:

The Mplayer master server has now been fixed. All available servers should now be showing up on everyone's Join Game server list within Drakan! Note that people using GameSpy (which queried the GameSpy master server) did not experience the problem.

Drakan.Net is reporting on a post to their forum by Stu from Surreal about a problem with the in-game server browser in the newly-released Drakan: Order of the Flame (thanks Redwood). Here's the poop on the problem (BTW, they point out the fix he describes will be on the Master Server, not as a client patch):

There is a problem with the master server where when using the in-game Drakan browser, some servers do not show up on the list as valid. The problem should be fixed shortly. In the mean time, you can connect to the following servers by adding them to the list manually (using Add Server):

38.169.194.101
209.20.146.100
209.20.146.105

The Adrenaline Vault Previews FreeSpace 2 giving a thorough look ahead at the sequel to Descent FreeSpace: The Great War (the Descent part of the name has been dropped). The piece describes the new sequel as having more plot than the original, and shows off the improved graphics with eight screenshots.

3D-Unlimited interviews Jarrod Showers talking to the Raven Software animator about his work on Raven's upcoming game of mercenariness, Soldier of Fortune.

Sharky Extreme's New Blade Shots presents some new artwork and screenshots and Rebel Act Studios' upcoming 3D first-person shooter/RPG.

Tonight's Lilith & Eve is going to be a star-studded (and Steed-studded) tribute to QuakeCon '99. Here's the deal:

Friday night at 7:00pm EST, the ladies of Lilith & Eve (http://www.allgames.com/lilitheve) hit QuakeCon in force, and tonight and next week we have the footage to show from it!! Among other things, Paul Steed from id Software talks to the ladies all about his models in Q3:A, the folks from the OGL speak with Vangie about their ladders, you'll see some new gameplay and interviews about both Soldier of Fortune and Star Trek: Voyager from Raven Software (and you just gotta see the Borg!), interviews with lots of people from the gaming community (Redwood, Bill "Crash" McClendon, and PMS-BostonChick, to name a few), and lots lots more!!

Watch the show live using your Real Player (http://www.real.com ), and join us for chat by joining server chat.pseudo.com, channel #allgames.com!

• Sharky Extreme's Matrox Millennium G400 In Depth looks at Trilinear Filtering and Mip-mapping and their effect on visual quality and performance.
• Overclocking The Intel Pentium 3 To 800Mhz By The Tech Zone. Zoom! You smell something burning?

The King of the Server page has a new version 3.1 of the KOTS deathmatch mod for Quake II. KOTS saves your stats, inventory, ammo, armor, weapons, and health across games, maps, and servers. The new release offers several new features, including map voting.

The Sincest For SiN page has a new version 0.5 of the Weapons of Fury mod for Sin. the new release adds a variable that lets the server admin choose the weapon order. There's also now a command to the clients go back a weapon (in case they run out of ammo), and the weapons no longer spawn when the map starts.

• Killjoys has posted five new screenshots from the upcoming 3D RTS, Wartorn...
• The Habitat interviews the Mod Makers talking with several mod creators like Riever (Redemption bot and Sinmod), Gooseman (Action Half-Life, Action Quake 2 and Counterstrike for Half-Life), Tren (Tren's Blood 2 mods like FXEnhacer) and Crescent Moon Software who made the "Shadows of Na Pali" mod for Unreal...
• The Adrenaline Vault Downloads Patch has a new patch for TRI's new flight dealie, Fly!...
• In Honor of Ripley Founder of the Violent Femmes, May '98, Tragically lost August 11, 1999. Our condolences to her friends and family...

In a startling turn of events, I believe I may have stumbled across the answer to the question of why the news page here reloads a second time for some readers. I was noodling around with the settings in Internet Explorer 5, and I noticed a setting under the view menu called "encoding." When I changed this from Western-yada to auto-select, the news page seemed to reload, so if you are experiencing difficulties, this may help (though it may not, because a similar test by loony didn't seem to duplicate those results). If this fixes the problem for you, I'd appreciate a quick note to that effect if you have the time (or if it didn't help you for that matter). I also received a couple of note from lynx readers pointing out the news page was generating an error... turns out there was a bad link in the no-frames version of the site (which shows these were users of an older version of lynx), it's fixed now (sorry about that).

With all the new stuff going on here, the Messageboards, and all, it slipped my mind that loony is heading off on Saturday to party down with the Quake III Tour Bus crew, so I'm going to try to relax a bit today before I'm abandoned (all these changes and new features are so exciting I've been working non-stop lately, so I should pace myself better). By the way, in light of the stories that were mentioned here recently regarding ethics and journalism, we have made my long-standing policy of disclosing when accepting travel or accommodations from outside companies an official thing, so when we travel somewhere (like QuakeCon, for instance), unless it's stated otherwise, you can assume that expenses came out of the meager Blue's News travel budget. In the case of loony's trip, id Software is not paying for loony to fly down to Texas to join the bus tour, though he apparently will be able to share a hotel room with one of the folks from Activision, and Anna has promised to feed him if he's good. id invited us to join the tour for a bit, and it seemed like it would be fun enough to be worth flying down for (I just can't figure out how I lost the coin toss, when loony told me it came up heads I dropped the telephone in shock).

Link of the Day: New Jolt Flavors (thanks Alex Bischoff). Great decision, since Jolt is a great idea, but that taste is a crime against cola (before you Jolt fans flame me, remember you aren't drinking it for the taste).

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.