PlanetUnreal has posted a brief Q&A with Epic's Tim Sweeney regarding the upcoming Unreal Tournament demo and its compatibility with the existing UnrealED. According to Tim, the current editor should work fine, and any maps created for the demo should work with the retail Unreal Tournament (although this is of course subject to change before the game goes gold).

Since so many of you out there (myself and Blue included) are currently enjoying your new Dreamcast systems, or eagerly anticipating getting one, I felt this story deserved pointing out. According to GameSpot TV, due to a manufacturing glitch at one of the four plants that make the proprietary GD-ROM discs that the DC uses, there are a number of faulty Sonic Adventure and Blue Stinger CDs out there (and possibly others, including Ready 2 Rumble). They put the figure at less than ten percent, but it could be more than that as this story is just now being reported (thanks to Dan Petersen for pointing it out). If you think yours is defective, call 1-800-872-7342 or e-mail support@sega.com.

Well, the Female Frag Fest '99 finals have come to a close, and Lilith has walked away with the gold. In second place is QGz:Shakes (who apparently had a really close match earlier this evening with Foo, where it came down literally to the last minute), with Lucidity in third. I'm told that on tomorrow night's Lilith & Eve (no relation) Killcreek will be presenting the award to the winner. Look for demos from the finals to show up on NetGames soon, but you can check out the stats now at their FFF page.

UnrealUniverse has posted four giant screenshots from Legend's Wheel of Time, that actually don't show off the amazing architecture, but instead show off the different monsters in the game. Considering there really haven't been any screenshots of them before, they're definitely worth checking out.

Planet-TRIBES has posted a Q&A with Scott Rudit, the lead designer at Dynamix on Starsiege: TRIBES Extreme, discussing a variety of issues with this special edition of TRIBES that's coming soon.

It would appear that the story regarding the death of the Qoole editor was a bit...premature. Billy "cool" Wilson has posted an e-mail he received from Matt "WhiteFang" Ayres in which he not only says it's not dead, but provides a link to the latest build. Apparently Matt was misquoted - Qoole isn't dead, it's just on hold until "it's time to do Q3 support" and he definitely plans to continue the project.

Epic's Cliff Bleszinski updated his .plan with an actual image showing off the (rather bloody) decals from Unreal Tournament that were talked about earlier (story).

GameSpot has posted a new preview of Shiny's Messiah, based on a new build of the game that Interplay provided them with. According to the preview, the game is virtually complete, and, "all that's left now is for it to undergo QA and some minor AI and engine tweaking" (thanks Frans).

Missed this in the AM: GameSpot's Tactical Simulation Situation Update is online offering some thoughts on the upcoming crop of the shooters that stress your planning and execution as much as (if not more than) your fast reflexes. The twist of this article is that it takes some real-life commandos and has them put such upcoming games as Delta Force 2, Rogue Spear, Spec Ops II: Green Berets, and SWAT 3: Close Quarters Battle to get their expert opinion of whether they can walk the walk as well as they talk the talk (or however that goes). Thanks Frans at 3D Action Gamers.

Bungie's HALO page has been updated with a pair of new screenshots: This shot shows off some true Rat Patrol action, and this one a firefight between a soldier and a few aliens. Both shots are cool, the first one in particular I would describe as pretty amazing. Thanks Thomas Riisbjerg. Halo is a third-person action teamplay game (loony says think Tomb Raider meets TRIBES).

Regardless of Microsoft's assurances that the whole NSA backdoor scandal from last week (story) was just a lot of unsubstantiated hype, a real and potentially serious backdoor has been discovered in Beta 3 of Windows 2000. According to ZDNet, there is "a simple technique that would give an attacker full access to a susceptible machine" and is due to the "autologin" feature of Beta 3. Microsoft plans to address this in Release Candidate 2, which is expected soon.

AGN3D has posted a Q&A with Starsiege: TRIBES programmer Mark Frohnmayer, talking briefly about his background in the industry, as well as some general questions about TRIBES 2.

Beyond3D has posted an interview with VideoLogic's David Harold, talking about their PowerVR based Neon 250, which is finally hitting store shelves. Here's an excerpt:

Q: So finally the Neon 250 is shipping. Do you think this is the right time? Do you think there will be enough room in the market for the Neon?

A: Well, it's not designed to compete with the upcoming GeForce256 based cards - we're at a different price point entirely. The product that will compete with GeForce is another one of our highlights for this year - PowerVR Series3. Yes, the delays to PowerVR Series2 suck, but we had to ship the chips to Sega and that caused a lot of delays. Is Neon 250 too late? It seems not by the level of orders we're seeing and it's certainly a great performer for GL games like the Quake series. In the meantime we're now right back on track and intend to ship future PowerVR products in a timely fashion.

The official Nocturne site has been updated with new animations for the characters in the game, which is a good way to check them out if you don't feel like downloading the massive demo (thanks VE by way of Spookhouse.org).

MacGamer's Ledge has posted an interview with Kenn Cobb, project leader on the Mac version of Tomb Raider III that's currently in production at Westlake Interactive (whose previous Mac ports include Quake and Unreal among other things).

There are some impressions of Nocturne on GA-Source giving a hands-on look at this upcoming third-person horror game from playing a recent beta. The impressions are accompanied by some new screenshots.

Ground ZERO here in New York City kicks off this afternoon with the Final LAN Tourney for the Female Frag Fest, and as a result, some of the coverage of the event is now underway. Here's PlanetQuake's Ground ZERO Coverage, and here's The Adrenaline Vault's Ground ZERO Coverage, both promising updates throughout the proceedings. And if the sheer drama of cyberathletic competition is what you thrive on, NetGames USA is running both tournaments (these guys did a truly spectacular job running the QuakeCon '99 tourneys), and will be offering continuous updates to the Female Frag Fest results here, and Q3Test tournament results here, with scores, ngStats, brackets and more to be available during and after each event. Their updates start this evening at 6:00 PM EDT.

Desslock's RPG News has a write-up about the showing of ION Storm's upcoming RPG, Anachronox at ECTS. Thanks StormTroopers. The brief blurb talks of how hard it is to see the roots of the game's engine, saying: "The Quake 2 engine used for this science fiction RPG is almost unrecognizable, as certain areas feature vast open areas, complete with deep canyons and rickety rope bridges."

3dfx Interactive Voodoo3 2000-3000 Windows 9x Retail Drivers page has new AGP-PCI version 1.02.18 drivers for the Voodoo3 2000 & 3000. Word is the package includes the "2D Display driver, Glide 2.6, Glide 3.1, DirectX (Direct3D and DirectDraw) and OpenGL version 1.1 ICD. These drivers support Intel, Cyrix and AMD 3DNow! based CPU's." Thanks Voodoo Extreme. It is noted on the page that these drivers will NOT work with: Voodoo Banshee, Voodoo2, Voodoo Rush or Voodoo Graphics based cards, and also should not be used with the Voodoo3 3500TV, as they "may cause compatibility problems."

Kokak's Doom Page has the release of the full version 1.0 of DoomGL, which is a Win32 version of id Software's Doom that renders the game in OpenGL. Thanks Frans at 3D Action Gamers. They have also posted some additional MD2 models for DoomGL that are from the Your Path of Destruction (YPOD) Doom project.

Frans also sends word of a 10 MB trailer for Bullfrog's upcoming Theme Park, a 3D strategy/management game, where players move through the park in first-person 3D. The movie is a small 160x96 and runs 1:39, and Frans points out it has decent video/audio quality.

Computer Games Online has posted a preview of Legend's Wheel of Time, with four new screenshots that show off some beautiful architecture and engine effects (thanks Binky).

Microsoft has released a patch for the "fragmented IGMP packet" vulnerability, which can allow for system crashes, amongst other problems (thanks Billy Kendall, by way of BetaNews). The patch is available for Windows 98, NT 4, and NT 4 Terminal Edition, and will appear on Windows Update soon.

Epic's Brandon "GreenMarine" Reinhart updated his .plan with a quick clarification to his earlier update (story):

No, we aren't removing footsteps completely, just from walking. Read more carefully!

GameSpot UK has posted a preview of Westwood Studios' third person title Command & Conquer: Renegade, which they're saying is, "a game so good we had to go twice." There's no new screenshots (the only ones posted are identical to the ones from the other day) but there's some more details on the gameplay, including some tidbits on the multiplayer.

According to this story on AVault, Havas Interactive (the parent company of Blizzard Entertainment and Sierra, amongst others) "could be targeting" Eidos Interactive, publishers of Tomb Raider, as well as all of ION Storm's upcoming games. Both companies involved declined to comment on the story, so take this with the usual grains of salt.

RTIME, the multiplayer backend to several PC games (including Turok 2), will be ported to the PlayStation 2 console, as Next-Generation is reporting. There's no word as of yet if the different platforms will be compatible with each other.

FGNOnline has posted a report on Lionhead's Black & White from ECTS, which they're reporting was being shown using a set of custom 3D glasses. Here's an excerpt:

The visuals this time were enhanced by a 3D facility that was truly amazing. Consisting of a monitor top sensor and a set of glasses the game could be viewed in genuine totally immersive 3D. "This will be pretty cool," said Molyneux. "The central unit should cost about £30 ($48) and the glasses will cost £20 ($32) per pair after that." If this is the genuine cost for a jaw-dropping interactive experience then it represents fantastic value.

Kabuto.net has posted three new screenshots from Planet Moon's Giants: Citizen Kabuto, which show off the terrain deformation that's possible in the game.

Big time toy and software company Hasbro has announced that they are acquiring Wizards of the Coast, makers of the popular Magic: The Gathering and Pokemon card games, as well as the parent company of TSR, makers of Dungeons & Dragons. This move gives Hasbro some of the most lucrative RPG licenses in the gaming industry - last year's mega hit Baldur's Gate was made with a TSR license. Here's a snippit from the press release:

"Wizards of the Coast will enable us to significantly expand in the fast-growing games arena, which is a cornerstone of our growth strategy for the new millennium,'' said Alan G. Hassenfeld, Chairman and CEO of Hasbro, Inc. "This acquisition brings us not only incredibly popular content and exciting future gaming initiatives, but also a visionary senior management team and creative talent, expanded distribution channels and an opportunity to participate in location-based entertainment. There is no end to the opportunities we see from cross-fertilization of our respective game portfolios, including the fast-growing areas of interactive software and on-line gaming. Plus, the year-round nature of these businesses will help to balance the seasonality of our diversified portfolio,'' Hassenfeld continued.

Billy "screenshots" Wilson has posted two new screenshots from KISS: Psycho Circus - The Nightmare Child on Voodoo Extreme, showing off Third Law's LithTech based shooter that was recently shown off at ECTS.

Unreality has posted an e-mail with Epic's Jack Porter regarding the recent addition of decals into Unreal Tournament. Here's what he had to say:

Our policy on decals has always been that they weren't worth doing unless they are perfect - they clip and wrap correctly. There's nothing worse than seeing a half-overhanging decal. Anyway, I'd pretty much finished my todo list for what needed to be done for UT so I figured I'd have a go at putting them into the engine. I hadn't done much digging inside the renderer so I thought I'd attempt them to get to know the renderer better - and if they worked in time we'd put them into UT and/or the demo. They took about 5 days to get working perfectly, although they were 90% done after a day or so.

They are attached to BSP surfaces and are clipped to that BSP surface so you never get any overhang. They also wrap around convex and concave (polygonal) curves and on steps.

LE OUAIBE JOYSTICK recorded a few interviews with developers from this year's ECTS. They have posted a talk with Valve's Robin Walker discussing Team Fortress 2, as well as a Robe Pardo (Warcraft III) interview, and they plan on posting something with the BioWare guys later today. RealPlayer, or equivalent required.

This week's edition of the MailBag is online, offering the usual collection of missives carefully hand-plucked from the ongoing flood of email that blasts through here. Among the topics in the new sack o' letters is an actual attempt at being helpful, hard words for the hardcore, a call for OpenSource mod development, on the co-opting of co-op, the very idea of a basketball diaries game (and don't you know it would end up on shelves with the sports games), and more than you can shake an adjective at. Excelsior!

Brace yourself:

• iXBT S3 Savage2000 Preview looks ahead at the upcoming chipset from S3.
• PowerVR and VideoLogic at ECTS 1999 reports on the "state of affairs with the Neon250 (PowerVR Series2) and their forthcoming Series3," which they say is due by Christmas 1999.
• The first edition of the Sharky Extreme CPU Buyer's Guide is online.
• Similarly, Chip Testers- Weekly Hardware Price Update is up.
• Here are some BIOS Settings For Overclocking by The Tech Zone. Use at your own risk, of course.
• On a related note, SysOp's Liquid Coolin', Part II is for the even more daring overclocker.
• And speaking of BIOS, the ABIT downloads page has BX6 rev. 2 Bios that supports the PIII 600. Thanks Phil "Cain" Hall.
• Oh yeah, and speaking of ABIT mobos, Hard OCP has some skinny on the new ABIT BE6.2 which features, of all things, dip switches?
• Sharky Extreme News has word on an under $100 TNT2, though it's unconfirmed if it's the true full speed 128-bit variety.
• Didn't I just mention ABIT (and Sharky for that matter)? We're running out of segues here! Sharky Extreme's Abit BE6-II 440BX Mainboard Review is one of the first reviews of this new motherboard.
• 3D Rage reviews the Globalwin VGSO8H CPU cooler.
• ACID REIGN has beta 0.01 of the Blitz Engine SDK. This first release is described as "not very functional," but is being released to get feedback on compatibility, bugs, and performance issues.
• Finally, Ars Technica reviews Computer Architecture a quantitative approach a book on CPUs they promise will either make you really smart, or give you a really big headache.

MacGamer's Ledge sends word of a Chat with Blizzard's Brian Love tonight at 7:00 PM PDT (10:00 PM EDT) to answer questions about WarCraft II: Battle.net Edition, Diablo II, and the newly-announced WarCraft III. Java-enabled browser required.

Datumplane::Starsiege has posted news about an upcoming package called the TRIBES Action Pack, which consists of a bundle of Starsiege, Starsiege TRIBES, Roger Wilco, and a headphone/microphone set.

Brandon "YelloMarine" Reinhart updated his .plan with a debriefing after the big old Unreal Tournament party at the Playing Fields, talking of the game's positive reception. The update's pretty huge, and he apologizes for the "game pimping crappage," pointing out he's just really excited about the feedback. Here's a portion where he talks of the feedback from some old school Quake players as well as word on what's being tweaked due to player's reactions:

During the party I talked to a lot of players and media types. Everyone thought UT kicked ass! I am so floored. Its very cool hearing the hardcore QuakeWorld dudes actually saying they thought your game was worth playing (these are the guys who passed on Quake2 and Quake3). I was surprised at the feedback on Assault. I'm more of a CTF person myself, but everyone was really loving Assault. We played about four Assault maps. AS-HiSpeed (the train assault mission) got the highest praise, but they also liked AS-OverLord (the WW2 D-Day mission) map also.

Most of the negative comments surrounded three issues. First, that the pickup radius for items was too small. (Consider it changed.) Second, that walking was more or less pointless because footsteps still made sound. (Consider it changed.) Third, that ping was too high. I explained that UT's ping calculation is equal to network ping plus the average frame time of the server, but the perception that a higher ping is always inferior was still there. We'll be changing ping so that it reflects network latency. (What most people think of when they say ping.)

Planet RIVA sends word of a chat with Surreal Software's Stu Denman talking about Surreal's newly-released third-person action game, Drakan: Order of the Flame. The chat will be on tomorrow (September 10) at 4:00 PM PDT (7:00 EDT) in the ky.enterthegame.com IRC server in the channel #Planet_RIVA.

Whee, another freebie! The Adrenaline Vault Demo Downloads has posted a beta playable demo for WarTorn, the upcoming 3D RTS game from Eyst. The demo is about 25 MB.

Thanks as always to Frans at 3D Action Gamers for helping bust these out:

• Computer Games Online reviews Outcast.
• Thresh's FiringSquad reviews Drakan: Order of the Flame.
• Gamecenter reviews Braveheart (another piece by Paul Schuytema).
• GamesMania reviews Midtown Madness.
• GamePen reviews C&C: Tiberian Sun.
• GamePower reviews DarkStone.
• GameZilla reviews Force 21.
• Speedy 3D reviews Shadow Man.
• 3D Spotlight reviews Drakan: Order of the Flame.
• ActionXtreme.com reviews Descent 3.

• Qoole - Pursuit of Perfection has word that the QOOLE level editor (Quake II, Half Life, and more) is officially dead. QOOLE started out in January 1997 as one of the old-school Quake level editors. Thanks Linlhutz...
• How big is the Internet across? According to MSNBC's Measuring the Web’s ‘diameter’, it's 19 clicks. Thanks Ant. By the way, according to wise Mr. Owl, the number of licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie-Pop is three...
• The Adrenaline Vault Patch Downloads has a new version 1.01.77 beta patch for Fly! (traditionally said with a shout when loony or I mentions it, to properly represent the urgency of the exclamation point)...

Is today supposed to change the world with that Dreamcast launch thing? I can't keep track, but anyway, it's midnight madness at the local gametorium. I haven't got one ordered or anything myself (you know the loonster has), but I will probably get to play with MrCoffee's first-hand later today. Today is also supposed to be the first potential glimpse at the impact of a Y2K-type problem with the whole 9/9/99 thing, so if you aren't reading this right now, it may be due to localized natural disasters, but of course, pointing that out is paradoxical. Today also kicks off the Ground ZERO event here in the Big Apple, which since it's in our own back yard and all, we'll be dropping in on to harass all the out-of-towners.

Link of the Day: Dr Magic©. Thanks Matthew Rorie. Put your haaands on the radio.
News Story of the Day: Fire-breathing Topless Woman Halts Traffic, Cuts Power reports Seattle's KOMO TV News (thanks Travis McPherson). That report doesn't even mention she's a transsexual construction worker (we learn that in the Seattle Times' report, thanks kpl). It's like a self-contained Springer episode!

Dynamix sent along another update on the state of development for TRIBES Extreme titled "Getting to know the TRIBES Extreme Team: An Exercise in INTENSITY." Once again, it's quite lengthy, so I've put it all on a separate page right here. It certainly lets you get a sense for the team's nuttiness, and even has stuff about the game:

"There'll be new multiplayer maps too," Jesse says. "Plus we're offering balanced ladder maps for tournament matches."

"New buildings will also be a big part of the game," Ian puts in. "Some of the single-player buildings will be really different, and between our new multiplayer buildings and the ones we're getting from players responding to the open call, we're going to see a lot more pop in the gameplay."

According to Scott, Dynamix has put out an open call for players to submit new multiplayer games and skins. "Response has been absolutely tremendous."

"There's one map in particular that actually gives me vertigo," Blake says. "It's just amazing."

Nels points out that TRIBES Extreme will remain completely compatable with the existing TRIBES game, so players need not be concerned about not being able to take Extreme onto their favorite servers.

PC.IGN.COM previews Messiah with a hands-on look at Shiny's upcoming possessive third-person action game, saying "We play Messiah and pronounce it 'Sacrilicious'!" (I feel dirty just writing that word.)

GameSpot Homeworld Demo Download page has the 62.7 MB downloads of a playable demo of Sierra/Relic's upcoming strategy/space sim, Homeworld. Thanks Billy at Voodoo Extreme. Word on the page is: "Even though it looks complex, Homeworld's tactical interface is surprisingly easy to use. You'll find yourself building ships, attacking pirates, and scavenging asteroids in a matter of minutes!"

A new screenshot from F.A.K.K.2, Ritual's upcoming Quake III-engine action/fantasy romp has been posted on FAKK YOU! This is an actual in game shot that is part of a press CD released at ECTS, and can also be found on U-Games' ECTS F.A.K.K.2 preview which reports on the game from the show.

PlanetUnreal has word that The Playing Fields, host to a big Unreal Tournament extravaganza this week in London, has over 500MB in screenshots, more than 200 photos of people in action, and over three hours of video direct from the computers. A few screenshots have been posted on PU to give a sampling of the huge selection.

Games Domain Review interviews programmer Quinn Dunki from Bungie talking about her work on Oni, with an emphasis on being a woman working in the games industry. This was posted Thursday at Games Domain, but we missed it at the time, and when it was listed yesterday at the Oni homepage, sharp-eyed Frans spotted it and sent along word.

PCParadox has posted three new screenshots from Sanity, Monolith's isometric action game based on their LithTech engine. In other Monolith news, Exxtreme3D has posted a preview of the Metropolis developed, Monolith published game Odium. The preview is definitely hands off, and there are six screenshots, although I'm not entirely sure if they're new or not.

The recent gXp LAN party in Hagen, Germany, featured a beta build of Unreal Tournament available for play. AEon, one of the attendees, has written up a hands on preview of the game, complete with 13 new screenshots. The text is all in German, of course, but that's what Babel Fish is for.

Legend's Glen Dahlgren has posted this week's update to the official Wheel of Time page, with the latest developments on this Unreal engine RPG/Strategy title (thanks Apache). In this week's update he talks about several aspects of the game which are either finished or nearing completion, including the cut scenes and sound effects, as well as the reactions to the preview copies of the game that were sent out to various websites.

BZ2.com has posted a tutorial, as well as all the files you need to make your own Battlezone II maps using the recently released demo. We've checked with Activision, and this is indeed kosher with their EULA, so download and make all the maps you want. In other Battlezone II news, Pandemic's official Battlezone II site has been updated with a new shot of the week. This week's shot shows off the new ISDF unit (thanks GA-Strategy).

Version 2.2 Beta of Action Half-Life, the popular mod for Half-Life has been released, and is available for download (thanks Pedmeg). This version adds Action Quake 2 - style pain reactions, and a boatload of bug fixes.

Outrage has posted a version 0.92 update for their Descent 3 editor, which has a ton of changes, including support for user defined paths, bug fixes, the addition of more renderer options and lots more (thanks Frans).

The Croft Times has compiled pretty much everything available online from Tomb Raider 4: The Last Revelation, with over 230 shots (including some exclusive character and editor images) and eight exclusive windows background images (thanks GA-Source).

Two more of those "mass market" games that sell like hotcakes and make for great jokes from time to time were announced today. GTInteractive surprised absolutely nobody when they made their announcement that Deer Hunter III will be shipping this October, featuring "a full virtual hunting season where gamers can actually scout deer during the preseason." Also of note is Sierra Sports' Professional Bull Rider, which hopefully will feature a scene like this (taken from the recent Blue's News trip to an actual rodeo).

NVIDIA has announced that they're partnering with Acer Laboratories to create Aladdin, a new low-cost chipset based on the TNT2 line that will be used primarily for sub-$1000 PCs (thanks USBWorkshop). According to the press release,Gigabyte Technology, ASUSTeK, C.P. Technology, Acer and ABIT are all readying motherboards with the chip built in. For the techies, here's a list of features:

• Support for up to 1.5GB of SDRAM, VC-SDRAM or EDO memory.
• Enhanced high-bandwidth, internal de-multiplexed AGP bus.
• Intelligent Arbiter, low-overhead context switching design for optimal SMA performance.
• 128-bit TwiN Texel graphics pipeline - two texture-mapped, lit pixels per clock.
• 32-bit color, 32-bit Z/stencil buffer with single-pass multitexturing.
• Video in, TV out and TMDS or Digital Flat Panel support up to 1280 x 1024 resolution.
• Fully compatible with all WHQL-certified DVD decoder software for RIVA TNT2.
• Coupled with ALi's M1535D Southbridge, features integrated super I/O controller, integrated audio, software modem interface, four USB ports and UDMA-66 support.

Birdman's Lair, the source for all things SpaceOrb, has posted a patch for the retail version of Heavy Gear II that adds support for the always entertaining SpaceOrb 360 (thanks Frans).

GT Interactive and 3DRealms have announced that the Color GameBoy version of Duke Nukem has shipped. Like the recent N64 and PlayStation Duke titles, this isn't a port, but rather an original game - in this case, a side scroller (which harkens back to Duke's early days as a platform stud).

• Tweak3D has posted what they're calling "very rudimentary benchmarks" with a PowerVR Neon250 board, testing the hardware with Quake II and Q3Test.
• SystemLogic has posted an editorial entitled "Mac vs. PC", which asks for readers opinions on the two platforms (although I suspect they just really like getting hate mail).
• HP has announced their new Polar Logic cooling system, which they say offers massive benefits over earlier solutions (thanks HardOCP).
• Overclocker's Workbench is reporting that Intel is actually underclocking their Pentium III 600s to 450 in order to satisfy customer demand for the 450 Mhz processors (that they're phasing out).

Frans sends word that Sierra has released a patch to fix problems installing Starsiege (not TRIBES, just Starsiege) on Windows 2000. It's available from their FTP site, and is 3.6MB.

Billy "screenshots" Wilson has posted 15 screenshots from the PC version of Bioware's MDK 2, showing off the latest from this surreal action game. MDK, as everyone knows, stands for My Dreamcast Kicks (butt).

The Delta Force Updates Page has been, well, updated with a new patch for the game (with separate downloads for each territory). Thanks Frans, who's mirrored the files on 3DGamers.com.

Fragadelic Females Duke It Out is the name of an article on Wired News about the Female Frag Fest, whose finals will be taking place tomorrow at Ground Zero (thanks devilbunny). It's another one of those public interest stories about women in gaming that we've all read before, with the usual batch of quotes from female gamers talking about how they're just as good as guys (if not better).

The Descent Chronicles has word of sightings of the FreeSpace2 demo on CD at some software stores, so if the 60 MB download of the demo of this upcoming space sim daunts you, checking with your local retailer may provide the opportunity to check it out.

The JailBreak for Half-Life page has a Half-Life version of The Citadel, described as "the most popular Q2 Jailbreak map ever." Also, Descent3.Net has word up of a Descent 3 version of the Minerva level a D3 recreation of this "old loved and equally hated D1, D2 level."

Stu Denman updated the Surreal TECH Page with a surreal update about pi. Nothing newsworthy or about Drakan or anything, but I just really wanted to be able to use that headline like that.

Aaron at Rogue Spear Retreat sends along word that there's a fix for those experiencing "severe pauses" (or hiccups) when playing the new Rogue Spear demo:

To fix these hiccups in gameplay, go to your options and disable "action sounds"

The newly-opened CitizenKabuto.com marks their debut with a new interview with Tim Williams, the creative director for PlanetMoon Studios on Giants, their upcoming third-person game of living large (or small, or naked).

Pretty pretty bang bang is a Salon Technology article that quotes Dennis "Thresh" Fong, several message board postings, as well as id Software's Graeme Devine discussing the "arcade" aspect of Q3Test, and the upcoming Quake III Arena, and their impact on the game's appeal for both hardcore players and newbies. Thanks Elrond Hubbard. Here's a bit to give the gist of what's discussed:

What's got those hardcore gamers so worked up? For one thing, Quake 3 is, well, beautiful. "A lot of the other hardcore players don't like Quake 3 because it's so mass-market and so 'arcadey,'" explains Dennis "Thresh" Fong, arguably the greatest first-person shooter player ever. "The icons are simpler. They have cartoony boxes for ammo, and it's all color-coded in bright red and bright purples, colors you'd never see in the other Quake games." On the aesthetics charge, Id's Devine pleads no contest. "We purposefully gave Quake 3 an over-the-top, cartoony, comic-book look," he says. "Our big influences included games like Street Fighter and Robotron."

The Adrenaline Vault News has a little unconfirmed speculation that Activision is currently developing the yet-to-be-announced Heavy Gear III, based on a comment in the news about Activision and Won.Net's new agreement (story).

The Matrox Users' Resource Centre has word of the release of a new version 1.12 Beta Build 015 of the MGATweak tweaking program for Matrox cards."The new version improves the overclockability of the G400 MAX by providing clock duty cycle correction control and the option to turn of auto duty cycle correction as used in previous version of MGATweak, at the expense of violating the chip specification PLL programming procedures. Duty cycle correction is further explained in the user guide. By ignoring duty cycle correction, some G400 MAX can go as high as 170/227."

As always, thanks Frans at 3D Action Gamers for helping us keep up with these:

• Well Rounded Entertainment reviews System Shock 2.
• Gamecenter reviews C&C: Tiberian Sun.
• GamePower reviews C&C: Tiberian Sun.
• GA-Strategy Reviews C&C: Tiberian Sun.
• GamePen reviews Force 21.
• Sharky Extreme's 3dfx Voodoo3 3500TV Review is by Vince Freeman of Extreme Hardware (don't ask me how that works).

• The newly opened Tribal Outpost has a whole load of resources for those interested in editing Starsiege TRIBES...
• Clan World Network interviews Fargo of GameSpy Industries fame...
• GameSpot's Battle Of The Booth Babes a traditional rundown of the trade show eye candy at ECTS...
• Unreal Universe has a Wheel of Time desktop wallpaper for download...
• There's a Hatfields & McCoys demo giving a taste of this "light hearted real-time tactics (RTT) style comedy shooter from Lupine Games." Thanks Demo News...
• CNET Download.com has a new version of the GetRight resumable download client. Thanks Ant...
• PlanetShogo has version 1.0 of Wraithadmin, the first ever Shogo remote administration tool...
• Had enough of the on-topic stuff? Bigkid.com.au has new Dirt Track Racing shots showing off the latest racer from RatBag, and Microsoft Flight Simulator site has AVIs of FS2000...

I'll share the outcome of my Outlook conversion experiments as soon as I'm able to conduct them, but again I was quite busy with some site stuff yesterday, so I still haven't gotten back to butting heads with the project.

Link of the Day: The Smoking Gun. A brand-new site devoted to gaming industry and humor, and pretty damn funny (and useful, confirming once and for all loonyboi is not John Lennon).
News Story of the Day: Norway police seize lethal potato weapon. Thanks devilbunny. I hope they didn't get the blueprints from when it was the link of the day. Remember, you should never try things found in the link of the day at home without trained supervision (I still have a vat of poisonous magic coffee in the fridge from ignoring that advice).