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!