PC.IGN is reporting that Mortyr, a game that's been finished for some time now (and released overseas) has finally gotten an American publisher. It turns out that HD Interactive, who released the game overseas will in fact be releasing the game here in the US. Look for it to arrive sometime in October.

AVault's Ground Zero coverage has posted an interview with none other than John Romero in MP3 format. The interview is remarkably long for such a small file (13 minutes, 1.72 MB) and the page is illustrated with plenty of pictures from the event.

Beta 3 of CounterStrike, the popular anti-terrorist mod for Half-Life has been released, and is available for download at its official site (thanks FranX). This version has a ton of fixes, and adds a knife weapon, a kevlar vest and helmet as well.

Creative Labs has posted new beta drivers for their 3D Blaster TNT 2 Ultra card, which are based on NVIDIA's 2.08 reference drivers, albeit with some minor changes (such as improved TV out). Thanks Mike Granito for the tip.

GameFan has posted a hands-on preview of Eidos and Cinematix Studios' Revenant, with a detailed look at this isometric game that described as a mix of "role playing, third person action and 3-D fighting."

AVault is reporting several things related to the Unreal Tournament demo this evening...first off, the demo will be "released before Saturday" and will in fact be for 3dfx cards only. "A few days later" Epic will release a demo that supports both Direct3D and OpenGL. They're also reporting that contrary to rumor, UT has not (yet) gone gold.

Update: a member of the UT development team has informed us that, "the demo will most likely hit the net on Thursday with the full version following around Sunday or Monday (the full version being the one that supports Direct3D and OpenGL)."

This week's Diablo II shot of the week has been released by Blizzard. According to Diablo II.net, this shot shows the Necromancer casting the "Amplify Damage" curse.

Acclaim has added new FAQs for two of their recently released games, Shadow Man, and ReVolt. Both of these deal with common errors people have been reporting, so if you've had problems with either one, be sure to check 'em out (thanks Frans).

AVault has posted the version 1.03 patch for Darkstone. This patch has a number of fixes and improvements, including a new difficulty level (Hero), the ability to call your second character using "D", and more.

Well, it took a little longer than originally planned, but I've posted the answers to our last trivia contest. These questions were certainly difficult (only two people managed to get them all) so run on over and see what the right answers are, and look for a new contest later this week.

Sharky Extreme's ECTS Report: Unreal Tournament At The Playing Fields gives a from the trenches report from the Playing Fields in London where they had a big ole Unreal Tourney tourney at ECTS. The article gives hands-on impressions of the game itself and LAN netplay from the event.

3DGPU has posted an interview with Richard Huddy of Developer Relations at NVIDIA. The interview deals largely with the support gamers can expect from software developers for those swanky new features in their GeForce 256 chips, and there's this interesting list mentioned:

The developers which are out in the open are (in alphabetical order) Acclaim, Bungie, Computer Artworks, Gas Powered Games, id, Rage, Sierra Studios, The Whole Experience. There are numerous others planning early DX7 T&L titles but until they make their own public statements it would be improper for me to name names. But make no mistake, this is going to be a T&L Christmas!

Raven's Jake Simpson updated his .plan with the latest on two projects currently in development over there, Soldier of Fortune, and Star Trek: Voyager (as well as his thoughts on two recent demos). There's some good stuff in here, including word that SoF will be supporting the force feedback mouse that's coming soon (I believe this is the first time it's been mentioned). Here's what he had to say:

...SOF is coming along great guns. I'm busy dealing with the sound system issues and also trying to get Force Feedback working correctly. The microsoft Force Feedback system is a tad easier to actually use, since all the effects are kept in ROM on the joystick itself, its just a call, and wham, there it goes. The Logitech system is a bit more complicated, since you have to create the effect yourself, with attack/decay/sustain/release stuff like we used to have back on the old C64.

Its more complicated yes, but its infinitely more flexible than the microsoft stuff, since thats limited to whats in the ROM. If we do this right, and I'm hoping we can, then we will actually have an editable file so you can create your own feed back effects, assuming that you have a logitech joystick. Thats the plan anyway, and its all subject to change of course. Oh, and we are doing our best to support the Force Feed back Mouse too. The drivers right now are a bit iffy, but we are working with Immersion, the guys responsible for these, to get them right.

Star Trek is coming along well too. There is much discussion right now about whether we use the new skeletal animation system that Carmack is developing, and what this would do to our timelines if we did. While there is an argument for using it, the amount of re-development time it would take us to rebuild and animate our models is in question. The guys at Id can afford to do it easily since they only have about 40-50 frames per guy to deal with. We start at 200 and go up from there. You can see the problem of balance. Its basically memory vs re-development time. I'm just glad James Monroe makes that call. :)

GameSpot UK's Star Trek Voyager Elite Force Preview is online offering an illustrated (with screenshots) look ahead at Raven Software's upcoming Quake III engine shooter set in the Star Trek universe. Here's a bit from the preview on what's being done to the Quake III engine (being designed with the multiplayer-centric upcoming Quake III Arena in mind) to accommodate the single-player game:

Elite Force's single-player aspect has forced the addition of improved non-player character AI and the ability to save the game, and it also has a modified special effects system to more accurately reflect the television series.

Despite this seemingly light conversion system, there is no question that Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force is a simple first-person shooter. Half-Life has raised the required standard, and new games ignore this at their peril. Sure enough, Elite Force borrows some important factors from Half-Life. The most obvious of these is the ability to interact with the other characters. Just as you "used" Barneys in Half-Life to carry on a conversation or to help you when necessary, this simple conversation system gets you through some of the set pieces in Elite Force.

AVault has posted eight new screenshots from Gearbox Software's upcoming official add-on for Half-Life, Opposing Force, which show off an interesting sequence - here's a description:

As the player enters the room and heads for the apparent exit, an explosion erupts at the far end. This sets in motion a series of sequential triggers that collapses the room, piece by tiny piece, including rising slime, swinging ladders and crumbling bridges. The levelheaded gamer will be able to leap onto a falling bridge and escape the room at the last moment as the slime rises to the top. In the words of lead design Randy Pitchford, it is an “epic” sequence.

AVault has posted nine new screenshots from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - The Fallen, a third person action game powered by the Unreal engine currently in development by The Collective.

PC.IGN has posted four new screenshots from Thief Gold, the special edition of Thief: The Dark Project that features four new missions in addition to the ones already in the game (thanks VE).

Games Domain has posted an interview with Pandemic Studios' Wil Stahl, talking about their first person strategy/action title Battlezone II (thanks Frans). Most of the questions deal with the technical features of the game, although there are questions about the multiplayer options in the game, as well as Pandemic's plans for the future.

SimHQ has posted a preview of Rogue Spear's multiplayer, based on a LAN test of a beta version of the game. Rogue Spear has gone gold and should be arriving in stores any day now.

Adventure Gamer has posted an interview with Ragnar Tørnquist, a producer, designer, and writer on Funcom's "point and click" style adventure game. If you're not familiar with the title, you should check out this preview they ran recently, where the author gushes about how impressive he thinks it is.

Xatrix' Ryan "Ridah" Feltrin updated his .plan with a reassurance for those eager to dig into programming their own modifications for Xatrix' Quake II-engine game, that the Kingpin Software Development Kit is indeed on its way, although he points out: "There are several processes that need to be undertaken before it can be released, most of which are out of my direct control."

There are five new Revenant Screenshots on GA-Source showing off action from this upcoming action/RPG from Eidos that looks like it has a Diablo feel.

There are some new BattleCruiser 3020 screenshots online, including new BC3020AD Strike Pack shots, three new shots of Cruisers, and, from the game's first person module, a shot of the "When you absolutely have to kill every motha-f*cker in the room, the kick-ass multi-mode Ziegler Spec 10 combat assault gun" (!).

On an unrelated to gaming jaunt about Time Magazine, I spotted an article there on the Female Frag Fest and gaming competitions called Queens of Quake on TIME Digital that offers a look at the recent event, along with quotes from some of the participants. Also, Support through massacre is a Toronto Star article (thanks Marcy) that gives an even more detailed rundown on the proceedings, and talks to the tourney's organizers (the Time piece talks with CPL organizer Angel Munoz instead). Also talking with Angel is Quake Shakes Manhattan a TechWeb article (thanks Tom"Kreed" Nelson) with the requisite headline focusing more on the Cyberathlete Professional League Ground ZERO event (which included the FFF).

ZDNN Intel cuts chip prices -- again details further price cuts in Intel CPUs, including the first price cuts on PIII-600 ($669 to $615), and a drop on the PIII-550 to $423 (in lots of 1000). Thanks AMD Zone. Newer versions of the PIII-600 & 550 that support the 133 MHz front-side bus are expected to be announced in two weeks. The article also describes cuts in Celeron prices by Intel, and goes on to recap last week's announced CPU price cuts by AMD.

The first round of articles on the newly-announced 3dfx FXT1 texture compression can be found on Sharky Extreme, EuroGamer News, and Extreme Hardware (there are likely to be more of these as the day goes on).

A thread titled Messiah level editor on the Shiny Developer's Corner messageboard offers word from Shiny Producer Stuart Roch on why there are currently no plans on releasing the Messiah level editing tools with the game:

Currently there are no plans to release our level editing tools to the public. While it's always cool to release the tools to the gaming community to let everyone have a try at creating the next greatest level, the editing tools are VERY complicated. As crazy as it sounds, it takes our experienced level artists/designers roughly 6-10 months to create an entire level from scratch when you consider both the geometry and textures. Releasing the tools also adds some overhead to the development of the project. Even if we had no plans to support the tools with the end users, we still have to put together some sort of support documents to get people started and make sure that the tools have a reasonable level of user friendliness.

Stuart Roch, Producer
Shiny Entertainment

Thanks Frans at 3D Action Gamers:

• The Adrenaline Vault reviews Outcast.
• GamesMania reviews Drakan: Order of the Flame.
• GamePower reviews Drakan: Order Of The Flame.
• Happy Puppy's reviews Drakan: Order of the Flame.
• ESCMAG reviews Drakan: Order of the Flame.
• Exxtreme3D reviews Drakan: Order of the Flame.
• Gamelinks reviews Drakan: Order of the Flame.
• GamePen reviews Braveheart (bet you thought I was going to say Drakan, eh?).
• 3D Spotlight reviews C&C: Tiberian Sun.
• Thresh's FiringSquad re-views Re-Volt.
• HardOCP reviews the Guillemot Maxi-Gamer Xentor32 TNT2-Ultra.

• The Galactical Data Home Page offers version 2.0 of TriSyn is a TRIBES script syntax checker ("No more waiting for Tribes to say you missed a semi-colon!") for use with TextEdit, a programmer's editing tool also available there...
• SimuCon '99 in St. Louis, Sept. 16th - 19th, 1999, their fourth annual gathering of Internet game players...
• Unreal Universe has a new Wheel of Time desktop wallpaper at the odd resolution of 1028x769...
• There's a GD Fest 99 wrap-up on GamersDepot.com describing the festivities at this bash up in the Seattle area, complete with photos...

The weather I was feeling under continued to hover about yesterday, but a bit of laying low has me feeling much better (though my internal clock is now all messed up). A suspicious reader named x-zone wrote in to playfully suggest that this was a Final Fantasy VIII addiction rearing its ugly head, but that's not the case, it's actually loonyboi who's the FFVIII freak (I don't even own the game), and he proved his strength of will yesterday by hanging in there with the news updates in my absence, in spite of the call of the PSX.

Link of the Day: Assassin Presents Taco Bell Dog. From the folks who created the Hamster Assassin (much better tech than punch John Tesh). Feed him gorditas and tacos until the inevitable happens (how come I think it would only take one in real life?). Thanks bonsai.
Image of the Day: Hurricane Floyd. Speaking of under the weather... As Ryan, who sent this in, points out: "It's bigger than Florida!"

GASource has posted five new screenshots from Eidos and Quantic Dreams' third person adventure title, Omikron, showing off a variety of different locales from the game.

As part of their new technology, 3dfx has unveiled their new FXT1 texture compression (thanks Dennis Smith). This is an open source technology, meaning anyone can download the source code, and it works under Glide, OpenGL, and Direct3D (meaning it's not limited to 3dfx cards). Here's an excerpt from their developer's site that explains it somewhat.

FXT1 texture compression provides equal to or better compression ratios than any available hardware compression scheme and is supported on all future 3dfx products. With up to four compression schemes used in the encoding of each texture, FXT1 provides the most accurate texture compression available, providing little or no loss in image quality. Decoding FXT1 textures can be done transparently in the 3D hardware at run-time, or decoded in software and converted to another hardware-supported texture format.

A new version (2.08) of Battlecruiser 3000 AD has been released, and is available for download on its official site. This version has over 20 enhancements and fixes, including more fully populated planets, new dogfighting AI, new personnel AI, and lots more.

PC.IGN has posted a preview of one of the strangest (and yet most entertaining) first person shooters to come along in a long time, Nerf Arena Blast. The preview is based on the author's trip to Hasbro, and is quite detailed (and illustrated with a whole boatload of screenshots).

A new version (1.02) of the Skout demo has been released, as has a patch for the German retail version of the game. This patch is said to fix errors with ATI Rage 128 cards, as well as CD music errors. Thanks Frans, who's posted mirrors of both files at 3DGamers.

The official Tomb Raider site has posted five new screenshots (well, kind of new - they look to be higher quality versions of images that are in several magazines this month) from Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation, and moved the older images to a new location (thanks Frans).

A new version 0.6 of The Jumbot for Half-Life is now available. In the new version the bots can now use turrets when available; bots have individual stats for accuracy, etc.; there's a new random bot function; improved underwater waypoint navigation, and more.

Word from WONSwap high command is that they've beefed up this service that allows easy uploading and downloading of custom maps, skins, models, etc. so that it's now even faster and more reliable to search. The service now boasts over 3,700 available files for Half-Life; Starsiege TRIBES; Starsiege; and PGA Championship Golf 1999, and word is that "several more hit titles will be supported in the next few weeks."

This page has a patch to update Acclaim's new RC racing game Re-Volt. Thanks Frans at 3D Action Gamers. Word is the patch will resolve problems with Gateway Computer system and will fix the problem of returning to the desktop or system freezes after running the Re-Volt executable.

There's now a Japanese version 1.1 patch for Descent 3, available on this page. Thanks Frans at 3D Action Gamers.

Looking Glass and Eidos have revealed details regarding the new levels in the special edition of Thief: The Dark Project that's set for release soon, titled Thief Gold. In addition to the twelve missions already in Thief, this version adds three new ones, which are all described in this press release.

• Speedy 3D reviews the Spectra 400Mhz upgrade CPU.
• 3DGaming reviews the Aureal SQ2500 sound card.
• 3DHardware reviews the ABIT BE6 motherboard.
• Tech-Review reviews the Cambridge Soundworks FPS2000 speakers.
• Diamond has announced their Viper II card, which is powered by S3's Savage 2000+ chip (thanks Duane Pemberton).
• Ultimate 3D reviews the Xample Xtreme Heatsink.

Lionhead is sponsoring a contest over at Black & White Wire, where the winner will actually have their face put on a villager's model in the upcoming 3D title Black & White. All you have to do is make an original Black & White related image and send it in - sounds easy enough, right? For details, check out BW Wire.

Kabuto.net has posted the first of three single panel comics drawn by Planet Moon's Shawn Nelson, and dealing with their game of mass destruction, Giants: Citizen Kabuto (look for another one tomorrow and the day after).

The Tread Marks downloads page has posted an MP3 that samples the music from this 3D tank game, as well as word that a new test demo should be released "any day now" and will feature full Internet networking (thanks Frans).

Kokak's Heretic Page has version 1.0 of his GLHeretic port available for download. This version adds compatibility with Voodoo 2 mini-GL and Quake 3 drivers, a whole bunch of bug fixes, a new Gargoyle MD2, and lots more (thanks Frans).

Virtual Games and Activision have announced that they will be making a modified version of Battlezone II for use on virtual reality platforms (thanks GAStrategy). According to the press release, Virtual Games will be making it compatible with their Dual Pod Networked system, which allows for two people to play simultaneously (VR deathmatch anyone?).

PCZone UK has posted their preview of Command & Conquer: Renegade, based on the demo they were given at ECTS. The shots shown in the preview aren't the same ones that you've seen a million times already, but rather fairly low quality images from a camera pointed at the monitor.

Unrealism has posted an e-mail they received from Epic's Brandon Reinhart, confirming that although there will indeed be a version of the Unreal Tournament demo released for Linux, it won't be released simultaneously with the PC version (expected sometime this week).

It's a console...or is it? Sony has unveiled, at long last, their Playstation 2 (the name's official now). There are several announcements today, including the release date and initial details (March in Japan, Fall 2000 in the US, with an estimated price of $370), word that the development kits are shipping (and are Linux based), and even their network details, including the revelation that in 2001, Sony plans to add an expansion module that will allow for distribution of movies over the Internet to the uber-box. Business Wire has also posted the first images of the box, for those curious what the thing looks like.

Well Rounded Entertainment's Rogue Spear Multiplayer Preview is now up, offering a look ahead at multiplayer play in the full version of Red Storm Entertainment's upcoming sequel to the seminal tactical shooter, Rainbow Six, based on the Tom Clancy book of the same name. In addition to discussing the multiplayer aspects of the game, the article boasts a whopping 35 new screenshots.

Developer's Corner sends word they are now hosting a messageboard devoted to the doings of Shiny and TeamEgo as they work on Messiah. The boards will be visited by the humble folks at Team Ego to answer questions when applicable, so if you are anticipating this upcoming third-person action title, or perhaps are just interested in discussions of the cutting-edge 3D technology being used in the game, check them out. In fact in passing through, I see that Shiny's Scott Herrington posted an answer to a question about environmental bump-mapping, saying that though they initially planned to support it out of the box on Messiah, it turns out this will not be the case. Here's the deal:

Messiah will not support environmental bumpmapping. We did some tests, and while it looked promising, the time to implement it in the game far outweighed the benefits. After all, bumpmapping is usually used to 'fake' additional polygonal detail - and with the characters in such high detail to begin with, we really didn't see a huge benefit.
That said, it'll be a feature in the next project that Team Ego makes (which will probably be one of 3 things: add-on pack, sequel, or entirely new game) since more hardware will support it at that time.

The Assimilation home has word of an IRC release shindig this evening to celebrate the release of version 3.0 of the Assimilation mod for Quake II. Though details on where to join the chat haven't been posted yet (they're promised soon), word is that the festivities will kick off around 6:00 PM PDT.

• 3DGaming reviews System Shock 2.
• Electric Games reviews Fly!. Thanks Frans at 3D Action Gamers.
• Ingava re-views Re-Volt.
• GA-Source reviews the Stealth III S540 Xtreme.

Turns out the telnet into your Dreamcast thing mentioned yesterday, turns out to have been an error or a hoax, so you don't have to worry just yet about setting up a console-based firewall.

• Here are some CPL GroundZERO photos...
• Thresh's FiringSquad's Grand Theft Auto 2 Interview talks to the driving-school dropouts who are designing this upcoming stealing and driving game...
• EuroGamer's ECTS awards are online...

I'm finding myself feeling a pit poorly (to use an old family phrase) this AM, I realized it a little too late to get loonyboi to cover, hence the relatively late start today. In a completely silly unfolding of events, I never did make it in to Manhattan check out Ground ZERO (was it too close?). At least loony got to swing by a couple of times, too bad part of the reason I never made it out was to cover news, since it turned out to be a super-quiet weekend. I'm at least hoping to track down the webmasters who haven't left yet sometime today for a brew or something if I'm feeling better. To follow-up briefly on the Umbilical Brothers (mentioned here yesterday), Kyle Smith points out they made a recent Letterman appearance, and Per Jacobsen sends word they have their own website that even has a VIVO-format promo of their nuttiness. Finally, Apaullo points out that today is one of those dates in fictional history we like to note here: it was on September 13, 1999 that the moon was blasted from Earth's orbit in Space 1999.

Link of the Day: Mister Rogers' Neighborhood Home Page. I think if I were a parent I'd be worried that this page didn't trigger my cyber-sitter software. Thanks Chris Rhoton and his roommate Matt Sheffer.