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!"