There are no confirmations from Valve or Sierra, but a blurb on Next-Generation Online quotes "insiders at Sega" as saying an "Internet capable version of Sierra’s Half Life will appear on Dreamcast in the near future." Word is Sierra could not be reached for comment on the rumor at the time the story went up. DREAMCAST.IGN.COM is even more confident, calling the word from Sega a confirmation:

At Sega's pre-TGS meeting in Japan, it was announced that Half Life would be seeing release for the Dreamcast in late 2000. That's a long time from now, but the waiting period is apparently due to Sega's desire to equip the title with full online multiplayer capability.

The RS Toolkit Homepage has the release of version 1.0 of the RS Toolkit, which is a new version of the former R6 (Rainbow Six) Toolkit that also supports the Rogue Spear demo (and RS conveniently stands for both games). The toolkit is in effect a front-end, offering automation of several useful functions within the demo. Word is a version with support for the full game will be released when the full game is.

The story on The Adrenaline Vault News about Billy Zelsnack joining Valve as a contract employee that originally referred to Team Fortress 2 as being "at least a year off" (story), has been amended to reflect updated information they've received from Sierra on this, saying:

[Note: Although we were originally told Team Fortress 2 was ''a year off'' from release, Sierra has amended this statement to say the game is ''due out next year.'']

Pandemic Studios' Official Battlezone II Site has posted a pair of new shots of more units from BattleZone II, the upcoming combo action/strategy sequel. Thanks Battlezone Nav Beacon. This week's units are the ISDF Walker and the Scion Walker, and there's a new screenshot of an ISDF Mortar Bike in trouble.

Excited about Diablo II, Blizzard's upcoming sequel to their smash-hit RPG Diablo, but afraid you won't know what to look for in the stores when it's released? Never fear this Diablo II Box Art Shot, and this shot of the Diablo II box itself just posted on GameSpot can serve as mug shots to track it down. Thanks Ant.

Oops, actually there is an explanation for the missing DF2 demo (next story) on The Adrenaline Vault News, where they say it turned out to be "an internal demo not intended for public consumption -- even though it was posted on their public ftp site." Word is the demo should be out September 20.

There aren't any details to explain why, but The Adrenaline Vault Downloads page that previously had the Delta Force 2 demo for download (story) has been updated simply saying the demo was pulled at the request of the publisher. Thanks Jack Allen Beck Jr.

A chat log from Blizzard's first chat session for WarCraft III, held earlier this evening on Battle.net has been posted on The Unofficial Diablo II Site. The half hour chat provided new information on "hardware support, units for land, water and air, the ECTS Cinematic, ladder system and much more."

Okay, so the demo isn't out yet, but that doesn't mean you can't patch it when it does get released, right? Well, that's the reasoning behind Brandon Reinhart's .plan update that features this link to a fix for the ngStats bug posted earlier. When the demo is released, just copy this .exe over the one that's installed by default.

Digital Theatre has posted an interview with John Folliard, a programmer for Dynamix on Starsiege: TRIBES and TRIBES 2. The interview covers his background, the wild and wacky world of programming, and even his thoughts on Quake.

GameSpot's Legacy of Kain Soul Reaver Demo page has a new playable demo of this third-person vampire game from Eidos. The demo is 16.3 MB, and there's word on the page about issues with RIVA 128 and ATI Rage Pro accelerators. Thanks Frans at 3D Action Gamers. Here's a bit on what the game is all about:

In Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver you play Raziel, stalking the world of Nosgoth feeding upon the souls of your enemies. As you seek to destroy your creator, Kain, you must battle vampire clans while exploring an expansive 3D world tainted by a vampire dynasty's rule.

Epic's Brandon Reinhart updated his .plan once again with more on the imminent Glide version of the Unreal Tournament demo, describing a problem, and its equally-imminent solution with the included release of ngStats, as well as a bit about the proper use of the demo's skill levels:

Okay, the version of ngStats in the 3dfx demo has a problem with it. It causes the player's name to show up wrong when you view your stats. The NetGames guys are putting together a fix and will have a new ngStats for UT distribution on their website soon. Probably before the demo hits the net. I'll update my plan and our various webpages with the URL when its available. Only people downloading the 3dfx UT demo and playing with [local] ngStats will need to get this fix. I suggest you get it when its available because ngStats is cool and fun to play with.

What else?

When you first play UT make sure you pick a skill level that suits your abilities. UT's first four skill levels are easier, so that if Joe Average buys the game he can have fun without getting spanked by the bots. If you play online, chances are you'll want to pick one of the top 4 skill levels. In the full version of UT, the skill level will ramp up as you play. In the demo it does this a little, but because there are only 5 maps its hard to feel the ramping.

I'll mirror this update on the techpage.

The in-game News Page will report information on the status of the NetGames fix once it becomes available.

Beyond 3D interviews Nick Caddick of S3 in a conversation that took place towards the end of the recently-completed ECTS in London. The interview discusses sales of the Savage4, the upcoming Savage 2000, and their marriage to Diamond., among other things.

Happy Puppy's Septerra Core: Legacy of the Creator preview is online, offering a look ahead at Monolith's upcoming role-playing game, based on some hands-on experience with a beta version. Thanks Frans at 3D Action Gamers.

Brandon "BlueMarine" Reinhart updated his .plan with word on the status of the 3dfx Glide Unreal Tournament demo, as well as word on some stuff for server admins once it's available:

The demo is in 3dfx's hands. They'll release it once they and their partners are ready to handle the demand.

Server operators should check out the remote admin tool in the demo. You can turn it on under "Networking->Web Based Server Administration" in the advanced options dialog.

When its on and you've set your username and password, surf to http://YourServersIP/ServerAdmin to log in.

Server Admins should probably run servers with a playerlimit of around 8 to 10. The deathmatch maps in the demo aren't really large enough to handle big free for alls.

Also, if it wasn't obvious that the initially Glide-only aspect of this demo was a sponsorship dealie, GA-Source has a confirmation from Mark Rein that it is related to the "lucrative bundling deal" with UT and Voodoo3s from a while back.

AnandTech interviews Scott Sellers talking to the 3dfx CTO about the current sate of the graphics accelerator market, reflecting on what's known about the newly announced cards from S3 and NVIDIA. Here's a bit on the quest for the title of fastest accelerator, and a seemingly newfound emphasis from 3dfx on running "color depths that gamers demand":

Once again, 3dfx has always been the speed king, but this sounds pretty tough to beat and John (Carmack) certainly knows his stuff. Do you think you'll be able to do it again? How and why?

Well, John C. has not yet tested our next generation product yet so the fact that GeForce beats anything that’s currently on the market is really no big surprise. The GeForce has an advantage with its onboard geometry capability for lower resolutions and color depths, however we believe that our next generation product will substantially outperform the GeForce when running at resolutions and color depths that gamers demand. We have always placed a big emphasis on being the premiere hardware platform for the Quake games, and expect our next generation of products to continue to live up to that high standard.

3DRealms' Joe Siegler updated his .plan with word that he's posted the commercial for Duke Nukem: Zero Hour on the 3D Realms site in both MPEG and Real Video formats. The commercial features a live action Duke (woo!) in addition to plenty of in-game footage from this Nintendo 64 title.

A Warcraft III - Scroll of Knowledge (Frequently Asked Questions) is now online to help those having problems understanding the concept of this upcoming cross-genre game.

IMG's Chat Transcript with Descent 3's Duane Johnson is up, the "official" log from the event's organizers. The log is of a recent chat with this rocket scientist (his day job is with NASA), who moonlights as a programmer on the upcoming Mac port of the latest in the Descent series of flying shooters.

The Official Soldier of Fortune FAQ at Soldier-of-Fortune.com has been updated with some new Qs and As about Raven's upcoming Quake II engine shooter. Thanks Frans at 3D Action Gamers, who says there are various changes, including an update to reflect the game's expected November 1999 street date.

Saw on PlanetUnreal that the official Unreal Tournament site has word from Mark Reign that the 28.8 modem is again working in the Epic offices and that the Unreal Tournament Demo may yet be released today as planned:

The office internet connection seems to be back. I'm continuing to upload a new build for 3DFX and GT to test from my house just in case but Steve and Tim are heading back to the office. Barring any further minor bugs we're confident the demo release will go ahead as scheduled late today.

Gamers Central's MDK2 preview is up, offering a look at BioWare's upcoming sequel to Shiny's quirky first and third-person action game. The article discusses some of the distinguishing aspects of the original game, and looks ahead at what might do the same for the follow-up. MDK, of course, stands for Meshuganah Damn Kids(!).

We're not exactly in the hurricane belt here in New York, but it is the eastern seaboard, and this is the season, so with Floyd making his run up the coast things are getting a bit rough even up here. I just got word from loony that while his ISDN is holding out, his voice line just went down, so I wanted to mention the off chance that this situation would deteriorate and knock us both off line. It doesn't seem like that's going to be the case, but hey, you never know (now where did I leave that bilge pump?).

A bunch o' bits, including a bunch of ways to keep those hot components cool:

• SystemLogic's Building A Dual Celeron System Part 2 is online with a guide to overclocking considerations.
• PC-100 Vs. PC133 RAM. Which is better? By The Tech Zone.
• This Athlon article discusses water-cooling one of AMD's latest to reach 810 MHz clockspeeds. Thanks Ryan Case.
• PC Benchmarks reviews the Slipstream Enhancer for Voodoo3.
• HardOCP's Alpha Review looks at "the most impressive cooling device (they) have ever seen that does not cool the processor by any means other than simply removing heat using a heatsink and a fan."
• Ars Technica's One way to cool the BX chipset. And it's not even by dumping ice on it!

Epic's Alan Willard wrote in with a status update on Epic and the Unreal Tournament demo in general (looks like the wrath of Floyd passed them by):

We're not dead, and we do have power. Floyd didn't hit anywhere near as hard as it could have, and we only got knocked out for the night. We're going to continue testing the demo to make sure we have a good release for today.

Thresh's Firing Squad has posted a hands on preview of Unreal Tournament, which is based on a beta build of the game. The piece is by Dennis "Thresh" Fong, and in typical Thresh fashion it's very detailed, and loaded with lots of in-depth analysis from someone who eats, breathes, and sleeps in deathmatch.

A 3.1 beta patch for CounterStrike, the popular anti-terrorist mod for Half-Life has been released, and is available for download at the official CounterStrike page. This patch is purely a bug fix update, and you must have beta 3 already installed before running it (thanks Stretch-E).

A new version of ZDoom, an enhanced version of Doom based on the source code release from a while back has been released (thanks Frans). This version is labeled 1.18b.

A new version 0.7 of the Jumbot for Half-Life has been released. This version has a great deal of new features, including the ability for bots to run away if they feel they're at a disadvantage in combat, and a whole bunch of other AI improvements and tweaks.

The Adrenaline Vault News has posted seven new screenshots from Activision and Presto Studios' upcoming Star Trek: Hidden Evil, an action/adventure game set following the Star Trek: Insurrection movie.

The Adrenaline Vault Downloads Demo has a 31 MB playable demo from NovaLogic's upcoming Delta Force 2, the sequel to their voxelated first-person shooter that emphasizes tactics. Here's the word on what this release can, and can't handle, as far as video:

The pre-release version of Delta Force 2, supports a limited number of 3D cards. Delta Force 2 will support cards that are truly 32 bit color polygon renderers, including TNT, TNT2 and ATI Rage Fury. 3D card support is provided through Direct 3D. DirectX 6 or greater is required. Note that only polygon-based objects in the game will be accelerated.

The Adrenaline Vault News is reporting that programmer Billy Zelsnack has been contracted by Valve Software to work on TeamFortress 2. Here's a bit of the update which describes that, and also describes TeamFortress2 as being a year away, which, if it is the case, is the first indication that the title is that far off:

Now the Adrenaline Vault has confirmed with Sierra and Valve that Zelsnack has been contracted to assist the Team Fortress 2: Brotherhood of Arms development team, and is doing engine enhancements for the next-generation Half-Life technology being used for the title. Since the online-oriented 3D action game is at least a year off, as a Sierra public relations representative mentioned Tuesday when contacted about Zelsnack’s responsibilities on the project, both companies turned down our request for an interview. But having him elbow-deep in the code could mean very good things for the product.

Relic News sends word that they've received a confirmation from Relic's Alex Garden that Homeworld is gold, and this strategy/space sim should be available in stores in about two weeks.

Kickass Gaming Network Interviews George Collins, director of BattleZone2 team about this upcoming sequel to Activision's BattleZone, the 3D action/strategy homage to the arcade classic. The article takes a very general approach to the game.

PC.IGN.COM previews Wheel of Time looking ahead at Legend's Unreal-engine game saying, "It looks great, but how does it play? We do some deathmatch, and give you the complete spell list."

The Thief Gold website has some new screenshots of this upcoming follow-up to Thief, the sneaky, stealthy shooter. Thanks GA-Source, where they also have the shots posted.

Yup... thanks Frans at 3D Action Gamers:

• GameSpot reviews Independence War Deluxe Edition.
• Gamers Central re-views Re-Volt (and no, I'm not tired of that joke yet).
• Strategy Gaming Online reviews Dungeon Keeper 2.
• Well Rounded Entertainment reviews Drakan Order of the Flame.

• Word on the 4th Dimension Interactive page is that they're at work on a Half-Life version of their creative submarine conversion originally produced for Quake II...
• The Adrenaline Vault Downloads Demo has an updated version of the Sinistar Unleashed demo, though no word on what's new....
• There's a new Unreal Tournament Desktop Theme on the newly-opened 3dfx Gamers...

Well, I got my CPU returned, a matched pair on mail order to replace it. I got what sounded like good advice to buy SMP CPUs simultaneously to avoid potential problems, though I got advice on what looked like the best prices from mail order after I ordered, so I'll save that for next time. I also finally found a copy of NT (eight billion miniature Statues of Liberty in New York, and one copy of Windows NT). It's finally getting through my thick skull that it's historically always a soap opera when I go out hardware shopping, inevitably requiring at least one return trip to the store, so I think I'm going to stick to mail order from now on, which I've generally found much more reliable. Thankfully, at least, for the first time in the history of this site, such a saga (and this is easily at least the third time this has happened) didn't result in a few days of spotty updates, as loony has been doing a great job of keeping up as I've been gallivanting about buying components.

Link of the Day: Mitchell, South Dakota Corn Palace. The world's only. No... really! Thanks toast.
News Story of the Day: ABCNEWS.com Fred Moody The Big Bang, Part 2 is another look at Brookhaven's Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider, already discussed here previously, with an updated look at the potential problem. Thanks LaRcEn.

Mark Rein sent this e-mail to Unreality, explaining the current status of the Unreal Tournament demo, as well as with Epic in general (in light of the hurricane that's headed their way). Here's what he had to say:

Hurricane Floyd is expected to hit Raleigh pretty strongly late this evening and throughout tomorrow. This might be my last email for a while. We're expected to get at least 10 inches of rain and hurricane-force winds. The eye of the hurricane is projected to pass one county over from us (which is VERY close!) but hopefully it will be diminished as it travels over land.

In anticipation of the first demo release tomorrow we've launched http://www.unrealtournament.com. The UT web site isn't on a server located in Raleigh so it should stay up. I'll try to update it with our progress if I can keep power. We've sent a build of the demo/test off to 3DFX that could be released tomorrow in the event that we're unable to keep power here tonight. We already experienced a 45 minute power loss but power is back on right now. There are a few minor bugs fixes that we're hoping to fix but if power doesn't stay on that won't happen and the 321 build will get released. We've set up utbugs@epicgames.com for people to report bugs and problems with the demo. We're all backed up and I'll be taking a tape backup home in a waterproof container.

For those interested in tracking the hurricane you can visit http://www.ncstormtrack.com - the internet is pretty clogged tonight with people up and down the east coast hitting the weather and news sites for information about the storm.

There is a good possibility that we'll lose power for several days which could cause the delay of the 2nd demo (all APIs). If that happens we apologize in advance for any delays. A few days extra wait for a demo is nothing like the disaster that is facing most North Carolina farmers who are expected to lose their entire crops for the year due to this storm. Our hearts and concerns go out them as well as those who will be displaced from their homes or worse.

Ok, scratch the above. The security guard for our building just came up and asked us to leave the building. Apparently they're going to bolt the doors of the building so we won't be able to return. Carolina Power & Light told them the power is likely to go out at any time. They already have 15,000 customers without power in the area. We don't know when we'll be able to get back in, hopefully Friday after the storm has passed but we'll only be able to get into the building if it has power. During Hurricane Fran much of Raleigh was without power for an average of 3 days. The authorities say that this storm will be pretty similar to Fran or maybe stronger.We hope 3DFX users enjoys the demo and we'll do the best we can to ship the full demo (with support for all APIs) as soon after Monday as possible given the events of the next day or two. Wish us luck!

Mark Rein,
Epic Games Inc.

Hey! Dynamix sent along another one of those TRIBES Extreme update dealies, this time giving a bunch of designer Scott Rudi's background in games gone by and more (including the fact that his dad is in fact ex major-league baseball player Joe Rudi!). Here's a quote:

Scott looks forward to expanding the TRIBES Universe with TRIBES Extreme. "We've had a lot of interest from the community in broadening the focus of the game setting, maybe eventually creating new games in the Universe, new types of gameplay. TRIBES Extreme is just the first step in that direction."

By new types of gameplay, Scott means cooperative campaigns. "We have cooperative missions in TRIBES Extreme where a squad of players can go in and play against the computer. Players can even link missions to form their own cooperative campaigns. But what I'd really like to do is set up a cooperative campaign with an epic plot, optimized for a group to play and experience the story together." Such a goal poses a range of challenges, but Scott feels sure the time is right.

"Cooperative games really are distinct from single-player games." The balancing is different, he says, because you have multiple players participating instead of one, so the mission design necessarily becomes far more non-linear, more of an environment setup than a scripted plotline. "TRIBES as it stands poses some additional design difficulties, though, because it originated as a purely online game. We've had to construct a single-player version without disturbing that multiplayer cornerstone."

GameSpot's Starsiege TRIBES demo page is now up, giving the deal on the demo mentioned below. Here's the poop:

This demo contains three individual missions from the game which can be played on the Dynamix demo servers. Dynamix has set up demo servers that should have a higher proportion of new players, so you shouldn't encounter too many hardcore TRIBES vets at first. If you practice and drill with your teammates, there's no reason you shouldn't be ready to bloody some noses when you get the full game and hit the hardcore servers.

Though it's not yet noted on the Starsiege TRIBES - Tribes Players page , Frans points the way to a Starsiege: TRIBES demo that he's mirrored on 3D Action Gamers' Archive. There's no word on what's the deal with the demo yet, but it's a 20-something MB download.

Word from Microsoft is that Ensemble Studios' Age of Empires II Age of Kings has gone gold. Here's the poop on availability and other pimpage they sent along:

In anticipation of the long-awaited release, Microsoft has partnered with two key retailers, Electronic's Boutique and Babbages, to offer consumers the chance to pre-order the game. For a limited time, Electronic's Boutique is giving away a Limited Edition Player's Guide with every pre-order and Babbages is offering a set of Limited Edition Collector's Cards that detail each of the game's unique civilizations and offer game play hints and tips. Gamers can also pre-order the game at Microsoft's online store.

Red Storm's Rogue Spear Support page has been updated with three new Q&As dealing with technical issues associated with the Rogue Spear demo (and presumably the full version as well). Rogue Spear has gone gold, and is expected in stores next week. Thanks Frans at 3DGamers for the tip.

Yesterday's Darkstone patch (story) has been recalled (thanks Squick). Apparently there were some giant, show stopping bugs included by accident, and the patch cannot be uninstalled, so don't download or run the patch if you've got it.

3DWars has posted an interview with John Cook, lead programmer on Team Fortress 2 for Valve. The brief interview deals with John's background, as well as some basic TF2 issues, such as the changes they've made to the engine since Half-Life.

This week's Wheel of Time update has been posted to the official site (thanks Infiniti). The update kicks off with, "we're not far away from putting this bad boy on shelves (relatively, anyway)" and proceeds to talk about a number of issues related to finishing up the game. There's two new screenshots, as well as images of the swanky new WoT t-shirt they've had made up.

Version 0.65 of the Jumbot for Half-Life has been released, and is available for download (thanks Brian Jackowski). This version is said to be, "the most stable and reliable" release to date.

3dfxGamers has posted five more movies from Unreal Tournament in MPEG format. These should keep you occupied until they release the demo (hopefully later today).

Creative Labs has posted version 1.20 beta of the unified drivers for their Graphics Blaster TNT and 3D Blaster RIVA TNT2 Ultra video cards (thanks MyDrivers). This version features chroma key fixes, as well as optimizations for several games.

UK Gamer has posted an interview with Bernd Lehahn, a designer on X: Beyond the Frontier. The interview deals with the storytelling in the game, the buggy version released in Germany, and even hints about EgoSoft's future projects.

GameSpot UK has posted a preview of Legend's Unreal-engine strategy/RPG game Wheel of Time (thanks Octane). While the preview itself is fairly short, there's a number of impressive screenshots from the game that appear to be new.

GASource has posted an interview with Giovanni Caturano, lead development leader for Zetha gameZ, whose first title, DroneZ is a surreal, sci-fi third person action game (and judging by the title, may have been influenced by such notable "Z" films as AntZ and eXistenZ). There are nine accompanying screenshots, three of which are brand new.

sCary's Shack has posted a brief e-mail he received from John Carmack, which confirms that the new skeletal animation system that is being implemented into the Quake III: Arena engine will not in fact be included in the next Q3Test release (1.09), as well as word that the next version is still "a bit off". In other words, don't expect a release anytime soon.

The Playing Fields, the location for the ECTS Unreal Tournament party, has posted four AVI movies from UT, showing off the massive Redeemer weapon, the new Flak Cannon, plenty of DM mayhem, and a whole lot more.

GameSpot UK has posted a preview of Westwood Studios' top down RPG, Nox (although they're quick to point out that, "that's like describing Tiberian Sun as a top-down strategy game"). The preview is chock full of details, and illustrated with plenty of screenshots.

Force One has posted an interview with Jake Simpson, talking about the force feedback support that will be in Soldier of Fortune, as well as word that the OEM version of SoF will be completed next week. Here's an excerpt for you:

Apart from the gratuitous thud of your dead body hitting the ground, and the dull thump of bullets tearing into your living flesh. (getting a little carried away there ;) ), we'd like to try stuff like the train going over the rails in the train level, and stuff like that. Right now though, its more important for us just to get support in and stable. The immersion drivers for the Mouse for instance require a lot of looking at, and we are working with them now to fix this.

One thing to be aware of is that there will NOT be support for FF in the OEM deal that is coming down the pike in the next month or so. This is because we are still elbow deep in developing the FF support, but the OEM version has to be done next week. I'm sure you guys understand deadlines and all that :)

PlanetQuake has posted an interview with Stevie "Killcreek" Case, talking to the Daikatana level designer (and Playboy model) about female gaming, and her job at ION Storm. The interview was conducted by Hellchick, a finalist at the Female Frag Fest, where the interview took place.

While you're waiting for the demo to be released, Unrealism has posted 15 impressive screenshots from Unreal Tournament, which were taken at The Playing Fields' UT party at ECTS.

Beta 2.5 of Action Half-Life, the popular mod for Half-Life that adds realistic deathmatching to the game has been released, and is available for download. This version fixes the "say" command that was broken in the last release, and adds a number of new features as well. The Linux version isn't available as of yet, but should be released tonight or early tomorrow, according to the web site.

The official Delta Force 2 page has been updated, and now features eight new screenshots (on the screenshots page), as well as a DF2 FAQ (which mentions an October 21st release date). Thanks to the always astute Frans for the tip.

3dfx has launched 3dfxgamers.com, a site for well, 3dfx games and stuff (here's the press release with the announcement). They've kicked off the launch with some exclusive Unreal Tournament screenshots, and word that they'll be posting the exclusive UT demo soon (thanks Frans).

MacGamer's Ledge has posted some coverage of the Quake III: Arena tour, following it on the Bellevue and Tacoma stops (it would appear that they stalked the bus, as they followed it on the highway!). There's a lot of pictures, including some blurry ones of the new maps.

The humor site Penny Arcade has posted a fairly serious (and impressive) new screenshot from Dynamix' Starsiege: TRIBES 2, showing off some cool looking new buildings and environmental effects.

The Adrenaline Vault Previews Loose Cannon looking ahead at this upcoming game of driving and shooting (as well as the occasional getting out of the car and shooting) from Microsoft and Digital Anvil. The preview gives a good feel for the game, and offers a half-dozen spiffy screenshots. Here's some more on that getting out of the car bit:

Its chases involve not only cars but on foot pursuits as well. Indeed, the mixture of racing and combat makes this title different from anything else I have seen, creating gameplay more akin to a 3D action offering than a racer. It is therefore probably no surprise that Tony Zurovec, producer and director of the project, was director and lead designer of Crusader: No Remorse, a highly successful action offering released back in 1996.

Jorg Neumann, lead lesigner of Loose Cannon, says he has been wanting to create a game like this since he played Autoduel in 1985; however, he had to wait until personal computers finally offered the necessary horsepower to fulfill his vision. That said, the biggest change in the development process came about when, very early in the production, the decision was made to limit gameplay to outdoor environments due to the significant resource drain if indoor settings were included.

Mod Central Unreal has posted some info about the mutators (game types) to be included with the imminent Unreal Tournament demo from Epic's Cliff Bleszinski, who points out they will be discouraging (which I read as disallowing) user mods of the demo. Word is the demo will offer Insta Gib, Low Gravity, Pulse Arena, Rocket Launcher Arena, and Shock Arena mutators.

IPlayGames Kingpin Map Tutorial - Part 5 is on line covering clipping (a 15 yard penalty), giving a short rundown on making "odd" shaped brushes.

• The RIVA TNT FAQ now offers (legal) downloads of that tree demo dealie saying it will answer the question: "Is my PC ready for the next generation applications?" Thanks Blood.
• Thresh's FiringSquad's Introduction to Linux is aimed at Windows users.
• Overclocking Guide by 3D Rage is a guide to CPU overclocking discussing procedures and precautions, cooling, L2 cache limitations, clock multipliers and bus speeds.
• SystemLogic has posted a photo of the GeForce 256 powered Leadtek Winfast GeForce 256, which, unsurprisingly, looks like a video card.
• Ars Technica's SyGate 3.0 review and guide will help set up this proxy that allows you to share an Internet connection between several machines on a LAN.

Thanks Frans:

• GamePrix.com reviews Shadow Man.
• AGN3D reviews Independence War: Deluxe Edition.
• Gamer's Voice reviews Fly!.
• Sharky Extreme reviews the Skywell Magic Theater Pro, a Dolby 5.1 audio setup for the PC.

• The Adrenaline Vault Downloads Demo has the Rayman 2 demo, a 3D platform-type game...
• CNET.com - U.S. may lighten encryption export policy. Thanks Dan Glockenrock...
• Eudora Pro Email v4.2.1 BETA Software is now out, thanks BetaNews. After reading their disclaimers I can never work up the nerve to use Eudora betas...

Wow was I feeling 100% again yesterday. In fact, my frisky fired-up self decided to run into Manhattan in search of some parts to build that NT machine I've been planning on building (I mentioned this a while back as my plan to cure the low system resources in Win98 my use of Eudora, in particular seems to provoke--more on this in a moment). Now, as loony noted here when he went on his Slocket adapter hunt, New York City is not a hotbed of cutting-edge PC hardware, but after considerable hunting, I managed to uncover the exact dual-CPU motherboard I wanted, and then proceeded to search fruitlessly for a copy of NT Workstation in the city's lone CompUSA, and a dozen stores surrounding it (who all suggested going to CompUSA). Murphy's law had me come home with a lone CPU, and Murphy's sister's law had it turn out to be defective of all things, so my project is not really moving along towards the immediate gratification I envisioned when bypassing the mail-order route for this. In a related soap opera, turns out loony worked out the Eudora to Outlook conversion by exporting to Outlook Express first. Now he says he can't figure out how to selectively download large attachments. Like my nanna, nanna Rosanadana used to say.... if it's not one thing, it's another.

Link of the Day: Proptronics, Inc.. Home of those cardboard home entertainment systems. There's got to be a fun use for these things if they got into the right hands. Thanks Awea Kinkesch and Shadowstar.