PlanetBattlezone has posted the first patch for Battlezone II. This is a beta version of the patch, and not officially supported by Activision, so download at your own risk.

The latest Fast Track guide is online at Gamecenter, this one for SWAT 3: Close Quarters Battle, providing quick walkthroughs of all of the operational missions in Sierra Studios' tactical police-squad game.

Blade Universe has posted four new screenshots from Blade. They're the four shots in the top-left area of their screenshots page. Blade is a third person action/adventure game in development at Rebel Act Studios.

NVIDIA has posted new Detonator drivers (version 3.68) for their various chipsets (GeForce 256, TNT, TNT2, RIVA 128, etc.). Thanks to Kevin Sparks for the tip. You can snag the drivers on their site (after accepting the license agreement).

A few space-based games in one fell swoop: GameSpot has posted a first look of O.R.B. ("Off-world Resource Base"), the upcoming space-based RTS by Strategy First. Three new screenshots accompany the article. Further, there is a new movie of Tachyon: The Fringe on Gamecenter, showing off NovaLogic's space-combat adventure that features voice-overs by actor Bruce Campbell. Finally, GamesXTREME has posted an interview on Big Bang, an upcoming space shooter by Rayland Interactive.

id Software has released the final Point Release patch for Quake III Arena (Win32) on their ftp server (1.1 MB). As usual, here is a local copy with a couple of mirrors. The changes are noted in Robert Duffy's .plan:

The Point Release ( Win32 version ) is out. It should start appearing on mirrors soon.

The three primary fixes in this version over the 2nd beta are:

-crash when bots chat on dedicated servers
-crash when bots chat under linux
-bots no longer "keep" trying to score after they respawn if they died carrying the flag

Bungie's bTV archives has posted their coverage from Macworld, day four as a small (41 MB) or really incredibly large (269 MB) QuickTime movie. Day four featured a 3dfx interview, more Bungie culture, two minutes with Bungie's insane mascott/PR spokesman Doug Zartman, and best of all, the second part of their Halo footage.

The official Command & Conquer: Renegade page has been updated with a new screenshot from their upcoming third-person action game, showing a pair of A-10 bombers executing an airstrike on a NOD base.

IGN Guides has posted their guide to Quake III Arena. The guide, which is available either online, or via a downloadable PDF file, features maps for every level, as well as multiplayer strategies, weapon lists, and more. Free registration is required to view or download the guide.

According to Gone Gold, the PC version of Final Fantasy VIII has gone gold, and will be shipping to stores on the 26th. So get ready, and be warned - as those of us who played the Playstation version know, it's addicting.

According to several different news sites (here's the story on ZDNet) Bill Gates has stepped down as CEO of Microsoft. Steve Ballmer, previously the president of the company will be taking his place, and Bill will become chairman and head of software development. This comes in the light of several problems for Microsoft, including the DOJ's recommendation that they be split into three separate companies.

A version 0.3 beta test of the Lambda Arena modification for Half-Life is now available, offering un unpolished but playable version of the mod in an attempt to revive it after a split in the development team. Though the new release still contains glitches and what are described as "some unbalanced and unneeded weapons," it also offers bug fixes from the previous release, as well as a new spectator mode, three new weapons (hopefully none of them of the unneeded variety), three new maps, and much more.

Bot Building 101 on PlanetQuake gives a guide to creating or customizing your own bots in Quake III Arena. Remember to scream "give my creation life!" as lightning strikes the electrodes for best results.

The ION Storm Daily Informant has a "state-of-the-game" summary on progress on Anachronox, ION's upcoming RPG that will use an enhanced version of the Quake II engine. The update kicks off pointing out "2000 is an important year for Tom Hall and the Anachronox team— the year that they’ll deliver to the world the fruits of their considerable labor, a unique role-playing experience rich in content and immersive gameplay." The article includes word from "big cheese" Tom Hall as well as many other members of the development team talking about what they are currently up to.

A thread cryptically titled Well....skill me silly on the TTLG Forums has a few posts from MIS Monkey, AKA ION's Chad Warren (director of ION Austin MIS, and unofficial dev team representative) talking about Deus Ex, ION's upcoming Unreal (Tournament)-engine sci-fi action/RPG. The posts give some general info about the game, like speculative system requirements, as well as a few details. Thanks Bruce Ladewig. Also, CheckOut Deus Ex For PC is Checkout.com's preview of the game that seems new according to the ION Storm Daily Informant in spite of the December 28, 1999 date. As the DI summarizes, "The piece touches upon several aspects of the game, including backstory and character differentiation (skills, augmentations, and inventory)."

Win Messiah Stuff on incitegames is another contest attached to a string of Daily Messiah shots, so catching up with the contest will give a few looks at Shiny's upcoming third-person game of possessive action. Also, Touch the Orb on incitegames has descriptions and screenshots of ORB ("Off-world Resource Base"), Strategy First's upcoming "ringing real-time response to Sierra's 3D space strategy hit, Homeworld." Finally, there's a screenshot on Unreal Universe showing off some architecture from an unnamed Unreal-engine game in progress by Nevolution, who were working on a Shogo add-on until it was cancelled.

Speaking of cancelled Shogo add-ons (how often can you make that segue?), The Texture Studio has 284 brand new (to the general public) textures available in a total of five downloads. These textures, which can be worked into most current games, were created for use with a commercial add-on pack for Shogo that never made it to the shelves, and are free to the public provided that no money is charged for the projects in which they are used.

GameData.com ("le nouveau magazine online de jeux videos") has posted an interview with Fin McGechie of Mucky Foot, talking to the director of Urban Chaos about the game's development, and their plans for the future. The interview is available in your choice of French or English.

GA-RPG has posted six new screenshots from Soulbringer, an upcoming third person 3D RPG from Gremlin Interactive and Infogrames.

RPOV has posted an interview with Raven Software's Brian Pelletier, project leader on their Quake III Arena engine title Star Trek: Voyager - Elite Force. In addition to the interview, they've also posted some concept art by Pelletier himself.

Epic's Brandon "GreenMarine" Reinhart updated his .plan with some details on the free Unreal Tournament "expansion pack" that will be available for download soon, including a full list of the game's "relics" and word that it will not be a required download. The list is too large to print here, but you can check it all out in his full .plan update.

Last week, Pam Wolford of Third Law sent along new movie of KISS Psycho Circus: the Nightmare Child from the Febuary issue of Incite Games magazine, which wasn't meant for public distribution yet (but made its way onto several sites anyway). Official fansite PsychoNews has now received permission to post the movie, so it's time to post our local copy. At 59 MB, this is not for the bandwidth-impaired, but running over 7 minutes, it shows lots of new in-game footage interlaced with Third Law's Ronn Harbin and Matt Hooper explaining various aspects of the game, so it's worth a look if you've got the time or a speedy connection.

PC Gameworld has posted a gallery of new Imperium Galactica II screenshots, showing off gameplay scenes and interface screens of this upcoming space combat strategy title. Word is that after you flip through the dozen or so screenshots, you will be able to download a playable demo tomorrow, January 14.

Also up on PsychoNews is a new screenshot of KISS Psycho Circus: the Nightmare Child, which sports the first look at the game's status bar (HUD), as well as a new weapon, the Thornblade.

GA-Source has posted a brief development update on Oni, describing the state of multiplayer in Bungie's anime-inspired third-person action adventure, as well as some of the new features shown off at last week's MacWorld event.

Microsoft sends word that this Friday will mark the beginning of an open beta test of Allegiance, their upcoming space combat game. Details will be on the MS Gaming Zone's Allegiance page on Friday, and word is the full version of the game is expected on store shelves in March.

There's a NOX Chat Log & News on GA-RPG with a transcript from a chat session last night with some of the folks at Westwood Studios at work on this upcoming action/RPG hybrid answering questions about gameplay and other relevant subjects.

• Word from Matrox is that they have contracted Precision Insight to develop the Matrox Millennium G400 XFree86 4.0 DRI driver for Linux.
• Thresh's FiringSquad's 3dfx at Macworld Part 2 is online.
• Voodoo3 3500TV is reviewed on Glide Underground.
• Viper II is reviewed on Beyond3D.
• A new GeForce 256 OpenGL T&L Performance FAQ is online at NVIDIA. Thanks CLuTcH.
• Sharky Extreme's Weekly CPU Prices are up.
• CPU Review's Athlon/Pentium3 Price Comparison v12 is up (warning, this site now has an extra pop-up window).
• Intel, AMD earnings look bright but questions loom for 2000 (CNET). Thanks Haakon Larsen.
• Does Super Bypass Equal Super Performance? on SlotA.com.
• AOpen AX6BC Pro II Millennium Edition motherboard is reviewed on BXBoards.Com.
• EPoX EP-BX6 Special Edition motherboard is reviewed on VR-Zone.
• Overclockers Australia's P3 Cooler Comparison is up.
• Freespeed Pro is reviewed on The Tech Zone looking at this overclocking utility.
• Iwill Slocket II is reviewed on HardwareCentral.

Eavy's Unreal Tournament Mods has a new EavyDarkmatchII, a tournament DarkMatch plus add-on for Unreal Tournament that started as a simple Unreal Tournament mutator, but "turned into a full-blown mod," that (as the name implies) turns out the lights in UT DM. The new release adds additional DarkMatch gametypes to the general-purpose mutator, kills all known bugs, adds full networking support, along with the ability to play DarkMatch on any UT level in combination with any other game type or mutator.

In what is an inevitable right of passage, the "American version" of Quake III Arena has been "indexed" in Germany, as can be translated in this article: Heise News-Ticker Quake 3 indiziert. Being indexed in Germany significantly restricts how a product can be sold and marketed, and according to my AltaVista Translation a version is in the works for the German audience where "no more Blutspritzer is to be seen." Thanks Emul.

Nightrunner has posted version 0.6 of the Q3A Helper, a plug-in for 3D Studio Max to automate the "tedious task of switching between the layer animation sequences in a Max file." The new release includes scaling sequences, shifting sequence keys as a block, inserting blank frames, deleting frames, and diagnostic support. Also, a new tutorial on Quake3Mods.Net (their 17th) is an extended lesson on making complex doors in Q3A. Also, column castigator the AntiELVIS has posted version 1.3 of the Half-Life Compilation Controller on GracelessLand, described as "the KY jelly of map compiler front-ends for Half-Life." Finally, UT Station has posted a new tutorial written in the site's native German on creating skins in Unreal Tournament.

Teamplay.Net's Unreal Tournament Winter Conquest 2000 is accepting signups, and will offer four-on-four team DM, six-on-six CTF, and one-on-one tournaments, slated to start on January 17. Also, XSReality's player analysis gives a rundown on participants in the upcoming EuroTourney. Also, QuakeWorld/Clan Arena clans interested in participating in a 3-on-3 Clan Arena Tournament should email Dj` Gandalf and Broken -S-. Moving right along, signups are underway for FragStock, which will take place in Virginia Beach, VA this March. Word is there are currently some free sign-ups to be had. Finally, this Action Quake Ladder has one-on-one and two-on-two ladders for the popular Quake II mod.

nV News' Creative Labs Annihilator Giveaway offers a US resident the opportunity to win a GeForce 256 accelerator by answering a sole bit of GeForce trivia. Also, A3D.COM's weekly contest offers the chance to win a Vortex2 SQ3500 Turbo soundcard.

• Flanker 2.0 on PC.IGN.com.
• FreeSpace 2 on A Talent For War.
• Gabriel Knight 3 on Thresh's Firingsquad.
• Harley-Davidson: Race Across America on Adrenaline Vault.
• IntelliMouse with IntelliEye on Gamershome.
• Nocturne on Gamers Depot.
• Outcast on Wewp! Entertainment.
• Quake III Arena versus Unreal Tournament on MakeItSimple.
• Rogue Spear versus SWAT 3 on Gamecenter.
• Septerra Core on Xtreme Insight.
• Supreme Snowboarding on Gamerush.
• The Wheel of Time on GamePower.
• Tread Marks Demo on 3DGaming.net.
• Ultima IX: Ascension on GameStats.
• Unreal Tournament on MakeItSimple.
• Urban Chaos on Gamers Central.

• Version 0.1 of the Counter-Strike Alias Binder offers the first beta of a program to simplify the binding of keys for this popular Half-Life mod...
• Relic News has files for users of the European version of HomeWorld to allow the installation of the game's speech pack...
• Despite the 12/20 date, this Gabriel Knight 3 FAQ is new offering troubleshooting tips for Sierra's adventure game...
• FIRAXIS Games has a version 2.0 patch for Sid Meier's Alien Crossfire. Thanks 3D Games Argentina...
• A new version 3.55.00 of the HyperSnap Screen Capture utility for Win32 is now available...
• The Frag'a'Vista Searchengine offers a way to search for an Unreal Tournament map based on a scrap of info like the name of the map or the author...
• A peek into the future of games is MSNBC's report out of this year's CES. Thanks Sean "mwadaibe" Center...
• Prosecutors favor Microsoft breakup reports the USA Today, though the following note has been added questioning its accuracy: "(Justice Department spokeswoman Gina Talamona Wednesday said the following report was "inaccurate in several respects," and "does not accurately reflect our views." She declined to elaborate. USA TODAY editors say they stand by the story.)" Thanks PumpHunter...

William Shatner's new folk-song commercials for PriceLine (does anyone actually understand how PriceLine is actually supposed to work?) has to be the most brilliant ad campaign currently running... the Age of Aquarius one in particular. If you are unfamiliar with Bill's past as a singing icon ("Mr. Tambourine Man! Mr. Tambourine Man!!!") you may not get the full beauty, but I think they stand on their own as well. If you are into camp classics, the Shatner CD is definitely worth seeking out (most recommended cut: Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds).

Link of the Day: Windows® Game Programming For Dummies®. "Take the quick and painless route to creating your own Windows-based games using C, C++, and DirectX." Thanks Bröck Heinz.
Story of the Day: Matrix 101 on SciFi.IGN.Com reports that "Keanu's spectacular blockbuster is now being taught as a philosophy course." Woah! Thanks Ant.
Image of the Day: Another Q3A Doom Marine Wallpaper (this one with the Doom logo).

Site Status: Hey, nothing new has been done, but a few mails rolled in saying everything was back to normal yesterday for a couple of folks previously having difficulties. I suspect glitches with updating the DNS entry in local ISPs more and more all the time.