Adrenaline Vault has given their one, lonely screenshot of Aliens Versus Predator Gold a little company, by adding 10 more high-res images to the same page. As reported earlier today (story), AvP Gold is an expanded and updated version of Rebellion and Fox Interactive's first-person shooter.

The now smoke-free Kenn Hoekstra (congrats, welcome to the club) updated his .plan with word that the Soldier of Fortune demo has been downloaded enough to put it in the big leagues with the Quake III Arena demo, as well as details on a major sound problem people have been experiencing. Here's the scoop:

I'm continuing to lead the tech support charge on our message boards and we seem to have most problems nailed down. The biggest one that I'm aware of is the fact that the demo hangs on a blue/gray screen for users who have a YAMAHA DX-SG sound card or similar YAMAHA model. The problem is with the demo's auto-detect features looking for A3D support. These YAMAHA cards have limited A3D support (1.0) and Soldier's auto-detect code is looking for 2.0 or 3.0. This is what's causing the hang. Adding "+set snd_dll defsnd.dll" to your command line shortcut has fixed the problem for some users, but most YAMAHA owners are pretty much out of luck at this point. Jake "The Gent" Simpson is talking to his sources now to see about fixing the problem. As soon as we know something, you'll know something. According to Rick, future Soldier of Fortune releases are going to start up with default sound to avoid these sound support issues. Amen to that... =)

The sad thing? I have one of those DX-SG cards in my machine and it works. Probably because the drivers are the 1998 factory installed variety... *shrugs*

Gamecenter has posted their Fast Track Guide™ to Ultima IX: Ascension. The guide is essentially an excerpt from the book published by Prima, but it does feature detailed tips for virtually every area of the game (it just doesn't have the maps, the Avatar's Journal, or other extras included in the full book).

GameProWorld has posted a hands-on preview of Soulbringer, which is based on a full build of the game. They describe the game as, "Diablo meets Darkstone with a real strong emphasis on the story" and there are a whole bunch of shots for you to look at if that makes no sense to you.

InciteGames has posted 8 new screenshots from Thief 2: The Metal Age, offering a look at the game's architecture (which like the first Thief game is pretty impressive).

There are four new screenshots of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - the Fallen on GameSpot, showing off scenes from the Unreal-engine powered third-person action game by The Collective and Simon & Schuster, which they say is still slated for a March release.

NWGN has posted a brief interview with Mark Frohnmayer, talking to the lead programmer of TRIBES 2 about their upcoming team-based first-person action game. Here is a bit about the planned gameplay modes:

Tribes 1 actually supported 5 distinct multiplayer game types, CTF, capture and hold, find and retrieve, Defend and destroy, and deathmatch. We're enhancing some of the Tribes 1 modes (D&D and F&R), and adding in 3 new game types.

Although the game didn't get a very positive review on GameSpot, they have now posted a full-fledged game guide for Mortyr, offering general strategies, an enemy guide, weapon and multiplayer strategies, and a complete walkthrough for Mirage Media's first-person shooter.

3dfx keeps churning out the drivers, and has now released these Voodoo2 Windows 9x DirectX 7 Drivers - Version 3.02.02. Thanks Ant. The new version fixes problems with resolution switching and the control panel, as well as bugs on various games.

Skinning 101 has the latest release of the Skinlinker utility for Quake III Arena that creates the .skin files needed to link the skin image files to the models in Quake III Arena. The new version now allows to create bots, mostly with default characteristics, "but you do get to set speed, aggressiveness, accuracy, alertness, sex and a few other things."

Monolith's Jason Hall updated his .plan again with a clarification to his earlier update about the recent formation of a separate company to handle their LithTech engine, particularly about the term "3D Game Operating System" (see earlier story):

Some quick clarification.

LithTech has become extremely elaborate over time, and currently the best method to describe it to a developer in a way that makes sense (given its full capabilities) is to describe it as a 3D Game Operating System.

This helps developers make the mental distinction and understand the different contexts of uses between technologies like Renderware (3D Renderer), Unreal (3D Engine) and LithTech (3DGOS).

Agreed that perhaps it's not a complete OS in every technical sense of the term, but the context in which a developer must look at it and work with it is closer to that than any other easy-to-understand description.

Just wanted to clarify that a little more.

Also, I can only stress that we are just getting started with our announcements. We have been very busy as you will see! It's quite exciting.

Adrenaline Vault has posted the first screenshot of Aliens Versus Predator Gold, the just announced expanded version of the game that is due to be released in the Spring (story). The shot displays a marine opposing a Predator, guns akimbo, with an Alien looking on to jump the survivor :-)

There is an interview with sound programmer Tony Bennett on Aureal's A3D.com, and naturally the topic of discussion is his work on the audio code in Messiah, the hopefully imminent third-person action game by Shiny.

Tonight marks the first Deus Ex developers chat, so hop over to ION's web based chat, or point your IRC browser to www.ionstorm.com at 8:00 CST and join #ion to talk to Warren Spector and others from ION's Deus Ex team.

Monolith's Jason Hall updated his .plan with some comments on the formation of a separate company to handle their LithTech engine (story), saying their intent is to create a 3D gaming OS with the engine (although he doesn't give a real definition of that term). Here's what he had to say:

This announcement is extremely significant. We have been working hard to make sure that LithTech is geared and ready for the future. This announcement shows that we are moving in the right direction.

It is the highest compliment to be able to attract someone of Dr. Whitten's caliber. This guy really knows solid technology when he sees it.

I am looking forward to watching LithTech grow and proliferate as a true 3D gaming operating system (3DGOS). The end result of all of this is an even more robust development toolset that has a clear direction and a solid future - and more importantly, great support!

More cool announcements soon...we are just getting started.

3dfx has posted new drivers for their Voodoo 3 based cards (thanks CiKoTiC). These drivers fix a problem some users were having with the 3dfx Tools program, and say that you should only download these if you were experiencing problems.

Raven's John Scott updated his .plan with some new stuff for fans of the Soldier of Fortune demo. He's posted a TXT file with a list of DMFlags for the game, as well as a JPEG with the character set they used for the fonts for those interested in creating fun names (although he says you'll have to manually hack your CFG file).

incitegames has posted more materials from Star Trek: Klingon Academy, showing off Interplay's space-combat RTS in nine screenshots and four brief movies of Gorn-Klingon battles.

Black Isle and Interplay have now released the official version 1.1 patch for Planescape: Torment (as opposed to the beta patch awhile ago), a 3.3 MB download that fixes a number of issues with the game, most notably the recurring slowdown problems.

StormTroopers has posted an interview with Deus Ex programmer Scott Martin, talking to him about his work on the AI in the game. It's interesting stuff, as he talks about how the NPCs in the game will function, but also about his "process" for developing the AI for each class of character. Here's an excerpt where he discusses how the NPCs will function:

I wanted NPCs to react to the world in roughly the same way that real people do. The key to this was to make the AI recognize things based on sight and sound. The Unreal engine has a decent pathfinding system built into it (written by Epic's Steve Polge), so thankfully I didn't have to build one from scratch. But because the original Unreal was a single-player shooter, its A/V event handling didn't consist of much more than "I see the player, so I attack" and "I hear the player, so I attack." I built an audio/visual event manager into the Unreal engine so NPCs could detect things like footsteps, gunshots, smashed windows, objects hitting the ground, drawn weapons, screams, distress, etc. -- and more importantly, it could distinguish between them. I also wrote behaviors for the NPCs so they could react appropriately to these events.

Monolith sends news of the formation of LithTech Inc., "a subsidiary dedicated to creating the standard in real time 3D development and networked multimedia operating systems." Here's the full release, which also announces the hiring of Dr. Gregory Whitten as Chief Software Architect:

Kirkland, WA (January 27, 2000) Monolith Productions today announced the formation of LithTech Inc., a subsidiary dedicated to creating the standard in real time 3D development and networked multimedia operating systems. As its first official action, LithTech has named Dr. Gregory Whitten-19 year veteran of Microsoft, as Chief Software Architect.

"LithTech Inc.'s ability to attract someone of Dr. Whitten's caliber confirms our belief that our technology implementation is state of the art," comments Jason Hall, CEO for Monolith Productions and LithTech Inc. "Our vision is to combine strong leadership with experienced professionals to create the first company dedicated to serving the maturing real time 3D market."

Dr. Whitten is currently Co-Chairman of NumeriX Corporation. He retired from Microsoft in 1998. His research interests revolve around large-scale, concurrent object oriented systems and software architectures. During his impressive 19 year career with Microsoft, Dr. Whitten designed and implemented many pieces of the BASIC, Quick BASIC and Visual BASIC interpreters and compilers and the common cross-language compiler and runtime technologies. In addition, Dr. Whitten started the Windows project, architected the GDI graphics and device model as well as the memory and programming models for Windows and OS/2. He was also responsible for initiating Microsoft's company-wide object oriented software strategy including leading the design groups for OLE 1.0, 2.0, COM and OLE controls which became DCOM and ActiveX. Additionally, he worked on software strategies for the Office, Back Office and Windows product lines. Dr. Whitten has a Ph.D. from Harvard University where he did original research in numerical analysis, analysis of algorithms and econometrics.

"LithTech is a perfect complement to my technical interests, and I look forward to joining the team," says Dr. Whitten. "Together we can move gaming to a new level of sophistication and capabilities."

The LithTech 3D Engine is a licensable technology for multiple platforms that functions as a complete 3D game operating system, which allows developers to easily design, develop and focus on content without reinventing technology for each project.

A new version of the Jumbot for Half-Life has been released. This version fixes a slew of bugs that showed up in the previous release, and will be the last for the immediate future (unless still more bugs pop up, of course).

According to this story on PSXNation (which apparently is based on a quote from this interview on Unreal Universe, although no credit is given), Epic will be showing Unreal Tournament running on the Playstation 2 at this year's Game Developer's Conference. I asked Epic's Brandon "greenmarine" Reinhart, who is working on the port about this, who confirmed that, "the plan is to bring our dev kit and show off what we have."

Aliens Versus Predator is Back and It's Pure Gold is a press release from Fox Interactive, announcing their plans to release a Gold Edition of Aliens Versus Predator this Spring. The update will feature nine new levels, new weapons, and other enhancements, and will also include the official strategy guide.

There are more new screenshots of Evolva on GA-Source, as well as a little info on the AI system in this colorful action/strategy title currently under construction at Computer Artworks.

WAGZ (short for West Australian Gaming Zone) has posted an interview with Jeff DeWitt, animator on Human Head's upcoming Viking slashfest RUNE. The talk covers his work on modelling and animating the game's protagonist Ragnar, applying the Unreal engine to a third-person title, and more.

There are three new screenshots of Metal Fatigue on 3D-Unlimited, showing off scenes from Zono and Psygnosis' upcoming 3D real-time strategy title.

GameSpot UK has posted a brief but hands-on preview of Star Trek: Voyager - Elite Force, the Q3A-engine based action game in development at Raven. Unusual for a hands-on preview, most if not all of the screenshots in the short gallery are already familiar, though.

• The unofficial Unreal Tournament FAQ by Droogie has been updated with new info and tips on Epic's acclaimed first-person shooter.
• Raven's official Soldier of Fortune support FAQ was updated with more tips on their recently released demo.
• There is a detailed walkthrough of Half-Life: Opposing Force on Daily Radar.
• Commander Keen's Console page has updated lists of the commands and variables in Quake III Arena's point release (thanks VE).

PC.IGN.com has updated their preview of Thief II: the Metal Age with some 40 new screenshots taken from a recent build of the game (with these numbers, thumbnails would have been welcome).

Epic Programmer Brandon "GreenMarine" Reinhart updated his .plan with a lengthy essay focusing primarily on the user-made mod community, and how vitally important it is to the success of games in the shooter area. Brandon points out that "Minh Le, the author of Counterstrike, has effectively more people playing his game online at any one point in time than either Quake3 or UT. Consider this very closely if you work in the 3D industry. This is important." He goes on to repeat his belief we are in the midst of "a 'renaissance' in garage game development," and points out that some of Half-Life's longevity on the sales charts and online are due "to Valve brilliant and unrelenting support of the mod community," saying "This is NOTHING NEW to Valve, but quite new to the rest of the industry." Some of GreenMarine's update serves as a warning to mod authors to make sure they are not taken advantage of. Here's a bit on that:

Here's what I want to say to the mod authors: Remember what I said about companies taking what they can get? They do and they will. If a company offers you some money or a contract, get a lawyer. Do it right. Don't be afraid to ask what you think you are worth. You damn well know that if a company is seeking you out, you are worth something to them.

The garage mod authoring scene is driven both by groups and individuals. Individuals are more likely to find jobs at game companies through their work on notable mods. I think that what Valve has done with Team Fortress is probably an exception. I don't know any of the TF team, what their positions are at Valve, or even if all of them are actually working there. I do know, however, multiple individual mod authors who have found jobs in the industry because of their skill and initiative. Mods prove to game companies that a person has talent and the ability to complete a project.

The lengthy update goes on about the impact mods will have on the future of UT, and gives plenty of good advice to authors on planning and publicity, while warning against over-hyping, making note of our policy here of not honoring any of the dozens of requests we get each day to post screenshots and such of yet-to-be-released mods (so many fall by the wayside, as he admits one of his own past projects did). It's an insightful and informative read throughout, in spite of its massiveness.

Working the printscreen key like concert pianists, the folks at GameFan have posted another 32 MDK2 screenshots showing off action from BioWare's imminent sequel to MDK, hot on the heels of the half-dozen shots they posted the other day. The shots are from a beta build of the upcoming third- and first-person action title. MDK, of course, stands for "Men Don't Knit."

The Gallery over at Majesty - Dragon has been updated a few times recently, offering a bunch of screenshots of a beta version of Majesty, an upcoming RTS. The Majesty preview at PC.IGN.Com was recently updated based on playing a new build as well. Also, there's a new Theocracy preview on Eurogamer.net with a look ahead at this RTS from UbiSoft and Hungarian developers Philo Laboratories, with nine new screenshots of gameplay. Finally, screenshots on Dr.TwisTer's Shadowbane Alert show off some of the frontal nudity that will be featured in this upcoming RPG, purely to advance the plot, no doubt.

• The 3DSL Home Page has word of some new version 2041 Aureal drivers, as well as word from Aureal on the deal with the long-planned EAX support, which criticizes the inconsistent way that EAX is implemented in different games.
• There's new Microsoft IntelliType Pro 1.1 software if you have one of those new keyboards with all the extra buttons. Thanks Sigurdur G. Gunnarsson. The new version offers Win2K support.
• Sharky Extreme's Weekly CPU Prices have been updated, as have GamesXTREME's UK CPU Prices and CPU Review's Athlon/Pentium3 Price Comparison.
• The RIVA 3D Forums are hosting a petition they will forward to Creative Labs to get the Unified Database to accept Annihilator Serial Numbers.
• Tech-Junkie's interview with VIA Technologies offers VIA's stand on the Joshua and RAMBUS.
• What's Behind the Coppermine on tech-Review tries to shed some light on the guts of the most recent PIIIs.
• Guillemot 3D Prophet-SDR is reviewed on Gamers Depot.
• Voodoo3 3500 TV is reviewed on Ars Technica.
• ATI Rage Fury Maxx is reviewed on Thresh's FiringSquad.
• S3 Monster Sound MX400 is reviewed on GameSpot.
• Maxi Gamer Sound Fortissimo soundcard on Tac-Sim.com.
• Soyo 6VBA 133 versus Tyan S1854 motherboard comparison on Ars Technica.
• Coolermaster ATC-200 Thermal Case is reviewed on GamePC.

The finalists for the GDC 2000 Independent Games Festival have been announced. Congrats to Blix by StationBlix.com, Hardwood Hearts by Silver Creek Entertainment, King of Dragon Pass by A-Sharp, Moonshine Runners by K-D LAB, Quaternion by Spin Studios, The Rift by Thrushwave, Rogue Wars by ReAllis, Seed by HS Games Hungary/Humansoft, and Tread Marks by Longbow Digital Arts, who will all compete for the grand prize at the Game Developers Conference this March in San Jose, CA.

PC, video game sales skyrocket reports the USA Today, while also noting "Sales of video and computer games with 'Mature' ratings for violence, language or sexual content fell from 2.6 million units in 1998 to 1.2 million in 1999, according to figures compiled by the NPD Group and released Wednesday by the Interactive Digital Software Association," though their take on this is "...analysts said that may have more to do with the phenomenal popularity of Pokemon than concern over tragedies such as the Columbine High School massacre." Thanks Toughguy. Also, the latest GameDAILY Top 20 Selling Entertainment Titles for January 9 - 15, 2000 is online, with Q3A holding at #6, UT up to #8, Rogue Spear up to #10, and Half-Life dropping to #19 (it looks like Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, in the #1 spot, is going to be as hard to move as Regis' hair). Also of note is the GameDAILY Top 10 Selling Mac Titles for January 9 - 15, 2000, where the top two spots are held by Quake III Arena and Unreal Tournament, in that order. Till next time, I'm Casey Kasem, saying, "keep your hands in your pockets, and your feet in the air."

The startlingly barebones Challenge website has a new Quake III Arena modification called Challenge. The author doesn't have time to maintain the page, and didn't really send along a lot of info about the mod, so I guess part of the challenge is to figure out what it does. Described as a "battleground like mod for quake 3," word is: "It has some cool features like playing sound to your teammates..."

It's good news and bad news here, the bad news first: "It is with a sad and heavy heart that I announce that GamesCon in the Bay Area is cancelled and that GamesCon has decided close it's doors," is the way the letter from GamesCon founder Mark "Rick" Chandler kicks off, with the unfortunate news that this event/trade show that aimed to be the E3 for gamers has been cancelled, and the organization is now defunct. The site has the full press release detailing the reasons for this unfortunate turn of events. On a happier note, word from the Razer CPL Event is that admission prices for this upcoming $100,000 tournament have been lowered to $30.00 in advance, and $40.00 at the door. Online registration is scheduled to begin Tuesday, February 1 at 5:00 PM EST (4:00 PM Central Time). Finally, Eurogamer.net's xsi coverage is complete, with a wrap-up of the event.

• Battlezone II: Combat Commander on Sniper's Alley.
• Carnivores II on PC.IGN.com.
• Demise Demo on new reality gaming.
• Descent 3: Mercenary on Adrenaline Vault.
• Final Fantasy VIII on Daily Radar.
• Flight Simulator 2000 Professional Edition on GameProWorld.
• Hangsim on Electric Games.
• Jane's F/A-18 on Happy Puppy.
• Logitech Wingman Mousepad on Teamplay.Net.
• Microsoft's Sidewinder Force Feedback Pro 3.0 on HardNews.org.
• Mortyr on Gamers Central and GameSpot.
• Panzer Elite on Electric Playground.
• Planescape: Torment on GamesMania.
• Quake III Arena on GameCritics.
• Quake III Arena versus Pokémon (the Battle for America) on Gamecenter.
• Razer Boomslang 2000 on Teamplay.Net.
• Rainbow Six: Rogue Spear on Electric Playground.
• Soldier of Fortune Demo on Damage Gaming.
• Supreme Snowboarding on Game-Forge.
• SWAT 3: Close Quarters Battle on Electric Playground.
• The Wheel of Time on Wewp! Entertainment.
• Tread Marks on Gamelinks.net.
• Ultima IX: Ascension on MPOG.
• Unreal Tournament on GameCritics.

• The History of Computer Games - Part I is by gaming historian Rich "Zdim" Carlson of Looking Glass Studios, and Chasing Technology looks at the current art of the RTS (that one's fun to read aloud) from Greg Borrud of Pandemic Studios, both part of GameSpy.Com's Developer's Week...
• ValveWorld interviews Cliffe of the Counter-Strike mod including word of "how to get a weapon in the game that costs more than any amount of cash you can get in the mod"...
• AGN3D's The Sims interview is a transcript of a recent GameTime appearance by Patrick Buechner of Maxis talking about their latest, the Sims, which sounds even simmier than ever...

Here's an issue I imagine will be of interest to many who read this site, as I recall many of the passionate discussions in the past of cookies, security and privacy issues. Activists charge DoubleClick double cross is a USA Today story detailing how DoubleClick's recent acquisition of Abacus Direct Corp. has provided them with the opportunity to turn cookies left in your browser into breadcrumbs (as in Hansel and Gretel) to track your movements and purchases across the World Wide Web. Thanks Jamie Wood. This is likely not the last we'll hear of this, as word in the article is a complaint will be filed next month with the Federal Trade Commission by the Electronic Privacy Information Center. In the meantime, DoubleClick assures users unhappy with this that they can opt out from their tracking program, which you can apparently do by clicking this DoubleClick Privacy link. Interesting stuff. As always, if you opt to use cookies for our messageboards, we promise not to do anything with them but help you save your settings.

Link of the Day: Treasury of Geriatric Erotica. Thanks ChiQ.
Story of the Day: DeCSS Author Arrested, on Slashdot (one of many /. threads on the subject). Suggested by Jimmy Sieben as a follow-up to yesterday's link to a news article on the subject, pointing it is of "great importance in the coming digital age," and suggested the Slashdot forums provided word from all sides of the issue, which is more complex than the simple "cracking" story suggests.

3DGPU has posted an interview with Epic's Tim Sweeney, talking to him about his background, his thoughts on various hardware issues, and even what graphics technology he feels will impact the gaming scene the most (surprise: it's the Playstation 2).

InciteGames has posted some new screenshots from Looking Glass Studios' Thief 2: the Metal Age, taken from an Alpha version of the game they received.

Also up on Incite are two new shots from Klingon Academy, an upcoming space combat sim set in the Star Trek universe. Word on their site is that a demo should be appearing "quite soon."

Up Close with Vampire: The Masquerade is an interview on GameSpot with Activision producer Chris Hewish, bringing us up-to-date on the latest happenings with Nihilistic's upcoming 3D action RPG. There is also a hint at a possible sequel.

Origin has released a new version 1.18F patch for Ultima IX: Ascension, fixing a long list of problems listed here, including many gameplay problems, plot-stoppers and crashes, as well as adding GeForce support, Direct3D improvements, and more. Thanks Stratos Group. Update: Matthew Rorie of Stratos Group sends a warning that the patch breaks the game or causes other problems, as messages on the Ultima IX Technical Support messageboard are reporting (registration required), so you may want hold off installing the patch until this is resolved.

MicroProse has released a set of multiplayer maps for MechWarrior 3. The 10 MB download includes 5 maps that can be installed individually, called Batchall, MechFactory, LavaPit, Snowfield, and Underground. As the ftp server appears to be rather slow, a mirror is online at 3D Action Gamers.

There is a new Thief II: the Metal Age interview on Vault Network, talking to project director Steve Pearsall to divulge more details about Looking Glass upcoming game, that puts you into the shoes of a thief called Garrett.

More map news, as PlanetDaikatana sends word of a post on the Daikatana forums, where ION Storm level designer Luke "weasl" Whiteside lists the maps that have been finished for the retail version of Daikatana. The lineup consists of 10 deathmatch maps, 4 CTF maps, and one deathtag and Blade-match map each.

The official Battlecruiser 3000 AD site has been updated with 12 new shots featuring the engine's new environment-bump mapping (on Matrox G400 cards) as well as 4 new shots (non-bump-mapped) of a "Type 2" station from Battlecruiser Millenium, the upcoming sequel to BC3K.

PlanetFortress has posted an interview with Valve's Robin Walker, talking to him about all things TeamFortress 2. There isn't much in the way of new information, but he does say that they're likely to roll the new networking code into Half-Life to test before TF2 ships, and that the game's combat lies somewhere between Team Fortress Classic and CounterStrike.

German site Nonstuff has posted a gameplay movie of Black & White. Shot from a computer screen, the image quality leaves a bit to be desired, but it shows two of the creatures in Lionhead's strategy/god-game in a fight. The 44 second movie requires Quicktime 4.

PlayNOW! has posted an interview with id developers Paul Steed and Tim Willits, conducted during their tour of Australia last month. The freely roaming talk covers all sorts of topics, such as working at id, Quake III Arena as well as id's previous games, their gaming influences, and much more. Here is a quote:

Simon: In the short time since its release, Quake III Arena has been hailed by players as the ultimate deathmatch game bar none. You have each commented very publicly that "There will be no Quake IV". Where does the future of multiplayer lie?

Tim: Quake III is probably id's last "I am a one man army with no control or power over the environment around me" game. I think that in the future multiplayer will revolve around more team games, more role-specific type deathmatch where maybe you're the guy who has to guard something for X number of minutes, or maybe you're the squad leader of a team of bots given some mission, or maybe you're a mercenary hired out to some clan or something. I think with Quake III we've nailed down the pure, classic deathmatch style. In the future we can develop new game types or new variants of that, which will be pretty exciting.

Adrenaline Vault reports that Hidden & Dangerous: Devil's Bridge has gone gold, and should appear on store shelves by February 4. Devil's Bridge is the expansion pack to Illusion Softworks and TalonSoft's tactical squad-action game, and is already available in Europe under the title Fight for Freedom.

Eidos has released a new movie of Thief II: the Metal Age for download (13.4 MB), showing off a minute of gameplay and rendered sequences from Looking Glass' covert action game, with a soundtrack by Everclear. Thanks FilePlanet, who has a mirror here.

Slashdot points the way to this Silicon Graphics press release that announces their release of the OpenGL Sample Implementation as Open Source. The Sample Implementation forms the basis of the OpenGL graphics acceleration in most of today's 3D video cards, and this release "clears the way for the emergence of high-quality OpenGL drivers for the Linux platform." The download is available from their OpenGL Sample Implementation page, along with further details and a FAQ.

After months of speculation, Electronic Arts has finally announced that The World is Not Enough, a game based on the recent James Bond movie of the same name, is currently in development using the Quake III Arena engine. Today they issued a press release stating that they had licensed the engine for the previously announced American McGee's Alice, TWINE, and also additional games, "that wiill be announced at a later date." Here's an excerpt from the full press release with info on James Bond:

About Bond, James Bond... The World is Not Enough

EA previously announced it secured an exclusive long-term licensing agreement with MGM Interactive and Danjaq, LLC to bring Secret Agent James Bond to the interactive entertainment market. The first Bond title to come out of this deal will be based on the 1999 blockbuster film, The World is Not Enough. The game will deliver an action-packed, spy-inspired adventure true to the James Bond legacy, when it is released in late 2000. More information on the movie can be found on the official James Bond web site from MGM (NYSE: MGM) at http://www.jamesbond.com.

Raven's Chia Chin Lee updated his .plan with some quick tips for users having problems with the sound effects in the Soldier of Fortune demo. Also, Raven's John Scott updated his .plan with a full rundown of all the various scalibility options in the demo (as well as some links to comics featuring the game).

Rorshach, everyone's favorite Watchmen psychopath, has released the wireframe files for Quake III Arena on his site. These wireframes will allow artists to test their skins with ease, and are under 1.5 meg.

Robin McLeod has released a new version 0.5a build 6 of wHeretic, his Win32 port of Raven's venerable Heretic. This release has a new sound engine, faster video handling, fixed Win9X keyboard code, and other improvements.

For the third week in a row (which has got to be a record) here's a new edition of the Blue's News Mail Bag! In today's edition: DSL vs. Cable Modems, the real creator of InstaGib, two different views of Kingpin, an Unreal tech support nightmare, the translation to last week's mystery e-mail, and lots more. Pull up a chair and take a read.

Cthulhu keeps calling, as Daily Radar has posted a brief preview of Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth. The article features quotes from Headfirst designer Andrew Brazier, such as this design choice they made to increase the game's immersion: "By dropping the onscreen interface entirely, gamers will be kept within the game world. All there will be on screen is what your character can see."

Hot on the heels of their galleries (see below), GameSpot UK has also posted a new movie of Ground Control, showing off over a minute of in-game footage from Massive's 3D real-time strategy game.

Adrenaline Vault has posted a hands-on preview of Nox, looking at Westwood's isometric action-RPG that went gold yesterday (story).

Massive Entertainment's 3D RTS is making the rounds today, as there are new screenshots and some hi-res model images of Ground Control on GameSpot UK (although a couple shots are already familiar), a pair of new screenshots on GCCenter, and three more on VoodooExtreme.

PC.IGN has posted some new details on the trillogy of Blair Witch Project games, including word that the mystery third title is being developed by none other than Ritual Entertainment. Here's the scoop:

The Blair Witch Project: The Nocturne Chronicles: Rustin Parr, which is due in the Summer and wins the award for most colons in a title, has the Stranger investigating a mystery in the Blair woods in 1941. TBWP:TNC:RP (that's not some sort of morse code) is currently under development by Terminal Reality.

Human Head in the meantime is working on the second game, which will take place in 1886 -- we're assuming the Stranger won't have a part in this adventure, though you never know… time travel? The third in the series, taking place way back in the witch-tastic days of 1785, is under development by Ritual, a company busy at work on another movie-based game, F.A.K.K. 2. According to USA Today, the other titles will release in September and October, respectively.

Word from Dark Mistress Kazi Wren of the Spookhouse is that a new Nocturne patch is now available, as well as some models for the Nocturne mission editor, including crane, cargo ship, and tug boat models by TRI's Terry Simmons, with other models by TRI's Mike Porter. Here is a local copy of the Nocturne Patch (3.4 MB), along with a list of mirrors, and here's word on what it does from the Spookhouse:

WARNING!!!!! Some current saved games in Nocturne may be "invalidated" by this patch. You can load your saved game, but if Nocturne gives a warning, you SHOULD NOT use that saved game. This will not invalidate all saved games, but if you have a saved game from a part of Nocturne that got patched, that saved game may no longer work. Everyone needs to know this before downloading the patch.

1. This version fixes problems with hardware mixing and SoundBlaster Live cards.
2. It allows 2MB ATI 3D Expression cards to start Nocturne.
3. This version fixes various script anomalies that could prevent Nocturne from operating correctly under unusual circumstances. An example is little Tommy will start his dialog in the church even if he has somehow gotten stuck on a pew.
4. The ambient sound for Act 1 will now play, but only if you have done a complete install. 5. This patch version includes a fix that allows Voodoo3 cards running the 1.03.00 drivers (or later) from 3Dfx to run at full speed with hardware acceleration.

Unzip this file to any temporary directory of your choice. When you run nocpatch2.exe, the patch file will locate your installed version of Nocturne. Please, keep this patch file. If you reinstall Nocturne, or if you have done a selective or minimal install, when you install a new Act in Nocturne, this patch must be applied each time AFTER you have installed a new Act.

Unreal Universe "Interviews The Father of the Unreal Engine" also known as Tim Sweeney, lead programmer at Epic Games. The Q&A covers a wide range of topics, including Unreal (1) updates (and the possibility of an Unreal source-code release), UT mods, Unreal 2, and more.

There's a new Zoid Interview on the Mean Arena talking with the father of ThreeWave CTF (I figured I'd keep with the paternal theme) about his work as a contract programmer for id Software, talking about his Capture the Flag work from its beginnings as a Quake mod, through its present Q3A incarnation.

WON Director of Technology Stuart Seelye sends word of a workaround they've implemented to overcome a problem that's been plaguing the in-game Half-Life server browser, as well as news that this is just a temporary measure that will be addressed in a future Half-Life update. Here's the deal:

The Half-Life server browser problem that a lot of people have been experiencing - the one with about seventy message boxes saying something like "Expecting '{', got 'CS'" - is due to a bug in the Half-Life client that is invoked by a particular misconfigured game server. The bug in the client will be fixed in the upcoming Half-Life update. In the meantime though, I got the master server code from Yahn at Valve and implemented an ip banning feature. The game server that was causing the problem is now banned. This is only a temporary fix until the update comes out.

The master server solution will prevent the problem from occurring again, but users still need to delete the favsvrs.dat file in their half-life directory if they get the error messages. Or they can just hit the update button in the server browser. Either method will work to blow out the favsvrs cache.

• Savage Daily News has word of new beta Savage 4 drivers. I can't find them on the S3 site, but they have direct links to two sets of drivers W9X/Perf ICD, and W9X Standard.
• AMD Names Motorola Chip Executive As President. Thanks Haakon Larsen.
• Intel to Build $2 Billion Chip Plant in Arizona. Thanks again Haakon Larsen.
• Bitboys Introduces Xtreme Bandwidth Architecture to 3D-graphics Processors, claiming "two to three times the memory bandwidth with over the nearest competitors..." Also, Bitboys establishes US Operations. Thanks Sharky Extreme.
• ZDNet News: Why fast access is stuck in the slow lane. Thanks Ant.
• A new edition of Behind the Lines on Extreme Hardware looks to give an overview of the retail market scene.
• How to Overclock a Computer and Maintain Rock-hard Stability on Tweak3D (part one) is online.
• Hercules 3D Prophet DDR-DVI is reviewed on HardwareCentral.
• Absolute Multimedia Outrageous 3D GeForce DDR is reviewed on 3DGPU.com.
• Creative Labs SB Live! Platinum is reviewed on 3D Spotlight.
• ABIT VA6 Motherboard is reviewed on Overclockers Australia.
• Alpha Vs Global Socket 370 cooler comparison on HardOCP.

GA-Source's Call of Cthulhu - Dark Corners of The Earth interview is the latest in a flood of interviews about Headfirst Productions' upcoming Lovecraftian adventure, talking with Andrew "18 Hour" Brazier about progress on the PC version of the pen and paper RPG developed by Chaosium that Andrew describes as the "second biggest RPG of all time, after Dungeons and Dragons" (though it seems this isn't the only pen and paper RPG I've seen described that way). Included with the interview are shots of wireframes of a Shoggoth creature and a revolver being built in 3D Studio Max.

Though new 3dfx drivers (story) were released since the mention of problems with 3dfx hardware and the Soldier of Fortune Demo in Rick Johnson's .plan (story), a subsequent message from 3dfx Interactive's Developer Relations Manager Keith Galocy gives word there are still some known issues (so it's not just you). Here's the skinny:

3dfx has been working with Raven to fix a bug found in our OpenGL ICD. We didn't get the problems fixed in time for the driver release that went up today but we will have an update soon. Please post the following message so 3dfx users recognize that any anomalies they see in the demo are going to be fixed and are not Raven's fault:

"Some users may experience graphical glitches using a 3dfx card with the Soldier of Fortune demo. 3dfx is aware of the problem and we are working closely with Raven Software to correct the issue. We expect to have a fixed driver shortly. We are sorry for this inconvenience and would like to thank Raven Software for their patience and cooperation."

The first release of Mr. Pants' Excessive Overkill for Quake III Arena is now available. Here's the concise description from the website: "Excessive is basically a standard deathmatch mod with enhancements to the standard Quake III weapons. Most of the weapons have been changed to increase their speed and death-dealing power, resulting in mass mayhem anytime you join a server. Self-damage is turned off, and you start off with all of the super-charged weapons, so the hurting can start as soon as you enter!"

• Here's a basic tutorial on creating weapons for Q3A on Quake3Mods.Net.
• Edit Your Action Games on CheckOut.Com looks to help get you started editing levels, and explores the pros and cons of Q3Radiant, UnrealEd, WorldCraft and NocEdit.
• Graphtallica has released their sixth free texture pack.
• RuffSkinz (Flash required) offers a beginners Quake III Arena skinning tutorial.
• 3D Palette's Quake III Arena Skinning Competition ends February 1.

XSreality.com now has all the demos from this weekend's international tournament in Sweden for download. The winner was Fatality, who beat Makaveli in the finals, and was undefeated in 18 games through the tourney. Quake-arena.de interviews Fatality about his victory. Also, Finals Frag Fest 2K on Siliconews is a recap of a very small LAN event, which can hopefully inspire some to give it a tumble themselves.

• Age of Wonders on PCGameREVIEW.
• AMA Superbike on Computer Games Online.
• Battlezone II: Combat Commander on Gone Gold and Gamecenter.
• Descent 3: Mercenary on PC.IGN.com.
• EarthWorm Jim 3D on GibWorld.
• Fighter Ace II on Wewp! Entertainment.
• Half-Life: Opposing Force on NetGames Network.
• Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine on Adventure Gamer.
• Jane's F/A-18 on GameSpot.
• Jetboat Superchamps on Game Forces.
• MechWarrior 3: Pirate's Moon on GameProWorld.
• MouseMan Cordless on AbsolutePC.
• NASCAR Legends on Electric Games.
• Planescape: Torment on Thresh's Firingsquad, Gamers Depot, and (en Français) Gamedata.com.
• RollerCoaster Tycoon on GibWorld.
• South Park: Chef's Luv Shack on Gamecenter.
• Soldier of Fortune Demo on 3DGN.
• Spec Ops II: Green Berets on GameSpot AU.
• Touring Car Challenge on Games Domain Review.
• Urban Chaos on CheckOut.com.
• Wild Wild West on Games Domain Review.
• X: Beyond the Frontier on Thresh's FiringSquad.

• Singapore Bans Half-Life on GameSpot UK News includes a link to a Half-Life Petition to restore the game's legal status...
• Quakeheads.com interviews John Mueller and the Mean Arena's John Mueller interview is up, both talking with the artist who did the Visor art in the Quake III Arena manual about some upcoming Q3A posters he will be creating....
• Act Three -- Screen Shot 44 is Diabloii.net's mirror of the Diablo II screenshot of the week...
• A post to Birdman's Spaceorb Messageboard offers an SoF Demo config for the SpaceOrb by email, since Birdman seems to be out of town...
• Damage Gaming's SoF Demo Walkthrough is up, and here are three Spanish-language guides: Counter Strike, Rogue Spear, and Team Fortress Classic...
• The WKA page has a new front-end program for Delta Force (1) server operators that gives loads of control over running a game...

The History Channel (AKA the War Channel) had a show on this evening about the Monitor versus the Virginia (Merrimack), the first clash of ironclad steamships, fought to what amounts to a draw back during the American Civil War. It turns out an advantage the Monitor had over the Virginia was that her turret could rotate, allowing her to bring guns to bear on a target regardless of her heading, while the Virginia needed to point the entire ship in the proper direction to properly aim her cannons. As I watched this it struck me that after spending years searching for an easy way to explain to people why the mouse was a more desirable controller for first person shooters than the keyboard, that it is perfectly illustrated in this naval engagement from 1862. I imagine there are other similar examples from previous generations of other forms of combat, as this all smacks of "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." (George Santayana).

Link of the Day: Ray's List of Weird and Disgusting Foods. It's fascinating, and more educational than the title suggests, and though it's clinical, it is disgusting, so it's probably best to avoid this at mealtimes. Thanks Ant.
Story of the Day: Teen arrested in connection with DVD cracking tool. Thanks Jeff Magill.
Bonus Story: Mbare man loses his private parts. Apparently a prostitute cast a spell that made his bits depart, and then cast another to return them when she was paid. According to the story this whole affair is confirmed by the local police. Thanks Lynsey.
Image of the Day: The Game Cook: Ubiquitous!