The fact that Black & White isn't officially gold certainly hasn't stopped sites from promoting the heck out of it, as evidenced by this evening's batch of new media over at PC.IGN. This mini-preview kicks off their inevitable Black & White week with a look at "what it means to be good" in the game, and there are new screenshots and gameplay movies to illustrate it.

• Sierra's Triple Dose
  Another Monday has come to pass, and as usual there are new screenshots of the week for Sierra's upcoming games Arcanum, Empire Earth and Throne of Darkness.
• TRIBES 2
  Another hands-on preview with new screenshots of TRIBES 2 based on the ongoing "meta" test of Dynamix' team-based is up at The Wargamer.
• WW2 Online
  There are nine new World War II Online screenshots on GameSpot, showing new scenes from the massively multiplayer 3D action/sim by Cornered Rat.
• Nexagon
  GameSpyDaily has posted four new Nexagon: the Pit screenshots along with a batch that was already available elsewhere last week, all illustrating the 3D tactical action game by Strategy First.
• Operation Flashpoint
  As is their way, EuroGamer has posted another handful of new Operation Flashpoint screenshots captured from their preview build of the 3D tactical shooter by Bohemia and Codemasters.
• Disciples II
  Back on GameSpyDaily there are also four new Disciples II: Dark Prophecy screenshots showing more from the turn-based strategy game under construction at Strategy First.
• G.I. Combat
  The official G.I. Combat site has been updated with four new concept images of the recently announced 3D wargame by TalonSoft.
• Anarchy Online
  Finally on PlanetGSD, they also add three new Anarchy Online screenshots to the seemingly endless trickle of imagery from Funcom's futuristic MMORPG.

Strategy First has released a playable technology demo of O.R.B. for download from Daily Radar. O.R.B. is their upcoming space-based real-time strategy game, and to get a taste of the game you'll need a lot of patience, as the demo weighs in at a staggering 230.4 MB. Notwithstanding a remark in the included README that this is an Alpha version "Not for public distribution," Daily Radar has assured us this is a legitimate public demo. Meanwhile, while you're exercising your patience, you may like to check out GameSpot's First impressions: O.R.B. which include over a dozen new screenshots.

Fallout fan page Duck and Cover has posted a press release from developer Micro Forté that confirms the "corporate restructuring" that resulted in the layoffs reported last week (story). The press release says that the company will be focusing their efforts on BigWorld, their upcoming massively multiplayer title and its underlying technology, which they hope to license out to other developers.

GameSpot interviews Larry Holland of Totally Games, talking with him about their upcoming title Star Trek: Bridge Commander. Larry explains how Activision approached them as they were finishing up X-Wing Alliance, and talks about their decision to use the NetImmerse engine, their interaction with sci-fi author DC Fontana and more.

Valve sent along a schedule for the Half-Life and Counter-Strike updates over the next few days, which has gotten even more complicated because of the retail release of Counter-Strike. Here's all the info:

There will be two separate updates for Counter-Strike 1.1, one for those who play the free downloadable (MOD) version of Counter-Strike and one for those with any retail version of Counter-Strike.

The schedule for all releases is as follows:

Counter-Strike 1.1 MOD: 2 pm PST, Tuesday.

Half-Life Primary Server Release (Linux and Win32): 4 pm PST, Tuesday.

Counter-Strike 1.1 Retail: 11 am PST, Wednesday.

Half-Life 1.1.0.6: 11 am PST, Wednesday.

Half-Life 1.1.0.6 includes new models for TFC, the winning entry from Planet Half-Life's January 2001 mapping contest, and more. Counter-Strike 1.1includes a spectator mode, enhanced models, and more. For more information on Counter-Strike, visit www.counter-strike.net.

Version 4.0 of the Eternal Arena mod for Quake III Arena has been released. This new version returns the HUD to that of Q3A while adding some small improvements and bringing back the offhand grappling hook from earlier releases.

As promised, the official Counter-Strike site now offers downloads of the new version 1.1 Linux server for the wildly popular Half-Life mod, in anticipation of the Windows client release planned for tomorrow. There is a full install at 75.7 MB and an upgrade for servers already running version 1.0 at 35.2 MB. Thanks Skywalke77 for the tip.

Codemasters has released a new movie trailer of Operation Flashpoint, the 3D tactical action game being developed at Bohemia Interactive. The trailer is available in 13.5 MB RealPlayer and 41.5 MB AVI formats, and shows a somewhat random montage of gameplay footage running for a whopping 12:27 minutes, demonstrating all aspects the game's vehicle-based and on-foot action. Be warned that the server is rather slow, but a US-based mirror of the AVI movie (zipped down to 29.8 MB) is available at 3D Gamers.

Interplay has released new patches for Starfleet Command 2: Empires at War, updating the UK edition of Taldren's space strategy game to version 22001. There is a 2.2 MB patch for the previous version 2.0.0.5 while the patch to update version 2.2.0.2 clocks in at 17.0 MB, but there are no further details on the changes in this release.

Gone Gold is back on the ball with the news that Summoner has gone gold and was sent off to manufacturing, so Volition's 3D role-playing game should arrive on store shelves around March 20.

GA-Source's Warrior Kings Q&A contains some general information about this upcoming strategy game from Black Cactus and Sierra Studios. It appears to be the sort of pre-formatted Q&As that are occasionally sent out as press releases, so there isn't anything particularly hard-hitting here, but it does contain a decent overview of the title. There are also new screenshots from the game at GA-Source as well as at Black Cactus' official site.

• Titanium Angels
  SCi has released a single new Titanium Angels screenshot illustrating the third-person action adventure in development at Mobius (thanks GA-Source).
• Independence War 2
  There are a dozen new Independence War 2: the Edge of Chaos screenshots on Israeli site Vgames, offering more galactic scenes in the space combat sim by Particle Systems.
• Black & White
  The 12 days of Black & White on GameSpot UK march on relentlessly with today's batch of 21 new screenshots of Lionhead's imminent 3D god-playing game.
• Dragonriders
  Belgian site SpelletjesGarnaal has posted a brief but hands-on preview of Dragonriders: Chronicles of Pern (in Dutch, so no Babelfish translation), looking ahead to the third-person role-playing adventure by Ubi Studios with some new screenshots.
• TABBB
  There are eight new screenshots of Tex Atomic's Big Bot Battles, the robotic arena shooter by Monolith and Real.com, on VoodooExtreme.
• Divinity
  Larian Studios has revamped their official Devine Divinity site and added half a dozen new screenshots of their isometric RPG in the process.
• Arcanum
  Four new Arcanum: Of Steamworks & Magick Obscura screenshots are online at RPGDot, showing off the "steampunk" isometric RPG by Troika Games.
• Paradise Cracked
  GA-Source has posted four new screenshots of Paradise Cracked, the 3D tactical combat RPG in the works at MiST land.

A new Q&A with Triumph Studios' Josh Farley is up at Action Trip today, talking about their upcoming fantasy-themed strategy game Age of Wonders II: The Wizard's Throne. As the interviewer is a fan of the first Age of Wonders title the questions here all deal with how the sequel will improve on various aspects of the original, such as what new characters will be introduced and how they are revamping the AI system.

A new version of ZDaemon is now available, bringing this client/server port of the public DOOM source code to version 0.9. The main focus of this release is gameplay stability, while numerous bugs have also been squashed "to make this the most stable version of a client / server Doom port to date!" It is available in Win32 and Linux editions as binaries and source code.

Stomped has conducted a Q&A with Eric Wang of Westwood, talking with him about their upcoming massively multiplayer title Earth and Beyond. While most of what he says here has already been reported elsewhere, Eric does talk briefly about their internally-developed 3D engine that powers the game and what will separate Earth and Beyond from the other massively multiplayer games out there.

The Gore Downloads page now offers a new version 1.25 patch for the recently released Gore multiplayer demo. After applying the update, server stability should be "greatly improved," as it addresses a crashing problem with large games, the problem that caused random client disconnections should be addressed, key binding problems should go away, and ammo for the Flame Thrower is added. Thanks Martin Milsted.

BrokenPixel.com interviews Brent Knowles of BioWare, talking about progress on NeverWinter Nights, their upcoming RPG. The conversation is fairly brief, albeit spread over three pages, with the ten questions covering topics like features that have been dropped from the original plan, the game's multiplayer capabilities, tools for user modifications, and more.

Gamer's Alliance Strategy Interviews Adrian Chmielarz talking with the project director on Starmageddön, CODA Development's upcoming game that celebrates strategy, space, and of course, umlauts. The conversation covers details on the game's engine, how gameplay in the 3D RTS will be handled, and general questions about the plot and objectives of the game. Also included are a pair of new screenshots along with some that have been previously posted.

Halflife.net sends word that Valve's Erik Johnson sent an email to the HLDS mailing lists describing plans for updated Half-Life and Counter-Strike clients that will probably be released some time this week. The primary purpose of the updates will be to remove the FakeLag command to prevent its continued exploitation (though a subsequent update points out FakeLag will still be available on servers where cheats have been enabled). Here's a portion of the update:

"We removed fakelag because of the number of exploits that were using this to cheat.

We're completely locked down for the next Half-Life release (no code/content changes). The next release of both Counter-Strike and Half-Life should be happening this week.

There's an Anarchy Online chat log on AO Basher where portions of yesterday's Anarchy Online House of Commons chat (story) are summarized into a neat Q&A format, offering the answers to 26 questions about Funcom's upcoming science fiction RPG. Meanwhile, the log on Aphex Nine is a little less edited, offering more of a chat feel. Also on the Anarchy Online front are a batch of GA-RPG Anarchy Online Screenshots with three new views of the game.

Dinamic Multimedia's ExcaliBug page has a (working version of the) playable Spanish demo of ExcaliBug for download, after a false start last week where they uploaded a corrupted version of the file. ExcaliBug is an offbeat 3D RPG where you command a party of insects searching for ExcaliBug, a scale from Excalibur, King Arthur's sword of legend. The site is pretty slow, but Frans has posted a mirror of the demo on 3D Gamers.

GameSpy.com interviews Will Wright talking with the man they call "Master of the Microverse" at Maxis about the latest developments in the world of The Sims, in particular focusing on the upcoming follow-ups The Sims 2.0 and Sims Online. Here's a bit on the development of those two projects:

Will: The Sims 2.0 is the stand-alone next version of The Sims. It's more like the sequel to The Sims. It's in the early stages of development. We're looking at how to make the sims more expressive; make them smarter.

With The Sims Online were trying to focus the thing so you can be very expressive through the sim. You will set them up with your personality as the player. They will display your current emotional state to other sims. We're giving the control back to the players. Basically I want the sims to be as transparent as possible with the player. I want to the players to be more interactive with others.

• 3-Way 3D Interview
  There's an interview with Croteam, MadOnion and NVIDIA on Beyond3D talking with a game developer, a benchmark developer, and a chip-maker, covering the subject of 3D technology from each party's perspective.
• Kyro II
  Hercules 3D Prophet 4500 Launch Event Coverage by Gamers Depot offers a first look at the upcoming Kyro II chipset, along with some benchmarks.

There's an interview with Mark Peasley on Game-Guru.net talking with the art director at Gas Powered Games about progress on Dungeon Siege. Mark's credentials from his days at Dynamix include work on Red Baron, Aces of the Pacific, Aces over Europe, A10-Tank Killer, and more, and in addition to Dungeon Siege, the conversation touches on Gabriel Knight 3, and the potential for a Gabriel Knight 4.

GameSpy.com previews Outlive looking ahead at this upcoming RTS offering, saying: "Whether you're a fan of the more classic Real-Time Strategy games, or a first timer looking to get your feet wet in the RTS genre, Outlive has a lot to offer." A handful of new screenshots are also on display.

Asking "So, you want to be a space pirate," Computer Games Online previews Independence War 2: Edge of Chaos looking ahead to the upcoming sequel to the space-based game known as either Independence War or I-War depending on where you live. The preview gives lots of information on the various aspects of space adventure that will be brought together for the sequel, and is illustrated with a bunch of screenshots (some new, some familiar).

Flagball.com has posted version 1.0 of the DFOptiStat program that can keep track of your stats in Delta Force: Land Warrior whether you run a server, or just play on one. The program imports stats from your Land Warrior games into an internal database after each map, and can output statistics to HTML, and even upload them directly to a website via FTP. Thanks Land-Warrior.com.

The Infiltration website now has the eagerly-anticipated version 2.85 of the Infiltration mod for Unreal Tournament. The list of changes and improvements is way to large to detail here, but they include new character models, a new menu system, and the long-awaited online code. The update talks of an improved installation procedure (although you must uninstall previous versions first), and makes no less than four mentions of the new online manual, so it's likely a good idea to give that a read while you download.

3DSpotlight's Gore Multiplayer Test Tweak Guide is online with tips on how to tweak your configuration to get better performance when playing the Gore test as well as how to noodle around the in-game settings.

OzHalfLife interviews Neil Manke talking with the map author about his work, which includes some highly-acclaimed Half-Life projects. Meanwhile, OzHalfLife.com also interviews Black Panther discussing his contributions to the Alpine mod for Half-Life.

Word from the organizers of the BadLAN Rising LAN series is that registrations are now open for BadLAN Rising XI 'Suppressing Fire,' to be held at the end of April in Middlesbrough, UK.

• Blade of Darkness on XLGaming.
• Clive Barker's Undying on Gamers Uplink.
• Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2 on PC Monkey.
• Freedom: First Resistance on Gamezilla.
• Giants: Citizen Kabuto on Entertainment Depot.
• Summoner Demo (impressions) on RPGDot.
• SWAT 3: Elite Edition (in German) on GamersUnitedNetwork.
• The Ward on Online Game Review.

• AOpen 12-10-32 CD-R/W on ExamPC.
• Artic Silver II thermal compound on G3D.
• The Claw controller on Planet Starsiege.
• Colorcases 200 Series ATX case on Speedy 3D.
• CPUfx CORE cooler on hardCOREware.Net.
• Iwill KK266-R KT133A motherboard on AcidHardware and LostCircuits.
• Promise Technology FastTrak 100 ATA RAID Controller on DeezTech.
• Shuttle AV32 Pro266 SDR+DDR on VIAHardware.com.
• Soltek SL75KAV-X motherboard on JSI Hardware.
• Taisol CGK Ultra Performance Package on Overclocked Hardware.
• Logitech Wingman Force 3D controller on TECH EXTREME.

• Tribes Center interviews Tim Clark talking with the man behind the sound and music in TRIBES 2, though there's mostly music talk, and very little about Dynamix' upcoming shooter sequel...
• A new edition of GA-RPG's BioFiles with James Ohlen is online, with more on what's going on at BioWare. This installment gets off the topic of the Baldur's Gate II post-mortem that had dominated previous installments and proceed with the musical question: "Throne of Bhaal - Award Winning CRPG or Best Selling Novel?"...
• What If...? revisited on Stomped is a follow up to their first What If . . .- Game Developers Speak article (story) adding thoughts on the subject of how favorite game franchises would play if they used different genres from the "lead designer of the Army Game Project" and Scott Herrington of Turbine Games, as well as several gamers...

It's getting to be that time here in the US, where the focus on college basketball becomes so intense, the commonly-used phrase March Madness barely does it justice. This is all lost on me... I find college athletics as appealing as college, and while loony is tall enough for hoops, but that's about as close as he gets to being interested, and with Frans in Holland and furn in the UK, you can imagine how quiet the office NCAA tourney pool is around here.

Speaking of the lanky loony one, he was supposed to head off to quakey Seattle, which will be Halo-ey Seattle for the moment as well, since the visit was intended as a trek to Microsoft's annual GameStock. Unfortunately, loony is too sick to attend, but he came down with whatever he has before he was to depart, so you can't blame it on that brown acid.

Story of the Day: Frozen-fish stunt costs comedian his fingers (Mainichi Interactive). Thanks Nikan.
Image of the Day: Foxtrot on Yahoo News Comics (thanks Tony Bartling). And we thought this had broken through to the mainstream before!