IGN has conducted a Q&A with Brian Upton, the chief game designer at Red Storm on their upcoming title Ghost Recon. Brian talks about how the game fits into the Rainbow Six universe (it turns out it doesn't at all), how the engine has been beefed up since Rogue Spear, their new AI improvements and more.

• Global Operations
  The official Global Operations site has been updated with one new Mexico screenshot and two new Chechnya screenshots of the team-based military shooter by Barking Dog.
• Disciples II
  Strategy First has released fourteen new (small) Disciples II: Dark Prophecy screenshots, showing more scenes in their upcoming turn-based strategy sequel.
• Yuri's Revenge
  There is a single, small Command & Conquer: Yuri's Revenge screenshot on Red Alert 2 eXtreme, while the official site reveals new details on the multiplayer features of Westwood's RTS expansion, including three co-op campaigns.

GameSpot attended an Infogrames press event, and so they have posted their impressions of Unreal II, the first-person shooter sequel being developed at Legend Entertainment. The article describes both a gameplay video and a demonstration they saw, including the character models, weapons, and more. And earlier today, GameSpot UK posted their own very brief impressions of the game. Update: PC.IGN.com attended the same press event, and offer their own impressions of the proceedings, as well as a brief report from the Infogrames event as a whole.

Cornered Rat Software has released a new version 1.21 patch for World War II Online: Blitzkrieg, available through the auto-updater and from their ftp server. The 1.2 MB download brings a couple of new features and improvements, as well as a handful of bug fixes. Thanks Kurtis Franklin for the tip.

There is a new preview of Red Faction on GameSpot, offering an updated look at Volition's first-person shooter of destructible enemies and environments. The game is nearing completion, and so the article offers impressions of the latest build in general and the multiplayer features in particular, as well as eight new screenshots.

Earlier than usual, Electronic Arts has released the fourth and final Medal of Honor: Allied Assault movie, showing more in-game action from 2015's upcoming WWII first-person shooter. This movie completes the Omaha Beach assault level and runs for a round three minutes in high- and low-res QuickTime formats.

CDV has opened their official Escape From Alcatraz site for business, showcasing the 3D squad-based prison-bust game in development at Philos Labs. The site features basic game information, an overview of the main characters, five new screenshots, a FAQ, and more.

Activision sends along a brief update on progress in the development of Return to Castle Wolfenstein, the first-person shooter sequel in the works at Gray Matter and Nerve Software. It's brief, so here is the entire update:

The developers have now reached the testing and polish stage as the game's features are complete. While Gray Matter focuses on polishing the game balance, working on the cinematics and storytelling, and finalizing technical issues like video card compatibility, Nerve Software continues to wrap up the multiplayer portion of the game. The teams have also begun extensive testing.

Return to Castle Wolfenstein will be shown at QuakeCon this week. Attendees will be able to see for themselves just how far along the game is, and they'll even get a glimpse of the multiplayer game at the convention as well.

The official Anarchy Online Community site gives word that a new version 12.4 patch is expected to be released tomorrow, which should address many of the disconnection problems in Funcom's futuristic MMORPG by changing the way zoning is handled. Another update alerts players that the first billing cycle starts tomorrow for those that have been registered for more than a month.

Sismoplay has released another short movie of DuelField, their upcoming online-only turn-based strategy game. This 10 second clip is a mere 1.5 MB download in MPEG format and shows "a powerful magical attack executed by the Water Spirit."

• SoF 2
  Computer and Video Games has posted eleven new Soldier of Fortune II: Double Helix screenshots, showing off the mercenary shooter sequel in the works at Raven Software.
• Codename: Outbreak
  The official Venom site has been updated with four new screenshots of the tactical shooter by GSC Gameworld that was recently renamed to Codename: Outbreak.
• Neverwinter Nights
  Eleven new Neverwinter Nights screenshots and some wallpapers are up at RPGPlanet, illustrating the 3D role-playing game in development at BioWare.
• Iron Strategy
  Russian site GameNavigator has posted half a dozen new Parkan: Iron Strategy screenshots, offering more scenes in the 3D action strategy title that was just completed by Nikita (story).
• Ahriman's Gift
  There is a brief preview of Kohan: Ahriman's Gift on Computer Games Online that includes three new screenshots of the isometric RTS expansion by TimeGate Studios.
• Warrior Kings
  GameSpot has posted a single new Warrior Kings screenshot (the first one) along with four familiar images of this 3D RTS under construction at Black Cactus.
• Divinity
  Seven new screenshots of Divine Divinity on GameScreenshots accompany some more background details on the isometric RPG being crafted at Larian Studios.
• HoMM4
  Freelancer has posted four new Heroes of Might and Magic IV screenshots as well as three Might and Magic IX concept images illustrating these upcoming games by New World Computing and 3DO.
• Armalion
  German developers Ikarion Software have added three new Armalion screenshots atop the gallery for their upcoming isometric role-playing game.
• Ballerburg
  German site Spieleflut.de has posted a preview of Ballerburg, an oddball (sorry) 3D game by German developer Ascaron, which you may like to read via Babel Fish or you can just look at the new screenshots.
• Camelot
  The flood of Dark Age of Camelot screenshots continues today with a baker's dozen Hibernia images at Castle Camelot (thanks RPG Vault) and three more shots at GameSpot.

Russian publisher Russobit-M has announced Cossacks: The Age of Enlightenment, which is referred to as a sequel but it's likely that this is actually the add-on that developers GSC Gameworld mentioned on May 14 they would show off at the E3 trade show. Other than a release date of October for the Russian market, details on the game (including possible European and US publishers) are not available.

Strategy Planet has posted a Q&A with Ed Del Castillo, the president of Liquid Entertainment. Like the other recent interviews, he talks about their soon-to-be-complete RTS title Battle Realms, providing some general gameplay information.

As promised, Codemasters has released the first set of add-ons for the European edition of Operation Flashpoint, Bohemia Interactive's soldier sim. This upgrade adds three new units, a new weapon, two single-player and four multi-player missions. The download links were temporarily broken, so here are direct links to the ReadMe file and the full Ultimate Upgrade 1 that also includes the version 1.10 patch, or the individual downloads for the Mission Upgrade, the Kozlice weapon, the Trabant unit, the M163 "Vulcan" unit, and the Su-25 "Frogfoot" unit. Update: Mirrors are now available at Bohemia's official site, 3D Gamers and Operation Flashpoint Network. Also, it appears old versions of the M163 and Trabant units were released on Codemasters' site, but the aforementioned three mirrors now carry the correct files.

Computer and Video Games interviews Mark Skaggs, the executive producer at Westwood Studios on Yuri's Revenge, their imminent add-on for Red Alert 2. Mark talks about the various features of the expansion pack, commenting on its storyline, the new units and more.

PlanetAnachronox has conducted a Q&A with Will Nevins, the former director of audio at ION Storm. Will talks about his work on Anachronox and Deus Ex, and he also explains his new venture, a new company called Sound Design Group which is working on audio for an upcoming Xbox title.

The official Tribes 2 Central Download Site offers another beta patch for download, bringing Dynamix' multiplayer shooter to version 24648. As before this is an unsupported patch and you'll need to revert to version 23669 before applying this new release (which also comes with its own reverse patch, natch). Changes in this version include a new "no parking" zone around a flag (possibly inducing traffic congestion elsewhere on the map?), VCR improvements, a fix for the network "hitching" problem, and various other enhancements.

A new preview of Dark Age of Camelot is online at Games Domain this morning, based on the ongoing beta test of Mythic Entertainment's medieval MMORPG. Naturally the lengthy article is loaded with gameplay impressions, and it comes with ten new screenshots.

HomeLan's Legion Interview chats with Iain McNeil of Slitherine Software in the first-ever Q&A covering Legion, their upcoming strategy game set in "The Roman Empire area of our Earth's history" (not sure where to find history books from any other planets myself). The conversation discusses the game's level of adherence to historical accuracy that has them refer to it as a game rather than a simulation, the gameplay that has them refer to it as a strategy game but not an RTS, what kinds of units will be included, as well as details like AI, diplomacy, resource management, multiplayer play, and more.

Cyberlore Moves Forward Following Borg Cancellation on The Adrenaline Vault is a status report on the current state of the development studio that produced Majesty in the wake of the announcement that Star Trek: Borg Assimilator had been cancelled (story). Word from Cyberlore marketing manager Jay Adan is that "Nobody's lost their job, and nobody's about to," as they were actually on the verge of assimilating some more employees for the Borg project when it got the axe. Meanwhile, the developer continues work on Mech Warrior 4: Black Knight, their upcoming MW4 add-on.

With the virtual ink barely dry on volume 6 (story), GameSpy.com's Etherlords Developer Diary Volume 7 is already online, the reigns of the series has now been turned over to Oleg Belaychook, the QA manager of Nival Interactive discussing the game's worldwide Beta test, which is now underway.

Massive Multiplayer.Org's A Tale in the Desert Beta Journal, Part 3 and RPGDot's A Tale in the Desert Beta Report, part 1 each offer more impressions from beta testing this upcoming conflict-free RPG, including more on brick drying in the latter article, and accounts of some teamwork as well as flax production in the former.

True Confessions of the Game Testers on CG Online outlines the ups and downs of life as a professional game tester, which range from the good news of playing games for a living, to the bad news that is usually a temporary position that represents one of the lowest rungs on the ladder of working for a game company. The article quotes Tom Hall from the old days when developers did their own testing, as well as several folks who currently work at being game testers.

• Intel Intros
  Intel Introduces P3-M, 830 Chipsets on machIT.com has the latest from the Big I.
• Radeon 2 Preview
  There's a Radeon 2 preview has some details and photos of ATI's upcoming video card.
• PC in Mac's Clothing
  There's a G4-PC How-To Guide on SystemLogic.net describing how to stuff PC guts into a Mac G4 case.

QuakeCon Radio has been launched, word is they will be providing live streaming audio coverage of all the festivities live from Mesquite. Also, as noted in Kenn Hoekstra's .plan, he along with Rick Johnson, Brian Raffel and Jim Hughes will be showing off Soldier of Fortune II at the Activision booth, and that LucasArts and Activision will be showing the Jedi Outcast demonstration from E3 at the gala, as well. The Apple QuakeCon 2001 page (thanks Matthew Parsons) has word on their plans to attend the show to support Q3A running on Power Macs. Finally, id Software's Paul Jaquays updated his .plan with progress on the QuakeCon 2001 Map/Object Model Contest. Word is "A 'player' version (of) the map, with appropriate credits, will be released to QuakeCon Attendees after the judges have submitted their ballots. A public version of the map will be released after the convention. Models will be released at some point after that."

There's now a Destination Games Chat Log on IanStorm recapping the festivities when Lord British and some of his court attended an IRC session yesterday to discuss the latest happenings at Destination Games.

The DFC Intelligence sees the PS2 as the market leader on GameSpot saying the PS2 "has the potential to be the best-selling game system ever," where they also opine that "over the next few years consumers will be spending a great deal of money on video and computer games" (stop the presses!). GCN Region Lockout Confirmed on Cube.IGN.Com confirms that "Japanese GameCube systems will not play US software -- and vice-versa." Commandos 2 Officially Discharged on Dreamcast.IGN.com has word of the latest planned Dreamcast project to have its plug pulled. EBgames.com's Xbox Pre-order FAQ (thanks Team Xbox) points out that "What you won’t see as a required item is the memory card. The Xbox doesn’t need a memory card to save games due to its built-in hard drive."

The debut release of the Quake & Conquer modification for Quake II is now available. This ambitious mod started production in 1999, and as you might surmise from its name, this mod uses the power of the Quake II engine to create a real-time strategy game with a fully 3D environment.

OdB Productions has a movies for download that they put together from the recent ELSA CPL European Championships. The 27 minute movie features interviews with many of the attendees.

Word on the Crystal Space site is that the Crystal Space 3D engine is now accepting donations to assist in future development.

• 911 Fire Rescue on Game Revolution.
• 3D World War II Demo on 3DActionPlanet.
• B-17 Gunner: Air War Over Germany on The Wargamer.
• Black & White on Ars Technica.
• Empire of the Ants on Gamer's Press.
• Jumpgate on GameAddicts.
• Majestic on ESCMag.
• Max Payne on Gracelessland, The BackBurner, and Gamitopia.
• MechCommander 2 on Gameplanet NZ.
• Monopoly Tycoon on MGON.
• Project Eden Demo on 3DActionPlanet.
• Z: Steel Soldiers on MSNBC (thanks Darren).

• A4 Tech Optical mouse on RipNet-UK.com.
• Compex DynaStack DS2216 Switch on Speedy 3D.
• ELSA Gladiac GeForce2 GTS Pro 64MB on Hardware One.
• Iwill KK266plus ATX Socket A motherboard on SocketA.com.
• Leadteck WinFast GeForce3 64MB video card on Gamers Depot.
• PCH-137 cooler on AMDZone.
• Romtec Trios Hard Drive Selector on Overclockers Online.
• RumbleFX Force Feedback Headphones on AMDPower.com.
• Thermaltake Dragon Orb 3 HSF on TweakTown.
• TwinMOS PC166 256MB SDRAM on PC STATS.
• Western Digital Caviar WD1000BB hard drive on StorageReview.com.

• There are some Speedball 3 First Details on FGN saying this "futuristic extreme sports game will feature a massive focus on online play." Included on the newly opened official site is the first screenshot and a character animation from The Bitmap Brothers' upcoming Unreal-engine game...
• This English translation on DTF offers details on the World Game Show saying the event, set to be held in Paris in April, is "targeted to be the direct rival for world's largest annual gaming expo, Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3)"...
• FREELANCER has posted some audio tracks in .mp3 format for download from Buka's upcoming Paradise Cracked...
• Our Gaming Kids on GameGirlz is "An editorial series contributed by parents of children who play computer & video games"...
• Art event examines games culture (BBC). Well, as the old expression goes, I don't know art, but I know what I like...

So okay, the other shoe has dropped on what has so far been a relatively mild summer here in the northeast US, and it's now somewhere in the neighborhood of one million degrees with a thousand percent humidity. loony has already alluded to the fact that none of us are making it down to Texas for QuakeCon this year, but this really does give the impression that Texas has moved up to us. On the other hand, the weather here is supposed to break on Friday, but will remain in the 90s in Dallas/Mesquite, which is a cruel trick for anyone heading down to the event from these parts, or maybe this is just mother nature providing a graceful transition period?

Story of the Day: Overworked? Sign up for National Slacker Day (Reuters). Thanks Antony.
Auction of the Day: Real German Panzer Tank T 3 (eBay). Thanks Sean Szeja.
Weird Science: Japanese Company Interprets Canine Chatter (Reuters). Thanks Jeff.
Wild Science: GM Touts Fuel Cell for Homes, Business (Reuters). Thanks Captain Kaos[doh].