Yugoslavian site NT Games has conducted an (English) interview on Robin Hood: Defender of the Crown, the 3D action strategy game in development at Cinemaware. CEO Lars Fuhrken-Batista is at hand to talk about the company's revival, the premise of the game, the joust, siege and sword fighting mini-games, multiplayer, as well as some other features and a few personal topics.

• Republic
  GameSpot has posted a new pair of Republic screenshots, featuring new scenes in the ambitious strategy game under construction at Elixir Studios.
• Battle Realms
  There are five new Battle Realms screenshots on Battle Realms Network and three more shots on The Zen Garden, all showing off the 3D RTS being beta tested at Liquid Entertainment.
• Project Eden
  Back on GameSpot, there are also five new screenshots of Project Eden, the 3D squad-based action game nearing completion at Core Design.
• Nomads
  CDV has released a single new Project Nomads screenshot, the first GeForce3 powered image from Radon Labs' 3D action role-playing hybrid.
• Grom
  Also at CDV are four new images of Grom, featuring a level scene and three characters from this alternative 1942 adventure strategy game by Rebelmind.
• Arx Fatalis
  Half a dozen new screenshots of Arx Fatalis on RPGDot illustrate their first Elements of the Week, looking at the Goblin characters in Arkane Studios' first-person RPG.
• PlanetSide
  The official PlanetSide site has been updated with a new pair of concept images of Verant's massively multiplayer FPS, as well as a brief Producer's Letter sharing the latest on the game's development.
• Conquest
  Similarly, the official Conquest: Frontier Wars site features three new screenshots from the imminent space-based RTS by Fever Pitch Studios.
• WarCommander
  German developer Independent Arts Software has released five new WarCommander screenshots, showing off their isometric tactical RTS.
• End of Twilight
  Likewise, Russian developer New Media Generation has issued a new End of Twilight screenshot, sporting a new scene in their 3D turn-based action RPG.

Eidos Interactive sends word that a playable demo of Trade Empires is now available for download, allowing you to try out this isometric trading strategy game by Frog City. The demo clocks in at 83.1 MB, but there are no details on its contents.

Fan page Dungeon Siege Vault has conducted an interview with Chris Taylor, talking with him about his upcoming RPG. Chris talks about his love of RPGs, how Dungeon Siege uses some interface elements more common to RTS games, how DS differs from other computer RPGs and more.

AMDZone has now posted the press release officially announcing Quake IV and the untitled Nerve Software project that were unveiled at QuakeCon earlier today (story). A concept image of the gladiator character from Quake IV is also included. Here is an excerpt from the full press release:

New titles announced at the press event include Quake IV, currently in development by long-time id Software contributor Raven Software, and an as-of-yet unnamed project in development by Nerve Software. Both games are executive produced by id Software and published by Activision, Inc. (NASDAQ: ATVI).

"It's going to be a ton of fun to be working with the guys we know so well at Raven on Quake IV and the new team at Nerve is a real up-and-commer in the industry," said Todd Hollenshead, CEO, id Software. "With Return to Castle Wolfenstein, the new DOOM, our collaboration with Nerve, and Quake IV on the horizon, gamers have loads to look forward to."

Quake IV marks a return to id Software's trademark single-player gameplay experience through the extension of the Quake II universe, and will use the company's advanced new DOOM game engine.

The project being developed by Nerve is based on an original design by id Software. The game is still in the early stages of development with more details to be announced later this year. Nerve Software was co-founded by ex-id Software employee Brandon James.

Although it's incorrectly dated, GameSpot has posted a new video preview of Dungeon Siege. The video has over four minutes of gameplay footage, all narrated by Chris Taylor, the game's lead designer. Like all of GameSpot's media it is available in several different versions for different bandwidths.

Shacknews has posted their initial write-up of John Carmack's talk and DOOM technology demonstration. Among the things confirmed in his talk: the game will support full 5.1 audio (thanks to Graeme Devine's new sound engine), there will be an Xbox port, and the game will feature id's trademark violence, blood and all. Also mentioned is that while no contract has been signed yet, Trent Reznor has a verbal agreement with id to provide music and sound effects for the game. Reznor of course previously provided the score and ambient sounds for Quake 1. Update: HomeLAN has its own report on the talk, and a second, more detailed post is up at Shacknews.

It took a while to obtain the file, but we have now posted a local copy with mirrors of the Red Faction demo that was released this morning (story). This 127.8 MB download is single-player only and offers "three game levels, plus two training levels, and a 'glass house' goof-off level."

Loki Software has released a demo from their Linux port of Kohan: Immortal Sovereigns. The demo can be obtained through the Loki Demo Launcher, which is available at Loki's demos page, or directly from Loki's FTP site. For more information, refer to the game's README file.

PopTop Software has released a new patch for Tropico for download from TalonSoft, as well as a new scenario. The version 1.04 patch is a mere 750 KB download that fixes two obscure bugs, while the new Rebel scenario is a 290 KB download.

GameSpy Daily is the first out of the gate to report that at id Software's press conference this afternoon at QuakeCon, they have announced two new projects. Quake 4, which is being developed by Raven Software, will utilize id's latest technology, and will bring the series back to the Strogg-universe featured in Quake II. Also announced was an untitled, completely new franchise in development at Nerve Software (who are also working on Return to Castle Wolfenstein's multiplayer), which is said to be "a multiplayer co-op title using id technology." Activision will be publishing the untitled project, Quake 4, and DOOM for the Game Boy Advance. A publisher (or title, for that matter) for the new DOOM title has not yet been announced. The press conference is still going on, and we'll report more as it comes out. Update: Another report is up at ShackES, which also describes the new DOOM footage shown during John Carmack's talk, saying that it looks to be, "very dark, slow, and storyline-oriented." Update II: The GameSpy Daily report originally mentioned "Matrix-style effects," but this turned out to be some sort of miscommunication on their end, and this portion of the article has been corrected.

Pivotal Games has posted a new Conflict: Desert Storm development diary, in which Sebastian Grinke discusses progress in the creation of their squad-based tactical shooter based on the 1991 Gulf War. Word is a new milestone was reached and "the bare bones of the whole single player game [is] in place," while the remainder of the diary offers more insight into the additions and improvements being made to move the project forward.

Fan page Age of Mythology Heaven has conducted an interview with Ian Fischer, the lead designer on Age of Mythology, Ensemble's upcoming 3D RTS title. Ian talks about his background in the industry as well as AoM, and regarding that he says, "Age of Mythology is not a fantasy game...Fantasy bears no resemblance to this beyond the most superficial."

A short teaser movie of Rogue Spear: Black Thorn is now available at the official site of Red Storm's standalone tactical shooter add-on. The clip is a mere 2.8 MB download in AVI format and sports 23 seconds of footage, but less than half of that is in-game action.

Westlake Interactive and Aspyr have released a playable demo for their Mac port of Escape From Monkey Island, the humorous 3D adventure by LucasArts, which is available for download from MacGameFiles. As with the PC demo released last October (story), it comes in three download sizes depending on the inclusion of cutscene movies, voices and music.

Coinciding with this morning's news of the game's revival (story), the official G.I. Combat site has been relaunced with a new look, now offering a short animation clip for download in self-running Bink format that shows off the Half-Track unit. Additionally, sign-ups for the upcoming alpha and beta tests have now opened, listing the minimum requirements for participating.

Snowball Interactive has released another short Fatherdale movie to show off their upcoming isometric RPG. A mere 1.43 MB download in self-running Bink format, the clip offers some 20 seconds of in-game footage imaginatively entitled "Bam! Wham! Bam!"

There's a new Heroes of Might & Magic IV preview on GamePen based on some hands-on time with the game engine for the upcoming installment in this turn-based strategy series. The preview discusses the refinements to gameplay, calling them "wholesale changes," delving into details like how combat is conducted, changes in game balance, skills & magic, multiplayer options, and more.

As is their way, Belgian site SpelletjesGarnaal has posted a new movie of Rogue Spear: Black Thorn, the upcoming standalone expansion in Red Storm's tactical shooter series. The movie provides a video preview with nearly ten minutes of in-game footage demonstrating two of the missions (and how to fail them), and it's available in downloadable (12.6 MB) and streaming Windows Media Player format, naturally accompanied by their usual outrageous Flemish commentary.

• From Dusk Till Dawn
  EuroGamer interviews Hubert Chardot talking with the French designer of the horror game Alone in the Dark about progress on From Dusk Till Dawn, his upcoming project based on the Robert Rodriguez/Quentin Tarantino movie of the same name.
• Z: Steel Soldiers
  Steel Planet's Mike Montgomery Interview talks with the president of The Bitmap Brothers about Z: Steel Soldiers in a Q&A divided into separate sections covering the new game, balance considerations, 3rd party maps and mods, and more.
• Garage Games
  Nextgame.it Interviews Jeff Tunnel talking with the co-founder and president of Garage Games, who have just released V12, the licensable version of the TRIBES 2 engine. Included are some details on how they plan to market games using the V12 engine, and how the business relationship with developers of those games will be conducted.
• Tom Hall
  Spelplayset interviews Tom Hall. The interview is in the site's native Swedish, and seems to cover Anachronox, as that's one of the words in it we were able to understand. Thanks skalmanxl.

Polish site Gry-Online sends word that they have a playable demo of Red Faction online, offering an opportunity to try out Volition's first-person shooter of destructible enemies and environments. That is, provided you're able to download the massive 127.8 MB file, as the server is severely bogged down, so we'll post some mirrors as soon as they are available. Update: We now have a local copy with all known mirrors.

A new Anarchy Online daily update mentions their enthusiasm about "the patch that was released today," and though the report was posted on the 8th (GMT), and dated the 9th, as of this morning (the 10th), the patch is still not linked on their patch download page. Fortunately (I say fortunately), you don't have to be Kevin Mitnick to find an unlinked file on an FTP server, so I managed to dig up the location of the version 12.3-12.4 update patch (134 KB). Word is: "This patch should solve most of the problems people have had with disconnects and it will also solve nearly all of the client crashes." Update: The Anarchy Online Patches page has been updated to feature the link to the patch as well.

A report on CG Online offers an update on the status of G.I. Combat, which has been in limbo since earlier this year, as a newly formed company called Freedom Games has purchased the rights to the game from Take Two Interactive, and has resumed production with a team composed of former TalonSoft employees and ex-members of Atomic Games. An updated ship date and information on the game's publisher are to be provided in a press release that is "expected soon." On the other hand, there is still no update on the status of Star Leader, announced at the same time as G.I. Combat (story), but strangely silent since the launch of the websites for both games (story), of which the Star Leader one has since disappeared.

SYNOTEC + FINarts Aktuelle Neuigkeiten has word (in German) that Bacteria has gone gold, and is now is now available for purchase over the Internet via Net-Games. Also, Shrapnel Games has announced the release of their Air Command 3.0 Airport Expansion Pack. In further similar news, Eden Gets Solid Date on FGN has release dates of a couple of projects from Eidos, with word that Project Eden will be released on September 28 (a week after the PS2 version is released), and Soul Reaver 2 is slated for a November 16 release (and will be released for the PS2 in November, as well).

• Über-MMORPG Server Bows
  Rebel Arts Debuts Vast System At SIGGRAPH 2001 is a press release announcing the debut of that new giant MMORPG server tech that was recently announced (story).

There's a chat log on Armada Universe recapping Wednesday's chat with Activision and Mad Doc Software about progress on Star Trek: Armada II. The log has been edited in to a less chaotic format than the usual IRC recap.

'Payne' game screen-bound on the Hollywood Reporter (thanks Shacknews) is an article and Dimension Films, Collision Entertainment and Abandon Entertainment Acquire Rights to the Ground-Breaking Video Game "Max Payne" is the press release that follow up on the note in the Max Payne documentation that said: "Don't worry, you'll be seeing more of Max in the future. Dimension Films and Collision Entertainment are teaming up to make a feature film based on Max Payne..." (story). No further info on scheduling is available at this time, as the press release has more on future Max Payne game releases but no timetable for the movie. As is noted in the Hollywood reporter article, Collision, Abandon and Dimension are the same folks that plan to bring American McGee's Alice to the big screen (story).

There's an interview with Jaakko Keränen on the Doom Center talking about jDoom, the Win32 port of the original doom source code that is expected to see a version 1.0 release sometime this week.

The Quick Tips sections on PlanetDiablo's Diablo II Expansion Strategy guide have been updated once again, and now offer new strategies for all seven character classes found in Lord of Destruction.

BioWare Corp has posted a help-wanted for a Neverwinter Nights Community Manager: "The successful candidate will demonstrate excellent written communication skills, have experience providing customer support, and voluminous knowledge of online video games."

• Alone in the Dark: the New Nightmare on Futurelooks.
• Anachronox on Gamer's Pulse.
• Arcanum Demo on Gamers Pulse.
• Cultures on GameSpot.
• Diablo II: Lord of Destruction on PC Gameplay UK.
• Dragonriders: Chronicles of Pern on Adventure-Archiv.
• Echelon on PC Zone UK.
• Empire of the Ants (second opinion) on Games Domain.
• Grand Prix 3 2000 Season on Games Domain.
• Max Payne on Gamezilla, Gameplanet NZ, GameBasement, IceCubed, and Cyber-Rat.
• MechCommander 2 on ActionTrip.

• Antec SX1030B Case on bluescreenofdeth.net.
• Asus P4T motherboard on Active Hardware.
• CLAW Controller on 3dgameman.com.
• Copper Cooler Round-up on Maximum Hardware.
• Enermax Dual Temp Monitor Rack on Overclocker Cafe.
• Envision EN-5100 15" TFT LCD Monitor on GideonTech.
• EPoX 8K7A+ motherboard on HotHardware.
• Evergreen Technologies 3D Sound Amplifier on SoundCardCentral.
• Klipsch ProMedia 2.1 Speaker System on Tech Extreme.
• Lian Li PC-60 USB Aluminum Case on BlargOC.
• Maxtor Atlas 10k III Hard Drive on techhard.
• Mouse Bungee Crystal Pro on Hardware Extreme.
• MSI StarForce 822 video Card on PC Hardware.
• OCZ Technologies Titan 3 GeForce3 video card on nV News.
• PCCG Rounded Cables on Overclockers Australia.
• RumbleFX Forcefeedback Headphones on Inside Project.
• Samsung Corded Optical Mouse on Overclockers Australia.

• The Mimesis Online Developer Diary, part 7 on RPGDot offers the latest installment in one of the ongoing journals concerning this upcoming RPG from Polish developer Tannhauser Gate, the latest edition recapping the beginning of beta testing...
• The Sierra: Arcanum media page now has a new piece of Arcanum sheet music for download. Thanks Dimensions of Arcanum...
• There's a Fireside Chat With Jörg on Neocron Online with short four question Q&A about the status of this upcoming project in light of dot-com problems and the "glut" of planned competing MMORPGS...
• The Westwood Emperor page has been updated with details on what will be included in the upcoming version 1.08 patch for Emperor: Battle for Dune...

Reports from a few days ago say the weather was supposed to break today, but more recent updates say otherwise. I surrender, I had managed to go this long with out air conditioning in my attic office, but right now it's sweltering in here (and as I write this the sun has not yet even risen), and I think my glasses are actually steaming up (it's actually hotter in here right now than it is outside). Either I'm dragging an AC up here today, or I'm finding a way to move my office downstairs, but this is out of control (pant pant). But then again, there's the folks going to QuakeCon (gasp from horrified crowd), as a bit of poking around shows me that my thought that Texas had visited the rest of the US was a bit faulty... as bad as it is here today, there's a severe weather alert in the Dallas area, where the humidity will combine with 99 degree (F) temperatures to "produce afternoon heat indices of 105 to 110 degrees again today." Of course the only outdoor activity at QuakeCon is the smoking area, but you still have to be outside sometimes.

Link of the Day: Kenny Translator. Blue's News: "Mmmpmfpmf fmpmfpmpp mmfmmmpffpppmmmmfmmpp fmpmfpmmmfmp'fmm mpfmfffmp fmpppf pfmppffmmfmp." Thanks Akira.
Story of the Day: Stephen.Heaslip Arrested for Selling Crack. Thanks John Windsurfer. Hey!
Follow-up: Net activists launch campaign to jam 'Echelon' (CNN). Been a while since we heard from the Echelon project. Thanks EvilToast.
Weird Science: More Than an Average Joe's 'John' (Fox). Thanks Ronald, who speculates this may lead to Toilet.NET.