GameSpot has posted the first images of Strident, the futuristic 3D action game by Phantagram (creators of Kingdom Under Fire) that was announced last month (story). Assuming that not only World War III will happen, but that it will end as well, the game is set in a post WW III world and allows several different play styles. The article offers the first three screenshots and ten concept images to show what it looks like. Here is a bit more on the game's premise:

Players assume the role of an elite soldier who must escape a research facility and expose a dangerous conspiracy. The game will feature 20 missions that involve infiltration, escape, demolition, escort, assault, or defense. Players can undertake the missions alone, as part of a small squad, or as part of a platoon. In addition, the game will feature different powered suits that will enhance the character's abilities.

First look: Midgard on GameSpot is, indeed, a brief look at the new massively multiplayer online RPG in the works at Funcom. The report describes their impressions from seeing a technology demo of the game in action at ECTS, and offers more information on the game world, the type of gameplay Funcom is aiming for, and some of Midgard's features.

The official Global Operation site has been update with seven new screenshots, offering new scenes from the Chechnya, Quebec, and Uganda areas in the team-based realistic first-person shooter in the works at Barking Dog.

• AquaNox
  There are some hands-on impressions of AquaNox on GameSpot, based on checking out the underwater 3D action game by Massive Development at the show.
• Anarchy Online
  Anarchy Online story update on GameSpot corners Funcom about the start of the storyline in their futuristic MMORPG, which has been delayed due to the technical issues that plagued the game since its launch.
• Codecreature
  GameSpot's ECTS coverage also includes a report on the Codecreature engine, "which is optimized to use hardware vertex acceleration to render environments with extremely high polygon counts." The engine is being developed by German company Codecult, but the accompanying streaming movie that is supposed to show it in action doesn't appear to be available at the time of writing.

GameSpyDaily reports to have "uncovered" that Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor has gone gold. There's no mention when Stormfront Studios's isometric RPG can be expected in stores, but word is to "Expect an official announcement some time tomorrow."

The PaleStar website has word on a new update for the ongoing beta test of their massively multiplayer space combat game, DarkSpace. As usual, the patch is available through the game's auto-updater, and this forum post has details on the changes, which include infantry and armor improvements, a fix for the ship selection list, and more.

As noted on the Vavoom source port homepage, a new version 1.9 of this client/server port of the public DOOM source code is now available on SourceForge (thanks Stomped). This release adds support for MD2 models and employs a new internal filesystem, which means that models from the ZDoomGL port can't be used in Vavoom. As usual, there are DOS and Windows binaries along with source code for Linux systems.

Planet Command & Conquer has posted a follow-up to the recent reports that Yuri's Revenge, the upcoming Red Alert 2 expansion was "unofficially" gold (story), with some information on the subject straight from Chris Ruybor, the online community manager for the project, who says "Yuri's Revenge is in the last stage of production, it should be (gold) any time now." He also confirms their plan on having it on store shelves by September 25, as well as a few more details about the add-on and its release.

3D Realms' Joe Siegler updated his .plan again with another update on the status of Max Payne demo, saying it will be released tomorrow. Here's the news:

Max Payne news..

Folks, the Max Payne demo will be coming out tomorrow. I'm currently in prep for it - talking to several locations where you'll be able to download it from. Full details will be posted tomorrow, but I've already got some lined up overseas, so you folks who aren't in the states should have a better response time when downloading.

The file size will be 137,163,202.

Will have another update tomorrow when it's released. You can also keep an eye out on the 3DR main site for the download locations tomorrow. :)

If you are willing to mirror the file (especially if you're a non US FTP site), please drop me a line, and I'll email you back with details.

GameSpot's Chaser Preview is online offering what they believe are some of the first details about this upcoming first-person shooter, saying it "is just five months into development." This doesn't seem to really be the case, since we've had reports on the game going back 18 months now, and there have been several interviews about it already during that span, but the article does still offer what are probably the first hands-on impressions of Chaser after they recently visited the German offices of Fishtank Interactive to check it out. They describe the game's plot, where players take on the role of title character Chaser, an amnesiac with a gun who "will evade killer commandos, bring down criminal gangs, and become unavoidably entangled with Mafia associates." The game will take players to 30 locations (including Mars), 30 different types of enemies, 20 supporting characters, and roughly 20 hours of gameplay built in. The article also offers quotes from David Durcak, development director at Slovakian developer Cauldron Studios, and features nine new Chaser screenshots and 11 concept images.

The Battle.net News page has several updates concerning their various realms, including word that the US West gateway will go down for maintenance at Noon EDT tomorrow, the Asia gateway is down for tweaking even at this very moment, and the Europe gateway will go down for maintenance at 8:00 PM EDT tonight. In addition, they have word that the Europe gateway has been upgraded with more servers and bandwidth to increase their capacity by more than 100 percent.

Move over David Letterman, the latest Anarchy Online Daily update features a top 10 list of the most important problems AO-players are experiencing, "Based on feedback received from players." They have also provided a link to their forums for a post that repeats the list and provides more details as well as planned solutions. The link they have is actually incorrect, but helpful folks that we are, we dug up the actual location of the thread.

3D Realms' Joe Siegler updated his .plan announcing that we should expect the Max Payne demo soon:

We're getting close to releasing the Max Payne demo. Anyone interested in mirroring the demo file (especially outside of the US), please drop me a line (and provide me with a place to upload if possible). Thanks. The file will be about 135Mb.

• Age of Mythology
  As is their way, Ensemble Studios has released a new Age of Mythology screenshot, sporting another scene in their upcoming 3D real-time strategy game.
• Black Thorn
  Dutch site Tactical Games has posted twenty new Rogue Spear: Black Thorn screenshots, apparently captured from a preview build of the tactical shooter expansion by Red Storm Entertainment.
• Arx Fatalis
  Ten screenshots of Arx Fatalis are online at RPGDot, offering new and familiar scenes in the first-person RPG being crafted at Arkane Studios.
• Archangel
  Also on RPGDot are ten new Archangel screenshots, showing off this third-person action RPG in development at Metropolis Software.
• S.W.I.N.E.
  Fragland.net has posted half a dozen new S.W.I.N.E. screenshots, illustrating this light-hearted 3D RTS by Channel 42 and Fishtank Interactive, and four more screenshots are online at PC Pointer.de.
• Camelot
  The flood of images from Dark Age of Camelot continues with over two dozen new screenshots of Mythic's medieval MMORPG at Grail Brotherhood.

Gaming magazine GameStar has posted their article on id's upcoming DOOM game on their website, which is written in their native German. The article includes the screenshots that accompanied the print version, and to complement the original, there's an English translation on Doom Center, which, while not perfect, is certainly less painful than auto-translations like BabelFish.

There's a World of Warcraft preview on WarcraftIII.Net, like those that have preceded it, based on checking out the presentation of Blizzard's newly-announced MMORPG at the ECTS. The article covers their impressions of the press release, as well as their private demonstration of the game. They go into details about character creation and the user interface, while focusing a majority of their attention on gameplay, offering a detailed account of everything they experienced from combat to questing, providing a good feel for what playing the game will be like.

Czech site BonusWeb has posted the ECTS trailer of Chaser, the futuristic first-person shooter in the works at Slovakian developers Cauldron. The trailer is available in two resolutions in DivX AVI format, and sports a little over half a minute of soundless footage showing off various environments and graphical effects that their CloakNT engine can produce.

Black & White Sequel in the Works on PC.IGN.Com (thanks PlanetBlackAndWhite) has the announcement that in addition to the Black & White Creature Isles add-on mentioned in the next story, production is already underway on a full-blown Black & White sequel. The premise here is that your peaceful island is no longer so peaceful, and the player in his role as a not very omnipotent god must step in and take sides. They quote Peter Molyneux as saying: "I really like the idea of these huge, quite vicious wars going on, and you as a god returning to this land that you left in peace at the end of Black & White having to choose a side." They describe gameplay as offering many RTS elements, and to assist you in your efforts to influence the outcome are your ability to create miracles, and the actions of your creature, who can be imported from the original B&W. No release date has been set, and the report notes that: "Peter also assured us that the development team is paying close attention to the Black & White community for inspiration, and will include several user-requested features in the final game."

GameSpot UK ECTS Black & White Creature Isles Hands On offers a bit of a more well-rounded look ahead at what's planned for the upcoming Black & White add-on than the preview we mentioned yesterday (story), which like so many of us, was basically obsessed with sex. This newer preview, likewise based on seeing and hearing about the game at ECTS, fleshes out Lionhead's plans to add mini-games to B&W, satisfying the desire so many have expressed for more gameplay than it offered. Making comparisons to the gameplay found in Black & White, which they describe as "in many ways like playing in a sand-box, an open ended and creative experience," they have this to say about the add-on: "Creature Isles' mini-games are like heading down to the arcade with a pocket full of change and a desire to engrave your three initials on the hi-score board. Players import their creature from Black & White, and travel around the isles trying to complete challenges - many of which are based on beating a Brotherhood creature. From smashing high-scores to out racing them, it's all about trouncing them at their own game." They say Creature Isles will include nearly 40 different challenges, all of them re-playable once they are complete. They also go into the relationship with the Tyke character, and a little more on what the add-on will bring to the game, saying:

As well as all the complications and subtleties that the indirectly controlled parent/child relationship introduces into the game, Creature Isles promises to update the AI routines with new actions and behaviours that didn't make it into the release of Black & White. Other improvements include a land-mass that's double the size of the original and new dialogues for the side-kicks (including a Britney Spears joke routine).

• Team Factor
  GameSpot UK's ECTS Team Factor First Impressions says: "Forget about squad-based play. Platoon-based is where it's at with Team Factor."
• Mobile Forces
  GameSpot's First look: Mobile Forces gives their impressions of Rage Software's just-announced "Unreal Tournament-based team game that adds vehicles to the battlefield mix."
• AquaNox
  GamesDomain's AquaNox preview offers some first-hand impressions from the show, and there are also six new AquaNox screenshots on GamersUnitedNetwork, and nine more on PC Zone UK.
• Curse
  GameSpot's ECTS 2001 First look at Curse: The Eye of Isis describes this "action-adventure game that's set in Victorian England and adopts the survival-horror cinematic game style."
• Nomads
  GameSpot UK ECTS Project Nomads First Look discusses this unusual-sounding third-person game where players take on the role of a "trainee wizard engineer." Also, GameSpot US's First look: Project Nomads is likewise online.
• Everquest: Shadows of Luclin
  There's a Shadows of Luclin Development Update on PC.IGN.Com and GameSpot UK's ECTS Shadows Of Luclin Hands-On is also online.
• Wrap-ups
  GameSpot UK ECTS 2001 coverage rolls along, with their day three coverage, and includes an Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind Hands On, and a Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon First Look. Likewise, GameSpot (US) at ECTS day two coverage also includes a First look at Incoming Forces. PC.IGN.com's has a new Warcraft III Development Update. Also, GamesDomain's ECTS coverage rolls along, as does RPGDot's, and Pixel Kill's.
• Awards
  ECTS Awards Industry on FGN recaps the various honors that were awarded as a result of the show in more detail than yesterday's report (story).

The Daily Telefrag's Interview with Akella is online, this Russian site talking with a couple of the Russian developers at work on Sea Dogs II, the upcoming sequel to their seafaring RPG. The interviewees are project designer and scenario writer Renat Nezametdinov and Akella's PR manager Andrey Belkin, who discuss topics like the reasons for the sequel, inspirations for the storyline, what aspects of gameplay have changed since the original game, graphical enhancements, editability, naval versus dry land combat, and more. The article is adorned by five new Sea Dogs II screenshots.

There is a new movie trailer of Commandos 2: Men of Courage on Khabal Gaming, showing off the squad-based tactical combat game that is nearing completion at Pyro Studios. The trailer comes as a 15.1 MB download in MPEG format and offers a minute and a half of cinematic and in-game footage. And in related news, there are four new screenshots from the Jungle levels in the game on PC Pointer.de.

A messageboard thread called An Open Letter to Blake Hutchins on The H-Web (spotted via a thread called Dave Georgeson gets hired = Planetside is doomed noticed by Voodoo Extreme) has an update on what's going with the remaining members of the TRIBES 2 team since their departure from Dynamix. That open letter thread inspired a couple of replies from TRIBES 2 writer Blake Hutchins as well as a response from Dave Georgeson that fills us in on what they're up to. The second post from Blake outlines some of the pressures that lead to the direction TRIBES 2 development ended up taking, and obviously enough from the title of that second Planetside thread, this includes word that Dave Georgeson is now on the Planetside team, of which Dave says: "Fear not for Planetside. That team is very good and they have a clear vision of what they want. I'm just there to help them organize it to completion and make sure everything comes together as planned." Here's the first update by Blake that has the saga of many of the TRIBES 2 developers:

Hello, all:

I'm not dead yet. I've just been bloody busy these last few weeks. Here's the quick update, with apologies for having vanished during the interim:

- The dev team was exploring the possibility of forming a new company. We were looking at several options, including contracting with Sierra to continue developing Tribes and/or working with publishers like Microsoft or Turbine to develop original material for console. These options are gone. A cadre of five dev team members broke off to form their own company, very likely to use the V12 from Garage Games, though in all honesty I have no idea what their plans are. There were enough key people in that splinter group to shut down all immediate funding options for the team.

- Those of us who are left are exploring the slim possibility of putting together a new team. We still have a considerable amount of talent left, so we'll see what happens.

- Dave Georgeson has accepted an offer to become the Executive Grand Poobah of Planetside. He'd wanted to stay with the dev team, but after the team split, he felt he had no option but to take Verant's offer.

- The remaining dev team members will explore all job offers individually.

Whew! That's it. I'll keep you posted. Thanks for all the goodwill and support. Right now I don't know where I'll end up. Though I'd like to stay in Eugene, I'm excited about the possibility of trying something new and living somewhere different. We'll see what opportunity presents.

Best,

Blake

GameSpy.com Interviews Marek Spanel talking with the project leader on Operation Flashpoint about this military first-person shooter that allows you to operate all manner of vehicles while you let slip the dogs of war. The conversation covers a wide variety of topics, including their efforts to elevate the genre to the next level, difficulties they encountered along the way, the unusual choice by a European developer to make the US Army as the game's protagonists, what real-life inspirations contributed to Op Flashpoint, and a whole lot more.

GameSpy.com Previews The Thing, saying "The film was just the beginning…now the real terror has arrived." The article is based on checking out the latest version of this upcoming horror game at a recent editor's day held by Universal Interactive Studios, saying what they saw "suggested that the experience could rival that of Resident Evil, or even the upcoming Silent Hill 2." The article talks of how the game adheres to the John Carpenter movie on which it is based, and describes all the elements the game will combine like this: "The Thing will blend action, puzzle solving, and elements of horror along with extensive amounts of human interaction to create a very unique gaming experience."

HomeLan interviews Adel Chaveleh and Ian Klimon talking with the producer and lead designer at Timegate Studios about progress on Kohan: Ahriman’s Gift, the upcoming stand-alone expansion for Kohan: Immortal Sovereigns, their fantasy RTS game. Topics include the positive response to the original, what they would have done differently during development, the amount of content in the follow-up that inspired them to make it a stand-alone product, as well as more on the follow-up including the new playable race, new units, AI improvements, and more.

Heads-up true believers, The Adrenaline Vault Previews Spider-Man offering a hands-on preview of the upcoming action game celebrating the adventures of your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. The article kicks off by admitting that: "The transfer of comic strip or cartoon characters to the personal computer has rarely been a successful one," but they seem to think that this wall-crawler game will overcome this trend. Here's a bit that talks of the how things like a 3D environment and the contributions of Stan "The Man" Lee to the project are factors that work in its favor. Excelsior!:

Activision Studios Producer Marc Turndorf says the original concept was to try to bring Spider-Man to life in a 3D gaming environment, fully reflecting the fun and excitement of the classic legacy. The two main tricks with this were how to make Spider-Man move anywhere/on anything in a 3D world and how the player can control him in that world smoothly and seamlessly. These challenges are far from being minor ones with automated solutions, as jerky cartoon action would be unacceptable, and the range of movement of this superhero is far beyond that of mere mortals.

This offering appears to exhibit extraordinary authenticity, pleasing even the most demanding die-hard Spider-Man aficionado. The story and dialog are inspired by the Spider-Man cartoons and comics, with a plot that feels like the real thing. Stan Lee, famed co-creator of Spider-Man, was directly involved with narrating the game, creating mood and realism in the levels. Turndorf claims that Lee's involvement in this computer title has been the key to causing it to see the light of day in the first place. For cartoon fans, you even get to see Daredevil, the fellow who is Spider-Man's friend and appears at tough times to give him advice. Nonetheless, it is not necessary to know anything about the cartoon or comic strip to enjoy the gameplay.

• H-P to buy Compaq
  HP to Buy Compaq in $25-Billion Deal (Reuters). Thanks Kpoc.
• Asus BIOS
  A new Asus beta BIOS version 1007_01g for the A7V133 (direct FTP link) is now available. Thanks SocketA.com.
• Motorola Go Zoom
  Motorola Unveils New High-Speed Chip Technology. Thanks Digital Silence.
• Newer NvMax
  A new Version 3.00.46 Beta of NvMax is now available. Thanks Tseki.
• Case Modding
  There are some Silver "Dream Machine" photos on PC PowerZone showing off this case modding project.
• Overclocking
  There's a Video Card Overclocking guide on WinHQ.Net and a Thermal Interface Guide on PC Hardware.

Digital Extremes Developer's Update has the latest on what's going on in the development of Unreal Championship, while Unreal Championship Rocks ECTS 2001 on GameSpot UK talks of what they saw of the upcoming Xbox Unreal game at ECTS.

Beta 1A of the Proball modification for Quake III Arena is now available. This is what they have to say about this version: "Testing was a bit limited for this build but the testing we did do went really well so im pretty confident that this is a good build."

• Alone in the Dark: the New Nightmare on Gone Gold.
• Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura on BlueSmoke.
• Baldur's Gate II: Throne of Bhaal on Gone Gold.
• Conquest: Frontier Wars on ActionTrip.
• Diablo II: Lord of Destruction on Gone Gold.
• Echelon on GamePen and Gone Gold.
• Evil Islands: Curse of the Lost Souls on Gone Gold.
• Half-Life: Blue Shift on Player Of Games.
• Max Payne on Gone Gold.
• MechCommander 2 on Fragland.net.
• Myth II: Green Berets on Gamers' Press.
• Outlive on Gamitopia.
• Project Eden (beta) on PC Zone UK.
• StarTopia on Gamers' Press.
• Train Simulator on ActiveWin and Gone Gold.

• Absolute Morpheus GeForce3 Video Card on AMDZone.
• AMD Duron (Morgan) 1.0 GHz CPU on got apex.
• AOpen AX4T Pentium 4 Motherboard on t-break.
• AquaCoil vs. BigMama Radiator Shootout on Hardware Extreme.
• DFI AK76-SN Motherboard on Serial Addiction.
• Dynatron-ThermalRight-Vantec HSF Shootout on ProCooling.
• ECS Elitegroup K7S5A Motherboard on AMD World.
• EL Case Badge kit on casejunkiez.com.
• Kingmax PC2100 DDR SDRAM on TweakTown.
• Leadtek Winfast GeForce 3 TD & TDH Video Cards on TechWatch.
• Swiftech MC-462BA HSF on bluescreenofdeth.net.
• Swiftech MCX370 Heatsink on Explosive Hardware.
• VIA Apollo KT266A chipset and its competitors on Digit-Life.

• The result of Gamasutra's Game Developer's Salary Survey are online. Thanks Ant...

In the past I suffered with problems when using Eudora as my mail client. At least in the several versions I used over the years it seemed to have a real problem gracefully recovering when it hit any sort of glitch while it was downloading mail. Eventually I gave into the suggestions that I try Outlook, which, while it demonstrated foibles of its own, didn't have this same problem as Eudora, which often resulted in lost messages before I switched. Yesterday I discovered a new odd behavior of Outlook that never really occurred to me to check for before. Outlook offers automatic Junk Mail filtering, but the only interaction I've ever had with his function was to add a few senders to the associated "junk senders list" which added them to the filter. For whatever reason, I was inspired yesterday to look in the folder where this filter deposited its junk. You may have guessed already where this is heading: yup, it turns out that Outlook's definition of junk not only includes all manner of spam, but also dozens of messages that were actually quite important. I haven't sat down with the lost messages to try and figure out what keyword or words they contained that caught them in the filter, but I did discover that this turns out to be one of those smart capabilities of a computer program that is incredibly stupid, which is how I feel for letting the program filter my messages for me.

Link of the Day: Just not Cricket. Flash required. Thanks Ant.
Story of the Day: Killer dies in rocket-launcher duel (The Times). Thanks Bob. First time I've heard of one of those outside a game.
Bonus Story: California landfill dubbed a historic landmark. Makes you proud. Thanks Rick "^Drag0n^" Brewer.
Weird Science: Nuclear Waste Recyclers Target Consumer Products. Thanks [MP] Wolverine [MP].
Wild Science: Pulse Jet Engine. Home of the jet-powered go-kart. Thanks Leon Tranter.