The Star Wars Galaxies Website (thanks Hellcinder) has the announcement of plans for an expansion for Star Wars galaxies called Trials of Obi-Wan. In conjunction, the Star Wars Galaxies Trials of Obi-Wan Mini-Site is online (thanks Frans) offering the first screenshots from the add-on. Here's word on the expanding MMORPG galaxy:

Like Obi-Wan Kenobi after his death, Star Wars Galaxies has become "more powerful than you can possibly imagine." Appropriately, Trials of Obi-Wan allows players to better understand the meaning of these final words spoken by Luke Skywalker's mentor, as they embark upon missions delivered directly from the spirit of the revered Jedi Master himself. From the very shores of molten lava where he defeated Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan guides players on quests that span the planet Mustafar - some of which might even convert devotees of the dark side over to a more virtuous path. This expansion features many new high-level quest rewards, including the ability to find a fiery red crystal found only on the volcanic planet that creates a lava-like lightsaber for the lucky owner. Players who fulfill all of Obi-Wan's directives will also receive a rich reward.

Mustafar colonists present many exciting trials of their own, too, as Trials of Obi-Wan includes more than 50 new quests for the galaxy's bravest adventurers, from rescue missions to the exploration of a crashed Republic cruiser. Many quests also revolve around a prominent figure from Star Wars ® : Knights of the Old Republic ® who returns 4,000 years after his prime with one simple mission in mind: Eliminate all meatbags.

As noted in Timothee Besset's .plan, and as promised during QuakeCon, the source code for Quake III Arena (direct link) is now available on the id FTP server. The 5.5 MB download is mirrored on 3D Gamers, FileFront, GameSpot DLX (registration required), and Worthplaying. Word is:

Quake III Arena source code released under GPL
----------------------------------------------

We're done packaging up the Quake III Arena source code for a GPL release:

af8aaac46cc82035e1cba632b1a16e03 quake3-1.32b-source.zip
ftp://ftp.idsoftware.com/idstuff/source/quake3-1.32b-source.zip

note that a build of Q3Radiant 200f is included under GPL as well

some D3 SDK things:
-------------------

I've uploaded an XCode project file [1] to make it easier to build
the gamecode on Mac. There is no SDK source update needed at
this point.

[1] ftp://ftp.idsoftware.com/idstuff/doom3/source/mac

The EA Games Website has an update on Battlefield 2 (thanks Frans), recomending the new CATALYST drivers, discussing stats issues, the addition of more ranked servers, and offering word on a delay to the planned version 1.03 patch:

In this space about a month ago, EA and DICE listed many of the feature tweaks and updates that are pending for the 1.03 Update. In order to address the key issues as quickly as possible, we set an aggressive release date for the end of August. Unfortunately, as we approach the end of this month, it has become apparent that we will not meet this goal, and we wanted to keep you abreast of our progress. We are committed to making the 1.03 Update as comprehensive as possible, so while it is important to us to keep the release date, it is more important that we take the time to do this right. We will avoid committing to another date, but know that our goal is to get 1.03 out to you as soon as we’re certain it will deliver what we know you’re all hoping for. Keep fighting soldiers, the 1.03 Update is coming!

The official Serious Sam II Website is now online, offering a home to Croteam's sequel to their not-so-serious first-person shooter. The Flash site offers info, screenshots, and the ability to slam some spam with a Sam-O-Gram.

Eidos halts Carmageddon on EuroGamer is a report that the planned follow-up (story) to the old school game of road rage has hit a wall. It's not clear whether development of the sequel, funded by SCi prior to their Eidos acquisition, has been shifted elsewhere, but according to the report development of the project has been halted at Scottish developer Visual Science for two weeks now.

An English language demo for NI.BI.RU is now available offering a translation of the German demo for Future Games' graphical mystery also no less confusingly known as Nibiru: Messenger of the Gods and NIBIRU: Age of Secrets. The demo provides the same sample of the game as the German version. The 140 MB download is available on 3D Gamers, FileFront, and Worthplaying.

The Bet on Soldier Website (thanks Frans) has word that Kylotonn's upcoming first-person shooter of gambling and gibs, has gone gold. The announcement is in the site's native German, and it's not entirely clear whether this covers non-German territories as well, but there are also English buttons and logos on the site, including one that says "Release 25.08.2005." Update: Worthplaying says Digital Jesters has said the English version has not yet gone gold.

This press release announces that Elveon, the recently announced (story) fantasy-themed action game, will be built on Epic's Unreal Engine 3. The announcement quotes Jürgen Reusswig of developer 10TACLE STUDIOS Slovakia as saying: "Unreal Engine 3 has already proven to us that it is going produce fantastic results while saving us time and money on this project. It not only has fantastic graphics but also is on an advanced development stage which we need for a real next generation project such as Elveon. We are delighted to have found a really strong technology partner in Epic Games."

The French Bet On Soldier Forums have word (in French, naturally enough) of plans to release a pair of demos for Bet on Soldier, Kylotonn's upcoming gambling-oriented first-person shooter. The plan is to release both a single-player demo and a multiplayer demo on September 1. Thanks Tiscali Games.

To follow-up on last night's report of a new publishing deal between Namco and Perception for Stargate SG-1: The Alliance (story). The webpage this was all based on reflected Namco's original role in the game's distribution, rather than any new arrangement, and apparently Namco's involvement in this project still hinges on the outcome of the original dispute between JoWooD and Perception (story and story). Apologies for any confusion the erroneous story caused.

• QuakeCon 2005 Day 2 on TechFreaks.
AMDZone 7th Year Anniversary Bash.

• Ghost Recon
  There's a Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter Q&A on the Ghost Recon Website (thanks Frans) answering reader-submitted questions about single-player play in the upcoming shooter sequel: "You will be able to control several squads: the ghost squad of course and additional squads found on the battle area. Additionally you will be able to have a very fine and accurate control of the ghost squad making it possible to split into several groups and devise ambush and counter manoeuvres."
• Auto Assault
  Driving Forces on Eurogamer is part three of their Q&A series with Scott Brown of NetDevil to discuss Auto Assault, their upcoming MMORPG: "Certainly, we all play lots of games here and have been influenced by ideas from those games that we thought would make sense in Auto Assault. We have also seen games do some things we were trying that did not work and allowed us to rethink and remove during development and early testing. An example would be that we had the goal of making Auto Assault very mission-centric – looking at WoW gave us some additional ideas as to how to make this happen. Another example is from City of Heroes where when you do something the text element moves to the place in the UI for you to interact with - such a great idea!"
• The Suffering: Ties That Bind
  Gamecloud's The Suffering: Ties That Bind Q&A talks with Noah Heller of Surreal Software about their upcoming horror sequel: "We feel like we only scratched the surface with Suffering 1. We feel like we proved you can do horror inside of a tight action game. With Suffering: Ties That Bind, we wanted to add plenty of polish and really make it a AAA game. We decided to focus our attentions specifically on the horror and the action. Make them world class. So you’ll notice that the horror has been taken up several notches and the combat system is much tighter and more aggressive."
• Rome Total War: Barbarian Invasion
  Gamecloud's Rome Total War: Barbarian Invasion Q&A chats with Mike Brunton of Creative Assembly about the upcoming expansion for their historical RTS game: "If you've played RTW you'll notice that some old friends like the Macedonians, Egyptians and Carthaginians are now gone, as they've faded into to the mists of time. Even the Senate has gone as a political force, made irrelevant by the growth of the Emperor's absolute authority. You'll notice that what might seem familiar isn't quite as it was in the original game. 'Romans' aren't the same as they were, thanks to around 350 years of tactical and political change (that's the roughly same amount of time that separates the present day from the time New Amsterdam became New York!). You're looking at an army that is still reasonably efficient, but can't quite be relied on in the same way as the 'old' Legions of Julius Caesar and Augustus."

• Earth 2160 on Worthplaying.
• EverQuest II: Desert of Flames on GameSpy. PvP Arena unveiled.
• Fable: The Lost Chapters on Killer Betties.
• Sabotage on IGN.
• Unreal Tournament 2007 on IGN.
• X-Men: Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse on The Armchair Empire.

Thanks Mike Martinez.

• Advent Rising cancels million-dollar contest. Offer two games instead. Maybe they're worth half-a-mil each?
• Metal Gear Goes Online, Back in Time.
• Agetec makes good on RPG Maker 3.
• Advance Cube Wars Screens.
• GC 2005 Xbox - Back in Black.
• World Poker Pros Revealed.

Thanks Mike Martinez.

• GB Micro won't talk to older GBAs without peripherals.
• Blister Ent. Offers the First Location Based Games in the U.S.
• Ceramic White PSP Available for Pre-Order.
• Mario Kart DS Screens.
• How Mobile Phones Conquered Japan.
• Potentially offensive DS dictionary set for release.

Thanks Mike Martinez.

• A New Arms Race to Build the World's Mightiest Computer (registration required).
• IE flaw affects Office, Visual Studio users.
• Universal Music Goes True-Blu-ray.
• Google unites Blogger and Microsoft Word.
• Users confuse spyware with Star Wars. Thanks Ant. Help me Ad-Aware... you're my only hope.
• Mob Pirates Menace or Myth?
• Geico, Google Declare Victory In Court Ruling.
• Pioneering net community sold off.

This BlizzCon Page outlines the swag attendees of the upcoming show will receive, including beta access codes and a WoW pet as well as more typical items like t-shirts.

• The City of Heroes Super Summer Slam Spectacular Team Costume Competition Results are online.
• ThinkComputers.org View topic - 480w Power Supply with Built-in Wattage Meter Giveaway!

• Business As Usual - Gamers With Jobs. On Xbox 360 pricing.
• Game Central Network - The future of adventure games.
• Laws Trying to Prevent Citywide Wi-Fi.

• BloodRayne 2 on ActionTrip and IGN.
• Campaigns on the Danube 1805-1809 on GamersInfo.net.
• Chaos League: Sudden Death on Gamers Europe.
• Codename: Panzers Phase Two on VideoGamesLife.
• Cricket 2005 on Gamesradar.
• Heroes of the Pacific Demo (impressions) on IGN.
• Restricted Area on LoadedInc.
• SpecForce (A.K.A. Chrome SpecForce) on Jolt.co.uk.

• ABIT AN8-SLI nForce4-SLI Motherboard on PCStats.
• Creative Zen Touch on PC Mechanic.
• ECS PF21 Extreme 925XE Motherboard on ViperLair.
• NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT Video Cards on GamePC.
• OCZ EL DDR PC-4000 1024MB Gold Edition Dual Channel (2GB) Memory Kit on 3DXtreme.
• Philips DVP 642 DVD Player on Hardware Secrets.
• PowerColor GameFX Radeon X800 GT 256MB PCIe Video Card on HEXUS.net.
• Sunbeamtech Pro-Series Illuminated Keyboard on CaseModGod.
• Thermaltake Muse 3.5 HDD Enclosure on techPowerUp!
• Winbook X530 (X series-model) Notebook on Hot Hardware.
• XTrac Mad Dotz and InstaGlide on MADSHRIMPS.

• Psychologists Warn of Video-Game Violence. Thanks Mike Martinez...
• The World of Warcraft Community Site Test Realm Patch Notes have WoW version 1.70 details, and Blizzplanet has word that the upcoming patch is now live on their test servers...
• Game makers aim for new users at Europe games fair...
• dtp publishes lifestyle-hospital simulation Rich & Beautiful in Germany...
• An international version of Queosia is now available: "Hungary's biggest online strategy game now in English."...

No BSoDs in a few days on my work machine after installing my mouse drivers... talk about a silly thing to bring a machine down. You'd think if the generic Windows mouse drivers were not appropriate to a device, Windows wouldn't try to install them. Oh well, at least it's fixed.

Driven Links:	Thanks Mike Martinez and Ant.
Link:	Smokin' Tire Products. Thanks memepool.
Stories:	M.R.I.'s Strong Magnets Cited in Accidents (registration required).
Science!	Japan project aims to create 3D television by 2020. Baby comes with brain repair kit for mum. Nanotubes Start to Show their Promise.
Auction:	eBay Obi-Wan Kenobi figure FLOWN IN SPACE on SpaceShipOne! Thanks Viperfour.
Teh Funny:	FoxTrot. UserFriendly.