Steam now offers Allegiance as a free download, as Microsoft's multiplayer combat sim/RTS game from 2000 has been revived (thanks PCGamesN). The game first died in 2002, but the source code was open-sourced, and FreeAllegiance has kept it going all these years. This post notes the rerelease, and says weekends will be the peak time to find other players while they build up their population. A different post from last month outlines the project:

We are working feverishly on stomping the last of the bugs, and getting a fresh coat of paint on all the ships to get ready for our relaunch!

After 17 years, we are finally able to bring this game back to a major distribution channel, which is a very exciting time for our entire community.

On behalf of the Free Allegiance team and the Allegiance Zone team, welcome to Allegiance.

Allegiance is best played with LOTS of people, but it will be a little rocky at the start as we try to attract players. If you want to help out, check back on weekends around 2pm ET / 8pm GMT and we will try to have a game running. Or, grab a few friends and start up your own game. Nothing attracts players like a running game.

In the mean-time, try out our training missions, and also read up on the wiki:
http://www.freeallegiance.org/FAW/index.php/Main_Page

There is a lot to see and do in Allegiance, and we welcome new developers to join us on the open source project:
https://github.com/FreeAllegiance/Allegiance

Techdirt tries to sort through the implications of the news this week that publisher Atlus shut down a fan-created project to emulate Persona 5 on PCs. They note that in spite of sounding bogus on the surface, this may be a legitimate us of the DMCA, opining that this is an example of messed up the law is. Boing Boing also chimes in with a look at the big picture, saying the being able to take down an emulator has chilling implications on the ability to preserve gaming history now and in the future. Here's part of their write-up:

Video game company Atlus just sent a sent a copyright takedown over the Patreon page for open source Playstation 3 emulator RPCS3, by invoking section 1201 of the DMCA, which makes it a felony punishable by 5 years in prison and a $500,000 fine to bypass DRM.

Atlus's theory -- which is hard to discern, thanks to a legal word-salad the company has thrown up as chaff in its wake -- is that because it's possible to use RPCS3 to play PS3 games that you have pirated rather than paid for, and since Atlus once made a PS3 game, it gets to decide whether anyone, anywhere can make or use a tool that lets them play their old games after the hardware they came with was retired.

Emulation is a critical part of software development. Open up a terminal on your modern computer and chances are it'll say "tty" at the top. That stands for "teletype," a technology whose origins date to the early 1900s, that early computers interfaced with. Over the years, as teletypes turned into screens and then into windows, the software interfaces relied on layers of emulation and abstraction to continue to talk to them.

It's impossible to overstate the importance of emulation to games development. Prior to the advent of emulators, games were the only art-form without a past: unless developers had the foresight (and care) to preserve successive generations of antiquated hardware (a process called pickling), they literally had no way to refer to the works of art that had influenced their own creations, the entirety of games that had gone before them.

The emulator gave games a history. Guaranteed: every Atlus developer learned about the history of their artform with emulation. The idea that anyone who's ever shipped a game for a platform gets to decide whether it continues to be part of the discourse, the living history of the medium, is grotesque. It's like the idea that a single sculptor would get to decide whether marbles were preserved for the ages or smashed into rubble when they were through with them.

• Hell Let Loose by BLACK MATTER — Kickstarter. "Hell Let Loose is a platoon-based realistic multiplayer first-person shooting game for PC set during the Second World War." Here's a gameplay trailer.

• Xbox One Alpha Update Adds Game Gifting.

• Essential Phone review: Impressive for a new company but not competitive.
• iPhone 8 Plus reportedly splits open while charging, another claimed to arrive in same state. Thanks Slashdot.

• Internet Activists Urge Congress to Fire Trump's FCC Chief Ajit Pai. Thanks Slashdot via Ant.
• Pornhub rolls out best-in-class accessibility features for visually impaired users.

• IBM Now Has More Employees in India Than in the U.S. Thanks Slashdot via Ant.
• Apple acquires AI tech that seeks to understand your photos.

• Google sets untrust schedule for Chrome over Symantec certificates. Thanks Ant.
• Google rumored to replace 2-factor with 'Advanced Protection' keys.

• Congressman demands to know if DHS will collect his social media history, too.

• Cuphead on Destructoid.
• Project CARS 2 on BabelTech Reviews. PC and VR performance evaluation.
• Warriors All-Stars on Christ Centered Gamer.

• Enermax Revolution Xt II 750W PSU on Overclocked Inside.
• EVGA X299 Micro Motherboard on LanOC Reviews.
• Mionix Castor Ice Cream Gaming and Artist Mouse on TweakTown.
• Patriot Viper V770 RGB Mechanical Gaming Keyboard on Nikk Tech.
• SteelSeries Apex M750 Keyboard on TechPowerUp.

• New Lumberyard update shows CryAnimation and Flow Graph the door…

Yom Kippur began at sundown yesterday, to G'mar Hatima Tova (thanks Google!) to all who are observing. This occasion always reminds me a story of my step-father's from back when he taught in an inner-city high school. One of the students expressed his enthusiasm for taking off for the holiest day on the Jewish calendar by saying, "yo man, that's my holiday... Yom Kippler!"

Links:	Thanks Ant and Acleacius.
Play:	Linebacker Alley.
Stories:	Aston Martin is making a $4 million submarine. Don't be underwater on your car loan.
Science:	Can SpaceX afford its new Mars rocket — and will there be a market for it? Scientists Reveal Surprisingly Strong Link Between Livestock And Global Warming. Hubble Spots Farthest-Ever Incoming Active Comet.
Media:	HeroStorm Ep 29: Uplifting Friends & Enemies. Dave Grohl as Christopher Walken. Milk?