The unofficial Quake III Arena FAQ by SilverStream has been updated, sporting yet more information and help on id's game of deathmatch extravaganza. And on a related note, Activision has opened their technical support page for Quake III Arena for Macintosh, addressing various problems one might experience with this recently released version of the game (hit the Go button for the initial list of solutions).

Game-Forge has posted an interview with Headfirst Productions designer Andrew Brazier, talking to him about their upcoming game Call of Cthulhu - Dark Corners of the Earth, which Andrew says they're striving to make, "the scariest game ever." He also says that the game will be played from a first person perspective with a full co-op mode available, and they may opt to release the level editor along with the game.

Bungie.org has posted an interview with Matt Soell, "Hot Air Artist" for Bungie Software, conducted during last week's MacWorld event. The talk addresses a couple of Oni and Halo questions, including the state of network support in those games, as well as an assortment of other topics.

Online commerce site CheckOut.com (funny, didn't think they'd have time to do anything but make ads) has posted a brief Q&A with Brandon Smith, Cavedog's communication manager regarding their recent cancellation of Amen: The Awakening. Brandon says the game was "50 to 60 percent complete" when they stopped development on it.

A new version of Quake 3 Control is now available on its relocated site. Quake 3 Control is a remote admin tool for Quake-series servers, and the new 1.0.31 beta release includes the first implementation of QuakeWorld support (carrying the "still experimental!" warning), as well as ban list support and a couple of other options.

AVault has posted a news update with word that contrary to reports floating around late last week, ASC Games has not closed their doors. They are, however, restructuring, and have "downsized several departments" according to CEO Steve Grossman, but they plan to continue development of their Unreal-engine title Werewolf: The Apocalypse with the same producers.

Machinima.com has posted an interview with Jeff Mills, production lead on Nocturne, the spooky adventure game by Terminal Reality. Done by the cinematic buffs at Machinima, the interview concentrates on the filmic feel of that game, discussing cut-scenes, set design, and the possibilities of creating movies using the game engine. It also includes this bit on the Blair Witch Project game currently in development at Terminal Reality:

Machinima.com: It has been mentioned that Terminal Reality will be producing a Blair Witch game. The cinematic technique and style was very important to the success of the Blair Witch Project- in what ways will the style of the film translate over to the computer game?

Jeff: The Nocturne engine is a fixed-camera engine. Unlike the shoulder-mounted cameras of BWP, our game will have the same look and cinematic feel of Nocturne while telling another story from within the Blair Witch mythology. Our game is not based on the missing filmmakers.

Four new screenshots from Tread Marks have been posted at its official site. These new shots show off the combat racing mode, as well as some of the starting post sculptures.

Raven's Brian Raffel updated his .plan with word that the Soldier of Fortune demo is currently in QA testing and should be available soon, as well as the news that they are going to begin working on a Playstation 2 title in the near future. Here's the scoop:

Well, The SOF Demo is looking VERY good and should pass through QA by the end of this week. We will keep you posted as to when you will be able to down load the demo and from what site. The Demo will include one single player level and two multiplayer levels.

I am also proud to announce that Raven Software will be doing a Playstation 2 title, which will be announce in the near future. We are very excited about venturing into the console market, particularly on the PX2. We finally got all of our development systems and they are awesome.

Human Head Studios' Chris Rhinehart sent along an email to follow-up on the bit posted earlier (story) referring to puzzles in RUNE, their upcoming Unreal-engine Viking game. In spite of my having fun with the puzzle concept in calling it "Slash, Slash, Find a Key, Slash," Chris points out that there will actually be no keys at all in RUNE:

Just wanted to e-mail to mention that we have no puzzles in RUNE that I consider lame. That's one of the big philosophies behind Human Head... everything about the game should be geared towards the gamer. Meaning, any puzzles that are "lame" or frustrating or just plain stupid shouldn't make it into the game. Making game isn't about how devious the level designer can be (and how many different ways that the designer can instantly smash, pulverize or totally confuse the player)... it's about making a challenging and rewarding experience that's fun as hell.

And, there are NO KEYS in RUNE. In fact, we have one scenario where Ragnar finds a locked door and says to himself "Hmmm, I must have to find a key..." Then says "Awww...forget it" and kicks the door off of its hinges. :)

There is, however, plenty of that slash slash slashin'...

t-break has posted details on how to enable true 3D environmental audio in Quake III Arena on SBLive! based cards. Q3A uses A3D 2.0, but by downloading the A2D files from Aureal (which were created to allow A3D audio to play via DirectSound 3D on non-A3D cards) you can get full EAX output. Directions as well as a direct download link can be found on t-break.

In the largest such pairing of an Internet company with a media giant, AOL, the world's largest ISP (with over 20 million subscribers) has merged with Time Warner (here's the story on ZDNet). The deal seems to be motivated by Time Warner's extensive broadband system (and AOL's recently announced WebTV style AOL TV service) but remember that Time Warner also owns some of the most famous media names in the world, including CNN, Time Magazine, DC Comics, and the entire Loony Toons library, and that they recently canned their failed Internet portal Pathfinder. The new company will be named AOL Time Warner, which is certainly the silliest renaming since Excite@Home.

The official Messiah site has a new screenshot of Shiny's third-person action game, which is currently receiving its final shine and polish for a release (hopefully) in the near future.

DoomWorld has word of a new launcher for ZDoom and ZDoomGL, called BloodSplash. This graphical launcher allows you to "start single- and multiplayer games, load WADs, DEH/BEX files, set skill, level, game and EXE (zdoom.exe, zdoomgl.exe)", and even edit bot settings and multiplayer DMFLags.

Don't talk back! You've got questions? They've got answers in the form of new or updated FAQs, guides, and walkthroughs (and lots of 'em):

• The Planet GeForce Quake III Arena Combat Guide has been updated with some new tidbits like ammo respawn times.
• There's a new GameFAQs Team Fortress Classic guide.
• A new GameFAQs Planescape: Torment FAQ/Walkthrough.
• The GameFAQs Wheel of Time walkthrough has some new level descriptions.
• Some minor changes to the GameFAQs Drakan walkthrough.
• Some minor changes have been made to GameFAQs System Shock 2 FAQ.
• Part four of Computer Games Online's Planescape: Torment tips is now up.
• Allegiance Vault's Interceptor piloting guide is up, as is an Allegiance technology tree showing off the doodads from the game.

The StarLancer Weekly Screenshots page on GameRush has been updated, but instead of the usual single shot, the new posts include a pair of in-game screenshots, two pieces of concept art, and four shots taken from the cinematic sequences in this upcoming space sim from Microsoft, Digital Anvil, Warthog, and Jerry Mathers as the Beaver.

• Part one of Thresh's FiringSquad CES 2000 report is online.
• Sharky Extreme's MacWorld 2000 Coverage Wrap-Up is online.
• Guillemot Prophet 3D SDR is reviewed on 3d Retreat.
• Hoontech's SoundTrack Digital-XG soundcard is reviewed on 3DsoundSurge.
• Aztech PCI 368DSP is reviewed on iXBT.
• Intel Celeron 533MHz PPGA CPU is reviewed on Sharky Extreme.
• Artic Circle cooler is reviewed on HardOCP.

Phoebus sends word of a pair of posts by Human Head's Mike Werckle on the RuneNews Forums that emphasize that while RUNE, their upcoming third-person Viking game is primarily very action-oriented, the game will still contain what are referred to by one poster as "lame puzzles," though Mike prefers to characterize them as challenges, saying they "will be very straightforward, part of the progression of the story, and hopefully add to the experience."

Computer Games Online's Command and Conquer: Firestorm preview is online with some of their face-to-face impressions from checking out this upcoming official expansion to Tiberian Sun that will offer new single player missions and multiplayer options.

• Indiana Jones and The Infernal Machine on Sniper's Alley.
• IntelliMouse with IntelliEye on Digital Clips.
• PlaneScape: Torment on GamesFirst.
• Quake III Arena on ISR Online and Win98Central.
• Septerra Core on Computer Games Online.
• Unreal Tournament on 3DGaming.net and ISR Online.

• This Daily Telegraph article describes a four-year Australian government-sponsored report on the effects of computer games that found "There is little reason to believe that the activity itself should be a cause for concern and little evidence that it is a major source of anxiety within the community." Thanks jackel...
• The new online issue of GA-RPG's RPG Mythology with BioWare Corp. is by Designer David Gaider who talks about creating personalities for characters in RPGs when he writes their dialogue...
• X-Maps 2.0 for LMCTF is a new 21 map pack for this still-popular Quake II CTF variant...
• There's an Amen petition looking to prompt a release of the portions of Amen: The Awakening that are done so that someone can finish this now-cancelled shooter...
• Graphtallica Free Textures for Game Designers and Artists has a new texture pack with 25 textures used in Freeform projects such as FvF:Redemption and G-Sector that may be freely used with your project...

Ugh, the server is all boxed up again, it looks like the messageboards might be the culprit--It really looked like we were getting things shaped up, but this weekend was a nightmare trying to get any scripts to run, and I can only imagine it will be worse when full-blown weekday traffic shows up. furn just tried something he hopes will help, but if it doesn't (it's kind of hard to tell in the wee hours of Sunday night/Monday morning) I will be working on this until it's solved, and I promise to work something out ASAP if humanly possible, even if it's some sort of short-term emergency measure--certainly disabling the messageboards is a logical option at this point since the bogged down scripts often make posting to them impossible anyway. I am at the end of my rope with all this, and I can only hope that none of you are as frustrated as I am at this point, but I completely understand if you are.

Link of the Day: The Archive of Misheard Lyrics. Thanks MrsBlue.
Story of the Day: Oh Barney! Nude image in sing-along book prompts publisher apology. "I love you. You love me. And I love pornography..." Thanks nevermelt.
Bonus Story: UK Police floored by wrestling 999. Thanks Jon "Pilgrim" Taylor.