Adrenaline Vault has posted an interview on Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth, talking to Headfirst designer Andrew Brazier about their upcoming 3D horror adventure, which is based on the Call of Cthulhu pen-and-paper RPG. As the title is still quite early into production, the article doesn't go into a lot of specifics, but here is a quote about their planned use of real-time physics to highten the experience:

Our advanced real-time physics will be an essential part of the gameplay and atmosphere creation. Most games these days feature an element of physics, such as the bouncing of a grenade or the pushing of a crate, but we will be moving it forward a lot further by accurately simulating physics on most objects in the game. Therefore, if you throw dynamite into a warehouse, when it explodes, the windows might smash, debris will be thrown about, and the walls might collapse. This is not just some scripted event; the force of the explosion will be calculated by the physics engine, and everything will react accordingly.

In terms of gameplay, this has far-reaching implications as it means there will be a number of ways to solve any particular puzzle. For example, should you need to move a heavy object, pouring oil on the floor would reduce the friction. However, this would also reduce the friction for you, meaning you, as well as other creatures, will slip around all over the place. Water will behave realistically, so objects dropped into it will float or submerge, depending on their weight. We can also simulate events such as driving a car or piloting a plane.

A new unofficial FAQ for Battlezone II: Combat Commander is available at GameFAQs, providing tips and strategies for survival in Pandemic's recently released 3D action/strategy game.

The NetGames USA ngStats for Unreal Tournament Patches and Updates page has a new Patch No. 2 for ngStats that brings it up to version 1.2. Thanks Stomped. The version history page has a list of what's new, which includes a fix for the missing CTF flag kill bug that showed up after the UT 405b patch, a change to the way the program handles large log files, and a way of addressing the problem of players potentially getting disconnected during the heavy CPU usage of both UT changing the map and ngStats running.

A new version 0.5 of the D3DQuake conversion of the Quake source code modified to use Direct3D 7.0 instead of OpenGL is now available. Thanks Ryan Stotts. D3D Quake is GPL, just like Quake, so the source code is also available. Current issues with D3D Quake include requiring 32-bpp textures, an NVIDIA Beta Driver bug makes gun models invisible on GeForce cards, and it crashes on Voodoo3 accelerators after about 60 seconds of play.

Version 5.12 of the King of the Server Mod is now available, offering what they describe as "the next generation of King of the Server." The website has word on what's new and changed in this Quake II mod, a list far too big to try to represent here.

Version 1.0 of Merc's Q3A TeamMod is now available. This server-side mod is designed to help keep the peace on a Quake III Arena server by providing ways to vote players on and off of teams, as well to decide the timelimit via a vote.

PCGamers.Net's ORB interview talks with Christina Ginger, Jamie McNeely, and Phil O'Connor from Strategy First about ORB (Off-World Resource Base), their upcoming space opera where two sides struggle to control the resources in an asteroid belt.

Yumpee's Home Away from Home has a Makefile, a Q3A.depend file, and a read me that Yumpee says will equip you to compile Quake III Arena Virtual Machines on Linux using the Win32 SDK & Wine. Here's word from the Yumpster on the benefits and the limitations of this setup: "However, only one QVM (cgame.qvm, client-side effects) will load and run in Linux since the other 2 QVMs seem to be using features supported only by the Q3A point release. All 3 QVMs load and run in the Win32 point release while only cgame.qvm runs in Linux. Still, even one QVM should allow people to play around with Linux mods in a limited fashion till iD provides the point release and/or the SDK for Linux."

Eurogamer.net's xsi coverage is underway with a look at the qualifier round matches (Makaveli vs. DOOMer, Immortal vs. Shub, Kane vs. DOOMer, and Timber vs. Lakerman) in this big international Quake III Arena tournament currently underway in Sweden. They plan full coverage of the event throughout the weekend.

The intriguingly-named legowhore.com has version 1.5 of Q3ServerKit, the Quake III Arena server utility that offers remote and localhost server monitoring, real time player information, easy addition of bots with all skill levels, a 'kick' button, and much more. Features added in the new version include support for the full retail version of Q3A, a new real time chat panel, and a start panel to kick off a dedicated server.

Version 2b of Artifact Quake 2 is now available, offering the debut public (beta) release of this Q2 update of the "tongue-in-cheek" deathmatch modification for Quake. Not all of the mod's 30 artifacts are in the current version, but it still has a load of them that alter gameplay much in the way of CTF runes (techs, etc.), along with "Pretty pretty colors," and "Many many bugs."

After nearly two years without an update, there's a new version 1.0h of Q_Check, an mIRC auto-away Plug-in script for GameSpy users that will insert the server you joined via GameSpy into your mIRC away message, apparently supporting any game GameSpy supports.

In light of the release of the full source code to Quake, the QuakeOn page now offers the source code for the QuakeOn front-end for Quake. The source is written in Visual Basic (from the page: "The final release was for VB5, but I've since loaded the code into VB6."), and is released under the GNU public license.

Longbow Digital Arts has opened a Modifications and Add-Ons page on the Tread Marks site, giving info and advice on how to modify their tank racing game. To kick things off, they have released a SuperFriction mod, which doubles the default friction of the tanks in both the demo and full versions of the game, for players who would like to have tighter control over their high-speed tanks.

• GA-Source has posted a square nine new screenshots of Venom, the first-person shooter in development by Russian company GSC Game World built on their own Vital Engine ZL.
• XCommand has received six more screenshots of X-COM: Genesis, the latest installment in the long-running X-Com series that will likely never be completed due to Hasbro layoffs.
• There is a first screenshot of Steel Whisper on GA-RPG, an upcoming 3D action adventure RPG by Dutch startup Lost Boys Games.

A new version of the unofficial Quake III Arena FAQ by SilverStream is now available, bringing the info in sync with the final point release, adding links to new mods, and updating many areas with more tips. And while I'm at it, there were also a few minor updates to this Unreal Tournament FAQ.

Raven's Rick Johnson updated his .plan with a status report on the Soldier of Fortune demo, which he now says to expect Monday:

SoF Demo News

The Demo will be officially released Monday. It got delayed until then mainly because QA found another crash bug Thursday (in the same function, ironically, but different area). Friday, I decided I wanted to try and address a 3dfx driver related bug. On certain drivers (kinda a mix of processor and OS), texturing would completely screw up. I changed the code so that on 3dfx, the game would not enable a specific rendering feature. This took a bit to QA today (to track down a related problem that got by me). I just got done talking to Mike Denny, who is in charge of QA for SoF. We have their blessing to release the demo (finally)... But because of "outside influences" it was decided to hold up until Monday.

Just to give you a brief rundown of the Demo features:
4 single player maps (a tutorial level, 2 full playable levels, plus a cinematic level)
2 deathmatch maps
12 different deathmatch models / skins representing 3 teams
In game server browsing
and a ton of custom options (including custom game settings (such as disabling spawning))

The demo will weigh in at a hefty 95 megs, but should fit on zip disk.

Nihilistic's Rob Huebner updated his .plan with a giant (nearly thousand word) update outlining some what's going on in development of their third-person blood-sucking thriller, Vampire: The Masquerade--Redemption, discussing some of the stages maps must go through, and some bugs encountered in the process.

Thresh's Firing Squad sent off an e-mail to John Carmack, asking why GameSpy's modified server browser DLL is allowed on so-called, "pure" Quake III Arena servers. John explained that it's allowed since it's loaded before you connect to a server - only loads after that point count as "pure."

IGN Guides has posted their guide to Unreal Tournament, featuring a rundown of all the game's weapons, maps, mutators, and more. The guide is available as a downloadable PDF file, or online in HTML format (however, a free signup is required).

There's a preview of Nox on PC.IGN.Com, with some hands-on impressions of Westwood Studios' soon-to-be-released adventure game (which according to them is very addicting). Also, as mentioned yesterday (story), true to their word, the next in-game Nox movie has been posted on Westwood's official site, with some more of the upcoming movies also now on Westwood's FTP server.

Tritin Films, the makers of the Quake III Arena movie "Quad God" have released a short, comedic film titled, "CTF - Comedy in Armor". Like Quad God, it's available for download in Windows Media's ASF format, although it's significantly smaller at 26 MB.

The official Battlecruiser 3000 AD site has been updated with six new screenshots from Battlecruiser Millenium, showing off one of the game's "type 3 stations." Look for more shots next week, showing off some of the new features just added to the game, including shots featuring environmental bump-mapping.

Gamecenter has posted some new screenshots from Earth 2150: Escape from the Blue Planet, an upcoming RTS from TopWare Interactive, that adds depth to the usual RTS gameplay by including various weather and environmental hazards.

GameSpot's GameGuides has posted their guide to Planescape: Torment. The guide, like every other one they've released, is available online for free, or as a paid-for downloadable PDF file. Also, IGN Guides has posted their quick guide to Ultima IX: Ascension, which is available for free in both formats.

Here's two professional gamers making headlines: GameSpy has posted an interview with Kornelia as part of their "Women of Gaming Week." Also, the Boston Globe has published an article on Thresh, better known in the real world as Dennis Fong, talking to him about the world of pro-gaming, and his site Gamers.com.

• AMA Superbike on Gamezilla.
• Grand Theft Auto 2 on Adrenaline Vault.
• Heroes of Might and Magic III (for Linux) on LinuxGames.
• Planescape: Torment on Happy Puppy.
• Quake III Arena on MPOG.
• Shadow Company: Left for Dead on Electric Games.
• Tread Marks (demo) on Rocket Download.
• Thief II: the Metal Age (demo) on 3D-Unlimited.
• Unreal Tournament on GameSpot AU.
• Virtual Sailor (demo) on Gamer's Press.

• According to the official Parsec home page, a self-running demo of this space shooter will be released in late February...
• PlanetQuake has posted an interview with Steven "Massive Bitch" Irvine, the lead skinner at Polycount...
• ShinyNews, a new fansite devoted to all things Shiny (like aluminum foil, no doubt) has posted some new screenshots from Messiah...

I spent much of yesterday afternoon building my new uber-PC, and I tell ya, there's nothing like making your own computer. Sure, you get terribly frustrated trying to find that one jumper on the motherboard you forgot to switch, and sure it's really annoying trying to work all them cables inside your case, but when you're done, and the thing starts up Quake III Arena for the first time...boy is that ever fun. I think I'm done building computers for a while...I've got a desk PC (that's today's model), a game PC, and with all the extra hardware I had left over, I made a server PC, which I'll use to run dedicated servers (under Linux, no less). That ought to keep me happy until Moore's law catches up with my new Pentium III 733 processor.

Link of the Day: Club a Seal. Because some days, this is really, really funny. On every other day it's just stupid.
Bonus Link: Something Awful's Look at PowerPlay, featuring a Q&A with the Gabe Newell Simulation Device. Note: this is a joke, and not meant to be taken seriously.