A new in-depth preview of Thief 2: The Metal Age is up on GameSpot, featuring a handful of new screenshots, and a detailed description of a 12 level alpha version of the game. According to the preview, the title is "just a few weeks away from going beta."

GameSpot has posted the Starfleet Command: Gorn Bonus Mission Pack, which adds a series of missions involving the Gorn into Interplay's space strategy game.

id Software's Robert Duffy updated his .plan this evening with a brief status report on the new Quake III Arena point release. Here's the scoop:

The point release is still in progress. We are addressing several things, among them auto downloading, mod support, cheating, and a few other things. It is moving into testing now and should be done "soon".

One area that we are working hard to improve on is releasing things for all three platforms at the same time. As we have still not released the final point releases for the Macintosh or Linux based systems, the new point release will be available in all three flavors at the same time.

Epic has added a Known Issues and Bugs page for the retail version (405b) of Unreal Tournament to the Unreal Technology site. It lists various problems with Direct3D, OpenGL, Networking, Audio, Linux Servers and more, and offers some tips to tweak your way around them, or confirms that they are being investigated.

Mike Wilson of Gathering of Developers sent along a new movie of RUNE, the upcoming third-person Viking combat adventure by Human Head. The movie runs for one minute at 640x480 resolution, and offers the first gameplay footage of the game. Here is our local copy of the movie which has been zipped to reduce the download size, along with a few mirrors, and this is the description provided by Mike Wilson:

This is an early pre-alpha look at the gameplay in Rune showing off some of the creatures and characters from the game and some of the levels. All of the footage is taken straight from the game with a player in single player mode as well as some ai on ai combat. We're about 75% complete at this point, so the final game will be much more polished than the footage seen here. Some of the footage is slowed down a little to show off the animation in super cool slow motion.

A new update to Sid Meier's Dino Diaries has been posted, featuring the latest details on Sid Meier's Dinosaur (working title) a new strategy game in development at Firaxis. This update deals with the technology they're using in the game, with vague hints being dropped as to what gamers can expect to see.

Summoner Homeland has posted an interview with Volition programmer Dave Baranec, talking to him about his work on their upcoming 3D RPG title Summoner. Dave comments specifically on the challenge of simultaneously developing the game for the PC and Playstation 2 platforms, as well as some engine-specific issues.

Nevolution has opened their website, containing the first official information on their 3D cyberpunk RPG under construction, Shadows of Reality, as well as some new screenshots.

Unreal Universe has posted an interview with Ruben Cabrera, skin and texture artist at 3D Realms who is currently working on Duke Nukem Forever (thanks Stomped). Ruben talks about how he got into the game industry and landed a job at 3D Realms, and reveals a bit about his skinning and texturing work on their upcoming Unreal-engine powered title.

Speaking of site openings, Looking Glass has now opened its own official Thief II: the Metal Age site, featuring a host of info about their upcoming sneak-em-up, a slew of screenshots and wallpapers, a brief FAQ and more.

Raven's official Soldier of Fortune Support FAQ has been updated with more help for their recently released demo, particularly offering new tips for audio and video driver issues and multiplayer problems.

3dfxGamers has posted new NT4 drivers for Voodoo 2 boards. These drivers fix a number of issues, including some Quake III Arena specific problems, and will not work on boards with Banshee, Rush, or Voodoo 1 chips.

French site Gamedata.com ("le nouveau magazine online de jeux videos") has posted a preview of Deus Ex. The text is all in French (stick a BabelFish in your ear to translate), but there are some new screenshots at the end of the preview, which of course, are universal. Also, GameSpy.com has a new preview of the game up as well, featuring some more screenshots.

Tribes2.dk has posted a brief Q&A with Dynamix programmer Nels Bruckner, talking to him about his work on TRIBES 2, including the current state of the game and its engine.

loonygames presents Game Networking 101, a new article by Jake Simpson where the Raven programmer delves into some of the mysteries of network gaming, attempting to solve some riddles like why your ping is better in some games than others.

Just a quick reminder that later today there will be a live chat discussing Star Trek: Hidden Evil, the Trekkie adventure game from Activision. The chat starts at 7:00 PM EST (4:00 PM PST/00:00 GMT) on the IRC server omegaproject.net in the channel #lobby. Tomorrow will be their Star Trek: Armada chat. Same bat time, same bat channel as the Hidden Evil Chat. Finally, The Collective will be guests of The Omega Project's chat next Tuesday (February 8), and will address the just-announced delay to the release of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine-The Fallen.

A new version 0.93 of the Q3Log log parser for Quake III Arena is now available, addressing what's described as a show-stopper bug from version 0.92 that popped up with large log files.

There's a new Quake III Tournament Mode (1v1) Modem Guide on The Technocracy with strategies geared specifically for the needs of high-ping modem players. Also, S.A.S's Guide to Quake3 has been updated, this too with tournament mode tips, as well as map reviews of q3dm5, and q3dm15, and a new config creation utility.

Demiurge Studios Presents Headhunters for UT, the Unreal Tournament version of the popular Quake mod where you collect heads from victims after you frag them, and cash them in by sacrificing them at an altar. Scoring increases as you sacrifice more heads in a group, but so does the risk, since if you are fragged, someone can grab your whole head stash and go for their own altared state. The current release is version 1.1, and there is a link to a dedicated server running the mod.

Russian gaming site The Daily Telefrag has posted an interview on Hired Team, talking to Alexey Medvedev of New Media Generation about their upcoming first-person shooter. Included with the interview are four new screenshots, and a major part of the article discusses the various game features illustrated by them. For those mastering the Russian language beyond 'da' and 'njet', the interview is also available in the site's native tongue.

AVault has posted a Q&A with Jason Manley of Black Isle Studios, talking to the artist about his work on Icewind Dale, an upcoming RPG based on the Forgotten Realms universe. There are four new screenshots up as well.

Activision has finally announced Return to Castle Wolfenstein, the Quake III Arena engine sequel to id Software's original Wolfenstein 3D (thanks KungFu). The game is in development by Gray Matter Interactive Studios, "a newly formed game developer founded by the top designers formerly from Xatrix Entertainment" according to the press release, and along with the game's announcement Activision has announced that they have acquired 40% of the new company. Here's a description of the game, which should be familiar to fans of the original:

Like the original id game, players assume the role of William J. "B.J." Blazkowicz, the Allies' bad boy of WWII espionage. The fate of the free world hangs in the balance as B.J. battles against the sadistic machinations of a Nazi war machine bent on world domination. This latest sequel will reflect the same over-the-top comic book style of the original Wolfenstein 3D. However, by using the unparalleled graphics technology of the QUAKE III Arena(TM) engine and a new scripting system, Return to Castle Wolfenstein will pull the player further into a chilling storyline filled with frightening tales of bio-engineering and the occult. Devotees of multiplayer action will be able to jump online and frag-it-out within the unique Wolfenstein world.

Obi-Wan Network has posted three new screenshots of Star Wars Episode 1: Obi-Wan, an upcoming first- and third-person action game based on the young Obi-Wan character from last year's Star Wars movie. Thanks hoplit.

The official Thief II: the Metal Age site has opened new sections for the storyline and features of the game, some downloadable wallpaper, and a designer diary consisting of a brief interview with the development team. Thanks GA-RPG. Elsewhere, GameArena.net has posted a couple of new high-res screenshots from the game.

Star Trek Armada Producer's Diary is CGO's first entry in a series of developer diaries in which Activision producer Marc Turndorf accounts their efforts, in cooperation with Paramount, to pour the Star Trek: The Next Generation universe into their upcoming 3D real-time strategy game.

There is a new preview of Imperium Galactica II: Alliances online at the Adrenaline Vault, putting a recent beta of the space based RTS by Digital Reality and GTI through its paces.

Terminal Reality's Den Johnson Discusses (Sort Of) Nocturne 2 and Expansion Packs on SpookHouse is a Q&A with Den Johnson of Terminal Reality. They attempt to pry loose some details on upcoming follow-ups to Nocturne, and as the title implies, they find Den pretty tight-lipped about the planned Blair Witch-based Nocturne game and other future plans, although he's more forthcoming on subjects like the influences behind the original Nocturne, and the reaction to its release.

There's a new Black & White movie on nonstuff, a German site. The movie was shot from a monitor with a video camera at a bad angle, so quality is relatively poor. Here is Frans' translation of the description from the site: "This is the second and, for now, last Black & White movie. This time you can be live around to seeing a creature (here a Tiger) changes from good to evil and from thin to fat, in all possible combinations."

• Voodoo Extreme's Behind the Scenes: 3D Engines, Part 4 offers more discussion of linear transformations, especially useful if you can understand sentences in which every third word is "vector."
• Sharky Extreme's Transmeta Crusoe Preview At Platform 2000 contains thousands of words per page (but only if you go for that old "picture is worth a thousand words" dealie).
• 3dfx Voodoo3 3000 PCI is reviewed on 3D Spotlight.
• Aureal SQ2500 Vortex 2 Soundcard is reviewed on Dan's Data.
• Shuttle ME64 i810-E Motherboard is reviewed on BXBoards.Com.
• TennMax BGA Cooler is reviewed on BXBoards.com.
• The Card Cooler is reviewed on nV News.
• CoolerMaster ATCS Case is reviewed on Ars Technica.

Not content with his own Developers Week contribution (story), Looking Glass' Rich "Zdim" Carlson wrote an interesting messageboard follow-up to Marc Laidlaw's Developers Week article, mentioned yesterday (story) on characters in games. On a coincidentally semi-related note, the new GA-RPG-RPG Mythology with BioWare Corp. offers a detailed look at the steps required to design settings for characters in RPGs from BioWare's David Gaider.

UTJB v0.5 Public Beta Out on the Team Reaction Forums announces a beta release of this Unreal Tournament version of the popular Quake II teamplay mod that puts fragged players in jail to either be freed by a heroic teammate, or executed when the whole team is caught. Word with the post is the mod is "an auto-installer, no brainer."

A new version 1.1b of the Challenge mod for Quake III Arena is now available on their newly-revamped website that makes it much less of a challenge to understand the mod, as it now offers a complete description. Challenge offers various gameplay options for Q3A matches, many of which can be decided by a group vote. The new version features auto-selection of team captains "required to finish the teamanegement," and some other tweaks and fixes.

The TeamWar website has the debut release of their WarCTF mod for Quake III Arena, which they describe as similar in function to the popular L-Fire CTF for Quake II. The mod is server-side only, and adds several variables to assist in running organized matches.

The El Niño Quake Extensions page has the debut release of the Viz mod for Quake III Arena, the first Q3A project by Hentai, the author of VWep for Quake II. Viz is a highly configurable mod that offers variations on gameplay ranging from minor visual differences in the mod's minimal state, all the way through full-blown player classes based on the player model selected.

The debut release of Advanced UI for Quake III Arena is now available on Spine Design Projects. As the name implies, this is not a gameplay mod, but rather an enhanced user interface (completely client-side) for Quake III Arena offering improved skin and model management.

Cold Storage Online has version 0.8 of K-stats, described as a pre-alpha "Gaming and Lan party Tournament / League Organiser Thingy." The program creates a database of gamers, allowing them to be assigned to different tournaments, keeping track of wins, losses, and other statistics. The program is part of an ongoing school project, so feedback is especially appreciated, and an unusually firm deadline of March 31, 2000 for version 1.0 has been set.

The Quake3mods.Net Developer's FAQ attempts to answer the most frequently asked questions about making your own maps, skins, and modifications for Quake III Arena. There are now 20 Quake III Arena programming tutorials on Quake Style. Also, there is an AVI tutorial on making models with MilkShape 3D on Darkstar. Finally, the source code for the Q3A Rho-Bot is now available.

NPD Top 20 Best Selling Entertainment Software Titles (Units) January 16 -22, 2000 on GameDAILY are online (seems the "Last Week's Rank" column is pretty out of whack, btw). Q3A is #5, UT is #8, and Half-Life is back in the Top 10 at #10. The corresponding Mac listing is also online with UT claiming the #1 spot from Q3A, which drops to #3. Till next week, this is Casey Kasem saying, keep your feet in the stirrups, and your teeth in a glass.

• Final Fantasy VIII on 3DGN.
• FreeSpace 2 on MakeItSimple.com.
• Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine on Gaming News Network.
• NASCAR Legends on gg8.com (Flash required).
• Songs for Deathmatch Volume 2 on Ear on Games.
• Tread Marks on Glide Underground.
• Unreal Tournament on GameWire.Org.

• Though dated January 15, an updated Rainbow Six walkthrough is now on GameFAQs, having just been added...
• Computer Games Online's The Tracks of His Games Reflections on a decade of games is another interview with Doug Church discussing projects he worked on in the '90s starting with Ultima Underworld on through Thief: The Dark Project. A first interview with Doug was posted on CGO Friday (story)...
• GA-Source's Starshatter Q&A talks with Mike Cepero about his solo project space sim, currently available in demo form (story)...

Just a thought on the subject of those much-hyped Super Bowl advertisements touched on yesterday. After watching the broadcast I'm left wondering who sold all the advertisers of the world on the idea that products could be sold with poorly-sung amateur renditions of old pop songs? I couldn't believe how many of these high-budget ads featured just that (though the happy puppet pet thing rules).

There's been something wonky lately with the LAN Party List that made adding a new party problematic... furn whipped out his coding stick and has beaten the problem into submission, and he promises the new-and-improved listing (version 2.0), is faster, sexier, and most of all, actually works again, so if you have an event to add, go nuts.

Link of the Day: How loony are you? Self-explanatory. Thanks Fingas.
Story of the Day: Family under psychiatric watch after talking about leaving Earth. And you thought your relatives were odd. Thanks Ron Johnson.