The El Niño Quake Extensions page has version 1.4.0 of the Viz mod for Quake III Arena. The new release of this mod from the author of the visible weapons mod for Quake II adds player class characteristics to Q3A based on the model you select, as well as gameplay options like bleeding from wounds. All options can be toggled on and off, and included is a .cfg to make the game "action quake-ish game, with one weapon per player, forced player models, and no powerups or armor." The whole deal is explained in the FAQ.

Battlecruiser Online Downloads page has a new version 2.09 of Battlecruiser 3000 that runs under Win9x. This is an unsupported release to patch the DOS version, and contains both the windowed and fullscreen versions. Word is it "supports every DirectX compliant graphics card, sound card and controller." Full details can be found in this file.

There's a Soldier of Fortune development update on The Adrenaline Vault quoting Steven Rosenthal, Activision’s associate producer on Raven's upcoming Quake II engine shooter. According to the update, the game was feature frozen on Monday, and is now in final beta testing, looking to weed out any bugs that can be found, but "the puzzles, level architecture, and weapon balance are final at this point." There is still no specified schedule for a release, but the update points out that the only remaining milestone in the game's development will be the declaration of a gold master. The piece is illustrated by three new screenshots.

The Adrenaline Vault interviews Peter Moreland of Hothouse Creations, project manager on Gangsters II, an upcoming real-time strategy sequel featuring enough hoodlum action to make any mother proud, provided she is Ma Barker. Accompanying the Q&A about progress on the game are three new screenshots.

GameSpy.com interviews Kevin Perry talking with the lead designer on Shadow Watch, Red Storm Entertainment's upcoming foray into a tactics/strategy game that will be turn-based in a genre dominated by real-time games. The Q&A discusses the decision to opt for the turn-based play, and offers a good preview of what to expect from the game, along with several screenshots.

There are five Sacrifice screenshots on nonstuff, a German-language gaming site. One of the shots is familiar, but the first four have never been published online before, though they appeared in last month's print PCGamerUK. Sacrifice is Shiny Entertainment's upcoming action/RTS hybrid.

Vault Network interviews Jason Hall, talking with the Monolith CEO about the recent LithTech2 announcements, particularly the one relating to the LT2 engine's applicability to massive multiplayer online dealies (story).

This Deus Ex Q&A with Warren Spector on GA-RPG talks with the ION Storm designer about ION's upcoming Unreal-engine sci-fi RPG. The brief three question Q&A discusses the game's cross-genre nature, attempts to give it a unique flavor, and progress on development. The piece also has a few new screenshots.

Descent3D has posted an interview with Kevin Bentley, catching up with the former Director of Technology at Outrage about his work on Descent 3, his experiences at Outrage, and his move to a new job outside the gaming industry.

Missed last night's Soldier of Fortune chat? PlanetSoldier now has an edited log available, so you can read up how four Raven developers survived the merciless barrage of questions on their mercenary shooter.

3dfx Gamers has released Voodoo3 2000/3000 Windows NT Retail Drivers version 1.04.00, fixing an OpenGL problem, as well as issues with Age of Empires, Age of Empires 2 and Starcraft. Thanks Montella.

There is a preview of Heavy Metal: F.A.K.K.2 online at Daily Radar, featuring a Q&A with Ritual's Rob Atkins, a pair of new high-res screenshots (one featuring the Julie Strain character), and some concept art and stills from the Heavy Metal animated movie.

PC.IGN.com has posted a preview of Command & Conquer: Firestorm, examining a recent build of Westwood's expansion pack to Tiberian Sun, illustrated with a bunch of new screenshots and a pair of familiar movies.

3DGN Interviews Tom Hall is a talk with the head honcho behind ION Storm's 3D action/role-playing game Anachronox. Here is a quote that explains how the game's Quake II-based engine has been updated to meet today's demand for buzzwords:

The Anox engine has been upgraded with the following: 24-bit color, 8-bits of translucency, complex particle effect generator, directional colored model lighting, skeleton-based models, lipsynching code, controllable AI code, an advanced camera scriptor, and an entire language to do both 2D and 3D interfaces or minigames, called APE (the Anachronox Programming Environment).

There is a bunch of new Star Trek: Starfleet Command missions on PC.IGN.com, expanding the universe of Interplay's strategy title. One pack offers three new Romulan missions, and another seven new Hydran Elite missions.

The RS Toolkit Homepage has a new version of this tool collection that aims to improve your tactical combat experiences in Rainbow Six: Rogue Spear. Sporting a spiffy 2000 number, there is a host of new features including support for the upcoming Urban Operations expansion pack, and it is available as a full 8.2 MB download, or a 1.9 MB Lite version.

The official Star Trek: Armada site has been updated with a page on the Borg Collective, highlighting their fleet of starships and special weapons in Activision's upcoming space-based RTS.

The Daily Telefrag has posted a brief but hands-on look at Hired Team, using a visit to New Media Generation's offices to clarify various aspects of their upcoming first-person shooter.

Interplay has rebuilt their Evolva teaser page into a more complete site for Computer Artwork's weird-looking action/strategy game, currently offering game info and four new screenshots.

There is an updated Quake III Arena gameplay FAQ on GameFAQs, adding lots of tips and strategies for survival in id's deathmatch arenas, as well as specific advice for Q3Tourney5.

The official American McGee's Alice site has been updated to reveal a new section of Wonderland, entitled Madhatter's Area, and apparently the first stop along the way there will be in the Chess Village.

LucasArts has revamped their Star Wars: Force Commander preview page into a full-fledged site, sporting a flash intro, game information, a screenshots gallery, a movie trailer, and more on their upcoming 3D real-time strategy game. Thanks The Massassi Temple.

Gamesurge has posted five new screenshots of Flying Heroes, the colorful action flyer that is being developed by Czech companies Illusion Softworks and Pterodon.

Daily Radar has sucked the last drop of blood out of their Vampire: The Masquerade - Redemption Week and ends it with an interview with Activision's John Heinecke, discussing the story, gameplay, and more in the 3D role-playing game that is being crafted at Nihilistic.

A .plan update by id Software programmer Robert Duffy gives word of a new Quake III Arena 1.16i Beta update now on the id Software FTP server. Here is a local copy of the Windows patch (401 KB), the Linux patch (619 KB), and the Mac patch (387 KB), each with a list of mirrors. Here's the entirety of the brief .plan update, which indicates this addresses security:

Q3A 1.16i Beta is now on our ftp site. This is a small executable only patch that enhances security. It is available in three flavors, Win32 ( a .zip file ), Linux ( a .gz ) and Macintosh ( a self extracting archive ).

This is the note on exactly what security this involves from the accompanying read me file(s):

This update adds an additional layer of CD Key security.

When you type your CD Key in, the letters and numbers will appear as they normally would. If you leave the screen and return at a later time, blank spaces replace all the characters.

PC.IGN recently made a trip to Microprose's offices, and they wrote up a massive preview of the Unreal engine title X-COM: Alliance. While the preview is short on new screenshots, it makes up for it by delivering a whole lot of information about the game.

GameFan has posted a brief Q&A with Epic's Tim Sweeney, talking to him about the next Unreal Tournament patch ("coming very, very soon") and what they'll be showing at this year's GDC expo.

Incite Games, who either really, really like this game, or just enjoy posting screenshots from it, have posted six new screenshots from Black & White. The screenshots show off several of the demented looking creatures you can grow in the game.

A new preview of Command & Conquer: Firestorm, Westwood's expansion pack for C&C: Tiberian Sun, featuring new screenshots and gameplay details is up on C|Net's Gamecenter.

The newly opened Nox fan site NoxGamer has posted a number of known bugs (and even some solutions) from this recently released isometric action game. Bugs covered include problems with AMD processors, CD loading issues, and others.

• ABIT SILURO GT2 Ultra is reviewed on iXBT Hardware.
• ASUS has released Windows 2000 drivers for their NVIDIA based cards on their FTP site (thanks Yves Thommes).
• MSI 6301 Motherboard is reviewed at t-break.
• Part 3 of Tweak3D's guide to building a PC is up, teaching you how to install your various drives.
• The Athlon 800 processor is reviewed on CTNews3D.
• MacCentral has posted a writeup of the MacWorld Tokyo show, featuring a look at the Mac 3dfx products demonstrated.
• FIC KA-11 motherboard is reviewed on Speedy3D.
• ASUS DIMM Riser is reviewed at Gamers Depot.

A new (non-beta) version of HeadHunters Classic, a remake of the popular Quake mod for Quake III Arena, has been released, and is available for download on its official site. This new version supports full bot play amongst other changes.

A whopping 24 new screenshots from Battlecruiser Millennium have been added to the official Battlecruiser 3000 AD site. These shots show off the Mark 3 Battlecruiser you command in the game.

A new patch for the Samsung DVD Revolution version of Heavy Gear II has been released, and is available for download at Activision's site. The patch is only for this specific OEM version of the game, not the retail edition.

• GamerzUniverse is having a song composition contest, to win a copy of Planescape: Torment.
• PCParadox is giving away 10 copies of 3DMark2000 in their latest contest.
• XSReality is having a contest to win one of those spiffy new Everglide Giganta mouse pads.

• 1602 AD on PCGamers.net.
• Asheron's Call (special report) on RPG Vault.
• Demise (quick take) on Computer Games Online.
• Enemy Nations (second opinion) on Games Domain Review.
• Final Fantasy VIII on Bennyland.
• Homeworld on Gamesurge.
• Nox on Gamecenter, GamesMania, and GameProWorld.
• Planescape: Torment on 3D Rage and Outer-Edge.
• South Park Rally on Games Domain Review.
• The Sims on Latest Updates.
• Ultima IX: Ascension on GA-RPG.

• Mod authors take note: Borland has released a free version of their C/C++ compiler (thanks Schnapple).
• Q3Center's strategy guides section has been updated with a new guide to Quake III Arena configs and bindings.
• Tritin Films (the makers of the Q3A movie Quad God) have released a new film titled "The Comedian" that was created in 3D Studio Max.
• Firaxis has released a new beta patch for Sid Meier's Antietam.
• According to this post on Dynamix' message boards, the popular TRIBES Combat servers have been updated and are now running the new maps that were released in the 1.9 and 1.10 patches (thanks James Ell).
• Eidos has posted some new wallpaper images from Thief 2 on their FTP site.

It will probably come as no surprise to most, but I caved in and bought (and subsequently installed) Windows 2000 on Thursday. So far, I'm pleased with it - it runs pretty much all the games I've been playing recently, it's pretty stable (only one or two crashes thus far) and 90% of my hardware is supported (and I transferred any unsupported hardware to a Win98 machine on my network). The only real problem I've had is with my ISDN line - I can get it to dial, and connect, but only using one channel. I've put in an init string that should be forcing it to use both, but for some reason it's not working. Strange stuff. But otherwise, I'm pretty pleased with my final decision.

Image of the Day: The world's largest blue screen of death. Truly an amazing picture.