After a few false starts, the third Nocturne AVI has been released, and is available for download over at GameSpot. Thanks to MeccaWorld, who also have a mirror of the 24MB ZIP file up on their site.

GameSpot has posted a new, multiplayer enabled demo for Mechwarrior 3. This demo has three mechs, two new multiplayer levels, and a single player mission too (thanks Ant).

A version 1.2 patch for Descent 3 has been released, and is available for download via the game's auto-update feature (thanks Steel). The patch fixes a whole bunch of bugs, as well as adding the following new features:

- Reduced network traffic in multiplayer games by not sending position packets for dedicated servers, dead players, and observers.
- Additional Pentium III enhancements: motion blur on robots and powerup sparkles.
- Under Linux, service mode (invoked with -service) now works like a true service.
- Secondary weapon fire packets are now sent relialbly.
- Added support for EAX 2.0.
- Changed the controller (joystick) code to use by default the Windows API. Version 1.0.0 used the Windows API, but 1.1.0 used DirectInput. To use DirectInput under 1.2.0, use the "-directinput" command-line option (which does the same thing as the "-alternatejoy" option.) DirectInput should be used with joysticks that don't work with the Windows API, such as the Wingman Interceptor and other multiple-hat sticks.

As Morpheus said, unfortunately, no one can be told what the Matrix is... but fortunately, the Matrox Graphics Drivers Home can tell you exactly where to find the new version 5.3 drivers for Matrox accelerators. Here's the deal on the new release, which includes a TurboGL dealie that should be of interest to gamers:

In addition to providing excellent Direct3D performance, the 5.30 driver contains a full ICD for use with all Matrox Millennium G200 as well as all Matrox G400-based cards, across all platforms running on Microsoft Windows 95 or 98. The full ICD’s solid OpenGL performance will be further optimized on a continuing basis with performance enhancements and increased support for high-end OpenGL applications.
In an effort to offer Matrox Millennium G400-based game enthusiasts an immediate performance increase in four popular OpenGL game titles, the Matrox 5.30 driver also includes an additional ICD, named the Matrox TurboGL driver.
The Matrox TurboGL driver provides Intel Pentium III and AMD Athlon system users with impressive performance increases over the previous driver release. Gamers can expect a 19 percent increase in Quake II™ and 31 percent increase in Quake III Arena™ from Activision/id Software; a 31 percent increase in Half-Life™ from Sierra Studios/Valve Software; and an astounding 116 percent increase in Unreal™ from GT Interactive/Epic Games. To attain such high levels of performance, the Matrox TurboGL driver makes full use of Intel’s Streaming SIMD Extensions and AMD’s 3DNow! instructions.
Games, applications and systems that are not supported by the Matrox TurboGL driver will use the full ICD by default. The appropriate drivers will be used automatically, and do not require the user to manually configure any parameters.

The official 3D Realms site has posted an interview with Petri Jarvilehto, project lead on the Remedy/3D Realms title Max Payne (thanks Frans). Max Payne is a third person action game that's being published by the Gathering of Developers.

Westwood's official site for Command & Conquer: Renegade has gone live. There's several shots posted, two in-game (which were previously released) as well as two images of the vehicles and one of the power plant which appear to be new. The shots are accompanied by descriptions, as well as links to previews of the game.

Raven Programmer Jake Simpson updated his .plan with more on the Apple/Raven saga, which seems to have taken a positive turn, as they have a G3 to use (but no compiler) making the possibility of Mac ports of Soldier of Fortune and Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force more likely. Here's the deal:

So, this Apple thing. I would urge all who've been following this to read Rick Johnson's .plan update
for the full scoop on that.

The practial upshot of all this wrangling is that Raven now has two G3's, that came to us from Apple via
Activision (one of them doesn't work though!).
We took a look at the Heretic II mac Port, and it looks pretty damn good actually, identical for the most
part to the PC version. Which is the point I guess. :) When it'll get released I can't say - its not my
call.

Anyway, since we have these machines, we are going to attempt to build a mac Star Trek : Voyager - Elite
Force version. However, we do want to make it clear that while a Mac version of this game is on the cards,
we don't want to make any promises that we end up not being able to keep. With what we've done to the Q3
codebase, putting in single player and all the modifications we made, it may make building a mac version of
Voyager a lot of trouble. I realise that Q3 is supposed to have cross platform compiliation built in, but
since non of us here have that much experience with the Mac OS, and the extensiveness of all the changing
and addition of code we've done, we are being cautious at this point.
Suffice to say, we have apple hardware - thank you Jim Black - and we are definitely exploring the Mac
port option for Voyager.
Now all we need is a mac compiler. Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?

One thing I'd like to add on this subject before we bring it to a close is the emails I have received over
this issue from the Apple Mac community. To a one they have been courteous, helpful, and full of positive
comments. I knew that 99% of the apple community were good and decent people, but it's always nice to have
this re-inforced by unsolicited emails.

If your bored, take a trip around JAKEWORLD!

The TRIBES Players site has posted the version 1.9 patch for Starsiege TRIBES is now available as both an update for version 1.0 or for version 1.8. Thanks Frans at 3D Action Gamers. Here are local copies and lists of mirrors for the patch to update version 1.0 (767 KB), and the patch to update version 1.8 (385 KB). The patch is described as fixing, "some server side bugs".

Gamers Extreme has posted their full guide to System Shock 2, which boasts a complete walkthrough, as well as rundowns of every item, weapon, cheat and monster in the game. Of course, this is loaded to the hilt with spoilers, so don't even think about reading it if you don't want to ruin your experience.

GameSpot UK, already well known for their posting well over 100 screenshots from Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation, has decided to turn their function keys on Legend's Unreal engine title Wheel of Time. There's over 100 screenshots up, as well as word that they should have a hands-on preview of the game up sometime next week.

AVault has posted an in-game MPEG movie of Mythic Entertainment's Spellbinder, a combination RPG and first person shooter. The game uses the NDL NetImmerse engine, which was utilized in Prince of Persia 3D.

While I'm fairly sure this was already announced, Well-Rounded Games is reporting that THQ has acquired a five-year license to make games based on the Evil Dead movies. The first one is called "Evil Dead: Ashes 2 Ashes" and will be a 3D single-player game with 2D pre-rendered backgrounds (think Resident Evil). One can only hope the game will feature stolen lines from Quake, Doom, Duke Nukem 3D, Blood, Unreal, and pretty much every game Monolith has ever made.

A Sin-ful Movie is the name of an article over at Wired News that takes a look at the upcoming anime movie based on Ritual's Sin. It's an interesting article, and is the first place I know of that mentions that the DVD version of the film will have a complete copy of the game on it (thanks devilbunny).

Gamasutra has posted an article (which originally appeared in the October issue of Game Developer Magazine) which has Outrage's Jason Leighton and Craig Derrick looking back on their experience making Descent 3 (thanks Billy).

No, not "I am the eggman" kind of surreal, the Surreal Software kind, as The Adrenaline Vault Riot Control: A Surreal Software Q&A talks with Surreal's Stu Denman about the Riot engine that runs under the hood of Drakan: Order of the Flame. The Q&A discusses 3D engines in general, the Riot engine's strengths and weaknesses, and its extensibility. On the subject of extensibility, at one point Stu points out that "There will be at least four games in the next two years that will use Surreal's Riot Engine."

Computer Games Online's Battlezone II Designer Diary #3 is online with an update from George Collins, the director at Pandemic Studios, on progress on Pandemic's upcoming action/strategy sequel, BattleZone II. The update makes it clear that things are moving right along, apologizing for the delayed diary caused by the game's crunch time. George goes on to discuss the feedback they've gotten on the demo, outlining in detail what they're working on to finalize the game, and throwing in a little plug for their Battlezone2 Ecard promotion.

John Carmack updated his .plan with another edition of his worklog detailing his progress on Quake III Arena. Here's the latest:

* r_primitives 3 path for non-vertex array testing
* specify sex in model animation.cfg file
* proper dropping of failed bot inits
* removed identical pain sounds
* serverTime strictly increasing across levels
* added GL_DECAL multitexture collapse
* windowed mouse on mac
* fixed byte order issue with curve clipping on mac
* made com_defaultextension buffer safe
* fixed levelshot and added antialiasing to image
* don't clear bot names before kick message
* made servercommand sequences strictly increasing across
level changes
* unpause on vid_restart

An update to the Surreal TECH Page adds some possible help for those having problems playing Drakan: Order of the Flame because the game keeps asking for the CD even though it's already in the drive. Saw that on Drakan.Net. The bigger news is that the release of the editor so folks can cook up their own levels for the dragon-riding action game is "close." Here's the skinny:

The Drakan Editor is Close

Just finishing up the setup program and README for the Drakan Level Editor before I take off to Tuscany on Vacation! Woohoo! The Level Editor will be available for download on this site, and also mirrored on various Drakan Fan Sites. I am expecting to see some very cool stuff produced from the editor, especially in the way of multiplayer levels (I see a lot of potential variations here, including some bigger arenas). Stay tuned...

There's an Anachronox screenshot on Penny Arcade with a new scene from ION Storm's upcoming Quake II-engine RPG, apparently part of the payoff for having tortured ION Artist Lee Perry during their recent interview (story).

We mentioned this the other day (story), but here's the official word, as Septerra Core Goes Gold is the press release from Monolith announcing that Septerra Core, the futuristic RPG from Valkyrie Studios has gone gold (off to manufacture). Septerra Core looks to bring "the anime-inspired art and distinctive gameplay of Japanese-style RPG gaming to the PC." The game is expected to ship on October 26.

There's an Exclusive Alien Crossfire Demo on Gamecenter that offers a playable demo for this add-on for Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri. The archive is about 24 MB. Also, there's a Nightlong Demo on PC.IGN.com with a 36.5 MB playable demo of this puzzle game they say will "remind you of nothing so much as Blade Runner" in the only post I have ever seen to use the phrase "the Mexican click dance" to refer to a hyperlink. Thanks Ant.

The -AA- Sniper Tournament has got over 100 contestants signed-up for this TeamFortress Classic Sniper tournament. This will be a double-elimination tourney, with separate brackets for high and low ping players, as well as a special bracket for "those pesky -AA- guys."

Guess what? Thanks Frans at 3D Action Gamers... that's what!

• Games Domain Review reviews Prince of Persia 3D.
• Games Domain Review reviews Shadow Man (second opinion).
• GamePen reviews Outcast.
• GameOver reviews Driver.
• GameSpot reviews Homeworld.
• Gamecenter reviews Homeworld (by Paul Schuytema).
• Strategyxtreme reviews C&C: Tiberian Sun.
• 3D GameForce reviews Hidden & Dangerous.
• TacticalPlanet reviews the Codename: Eagle demo.

• The modestly named Godlike Q3Test guide has been updated on the newly-relocated GODLIKE Quake III Arena Page...
• Stuck in Homeworld? There are some cheat codes on Gamecenter...
• James Bas sends word the Oct. 15, 1999 issue of Entertainment Weekly (Brad Pitt and Edward Norton on the cover) has a three page article on John Romero and Daikatana...

A whole bunch of readers wrote in asking why on earth Next-Generation would call this site Blue's Clues in a story yesterday. The answer is I don't know (attempted humor perhaps?). Of course the idea on the Internet is the name doesn't matter as long as you get the link right, but they didn't provide a link either.

Hey, look at that... speaking of the site's name, we have an anniversary in the offing! I'll point this out today, since Saturday is loony's weekly episode of Out of the Loon, but I don't want to let tomorrow pass by without noting that it will be the third anniversary of this site moving to the bluesnews.com domain, shedding the old name blue's Quake Rag along the way (though I know some who still occasionally refer to the site as that to this day). So there. Cake's on me.

Link of the Day: Work Well With Others. Truly freaky. Nicely illustrated, to boot. Thanks John Guajardo.
Story of the Day: Artificial and real nerve cells linked. One step closer to realizing the dream of the bionic lobster. Thanks Ansai.