12-31-0

This is the last day of the millennium and goodbye 20th century, hello 21st century.

Deathmonger has released a new 1.27g friendly verion of Elite Hud available for download off his site. Here is a small excerpt from his site about this client side Q3 mod:

"... This is a client side only mod for Quake 3. It only changes the way YOU view the game. It is a completely configurable HUD. By default when you activate EliteHUD the health, armour and ammo readings are right next to the crosshair. Also the player holds the weapon (except the rail gun - I'm working on it) in the middle of the screen, Quake 1 style ..."

Lancers Reactor has gotten the goods on a few more custom Starlancer ships for your flying pleasure, including some very cool Babylon 5 ships.

SWAT 3: Elite Edition is the Gamepsy Tactical game of the year. Facing a barage of lackluster Tactical games including Delta Force Land Warrior, SWAT 3: Elite Edition stood above all of Gamepsy's expectations. They were quoted saying, "We would have given SWAT 3 the Tactical Game of the Year award in 1999 but its lack of multiplayer options made us turn to Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Rogue Spear...But now since SWAT 3 got its multiplayer options in Elite Edition, we couldn't be prepared for the fun gameplay it offered." Congradulations to Takedown Studios and Sierra Studios for making such a fun, realistic game.

12-30-0

Blizzard Entertainment released the standalone version of the Diablo II 1.04 patch for the Mac. We have it all mirrored up and ready to go over at FilePlanet. As you may have already heard, this patch updates/changes quite a few elements of the game. To view a full list, head on over to the patch info section released along with the patch at Blizzard's Official Site.

Microsoft has entered into a five-yaer agreement with RAVISENT to license its CineMaster DVD engine for DVD playback on the Xbox. Utilizing RAVISENT’s CineMaster DVD engine optimized for the Xbox graphics processing unit, the Xbox is expected to provide users with the highest quality video and audio performance on the market today. RAVISENT's CineMaster DVD Engine is a cross-platform, high-performance DVD and MPEG-2 decoding solution designed to decode and playback DVD-Video, MPEG Video and Broadcast MPEG Video content. CineMaster DVD can be integrated with a variety of digital media processing components to deliver decoding capabilities, as well as support cutting-edge HDTV decoding. The CineMaster DVD Engine components are in use by major CE OEMs, PC OEMs, video graphics companies, and video game manufacturers. CineMaster digital media components meet the requirements of the DVD Forum, the Content Scrambling System (CSS), Dolby, and Macrovision, and assist OEMs to meet rapidly changing consumer preferences in record time at a low cost. Key components in the CineMaster DVD Engine include: DVD Navigation Engine DVD Presentation Engine (including trick mode playback) MPEG-2 Video Decoder Dolby Digital (AC-3), MPEG-2, LPCM Audio Decoder Closed Caption/Sub Picture Decoder

Microsoft has also acquired Bungie and Halo will indeed be an Xbox title. Go to Battleground: Halo for the latest news, information, and more screenshots from this upcoming action title.

12-29-0

The Destroy All Monsters site now sports the first level, entitled Godzilla Vs. Titan, of this Quake II mod by COR Entertainment. Here's how the authors describe the mod: "Destroy All Monsters is an arena style game, that pits the player against some of the all-time greatest movie monsters of all time such as Godzilla, Mothra, Gabarra, Mogera....some of the most enormous and spectacular creatures to inhabit any game!"

After a half year hiatus, Kokak's DOOM Page now offers a new version 0.5b of ZDoomGL for download. ZDoomGL is an OpenGL port of ZDoom, itself a port of the public DOOM source, and this release fixes a variety of bugs, including MD2 model display and the automap, and adds several graphical improvements and other changes, as detailed in the README. The release comes in binary and source distributions.

AMD has released a  Microsoft Windows 2000 Patch for AGP Applications on AMD Athlon(TM) and AMD Duron(TM) Processors.

This page on the Valve website has info on joining the Half-Life dedicated server administrators mailing list.

12-28-0

Computer Games Online's DirectX 8 preview calls the new version of the API "a big step forward".

12-27-0

The Battle.net website has the announcement that as of the first of the new year, their Diablo II ladders will be reset.

12-26-0

Happy Boxing day for those who celebrate it and have a happy first day of Kwanzaa.

Having trouble completing Alice? Good news! The Rabbit Hole's Alice Walkthrough is now complete. It features detailed instructions on how to complete all 40 levels in the game, and is organized by chapters and ..::LvL's Alice section now has a walkthrough up through the Vale of Tears, along with neat tips, tricks, and a new Alice mailing list.

Deus Ex Central has opened their doors. They've got a nice looking site there, and have also posted up part one of a 3-day article series entitled "Philosophy and Deus Ex". This series will discuss each of DX's three endings in turn.

While I was checking out PlanetPS2 I noticed that PS2.IGN has posted their PS2 launch list (not official but they do have good sources). In the list they have Drakan, which means if the list is correct Drakan 2 will be out sometime around October 26th. Keep in mind that this is just speculation, no official announcement has been made.

Convert Central's models page has updated again - now with a Duke Nukem skin for use with Unreal Tournament! It looks pretty good, especially the face! Convert Central also provides an Unreal version of Duke 3D's Hollywood Holocaust which would be the ideal map to try the skin out on.

12-25-0

Merry Christmas to all on this happy holiday. I picked this up from 3DActionPlanet and it is a poem by Hellchick called:

'Twas the Frag Before Christmas
by:  Hellchick 

'Twas the night before Christmas when all through the LAN
Not a gamer was playing, 'cept the dude with the van.
The cables were hung by the server with care,
In the hopes that by morning the hubs would be there.

The gamers had zonked out at two in their beds,
while visions of railguns danced in their heads.
And Sarge in his armor, and I with my flag
Had just settled down for a long nightly frag.

When on the next map there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from the base to see what was the matter.
Away toward the skybox I flew like a flash --
Rocket-jumped to the archway to save my own ass.

The lightmap shown down on the level below
Making all the gibs look just like blood-soaked new snow
When what to my wondering eyes do I see
But a blonde guy in glasses, in a red Ferrari.

With a GeForce in one hand and Quake shirt on his back
I knew in a moment it was surely Carmack.
Swifter than Pentiums, his comrades they came
When he pulled down the console and typed them by name:

"On Visor! On Major! On B.J. Blaszkowitcz!"
(Bet you didn't think 3DAP could rhyme this)
"On Quake Guy! On Phobos! On Sorlag! On Doom!
Let the rockets explode til they fill up the room!"

He tweaked all the settings, set the timescale to 8
With nary a hindrance in ping or framerate.
Then in one of the strangest miraculous feats
He gave himself God mode without using cheats.

With a snap of his fingers and a tilt of his chin
I heard the old sounds of them all spawning in.
All his comrades had launchers. I feared I was right:
If I'd wanted a frag, I would get none tonight.

They scattered like bugs, each one taking a stance
In offense or defense -- I knew I'd no chance.
But I gathered an army of bots at my hand
And said, "boys, this is it. We must now take a stand!"

With Sarge at the flag base and Wrack on the bridge
I thought about making a run to the fridge.
But before I could bring down the console to pause
Carmack shouted he wasn't as nice as ol' Claus.

So with one mighty yell, I gave the order to charge
Leaving the base's defense up to Sarge.
But before my team spied even a single red flag
The capture tone sounded -- not just a mere frag.

I stood on the map in such shock and such awe
At the prowess of Carmack, his team with no flaw.
One by one they departed, til just he remained
(Sarge was crying about all of the years he had trained).

And with a tip of his flag to my team in salute,
Carmack mentioned I ought to quit out and reboot,
Then he drove off the map and raised up a loud cheer:
"Merry Christmas to all, and frag in the new year!"

GamePro brings UT PS2 strategy guide, written by WC Maxi. The guide includes some useful information on fine-tuning your skills, a weapons guide, item guide and as they call it, FPS 101 for those who want to get the low-down on First-Person Shooter gameplay.

12-24-0

I hope all of my readers will have a merry Christmas tomorrow since Epic Games have released a new Unreal Tournament bonus pack this weekend over at their official Unreal Tournament site that will have 10 new maps.

Matrox has released new drivers for its G200, G400 and G450 video cards, available for Win9x, WinMe and Win2K. The updates address a variety of DirectX 8 and game-related issues.

id Software's Robert Duffy made a .plan update with the news that he's released the Linux beta of the Quake III Arena version 1.27 patch.

12-23-0

American McGee's Alice is reviewed on Gameplay and Online Game Review.

12-22-0

UpsetChaps Quake3 Guide has been updated with more tips on tweaking and some new benchmark demos. 

eUniverse Live has conducted an interview with id Software's Marty Stratton, talking with him about Quake III: Team Arena, their just-released mission pack for Quake III Arena.

A new beta version 1.27 of Urban Terror is now available, bringing compliancy with the new point release and fixing a few bugs.

Walkthrough Online.com's Hitman: Codename 47 walkthrough is online with a complete guide to the game, and one of GameFAQs' Hitman: Codename 47 FAQ/Walkthoughs has been updated.

The DiabloII.Net Network sends word that Blizzard has released a new version 1.04 of Diablo II, the update can be applied automatically by connecting to Battle.Net.

Star Wars Galaxies Official Site's FAQ has also been updated, adding info on classes and player versus player conflicts in the upcoming Star Wars game.

12-21-0

On this day last year, the source code for Quake was released by id Software, while it is also almost the third anniversary of the release of the Doom source code, which took place on December 23, 1997.

Down the Rabbit Hole's Alice Walkthrough offers guidance in making your way through Wonderland in American McGee's Alice.

12-20-0

id Software has released the Mac version 1.27 beta patch for Quake III Arena for download from their ftp server. Also released is the Mac OS version of the Quake III: Team Arena demo (direct FTP link). Like its Win32 counterpart, it does not require Quake III Arena to run, and contains a single map that works with all the different game types. It's a 121 MB download.

Version 2.0 of the Coliseum2 mod for Quake III Arena is now available,

12-19-0

Z-Axis has reviewed a new Weapons Factory Arena map entitled - Zardoz. 

Extreme-Players.de have posted some new shots from Quake 3 Rally. 

Version 2.0 of the Coliseum 2 mod for QUAKE3 has been released, and is now based on the 1.27g source code. 

Alliance Games has released a 17mb movie showing off the latest version of the Alliance Q3CTF/DM mod.

New ZDoom Beta! Only 3 days after the release of 1.23beta8, comes 1.23beta9. This beta fixes slopes as well as some other minor issues.

FilePlanet has posted a 35mb trailer movie, featuring music from Bill Brown, of Dreamwork's upcoming Unreal engine first-person shooter - Clive Barker's: Undying. You can also catch the trailer music in streamed Real Player format right here on Bill Brown's official site,

Xbox.IGN.com is reporting that the Xbox unit and controller will be unveiled at CES 2001, taking place in Las Vegas, Nevada January 6th through 9th. In less then a month, we will finally have an idea of what the Xbox will look like as it sits in our living rooms.

nV News has reviewed the OCZ GeForce2 PRO 64Meg.

12-18-0

A new version (0.88) of the QBind utility for Quake games has been released at its web site. The new version, which helps with key binding, is now compatible with the new 1.27 Quake III Arena patch.

The Windows demo of Bungie's third person action-fighting game Oni ready for download at a huge 67 meg size.

12-17-0

Daily Radar has posted a second playable demo from Hitman: Codename 47, the recently-released third person action game from IO Interactive. This second demo is said to be more like the full game than the first demo, and contains an entirely different level from its predecessor.

3dfx has announced that they are shutting down, and selling "most of their assets" to NVIDIA. Believe it or not, I still have my original VOODOO card.

12-16-0

On PlanetQuake there is a complete guide to Quake III: Team Arena, which should be helpful for those of you who got it yesterday or today.

Robert Duffy, id Software programmer, updated his .plan with a follow-up on the just-released Q3A Win32 1.27g point release patch, covering the release, plans for the release of the related tools, and progress on the related non-disclosure agreements.

1.27g Point Release / Source / NDA's / Tools / Stuff

The point release is going well. Several MOD teams should have beta's out that are compatible soon. Quite a few of them have had source for about a week.

I have NOT had a chance to catch up on source NDA's for the past day and a half. At this point, I am not going to send anymore out as I can spend that same time getting the source ready to go out the door instead. I appreciate everyone requesting and sending back the NDA's. I sent out around 300 NDA's and had about 100 sent back. If for some reason you sent one back and did not (receive) access to the NDA board, I apologize but it was either after Tuesday night or it got lost in the flood. For a first pass it went well.

I hope to have the full Quake III Arena and Quake III: Team Arena source out very soon, Monday-ish looks like a good plan right now.

At the same time, we should have tool source ( finally ) for folks as well as pre-compiled tools, etc. and I believe Graeme is going to post the ROQ encoder as well. Timothee and crew should have the GTK version of Radiant out soon too.

I plan to close the NDA portion of the message boards pretty quickly but will keep providing general access to the newbie mod forum and by request will add folks to the standard mod forum. If you have asked for the latter, ask again via e-mail as I have missed it and am about to clean out the forum and NDA e-mail bin. I'll be catching up in the dev forums over the weekend as this stuff settles down.

The Unreal Fortress website has a new version 276 of the class-based Unreal Fortress modification for Unreal Tournament.

12-15-0

I have had many reports of the game TEAM ARENA in stores in the Midwest but unfortunately not at my favorite store yet.

The Rocket Arena website has a new version 1.4 beta of the Rocket Arena 3 mod for Quake III Arena.

12-14-0

Voodoo Extreme has conducted a brief interview with Robert Duffy, the author of QERadiant and a programmer at id Software. Robert talks about Quake III: Team Arena, explaining how it changed over the course of its development, why id didn't put more levels into it, what tools he used and more.

Ensemble Studios has released a new map script for Age of Empires 2: the Conquerors, their RTS expansion pack that was released earlier this year.

A new version 2.71 of the Winamp .mp3 player is now available.

GA-Source has received an update from Ken Deel of OtherWorlds Interactive that says The Unholy, their upcoming first person horror-adventure game will be an Xbox exclusive title.

12-13-0

Wireplay's Q3 Navy Seals interview talks with GermanFF from the Navy SEALs for Quake III Arena team.

Overclocker's Shootout's Water Cool guide offers tips on this new way to cool your computer. If this catches on we might one day start having to bring in our computer to service centers to have the radiators flushed.

Investigations into PlayStation 2 sales mount is a CNET (not Gamecenter) article that talks of more possible fraud in fulfillment of PlayStation 2 pre-orders.

Eidos UK has released a patch for Hitman: Codename 47, updating the third-person action game by IO Interactive. The patch fixes a number of gameplay issues and adds a new slow motion feature.

12-12-0

American McGee's Alice is reviewed on Gamers Depot and the demo version is reviewed on Xtreme Network.

12-11-0

Target Quake III Arena mod for Q3A is now available.

12-10-0

Today is the seventh anniversary of the release of the shareware version of Doom

A new version 1.5a of 007 Quake II is now available.

12-9-0

Today is the third anniversary of the release of Quake II.

Alice fan page Down the Rabbit Hole has posted their walkthough for the American McGee's Alice demo.

Tomb Raider movie site now features the official trailer for the live-action motion picture based on Core Design's series of action games. Starring Angelie Jolie, the movie will premiere in US theaters on June 15, 2001, and the trailer offers nearly two minutes of footage in every conceivable format.

Loki Software has released a beta version of their Linux port of Unreal Tournament GOTY. The 6.0 MB download contains everything you need to bring this Game of the Year edition of Epic's first-person shooter to Linux, and is compatible with version 436 of the game.

12-8-0

Q3 Team Arena has gone gold today, expect to see it in stores from the 15th of this month.

12-7-0

A new Q&A with id Software's Paul Jaquays is up at The Deathmatch Zone this afternoon.

Just in case you were wondering how to enable the first-person viewpoint in Rogue's new third-person game ALICE, enter the command "cg_3rd_person 0" at the console. Setting cg_3rd_person back to "1" returns to the original chasecam.

A new version 1.01 of the GameSpy Arcade server browser is now available.

A new version 5.0 of the Opera browser is now available as freeware.

12-6-0

id Software's Robert Duffy made a .plan update this evening with the news that they are opening up a forum as a direct way for mod authors and engine licensees to communicate with id. If you're a mod author interested in joining, head over to id's account application page.

12-5-0

Dear chiQ offers an interview with id Software artist Paul Jaquays. The conversation covers a wide range of topics, including the first-person shooter genre, modifications, collaboration, Quake III: Team Arena, and more.

12-4-0

The Reactive Software website Q3Comp version 1.28b Spectator release, the latest version of this program designed to be the ultimate Quake III Arena front end for both players and server operators is now available.

12-3-0

A new gameplay movie from Quake III: Team Arena is now available for download at PC.IGN and the official Quake III Arena site.

Rogue and Electronic Arts have released the playable demo of American McGee's Alice, available for download from FilePlanet and the Electronic Arts ftp server.

12-2-0

A new version 0.7 of csDoom is now available on the official site.

12-1-0

Quake II goes gold (1997), and Thief: The Dark Project ships (1998) on this day in history.

11-30-0

Cutting the Edge's Q3 Team Arena Tactical Guide is up, offering tips on rocket jumping, proximine laying, and more.

11-29-0

The glDuke Official Web Page has an update on this upcoming truly 3D version of Duke Nukem 3D.

11-28-0

NewDoom.com's Doom Ports page offers a resource with information on all of the known ports of id Software's Doom source code

11-27-0

Today I have an important story and for a change it has to do with me. I had just found out that due to my procrastination I lost out on the chance to register www.quakelord.com as an alleged lamer has beaten me to the punch. I am the original QUAKELORD. My loyal friends and fellow gamers can attest to the fact that I have used the pseudonym before the game QUAKE was even released. So now with the help of a friend of mine at www.eboundhost.com I am now the proud owner of www.quakelord.net and as of today it is fully operational. Please change your bookmarks as I will be shutting down the site at net56.net within a month. www.quakelord.net is the new resting point of my site. I can fully recommend www.eboundhost.com for all of your domain registration needs. they are also a top notch web hosting company. I can vouch to the fact that they have the best staff and state of the art equipment. I was very impressed. Since the loss of the Network Solutions monopoly in domain name registrations, www.eboundhost.com offers one year registrations for only US $14.95 per year as opposed to Network Solutions $35.00 per year registrations. Act soon as they are also offering $7.95 per month web site hosting. They provide a browser based interface to manage all aspects of your site. Close to 10,000 Domain Names are registered every day - that's almost a quarter million great Web addresses that are no longer available to register each month. Register your Domain Name today, and secure your space on the Web! Don't delay and loose out like I did! 

11-26-0

Quake 3 Team Arena Demo is reviewed on The Ecronom, FiringSquad, 3DActionPlanet, and Gaming-Unlimited.

Version 2.8c of WCPUID, a great program that lets you check the actual clock speed of your processor has been released.

11-25-0

id Software's Robert Duffy made a .plan update with updates on a few Quake III Arena and Team Arena issues. Specifically he talks about the frame rate issues some people are having with the Team Arena demo as well as the order system in the demo (pointing out that there is currently a bug that prevents non-team leaders from changing their status) and word that the final Q3A point release is coming soon. Here's an excerpt...

Team Arena is using more visual effects than Q3A from a map, texture and shader perspective. We are looking at things to make sure that the hit on frame-rate is not too drastic. I've seen reports that frame-rate "feels pretty much just like Q3A" to "it was drastically slower". We will take a look and see where and when we are losing FPS.

Team Arena is going to offer some unprecedented capabilities to mod teams. The UI is entirely scripted ( the menu system, in-game system and HUD ) and you can attach videos anywhere in the UI, on the HUD, in maps, anywhere. The sound system pages things in and out as necessary so you are not limited to just a hand full of sounds. You can easily script full inventory systems, purchase systems, pretty much anything you can think of. This in addition to the voice/order system. There are also a couple of BIG things we are saving for the retail release, which kick things up another notch or two as far as overall capabilities go.

Quake III Arena has always offered the most capable, technically sound, and best looking game platform around, and now that we have added a whole host of new functionality ( much of it at mod team requests ) mod teams will have in their hands the most complete game production toolkit ever and some really cool toys to play with. They are going to have the ability to produce a complete ass kicking, commercial company spooking, single/multiplayer player game experience. I am looking forward to seeing what people do with the all the new stuff.

Computer Games Online interviews Steve Meretzky about his current job at WorldWinner, as well as his storied history in the gaming business, where he worked at Infocom on some of their classic text-based adventures, including Planetfall; The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (a personal favorite that brings back many memories); and Leather Goddesses of Phobos (not as dirty as you would have thought), as well as his time at Blizzard trying to save the ill-fated Warcraft: Adventures.

11-24-0

Quake 3 Team Arena Demo is reviewed on ActionTrip.

The UI Enhanced News page has word of a new beta version 0.97 of the UI Enhanced utility for Quake III Arena which layers a more user-friendly menu system on the existing Q3A interface.

11-23-0

Happy Thanksgiving all... Lets make it a Fragsgiving day also. Don't forget to download the Team Arena demo... it rocks.

11-22-0

id Software's Todd Hollenshead made an update to his .plan this evening with the news that the Win32 Team Arena demo will be released tonight (Mac and Linux versions will be released in the near future). It will be initially available on IGN only, but give it a few hours and it will mirrored on a lot of other sites. Here's an excerpt from his .plan that contains some details on what we can expect:

Big news: An early Christmas present from id. The Team Arena Demo is going up tonight! We don't have an exact time yet, but I'm expecting it to be uploaded and go live in the next 3 hours or so (12 AM on the East Coast/ 9 PM on West). IGN.com is providing the initial bandwidth for us, so I'm guessing their servers are going to have a hangover tomorrow ;-) We'll have all the specific information available about exactly where to download over the next couple of hours.

This is the Windows version. We *expect* to release the Mac and Linux versions next week.

I have a few notes to share with everyone at this time. First, the Demo is stand alone. You don't need Quake III installed to try it out. The file size is around 120 meg (big, yes, but keep reading). We are including one level that plays all of the new game types (Harvester, Overload, One-Flag) and CTF. We are also including 2 models and 2 model heads. The map contains 3 of the 4 new powerups, one of the new weapons and one new holdable item. All of this is explained within the Demo, of course.

LanParty.Com's interview with LeveLord is online, asking another in their series of ten quick questions of the noted author of levels for everything from Duke Nukem 3D through Sin, FAKK2, and even Rogue's Alice and the inventor of The Levelord Super Turbo Nuclear Injection Jet.

11-21-0

ShellShock's Crater has a new version of the Q3Offline front-end for Quake III Arena that makes it easy to set up solo games with the maps and bots of your choosing.

Westlake Interactive just announced that Star Trek: Voyager - Elite Force for the Mac has gone gold, and should arrive on store shelves soon.

11-20-0

nV News has posted a new GeForce Quake III Arena shootout, that compares the Q3A performance of the various GeForce cards against each other.

Just as the Dreamcast port is winding down, Sierra and Valve have announced that work has begun on a Playstation 2 version of Half-life.

11-19-0

Intel set to introduce Pentium 4 Monday says Reuters, their story based on a Wall Street Journal report.

Digital Web 3D's Friday CPU, Memory, & Video Cards Price Update is online.

11-18-0

American McGee's Alice, their third-person action adventure that recreates Wonderland with the Quake III engine, has gone gold and should arrive in stores by December 5.

A new version 0.83 of Requiem for Quake III Arena is now available fixing some remaining bugs as well as adding a few tweaks and changes.

A new version 2.70 of the Winamp .mp3 player is now available.

11-17-0

I can admit that I was shocked to hear 3dfx is to stop making graphics cards on CNNfn has the news that 3dfx is leaving the business of manufacturing graphics accelerators and will return to the business of creating chips for other companies' products.

Tech-GODS DirectX 8 performance article looks at what to expect from the newly-released API.

Ensemble Studios has released a new random map script for Age of Empires II: The Conquerors.

11-16-0

Ensemble Studios has released another new random map script for Age of Empires II: The Conquerors.

There's a new beta 0.99m of the Q3A OSP DM mod on the Orange Smoothie Productions website.

11-15-0

GameSpy Arcade version 1.0 has been released.

The Q3Offline News page has word of a new version 00.11.12.00 of this Quake III Arena front-end.

11-14-0

Finally my DSL line is working.

The first beta version of Unreal Fortress is now available on the official site.

The Cold Shop's DirectX 8 write-up offers info on what's new and changed in the latest version of Microsoft's Gaming API.

11-13-0

Microsoft Announces Release of DirectX 8.0 is the press release with word that the new API has been released to manufacturing.

Version 1.1 of RTS Quake, the mod for Quake III Arena that attempts to meld real-time strategy conventions with CTF-style gameplay has been released.

11-12-0

3dfx Gamers has released new Voodoo 4/5 drivers for Windows 95/98/ME and for Windows 2000 (both WHQL certified). They fix several specific problems with the Serious Sam and Hitman demos and a few other games, and add DirectX 8 support, which itself will be officially released in the near future according to this Microsoft press release.

Now my phone line is working, if only my DSL would work also.

11-11-0

Sorry for the lack of an update (again) as I was having problems connecting because of Ameritech not being able to keep my phone lines working and they still don't have my DSL working right yet but this is another story.

11-10-0

Sorry for the lack of an update as I was having problems connecting because of Ameritech not being able to keep my phone lines working and they still don't have my DSL working right yet but this is another story.

11-9-0

Word on PC Gamer UK say: "Recent reports indicate that Sega is to put Dreamcast technology onto a PCI card that will allow us to play all Dreamcast titles on PC." The reports continues to say "there may be a release by the end of this year."

There's a hands-on preview of B17 Flying Fortress II: The Mighty Eighth on Games Domain, examining a beta build of the upcoming WWII bomber sim by MicroProse,

11-8-0

A new beta 1G of the Q3F mod is now available, updating this Quake III Arena mod to resolve all known issues that were causing users of the previous version to be accidentally banned from servers, as well as addressing other bugs, including problems with the spectator mode.

A new patch for the Infiltration mod for Unreal Tournament is now available, bringing this teamplay mod up to version 2.81 to address bugs in the previous version, and to also improve performance.

11-7-0

Crimson Skies  is reviewed on EuroGamer.

Age of Empires II: The Conquerors is reviewed on ESCMag.

A patch to update the Weapons Factory Arena mod for Quake III Arena to version 2.1 has been released.

GameSpot has updated their Warcraft III preview with details on all the new features that have been added since their last look at it.

Microsoft Sidewinder Force Feedback 2 joystick is reviewed on Sharky Games.

The Assault Bonus Pack for Unreal Tournament is now available at its official site. Proclaiming to be "Unleashing the full potential of Assault. Go forth and assault the base. Now," the 18.8 MB download brings new and enhanced maps, new gameplay options and lots more, and the site update includes some last minute changes as well as advice for players and server administrators.

11-6-0

A post to the Stomped Forums by Jim Dosé  of id offers an explanation from the id Software programmer for why, although the engine design for id's upcoming Doom game will not start with a "blank sheet of paper," the end result will be an all-new engine nonetheless. Here's the explanation:

The engine is being completely rewritten, just piece-by-piece. Currently, the renderer, shader system, and game code are completely new. The cgame and network code have been removed. The animation system is currently being written from the ground up. The sound system and UI are still in place, but will be rewritten by Graeme and Robert when they are finished with the mission pack. At some point along the way, John will probably write a new network system.

So, even though we are not starting out with a blank sheet of paper, the final result will be a full rewrite.

------------------
--------
Jim Dosé
id Software

Rocket Arena UT website has the new version 1.60 of UT RA now ready for download.

11-5-0

A new version 3.0 of the Eternal Arena mod for Quake III Arena is now available.

FilePlanet has a 20 MB playable demo of FIFA 2001, a soccer game from EA Sports.

11-4-0

After three months of development and what is described as extensive play testing, a new beta 1f of the Q3F Quake III Arena mod is now available, described as "(absolutely) packed with new features and gameplay adjustments." Q3F is a class-based teamplay modification that features new weaponry, and support for "Capture the Flag," "Command Point," and "Capture and Hold" games.

Sons of Wolfenstein, Part III on 3DActionPlanet continues their series examining the first-person shooter. In part three they round up Tim Willits of id software, Rich "Zdim" Carlson of Rogue Entertainment, and Dave Georgeson of Dynamix to discuss art of the genre, addressing whether there are inherent limitations to game design when it comes to creating an FPS, and whether those limits have been reached.

Creative 3D Blaster GeForce 2 Ultra 64MB is reviewed on Hardware One.

11-3-0

A new beta release of the Tread 3D editor is now available. This new version is a beta release, and adds basic support for Quake III Arena in addition to other changes.

A patch for the Science & Industry mod for Half-Life has been released, that fixes problems with the recently released Half-Life version 1.1.0.4. The patch isn't completely necessary, but those that don't get it will experience graphical glitches. It's available as a single patch for both clients and server admins.

Crimson Skies is reviewed on Neoseeker and PC Arena.

11-2-0

Q3Offline, a front-end configuration program for Quake III Arena has been released. This new version includes the first beta release of Q3Stats, a log analysis program, and the two programs work together to allow you to replay your last online match in single player (it even allows you to play only on the maps in which you were losing).

A Q&A with Rogue artist John Turner is up at Stomped this morning. It's a particularly short Q&A, but Jim says what tools he uses to create the 3D models for American McGee's Alice, what his favorite weapon in the game is and how many characters the team has created

There are some new MechWarrior 4 screenshots on the Microsoft website with a choice of viewing small or large shots.

11-1-0

Today is the 20th anniversary of the release of Zork (eeeek!) and the 19th anniversary of the release of Zork II: The Wizard of Frobozz, as well as the 9th anniversary of the release of SoftDisk's Catacombs 3-D, a predecessor to Wolfenstein 3-D that many consider the original first-person shooter.

The Arena has been posted, an illustrated Quake III Arena-inspired novella by Rowan 'Sumaleth' Crawford that was the winning entry in the contest Anna Kang ran a while back to give away her custom-made Doom chess set.

The Cyberathlete Professional League Europe has announced their first event, to be held December 8-10, 2000 in Event Center Rheinauhafen in Cologne, Germany. Word is there will be room for 600 competitors and there are plans for both one-on-one Quake III Arena and team Counter-Strike tournaments.

Winamp version 2.666 has been released. This latest version has a new MP3 input plugin and other new features.

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