Many of you will hope that this is an April fool's joke but I'd rather believe it is not. Raven Software's Rick Johnson who was the senior programmer on the original SoF posted a comment in the Raven Software forums: We decided to remove the bots, as they weren't performing up to the level that we wanted. Sad news but hey - SoF2 will rock anyway. If you want to check out the forum for yourself hit read more for the link.

Just got word from Haddad that they have posted a new tweak guide for Command & Conquer: Renegade. Here's a quote from their guide:

Command & Conquer: Renegade represents Westwood's first foray into setting a FPS game in the C&C universe on the PC & has been met with a mixed enough response. 3D Spotlight's new tweak guide will take you through setting up the game, along with other informational tips regarding graphics, audio and controls.

According the Creative Labs NewsGroup it is possible to enable 3DSound and EAX by utilizing OpenAL. OpenAL is a joint effort to create an open, vendor-neutral, cross-platform API for interactive, primarily spatialized audio and supported by Creative Labs. Therefore it is likely that this will only work on Audigy/Live! (added: as OpenAL is not supported by other hardware vendors so far) cards...

When patching RTCW from 1.3 to 1.3.1 the mp_ice map desappears. id have made some changes and when you patch the game it does not load the map anymore.

Ubisoft has released the second patch for their tactical first person shooter Ghost Recon. The really long list of updates can be found here. Please note that this patch is language specific so check back with your local Ghost Recon website. The patch itself can be downloaded here or here.

Electronic Gaming Monthly is reporting in their latest print issue that Doom3 might be released for Xbox first followed by a later release for the PC and that Microsoft is trying to get exclusive Xbox rights for Quake 4. Read more...

A new patch is released for MoHAA. It contains allot of bug fixes and stuff. Click on Read More... to see the changes and a direct download link.

GoneGold and several other gaming sites report that Microsoft and Gas Powered Games announced the gold status of Dungeon Siege. Dungeon Siege is an action fantasy role-playing game featuring an immersive fully 3-D environment. The game plunges players into a continuous 3-D fantasy world on a quest to stop a mysterious evil that has been unleashed. Dungeon Siege is expected to hit North American store shelves by April 5. Dungeon Siege will be available for an estimated retail price of $49.99.

Just got word from Haddad@3dspotlight.com that they have now posted up their Medal of Honor: Allied Assault tweak guide. Here's what he's saying.

Medal of Honor: Allied Assault is a well received World War II first person shooter game. If you have played the game before then you know its beautiful graphics can bring even the fastest systems to crawl at some point, specially during some of its rather large scale battles. 3D Spotlight's guide will take you through configuring the multitude of options available for the game and other useful information, such as getting 3D audio support in the Game.

Just got word from Nvmax.com that 3Dwin have got there hands on NVchess beta. A completely 3d rendered game of chess from Nvidia.

A new version 2.00 of the Seismovision Demo Player has been relased.

Seismovision is a versatile demo player for Quake 1, Quake 2, Quake 3 Arena, Half-Life, Unreal Tournament, Star Trek Voyager Elite Force and Return to Castle Wolfenstein. The AVA (Auto-Version Adaptation) ?technology? makes Seismovision the best demo player for Quake 3 Arena, Half-Life (Counter-Strike) Star Trek Voyager Elite Force and Return to Castle Wolfenstein players and its ?Demodiversity? makes it a must for every professional gamer.

Activision and Grey Matter have released a new patch for their FPS game.
Changes include an auto-updater, PunkBuster support, a new Ice multiplayer map and a mod button. Read more for download links and additional multiplayer as well as single player fixes...

The demonstration is to include a first look at Unreal Tournament 2 along with the latest tools and technologies: Raleigh, NC, March 13, 2002 ?Epic Games, a leading game and technology developer, will demonstrate the latest build of its renowned Unreal Engine technology. Epic plans to do extensive demonstrations of its technology and tools in their private ExpoSuite at the upcoming Game Developers Conference (GDC - www.gdconf.com), in San Jose, March 21-23. Included in these demos will be sneak-peaks at two of this year?s most anticipated games: Unreal 2 and Unreal Tournament 2.

t-break has published the first part of it's WarCraft III beta preview. Here's a bit from it: The WC3 beta is currently underway on Battle.net and is designed to put the multiplayer aspect of the game through its paces. Features that are not available in the beta are: Single-player campaigns, LAN games, cinematic, A.I. opponents and the map editor. However, you do get to play around with all the four races that will appear in the final game. You can also set up Custom matches or dive into anonymous matchmaking section of Battle.net. It?s not all fun and games though and to give you an idea of commitment that Blizzard is putting into the Beta program? It?s been roughly a little over a month since the beta began and Blizzard has already issued three patches so far that have significantly changed the gameplay aspects within WC3. These changes are based on feedback from the various beta testers.

LucasArts Entertainment Company LLC is pleased to announce that Star Wars Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast has Gone Gold and is approved for manufacturing. Expect it at fine retailers everywhere March 29 (US)! Jedi Outcast uses the Q3A engine and is developed by Raven Software. Source: LucasArts

Here are some freeware games emulators.

1) Visual Boy Advance v0.9 is a Game Boy Advance and Game Boy emulator that runs with Windows system. This is the DirectX version of Visual Boy Advance.

2) Visual Boy Advance v0.9 (SDL) is a Game Boy Advance and Game Boy emulator that runs with Windows system. This the SDL version. SDL stands for Simple DirectMedia Layer. It is a cross platform library for graphics, input, audio, threading, etc... that can be used for games, emulators, etc. To some people, the SDL version on Windows may be faster than the DirectX version.

3) ePSXe v1.5.1 is a new freeware PSX emulator that takes advantage of the PSEmu Pro plugin system. Nowadays it supports some comercial games, featuring sound, mdec, memory cards, and enhanced playstation graphics thanks to include support for the psemupro plugins. Right now, it is the best freeware Playstation emulator out there.

I spoke to Alen Ladavac of croatian game developer Croteam about the patch status for SS:TSE. A quick fix for Voodoo2/3 loading problems was released last week. Read more...

London, March 13, 2002 In celebration of the full launch of BTopenworld?s Games Domain online games subscription service, Games Domain are throwing down the gauntlet to computer gamers across country to test their skills in the UK?s biggest ever games tournament - the ?Games Domain Online Championships 2002?.

The championships are set to become the centrepiece of the UK online games calendar, with gamers competing against each other in three popular categories; football (Fifa 2002 published by Electronic Arts), first person shooters (?Return to Castle Wolfenstein? published by Activision and ?Counter-Strike? published by Vivendi Universal) and chess (Games Domain?s speed chess) for a total prize pot of over £20,000.

Bluesnews.com are repoting that Bohemia Interactive have released a new single-player demo of Operation Flashpoint: Cold War Crisis which is a 60.4 MB download. This version 1.42 release offers the same Ambush mission as before, but also brings the demo up to speed with (nearly) the latest game code and includes a new mission called Skirmish.

3DActionPlanet has a special report for all peeps out there today. They received U2 alpha build 1043. According to them AI is now working and from what you read this will be an excellent experience: The AI subroutines for different species can be clearly seen in the game, and I?m 100% sure that any arachnophobes playing this game will be crawling up the walls in sheer fright when they come up against the Araknids during the game. The Araknids attack in swarms, with the smallest being able to be dispatched with little stress, while the bigger ones will act and think more intelligently than you could possibly fathom in a computer game. Read more...