The promised playable demo for Halo: Combat Evolved is now available, offering the opportunity to try out the recent sci-fi 3D action game by Gearbox Software and Bungie Studios. The demo contains the single-player mission "The Silent Cartographer", the "Blood Gulch" multiplayer map with various vehicles (including the new Rocket Warthog and the Banshee), as well as support for up to 16 players in Slayer and CTF multiplayer modes.

The Mod Development Toolkit v.9a is ready for open beta testing. The MDT introduces tools and guides for both the beginning and advanced Battlefield 1942 modder. The MDT is designed to help you make a mod that works with Battlefield 1942.

My good mate Zardon sends word that he's got Team AMD hanging out at Driver Heaven! and don't forget, if you're not a member it takes less that 2 minutes to sign up! so go kick some AMD butt!

Phillip Stein from AMD has recently informed me of a special invite to all of our DH members here. For a week starting today all DH members have a chance to play Team AMD on the official Americas Army Server that AMD has! Here is the E-mail from Phillip with all the details:

Viele Actionspiel-Fans, die befürchteten, dass Take 2 zu Gunsten einer niedrigeren USK-Einstufung eine geschnittene Version des Shooters Max Payne 2 auf den deutschen Markt bringt, können aufatmen: Wie Take 2 auf Nachfrage von Golem.de bestätigte, erscheint Max Payne hier zu Lande in der unzensierten Vollversion.

While much has been made about the leak and its ramifications and consequences, few people have commented on the OTHER incredible stuff that was found on Valve's network. And it's up to a serious, responsible journalist like myself -- with a history in this humor column of deep investigative journalism -- to get to the bottom of this and bring this information to the public. So, forget what you've heard about the stolen Half-Life 2 source code. Take a look at THESE at PlanetFargo:

A pair of new movies for Prince of Persia: the Sands of Time is now available, showing more from the third-person acrobatic action adventure that is nearing completion at Ubi Soft. The first clip demonstrates some of the traps the prince has to traverse, while the second highlights some combat combos, together offering a bit over a minute of gameplay footage.

Silicon Ice Development has released a new version of Urban Terror, bringing this Mod for Quake 3 Arena to v3.1. This release fixes several textures, map issues, bugs, and more.

A new patch for Star Trek Elite Force II is now available, upgrading the sci-fi first-person shooter sequel by Ritual Entertainment to version 1.10. This release applies a handful of general and a large number of multiplayer improvements, fixes, and other changes as detailed in the Readme, and also includes four new fan-created multiplayer maps.

In a surprise move, Gathering has released the FULL VERSION of Hidden & Dangerous Deluxe as a FREE download to precede the release of Hidden & Dangerous 2.. The hefty download contains the original game with all patches, the Devil's Bridge expansion pack, and the in-game editor.

3dgamers reports that a new patch for Star Trek Elite Force II is now available, upgrading the sci-fi first-person shooter sequel by Ritual Entertainment to version 1.10. This release applies a handful of general and a large number of multiplayer improvements, fixes, and other changes as detailed in the Readme, and also includes four new fan-created multiplayer maps.

Recently Bioware's James Ohlen (Lead Designer), and Casey Hudson (Producer/Project Director) sat down with PC Gameworld to discuss KotOR PC. Have a look at what they had to say about the game. According to the interview PC innovations will include an overhauled user interface, different texture packs, scaleable graphic resolutions and extra skins for NPC's. KotOR PC is scheduled for a fall release (28th of November).

A new version 1.02 of Halo: Combat Evolved is now available. The update to Gearbox's port of Bungie's shooter is available as a 3.9 MB patch, mirrored on 3D Gamers and Worthplaying. The Halo Update v1.02 adds support for multiple instances to the Bungie dedicated server, enabling them and the community to roll out many more servers for gamers. Also introduced are client support for RCon (Remote Console), allowing dedicated server operators to have control over their servers running in data centers as well as minor bug fixes.

S2 Games has released the promised demo for Savage: the Battle for Newerth, allowing you to try out their recent 3D online action strategy game. The demo is available for Windows and Linux, and contains the maps Eden and Crossroads, playable as the human race.

The theft of part of its source code has delayed until April 2004 the launch of Half Life II, the hotly anticipated alien-hunting game of Vivendi Universal Games. "A third of the source code was stolen. It's serious because it forces us to delay the launch of the game by at least four months, that is to April 2004. Just the time to rewrite parts of the game." GamersHell has more...

Planet Half life.com reports that there were a ton of rumors the past couple days about the existence of a leaked, playable Half-Life 2 beta, but thankfully those stories have been confirmed to be completely false.

Gabe Newell may or may not be on Half-Life Radio tonight, but they say they'll be heading to Valve today to, "talk with Gabe Newell in person to help clear up all the gossip and speculations.

Gamers Hell reports that Rockstar Games announced today that Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne for PC has officially gone gold and is currently in manufacturing. Developed by Remedy Entertainment, the sequel to the original film-noir action thriller, Max Payne, will be in stores in North America on October 15, 2003 and in Europe on October 24, 2003. PS2 and Xbox versions will be in stores on December 3, 2003.

Here's a few of the latest games Trailers! doing the rounds on the web.

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A Steam update will be released tonight at about 7:00 PDT. The update will take effect automatically when you exit and restart Steam. About 5 minutes before the update goes out, we'll send a message to everyone via Friends. Here's what's new:

Planet HalfLife reports that will the Half-Life 2 benchmark program be released today? The answer is? we're not sure. We'll let you know as soon as we hear something, if we hear something.

The ATIHL2 Alcatraz event is happening today, and GameSpy will have coverage of that later. I was going to attend myself, but new footage of HL2 isn't expected and I'd probably end up getting murdered by Ed Harris. Besides, last time I was in a prison? uhh?

3DGamers reports that the first patch for Halo: Combat Evolved is now available, bringing the newly released 3D action game by Gearbox Software and Bungie Software to version 1.01. Using the auto-updater is recommended but a manual download is available as well; there are however no details on the changes in this release.