The Unreal Tech Page has undergone another update. Tim's work on Unreal D3D makes the gap between Glide (3dfx) and Direct3d ever so much closer, with D3D trailing the Glide version by just a few frames. Tim also mentions an excellent book for people trying to design object-oriented programming languages (or just learn the theoretical background of OOP).

Testing of 226a brought in mixed results: Direct3D performance improved for most testers, but some had crashes and other weirdness.  I'm looking into all of this now; I think most of the problems are driver/hardware related, but I should be able to work around most of them in the code.  We'll definitely go through a couple more internal test versions before releasing 226 though.

Glide Underground interviews Chris Rhinehart (with Human Head) on Rune.

2: What kind of multiplayer features will make Rune unique?

[Chris Rhinehart] Well, first-off, the game is melee-based so the feel of multiplayer will be much different because you have to run up to your opponent and bash them with your sword or axe, rather than popping them from a distance with your sniper rifle. We have some other interesting stuff planned, but it's too early to talk about it.

Wow...in addition to the AvP review, Evil also reviewed a strategy guide...go fig. Oh yeah, and there's an AvP patch now.

aCtivision's (heh) new mech, err Heavy Gear 2 is reviewed over at Game-Over.

Redline review (yea, that's it)

I didn't quite get into Rainbow 6, but those that did would be interested in these Rogue Spear screenshots. (which is spelled r-o-g-u-e...wtf are they doing in gif format? :-)

Anyone that dug the Mechwarrior 3 demo (like myself) should check out the review of the full thing at CGR.

Descent 3 reviews comin' through: e-gamez has one and then CGR has another and then Gaming Age has yet another ... I might pick this one up tomorrow...

Part one of FGN's (written by LlamaOne) SoF preview is now online.

One of the first things that caught my eye was the way that the player's character handles his weapons. For example, when he pulls out a handgun that resembles a Glock, he actually twirls the gun a few times as he pulls it up. When he pulls out the shotgun, he rolls it up his arms and snaps it into place. When the character needs to reload a handgun, he holds it up to the side, discharges the old clip and shoves in a new one in one smooth motion.

Don't forget to check out our very own Shack Hands-on SoF preview as well.

Thresh (whose mailto: links to Calbear) whipped up his own preview of that Unreal engine game, Wheel of Time.

Powered by the Unreal engine, Wheel of Time features some of the most stunning graphics I've seen yet in a first person shooter. At E3, I played a deathmatch in what was supposed to be Shadar Logoth, and it featured some moody, dark scenery combined with snazzy use of reflective surfaces. Combined with all the colored lighting from the spells flying around, it all meshed together in a visually stunning package.

Update: The real new deal is actually the load of screenshots they acquired.

One of the many cool games I saw at E3, Monolith's Sanity has been previewed over at PCParadox...who somehow had their page 2 and 3 links broken. Luckily, I figured it out (ooh, ahh :-)

Sanity has many genres mixed together, it is a very difficult game to fit in one category. You do not get experience points in the game or have character levels. You will have a feeling of character advancement with increased sanity/health and gaining talents throughout the game. You will not be able to create your own talents as the game is released. As mentioned above there will be many ways to collect new talents for play.

SOFNews interviews ole Kenn of Raven about none other than SOF (as the site name would imply). We've seen all the screenshots, but what about the multiplayer?

Kenn: Multiplayer is looking good right now and, because of games like Q3 and UT, it has to look good. I think that the vast number of multiplayer options available in the game will be a big hit. There are several game modes available, tons of skin and weapon options and some really cool levels to run around in. Single player is our main focus for SoF, but we think that the multiplayer aspect should be considered equally as important. (Does that make sense? I think I need another cup of coffee... =) )

And in related news, John Scott updates his .plan with the following bit of info on S3TC:

Got the relevant info from S3 (the power of plan files!) and incorporated S3TC into SoF. This means that all of the textures are resident on the card with no visible loss of image quality - this removes the bottleneck of uploading textures to the card and means the main memory copies of the textures are never accessed and paged out to the VM file, leaving us more memory for other things. Alternatively, you can just use higher res textures

UU corners CliffyB for a few quick Qs about Unreal tournament (which is looking pretty cool, and "really close"). Again they end off with a whack question:

UU: Why do the Star Wars Action Figures suck so much?

Cliff: They've only got like 4 points of articulation, they're tiny, and the painting on most of them except Watto is really poor. Man, I'm so sick of Episode 1 merchandise I'm about to puke!

I thought because them (the toys) sucking is a Star Wars tradition? (Mcfarlane toys rule btw)

3DGaming.net has their latest "quickie" online for you to check out. The impressive looking Indy Jones game is on tap for today.

The CGO guys fire up another preview this morning, taking a look at POP3D which I wish would just come out already, ya dig?

Yeayeah, Quake3 previews blablah...this preview by CGO was meant to go with the Carmack interview that was posted yesterday. Basically nothing new, ... possibly showing us the new tweaked railgun effect? Particles making a comeback?

UPDATE: Doh! Like some of you (and a part of myself) suspected, that was an old screenshot (ya hear that CGO?, old screenshot! :-) Guess we'll have to wait for the next release before we see what the true new effect looks like.

Also at UU, PSX (Playstation?) interviews Mike Werckle about Rune, a game using the Unreal engine from Human Head (!). Wow, he even sneaked in a Britney Spears question:

UU: Do you think Britney Spear's 'twins' fake?

Mike: I have no idea :)

PC Gamer just slapped up 4 new shots of Unreal Tournament. Is it just me, or do those weapons look HUGE compared to the player models!? Secondly, there's a wave of Na Pali, the Unreal EP, reviews coming in. Here's one by UUniverse, and another by Yellow5 at 3dap.

Ryan Feltrin of Xatrix updated the ole .plan file discussing possible issues with the recently shipped Kingpin (I gotta get me on'a these), and an itty bit on the state of the Linux version:

Linux update:

We are chasing down one major crash, otherwise it's looking good. Hoping to have it out the door by the end of the week. See how we go.