But a whole lot of questions remain unanswered: What is the fate of Imagine's Daily Radar sites overseas (DR UK seems to remain unchanged at the moment) and the Future Network? (some affiliates have already been given walking papers). Will we see the restoration of some of Imagine's old properties (PC Gamer Online, Next-Generation Online) and will any of this affect any of Imagine's print publications. We honestly don't know.. and Imagine isn't talking. We'll try to get you more details on this story throughout the week. In the meantime, you can still enjoy Daily Radar's content by following this link.

- New sounds
- New German 98k (bayonet)
- Fixed Grenades left behind on team changes
- Fix Score board
- Shooting team mates when FF is off dont slow u down
- Fix Jerky Round Freezes
- Fix Spawn System
- New Client Side Effects
- Lag problems
- Fixed Team only doors

-------------------
New Server Settings
-------------------
Turn onoff Death msgs (top right) when people kill others
+ mp_deathmsg 1

“Make sure you don't cut a bigger hole or all is lost. Be very careful that the copper plate is not thicker than the base of the heatsink, in this case you will only succeed to damage you heatsink. Again, the copper plate and therefore the hole must be one or two mm thinner than the base of the heatsink.”

"Strategy First is thrilled to be bringing this terrific title to market," says Steve Wall, V.P., Business Development. "We felt it was a shame that the majority of consumers couldn't get their hands on this excellent game, so we did something about it!"

"eSim Games is very happy with the partnership, " says Al Delaney, owner of eSim Games. “We’ve known Strategy First for quite some time, and I think this is a good fit. We’re also excited about making Steel Beasts more easily accessible, and more widely known.”

Steel Beasts is a detailed PC-based simulator of modern mechanized warfare, centered around two of the world’s most awesome main battle tanks: the US’s M1A1 Abrams, and Germany’s Leopard 2A4. Players can experience all the sights and sounds of modern armored combat from the gunner’s or tank commander’s position, as well as the challenges of tactical planning and decision making from a powerful map view. In addition, multiplayer support allows any mission to be played over a network with any cooperative or competitive style of play, including multiple players in a single tank.

Steel Beasts was awarded "Best PC Simulation of 2000" by PC Gamer Magazine, Computer Games Magazine, SimHQ.com, GamePen and Wargamer. It has also received multiple Editor's Choice awards, and is in use at the US Military Academy (West Point) to help train future armor officers. Steel Beasts is a must-buy for any tank sim fan!

Odd/Interesting links:

• mIRC 5.9 has been released. Can enable transparency in Win2K
  
• Stress ups risk of catching common
  cold
  
• Man sues Microsoft, leaves $90 richer
  
• Holy mother of all library fines
  
• I don't feel so bad about my 110mph speeding ticket any more
  
• For when you just can't wait to get home
  
• Could music industry go after musical cell phone rings now? - I have not the words
  
• Lead in Mexican lollipops - beware when you see those kids yelling "chiclet! chiclet!" and lollipops may spread meningitis - bad day for lollipops
  
• Females fool males into sticking around by offering s3x
  
• Praise from the boss better than s3x? - I have to disagree there
  
• U.S. crew unable to destroy all secrets on spy plane - big d'oh!
  
• Supreme court says high school counselors liable for bad advice
  
• Robot arm handshake postponed a second day - I guess it's right hand robot arm
  
• New face of email - users can have text of email read aloud by a virtual person. cool!
  
• Americans says too much sex on TV pfft, they should see Euro TV.
  
• And you thought your gas bills were bad
  
• Toxic mucus killing the world? mmmkay
  
• Americans still woefully ignorant of science - we suck or something
  
• Webby award nominees announced - hmm I've only heard of Gamasutra on the gaming site list. d'oh
  
• Police nab father, son for doormat spree - bizarre
  
• Girl killed by Grandfather's Crocodiles :(
  
• Keep those cocks in shape

The main focus of the game is of course teamplay, but you needn’t scour the neighbourhood for 15 willing friends before handing over your cash – over the past week I’ve seen people band together on public servers, creating elaborate networks of motion sensors and defensive turrets around the flag in CTF to weed out stealthy intruders, and incredible battleship offensives streaking across the skies and laying waste to enemy generators and defence systems thanks to well-trained bombardiers.

Set in a fantasy version of medieval Japan filled with sorcerors and samurai, Throne of Darkness tasks you with toppling an evil warlord whose minions are attacking your master's castle. The rooms are filled with debris and corpses, and your first duty is to battle your way out into the courtyard and defeat the leader of the raid, gathering any other surviving samurai as you go.

CSports.net Open Up The Official CPL Quake 3 Rankings for Viewing

Over the past two months CSports.net have been working with The Cyberathlete Professional League to produce the Official CPL Rankings. Csports.net have just opened up their preliminary version of the Quake 3 Individual ranks for viewing. Go to http://www.csports.net/cplrankings.asp to see the official Quake 3 Rankings.

When viewing the rankings please bear in mind the health warning.

“The Official CPL Rankings do precisely what they say on the tin. They rank the players who participate in CPL main events according to their performance in those events. The three principles that we have tried to follow are:

The system does not attempt to rank players according to their absolute ability in the world

The system ranks players in the world according to their placing in official CPL events

Simplicity and transparency”

Maximum Charisma Studios Selecting Gamers To Test Online RPS Title Fighting Legends

ARVADA, CO – April 24, 2001 – Maximum Charisma Studios is in the process of selecting the 1,000 testers needed for the June Phase One testing of Fighting Legends. Testers will be chosen for this round based on system specs. July starts Phase Two testing and will increase to 5,000 testers. Final Phase begins in August with up to 25,000 testers. The game is currently in Alpha and scheduled for release in November of this year. Gamers interested in participating in the beta test can sign up at www.mcszone.com.

Fighting Legends is a role-play strategy title with action elements. The unique look of anime style characters is set amidst a myriad of colors and bazaar landscapes. Choosing from 81 potential avatars, players strive to diversify their squad of 16 characters. Among a community of thousands of other gamers, players will form alliances and guilds to help support their squad diversification and overall strategy. In addition to fighting, there is an assortment of quests to choose from, ranging from mini quest scenarios to multi-player uber quests. GM hosted events will be a prominent element with rewards such as; relics, in-game monuments, cash prizes, tournaments and more.

Among perhaps the most unusual of online worlds is A Tale in the Desert, an Egyptian-themed game that lacks the element of combat. Our curiosity aroused, we contacted President Andrew L. "Teppy" Tepper and Chief Technology Officer Joshua Yelon of developer eGenesis for this extensive A Tale in the Desert Interview, which includes four great new screenshots.

CHANGES TO THE TOURNAMENT
We have been reviewing everybody’s comments and measured the opinions of the gaming world. Consequently we have changed the 4 qualification groups to:
- Western US
- Eastern US
- Northern Europe
- Southern Europe

Do not be too keen about these groups, just sign up to the region nearest to you. The NWL gaming engine will always match you with someone near you. So if you live in Australia, don’t panic! You only have to ensure that your "ping-neighbours" are signed up too. Those who already signed up do NOT need to sign up again, since their signups have been reassigned to the new regions.

"Following the success of Sudden Strike, we are looking forward to launching Cossacks and further quenching the thirst of our RTS fans," says Keith Rieger, President of CDV Software Entertainment USA Inc. "with up to 8,000 units, 80 unit variations, and 16 nations… Cossacks significantly raises the bar in RTS gaming!"

About Cossacks: European Wars

Cossacks: European Wars, a real-time strategy game based on historical events of XVI to XVIII Century Europe, depicts more than 85 large-scale wars and battles; most notably, the Thirty Year War, the English Revolution, the Spanish Succession, and the Seven Year War.

Players are able to orchestrate grand battles between sixteen nations, with up to 8,000 units and over 80 different unit types. Each nation possesses military forces in the infantry, cavalry, artillery and navy, with their own unique economic, technical and military advantages and drawbacks. Thus, providing a vast choice of tactics and strategy in a realistic war against the enemy.

Wars take place upon a 3D landscape where players must take advantage of the entire environment -by commanding heights, hiding behind obstacles and capturing enemy installations - all in an effort to claim victory against the enemy. Single player campaigns recreate historical scenarios in which players must fulfill objectives from territory exploration to army formation, sometimes with limited forces. Multiplayer action over LAN and Internet allows for up to 8 players to challenge each other in Random Map and Historical Battle modes.

"Quake III: Team Arena is one of the newest additions from id Software and to the Quake series. While the previous games focused more on deathmatch, gamers have wanted more but is this new add-on for Quake III worth the time or is it just a quick creation to get some extra cash while we wait for Doom III? Check out 3D GameForce's review and find out what you'll find in it!"

"We have all heard about the hilarious giant creatures and the way that you can train their revolutionary AI to aid you in the game, how they will dance to your music and design their own websites, complete with snapshots of their friends, not to mention the ability to receive e-mail, ICQ and SMS messages within the game itself. Unfortunately the first of these features falls far short of expectations, and the rest of them either don't work properly or were cut from the game entirely in a desperate last ditch attempt to actually release the damn thing after months in development limbo. But even without many of the crazy features that Peter Molyneux and friends apparently had planned for us, Black & White still comes across as a lot of neat ideas which don't quite add up to a game."

"It was 1971 Vietnam, I was knee deep in rice patties and the enemy was closing in on my position. I had become separated from my Recon squad without a map or directions and running low on ammo. I could here charlie coming closer and closer towards me so I had to act quickly. I whipped out my trusty laptop, hooked up my Earthmate Hyperformance GPS receiver and fired up Delorme StreetAtlas. In the time it would take you to empty a 20 round clip with full auto I had locked on to 4 satelites and plotted an escape route that took me back to the base. That was one of the most scariest moments in my life, but I have my Earthmate GPS unit to thank for saving my butt. It is only fitting that I pay tribute to the small device by writing up a review."

Two Mobile-Celeron laptops that are selling in great quantities, the Celeron 500 based FIC A430 and the Toshiba Satellite Pro 4270/ 4310.

The Toshiba employs a Logitech Trackpoint device (nipple), from my previous experiences, once the user gets used to it, is very easy to use and provides with a comfortable position. However it is very hard to use the first few times, and I found myself loosing the cursor quite a few times. The inclusion of scroll buttons however is a great bonus, and they come-in very useful for web browsing, especially considering the 800x600 resolution.

On the FIC we have the standard “Alps Glidepoint” touchpad, which can be used straight away, and has near perfect sensitivity. It didn’t feel quite as good as those on the high end machines you see in the likes of Dixon´s, it doesn’t have any scroll capability and you cannot tap it to click or double click, it is still good enough for light operation though.

“I run programs which require a lot of CPU time and after six months of KT7 experience I can tell much more about its stability than I said in my review last year. I work under Windows 2000 and Linux, no Windows ME or 98 and under both operating systems the board was very stable considering the overclocking conditions.”

Taco Bell Announced as First Co-Marketing Partner for Xbox

REDMOND, Wash. - April 23, 2001 - Microsoft Corp. today announced that Taco Bell Corp., America's leading Mexican-style, quick-service restaurant chain, has signed on as the first promotional partner for the launch of the highly anticipated Microsoft® Xbox™ video game system. The companies plan to combine their powerhouse brands in a promotional campaign to reach their shared target audiences across the United States and Canada. Taco Bell will provide substantial media support that will aggressively publicize Xbox, and the company will host major in-store promotions to support the Xbox launch.

"We are excited about teaming up with Taco Bell to turn up the volume on the Xbox excitement during the system's launch period," said John O'Rourke, vice president of sales and marketing for Xbox. "Our co-marketing relationship is based on our commitment to deliver an entertaining, top-of-the-line promotion to our customers."

The video game console industry is recognized as a hot form of entertainment with a broadening demographic. Taco Bell will build on the anticipation around Xbox to connect to its target audience through fun and entertaining vehicles.

"We're thrilled to team up with Microsoft as a promotional partner for Xbox, one of the most exciting entertainment products of 2001," said Debbie Myers, vice president of media, entertainment and licensing for Taco Bell. "Our energetic brand personality mirrors the edgy Xbox brand, which is already resonating with our customers."

It seems odd to call multiplayer gaming a hot trend in gaming as both the mainstream and game media often tend to do. Multiplayer gaming has been around as long as people have been playing games recreationally. In the earliest days of video games, both kids and adults flocked to booming arcades to test their skills against each other by taking turns at the controller or by playing cooperatively or competitively. As networking became more prevalent in the workplace and home, computer games evolved in step, and multiplayer mode was no longer an added bonus that only a privileged few could enjoy. A few of us might even remember the earliest multiplayer games, MUDs, or multiuser dungeons, where adventuring took place via text commands. The biggest change, of course, came about with the meteoric rise of Internet use. With widespread dial-up and the increasing number of broadband connectivity options, online gaming has become the dominant form of multiplayer gaming, where gamers gather on servers to face off in heated matches, play team games to save the world, or work cooperatively against other teams of players who would annex your territories, weapons, or loot.

Out of the listed choices, which would you like to see more of at GameSurge?

• More 0 second news!
  
• Hardware and Tech
  
• Game Reviews
  
• Editorials
  
• Pro Gaming News
  
• Pictures of the GameSurge staff nude
  
• It's perfect now!

A 3D game engine adds beauty and depth to gameplay that isn't possible in 2D," said Longpre. "While using this engine does pose additional problems, such as visualisation, line-of-sight rules, higher system specs, etc., we felt that the beauty of the Dune universe and the added benefits to gameplay were well worth it.

We have been informed that people are using a message spamming bug in Diablo II that can cause Hardcore characters to die. We are implementing a fix soon, but in the interim, please password protect your Hardcore games to prevent unwanted individuals from entering your game and possibly getting your Hardcore character killed.

The five games are currently slated for a November 2001 release, although those dates are subject to change. It just so happens that November is the current release date for Nintendo's new console.

"Every turn you will face a decision of some kind. Your warriors might complain about the way they are treated, members of your clan will get into trouble, curses must be lifted and spirits appeased, friends and allies will ask for aid, mysterious items and races are discovered, and strangers will come to your court requesting sanctuary. Each problem comes with a wide range of possible solutions, and depending on which course of action you choose the effects on your clan's morale, health, reputation and relations with other settlements can be drastic."

CPL Announces Date Change and C3 for Summer Event

The CPL have received numerous emails requesting that the CPL 4-Year Anniversary Event be delayed by at least one week. The requests have been sent mostly by students in Canada because apparently final examinations take place the same week as the event was originally scheduled. In an attempt to maximize the community's participation in this event, the CPL has moved the event back by one week. The CPL 4-Year Anniversary Event will now be held on Thursday, June 28, 2001 and will end Sunday, July 1, 2001.

The CPL also announced that the main tournament will be a QuakeWorld one-on-one competition, and will have modest cash prizes for the top winners. The CPL has reduced the 4-day admission price of this event to $20, and profits for this event will be donated to a still to be determined, non-religious children's charity. The Hyatt Regency Dallas, has also agreed to reduce their room rate to $90 a night for single or double occupancy. Hotel reservations for this event will open Wednesday at their international toll free number (800) 233-1234.

Most of the activities for this event will be centered around the BYOC (Bring Your Own Computer) area which will accommodate up to 800 computers, twice as large as the SPEAKEASY.net BYOC. Also this event will host C3 (Consummate Computer Competition), which will be primarily sponsored by the makers of the CPL's Official Drink: Bawls. Computer enthusiasts are invited to showcase their computers at Bawls C3, to be judged on two main categories:

1. Best Showpiece - This category is based on pure aesthetics. The winning system will represent the epitome of raw originality and aggressive looks. The workmanship must be precise and elegant but convey a brawny disposition. Computers will be judged by their looks both inside and out.

2. Best Performance Tuning - This category will be judged based on modifications that have helped fine tune the performance of the system. Items considered are air flow, active cooling units and passive cool units. Systems will gain extra points in demonstrating cooling benefits with temperature monitoring equipment.

The three top winners from each category will receive, courtesy of Bawls:

1st place $500 (plus a case of Bawls)
2nd place $300
3rd place $200

The Sanders' suit, filed hours before a two-year statute of limitations expired, claims that if not for violent games and other media images - in particular, a school massacre scene from the movie "The Basketball Diaries" - the rampage by Harris and Klebold wouldn't have happened.

The suit asks for $5 billion in damages, plus damages of $5,000 to $10 million for individual parties in the class action.

"But money may be the smallest part of the goal," said John DeCamp, the Sanders' Nebraska-based attorney. "This is a class action that says that, ultimately, money ain't gonna do it."

The suit contends that the $20-billion-a-year video game industry will not effectively regulate itself, and that court intervention is necessary to keep violent games out of the hands of minors.

King of Dragon Pass is certainly one of the more unusual games that we have come across in recent times, putting you in charge of a clan in the fantasy world of Glorantha, as used by the popular pen-and-paper role-playing game RuneQuest. At heart it is a turn-based strategy game, with screen after screen of mind-numbing stats to wade through as you decide how much of your land to assign for crops and grazing, how many farmers, warriors and craftsmen you want in your village, and which gods to sacrifice to. You can explore distant lands to discover new tribes and treasures, raid or trade with other clans, carry out diplomacy, and choose which advisors to put on your Clan Ring. At first sight it's all a bit overwhelming, although there is a comprehensive manual provided if you need some help.

Black&White (B&W) is simply divine. It's a bit hard for me to come up with a better expression to define Peter Molyneux's first title since he left Electronic Arts and Bullfrog, and founded Lionhead Studios. After games like Populous or Dungeon Keeper, which had Molyneux's genius touch, B&W stands up to be considered the most ambitious project in his career.

This review presents B&W with the score of 91 and has a pretty good cover on the game presenting us with a soft and good read.

Lab Rat, starring Larry the Rat is a game in the same spirit as those found on Windows, such as Solitaire or Minesweeper and contains a feast of features:

- It's an amazing maze game containing 10,000 mazes!
- It's completely free to download and play!
- You can play Lab Rat offline as well as online, by competing against other
Lab Rat users from around the world!
- It's fully customizable, giving users the chance to create their own skins
and sounds for the game. The best skins are linked off Gamesmagnet.com!
- So check Larry out at his own personalized website on Gamesmagnet.com.