Alaa and his friends at Linux-Egypt put a lot of thought into answering your questions. Alaa wrote, "we felt there was much misinformation or lack of information about egypt while reading the comments so I kinda used each question to inject some extra info," which makes this Q&A worth reading for insight into Egyptian society even if you have no particular interest in Linux. Thanks, Alaa and Linux-Egypt.

Thanks to Yahoo for reprinting an Electronic Arts press release officially announcing the first-person shooter GoldenEye: Rogue Agent for PS2/Xbox/GameCube, a title "being developed by EA's Los Angeles studio" (and clearly hoping to trade off the immense popularity or Rare's original GoldenEye FPS for Nintendo 64), with the new game featuring a plot that allegedly "breaks all the rules by transporting players to the dark side of the Bond universe to experience life as a high-rolling, cold-hearted villain." With screenshots not yet forthcoming, Eurogamer drills a little deeper into the previously rumored game's name, explaining: "The idea apparently is that Goldfinger is locked in a war with Dr. No for control of a massive criminal organisation... so then, you might be wondering, why is it called GoldenEye? Because, it says here, your nameless henchman lost an eye in an encounter with Dr. No, and Goldfinger's technicians replaced it with... a... golden... eye... Nice one, EA." Update: 05/05 23:38 GMT by S : GameSpot has a few more details on the title, which they note "revolves around run-and-gun action."

Thanks to IGN Xbox for its hands on preview of the E3 demo for the Xbox version of Doom 3, Vicarious Visions' conversion of id's long-awaited FPS title. They comment: "The atmosphere is dark, the pacing of the demo somewhat slow, and every aspect more fitting of a survival horror game than a run and gun shooter", but praise the results: "That's not a bad thing at all, in fact, it makes for a more intriguing title... The hard part for fans is going to be looking past expectations of what a DOOM game should be and embracing what DOOM 3 is." Elsewhere, GameSpot has a preview confirming that the PC version will not be shown at E3, since id "is locked in 'completion phase' at the company's Mesquite, Texas, offices", and both previews also reference the previously revealed, not yet playable Xbox-exclusive co-operative mode.

michaelsimms writes "LGP has announced that [ultraviolent FPS] Postal 2: Share the Pain is coming to Linux this summer. Featuring Gary Coleman, Postal 2 is just like Postal Plus, but fully 3D, and with many more ways to get Postal Dude covered in blood and gore! Applications for Beta Testers are now open." The official Running With Scissors press release is delightful, claiming the company "has reached deep into their hairy chest and clutched their cold, cold heart to take pity on the bastard stepchildren of the gaming world", before noting: "'My development guys wanted to finish animating Quentin Tarantino's sequel to The Passion first,' said former altar boy and RWS CEO Vince Desi, 'but when I told 'em this project was for the Linux community, they left Uma up there swingin' in the breeze and grabbed hammer and nails and got right to work.'"

Thanks to GameSpy for its interview with Electronic Arts exec Scott Evans regarding the official announcement of a PC sequel to the popular team-based FPS, Battlefield 1942, hot on the heels of the recent news of a separate PlayStation 2-based follow-up, Battlefield: Modern Combat. This title is "bringing modern-day warfare to the series as well as a completely new engine", and Evans notes: "Each side will bring military hardware to the battle appropriate to their nationality. For example, the Chinese forces have a really cool mix of Soviet and homebrew technology that much of the world knows nothing about." He ends by addressing bias concerns: "It's important to remember that Battlefield is politically neutral... It's not just a game about the U.S. versus a Middle Eastern coalition."

Thanks to GamerDad for its editorial discussing why it's sometimes impossible to play multiplayer FPS titles as the developers intended it. The author argues: "I certainly don't think that every mod I've ever run across is better than the core game that ships in the box but yet there's often no one running the boxed game", before noting that most game publishers "...do not run their own servers for these games so you can't count on them supporting the boxed game either. There are exceptions to this rule but for the most part when it comes to PC games, you're at the whims of the many fan owned and operated servers... [which may] limit the maps to a select few in a deathmatch game or change the settings of the game to make it play very differently from what you expect."

An anonymous reader writes "Over at Buzzcut.com they're hosting a number of cartoons and running a news story about UK English professor Barry Atkins, who also happens to be a videogame-related cartoonist. Highlights of the wry single-panel strips include FPS weapon commentary, licensing worries, and shooter strategy issues."

lidocaineus asks: "I work at a small company with about 30 workstations. Two of us run Linux and three use Mac OS X, so on one of the servers, we installed Teg (both the server daemon and client). It works well since as a turn based game, the five of us are not beholden to it every second of the day, and can turn to it when we have a few free moments (and group chat all in one place other than through Jabber). Recently, some of the Windows folks have become interested in joining. Other than by using cygwin (these are serious computer-challenged types), are there any cross platform turn-based type game clients that work on Windows, preferably using the Linux server as a, well, server? Obviously we're not looking for a quake fest."

Cariad Ilmara writes "For those of you old-timers who spent days & nights trying to get your code fit into 64Kb, here's the first beta of .the .produkkt's next FPS: .kkrieger. Moderately beautiful, what's impressive is it can fit inside the UT2004 readme. The demo is 96Kb zipped. All textures are procedural and generated at startup. Screenshots available here, here, here, here, and here. You still need a relatively recent computer (~1.4Ghz, 512MB RAM) and a DirectX8 GPU (Windows required)."

Thanks to Eurogamer for its coverage of a THQ-sponsored press trip to Russia to preview GSC's forthclming PC first-person shooter. Since the game is "based on the premise that you've gone to explore the 20km 'exclusion zone' of Chernobyl", this has led to some odd preview publicity, as the writer notes: "When they invited us on a cheery tour to go and see Chernobyl for fun, we knew something had gone awry in our lives. Stranger still, during the press conference to promote the much anticipated mutate 'em up S.T.A.L.K.E.R, they wheeled one of the men responsible for the tragedy. I didn't know whether to laugh or throw things." There's also an interview with one of the developers on Eurogamer regarding this September-bound title, but it's concluded that S.T.A.L.K.E.R, with its impressive visuals, is "...shaping up to be one of the scariest, most original takes on the increasingly tired FPS genre."

Thanks to UnrealTournament.com for its announcement of the finalists for the "FPS Mods" section of the $1,000,000 Make Something Unreal competition. These include popular mods such as "World War II multiplayer experience" Red Orchestra, as well as more unique adaptions such as "first-person survival horror total conversion" Infection. Elsewhere, the Unreal Expo LAN party has just been announced, "officially endorsed by Epic Games", and to be held July 9th, 10th and 11th 2004 in Columbus, Ohio.

An anonymous reader writes "Has your boss pissed you off and left his Samba share open to the world? Looking for something different in a file manager? Brutal File Manager may be for you. I found its Freshmeat page while I was looking for a new filemanager. I thought maybe the Slashdot crowd could appreciate it. So far only the delete function works." That's the only one you need anyway.

Thanks to The Daily Star for its story discussing the creation of Bangladesh's first domestically-created 3D videogame, based on their 1971 War of Independence, in which "you are a freedom fighter and your mission is to liberate your motherland by fighting the Pakistani occupation." The locally important game setting is explained: "The game works with the unique objective of the gamer as a student, farmer or an adolescent freedom fighter who either has to capture a flag from a Pakistani camp or dominate a Pakistani-occupied area in an environment digitally created in close resemblance with three historically-true battlefield -- Akhaura, Chittagong and Rajshahi." The title is hailed as "the first 'First person shooting game' made in Bangladesh", and the game CD also has educational elements, since it "will also feature historical background to the battlefields in 1971, essays, photographs and a chronological account of the War of Liberation."

Thanks to Computer Graphics Magazine for its feature on the graphical technology being used in Valve's eternally-awaited FPS Half-Life 2. Among the specifics discussed are innovative paths to graphical variety ("Using the same morph targets sculpted for facial animation, the system automatically alters the facial geometry to create, for example, a flatter or broader nose, or a squarer jaw. As a result, all the scientists, soldiers, and other homogeneous characters appear as unique, differentiated models"), and potential game mod options ("To firmly entrench itself in the future of game development, Softimage will package XSI EXP, a lite version of XSI, with every PC copy of Half-Life 2 [and make it available on the Softimage site this week].") Elsewhere, a Maxitmag interview with Valve's Gabe Newell has him musing: "Last time I checked, we were about $40 million into the project. Yikes, that's a scary number."

macshune writes "Lately, I've been wanting to try my hand at firearms, just to see if a youth spent playing Duck Hunt and an adolescence playing FPS games has given me a preternatural shooting ability. This got me thinking, do videogame skills, both reaction-based and of other kinds, transfer to real life? My friends that play D&D are good storytellers, but do games like Counter-Strike build teamwork skills? Inquiring minds want to know!"

Thanks to GameSpot for its 'TenSpot' feature selecting picks for the top ten first-person shooter (FPS) games of all-time. The article argues: "So what makes a first-person shooter good? Is it a cohesive story and a well-designed campaign? A creative multiplayer mode? How about a devastating arsenal of weapons? Or fiendishly clever AI enemies? The games in this list exhibit one or more of these qualities and have all affected the way shooters are made in a tangible and lasting way." It goes on to identify top titles such as Duke Nukem 3D ("...good-natured attitude... great level design, and solid engine"), Battlefield 1942 ("...an excellent game made better by retail expansion packs"), and, naturally, Doom ("one of the true classics of computer gaming.")

Thanks to the San Jose Mercury News for its story discussing the ever-present problem of cheating in online games. One of the issues discussed is cheating on Xbox Live using Action Replay-like devices, with a Microsoft spokesperson suggesting: "We didn't go into this with the idea that no one's ever going to be able to exploit this... But we absolutely take this stuff seriously and are taking action on it every day." However, noted FPS player Dennis 'Thresh' Fong laments an unfortunate side effect for the dextrous: "Because there is this perception that everybody cheats, people that are good are not recognized for their skills. When I play online, I'm always accused of being a cheater."

Thanks to GotFrag for its article discussing whether players from different countries are good at different aspects of online FPS Counter-Strike. The writer tries to claim: "Some countries, most of which are the leading ones in Counter-Strike, have certain specialities. This often means that the players in this country will have a 'special touch' in this area." Among the supposed conclusions are that Americans excel at "shooting [and] logistics", whereas Germans are best at "thinking [and] teamwork", and the French come off best when using "reflexes". How seriously can we take such broad conclusions?

majestik writes "Valve Software today sent out a Half-Life 2 hardware survey via their Steam content delivery app to over 270,000 gamers (and counting!), collecting various hardware and software information about their PC systems to see how they'll measure up to the forthcoming FPS. Lotsa interesting data to check out, if you ever wanted to know what kind of systems today's FPS gamers use. And yes, if you're wondering, right now Intel takes 50.02% of the CPU market, leaving AMD with 49.98%." The stats are updated in real-time, and it seems this update has again stressed the Steam servers, with a message noting "the Steam network has been overloaded, causing many Steam users to be unable to login", though the effect is reportedly diminishing.

Griffon4 writes "Nvidia announced today that they have been branded the recommended graphics card for id's forthcoming PC FPS Doom 3. Now I'm wondering: Recall a little over a year ago that Carmack said the Nvidia card at the time was just a slight bit more worthy than the ATI? Jump forward to today - are we getting a real recommendation based on id's own experience or just seeing the end result of a financial deal that benefits both?" Other possible factors (apart from NVidia simply being the better graphics card for Doom 3) include the alleged origination of some Doom 3 Alpha version leaks, unlikely to endear ATI to id, and, of course, ATI already having a major bundle deal in place with a certain other FPS.