Thanks to Warcry for its report revealing what's claimed to be the first corporate sponsorship for a massively multiplayer game guild. The press release explains: "The Syndicate is one of the oldest and largest guilds in online gaming... [and] has become the first guild in online gaming to obtain corporate sponsorship [from a custom PC manufacturer]." Although sponsorship of FPS teams are common, sponsoring a larger gathering of MMO players, currently playing on titles such as Ultima Online and EverQuest, is much less normal - though it's unclear exactly how 'sponsorship' will work with so many members and no FPS-style showcase competitions.

0xBulbizarre writes "The long awaited patch to V2.0 for FPS/RTS hybrid Savage is now here, in both Windows and Linux flavors. It's also worth taking the time to read the amazing 2.0 ChangeLog for a list of all the additions, fixes, etc in the new Savage patch, since they've made new units, new visual effects, and plenty of other changes besides - lets support good Linux game makers." We've previously covered this reasonably well-received 'acquired taste' of a title, and elsewhere, HomeLan Fed is reporting on unconfirmed rumors from "highly placed sources" that Savage publisher iGames may be closing its doors, but that "[Savage developer] S2 Games is still in operation and will continue to support and add onto Savage as planned." Update: 01/22 00:15 GMT by S : A follow-up at HomeLan Fed has the CEO claiming "rumor of [iGames'] closing was started by an innocent miscommunication [with the company's] former COO."

An anonymous reader writes "FiringSquad has a great article today which puts forth the claim that sniper rifles in multiplayer FPS games have made the genre infinitely worse. They take the time to explain why, and what improvements need to be made. It's definitely not the standard 'I hate campers' article." The editorial argues: "Every... 'reason' for the existence of sniper rifles - realism, historical accuracy, weapon diversity, giving players identifiable roles - is a lie", concluding that "...in games, snipers are given a ludicrous advantage over everyone else."

jasoncart writes "Have gaming accessories gone too far? According to a Ferrago review, the Danish company Steelpad have manufactured a gaming support glove, designed to be used with a mouse to get maximum accuracy in your favourite FPS. I wonder if it will go the way of the Power Glove?" The review says that the glove claims it "...will improve your accuracy by reducing the friction between the base of your wrist and whatever surface it comes into contact with. It will also give support to your wrist through its snug fit and the stiffness of the wrist band."

Thanks to Bungie.net for their interview with the creators of a painstakingly-crafted real-life reproduction of Master Chief's Mjolnir armor, as originally seen in Bungie's noted FPS Halo. The interview comes with exclusive pictures, and the official Nightmare Armor site also has pictures from their previous armor reproduction project, the Deepeyes armor from Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. The armor creators discuss the "good amount of time and devotion [it takes] to complete an entire armor costume", but the guys at Bungie conclude the article with a bang: "After seeing the kind of passion and dedication that the guys at Nightmare Armor had put into the Halo armor project, we were too embarrassed to tell them that in Halo 2, Master Chief's costume will be made of dyed mink fur."

George Bailey writes "Forbes.com/Reuters has posted an interview with Microsoft's Chief Xbox Officer Robbie Bach, who provided some vague hints in regards to the launch of flagship Xbox FPS sequel, Halo 2. In his own words: 'We're going to ship it when it's ready...That might be the first half of 2004, it might not. You have to be careful with franchises like this.' The current projected release date is, or was, April 1st 2004, according to game retailers." Update: 01/11 07:46 GMT by S : Several commenters point out that 'slipped' is in the eye of the beholder: "What I get from Mr. Bach is that they don't have a firm release date at all - hell, they've probably never had one at all - and they're avoiding a firm commitment to consumers on the issue."

An anonymous reader writes "Cube, the Open Source (ZLIB) multiplayer and singleplayer FPS game and engine for Windows/Linux, has finally put out a new release. New features include demo recording/playback, new arena multiplayer modes, jumppads, improved mapmodel physics and configurability (bridges), mp3/ogg playback and a completely new cube soundtrack, many cool new maps and more! Get this 'Doom/Quake-style [engine] with some uncompromising brutal oldskool gameplay' at cubeengine.com."

Thanks to PlanetUnreal for their news that the first-round winners of Epic/Atari's 'Make Something Unreal' FPS modding competition have been announced, with "the winners of the first-of-four contest rounds taking home a share of $50,000 in cash and high-end PC equipment." According to the linked press release: "The winning [Unreal-specific] mods include Deathball (the first place winner), which is a futuristic soccer/lacrosse/football-like sport, and fourth-place winner Jupiter Effect: Influx, which was created as an art school project and is an anime inspired battle between giant robots." The Make Something Unreal official page also has details and links to the winners, also noting that "the contest is one year long and set to conclude in the fall of 2004."

Simon Bysshe writes "I've just released the latest freely downloadable film in my series charting competitive FPS gaming. This film, shot in more of a TV show style compared to my previous Slashdot-featured documentaries, features a Counter-Strike match between the UK 4Kings team & the French Armateam. This time, the film was sponsored by Intel, who also flew in the star Quake3 player Cyrus Malekani (aka proZaC) to present the show. The 24 minute, 185mb WMV movie includes in-depth interviews with the players, extended coverage of games with commentary & post-match tactical analysis covering the key rounds."

Thanks to GameSpy for their interview with the creators of Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth, as the long-in-development survival horror PC FPS, based on the Chaosium RPG, in turn based on HP Lovecraft's 'weird fiction' writings, discusses its setting ("The majority of the action takes place in the sea port of Innsmouth, the setting for the famous Lovecraft story 'The Shadow over Innsmouth'"), and uniquely Lovecraftian gameplay traits: ("The concept of Jack's mental health and its slow degradation is one of the core concepts in Dark Corners of the Earth. This loss in sanity will risk the development of specific mental conditions; these include shaking, blurred vision, hallucinations, dizziness, and panic.") As for its previous videogame heritage, Lovecraftian influences seem particularly noticeable in id's Quake series - but if in doubt, you can always Cthuugle for it.

Thanks to the IGF website for revealing their list of nominees for the 2004 Independent Games Festival awards, which have been running since 1998 "to encourage innovation in game development and to recognize the best independent game developers." The finalists in the 'Open Category' include everything from "blend of puzzle and action" Fuzzee Teevee, budgeted at a mere $10,000, to the $1-1.5 million "FPS and RTS [hybrid]" Savage: The Battle For Newerth. The 'Web/Downloadable' category also has some interesting entries, from seeing "two possessed cue-balls duke it out in realtime battle" courtesy of Kung-Fu Chess follow-up Billiard Boxing, to recently-featured "puzzle-based massively multi-player online roleplaying game" Yohoho! Puzzle Pirates.

mmx writes "GameSpy is partway through a week-long feature celebrating the 10th anniversary of seminal FPS Doom: 'Ten years ago today, Jay Wilbur uploaded an executable to the overloaded University of Wisconsin FTP that pretty much changed first person shooter games forever. He was having trouble because it was packed with rabid DOOM fans, slavering over the demo's imminent release. Eventually Wilbur had to have them all kicked off, and only then did he manage to get the roughly two-megabyte file online.' GameSpy's Doom timeline is pretty interesting, and Doomworld has also started a special anniversary feature. Happy birthday, Doom... and thank you, id software."

Amigan asks: "Looking for a gift for my parents who live 1500+ miles away, I came across the Vialta Beamer TV. This device, with its claimed ease of use, would be helpful for my parents to see my son via the phone, but I'm wondering if the glowing WSJ review or Tech TV review are for real. Is 4-15 fps viable for conversation?"

Truist writes "My wife and I have started playing games together (side by side at the computer) recently, and we're having a hard time finding games that we both like. Specifically, I tend to like FPS games (Quake) and she tends to like puzzle games (Myst), but we're both happy to meet in the middle. She doesn't seem to like Worms, but Return to Castle Wolfenstein was a huge success for both of us. What are your suggestions for good games that we can play together, and that we'll both enjoy?"

Thanks to GameSpy for their 'Pile On!' feature, in which a multitide of their staff rate Ion Storm's Deus Ex: Invisible War, the hotly-awaited PC/Xbox FPS title whose recently released PC demo has met with much controversy. Comments rage from the mixed ("It does offer lots of great gameplay, but I can understand peoples' initial reaction to the title") through the positive ("Ion has tried to make the game more accessible, and I think it's done a fine job of doing this without harming the core DX gameplay"), to the negative related to game engine speed ("You trade 20 or more frames per second so that the rivet textures on a barrel accurately reflect the nearest light source.") Elsewhere, PlanetDeusEx has a demo walkthrough also discussing INI fixes to improve your experience, and there's another GameSpy article interviewing the developers about their 'magic moments' playing the game they created ("I had an epiphany when I wanted to destroy the coffee beans in QueeQueeg's coffee shop, but I didn't want to arouse suspicion.")

Thanks to Planet GameCube for reprinting a press release announcing the 'Bang The Machine' game-related art exhibit, which opens in San Francisco early in 2004. It includes previously Slashdot-mentioned pieces such as the Pong-equipped Painstation and a Waco-interpreting FPS, but also newer material, including a Carpet Invaders game which is "a floor projection of a videogame that simulates the early Space Invaders.. [but] made to resemble Afghani rug designs", and a 5-foot-high sculpture called '650 Polygon John Carmack', based off a "low polygon game avatar of him... developed for... Quake III."

Thanks to 1UP for their borderline-gonzo article discussing how the extended wait for Doom 3 is affecting opinions of it. The naysaying author of the piece argues that id's FPS sequel "...possesses many appreciable graphical highlights, [but] much of its beauty comes from techniques that are rapidly becoming standards. Normal mapping and dynamic lighting are nothing new, and companies like Ion Storm Austin and Crytek are proving that anyone can do it." He goes on to stake out his position clearly: "I am certain Doom will be great fun for what it is, but I just don't know if fans of the original and its Serious [Sam] inspiring style will dig something paced so radically different. I am also unsure of whether or not action gamers... will buy into a title that seems to lack the excessive fiction, approachability and interactivity that drive practically all of today's modern games." Update: 11/27 17:18 GMT by S : There's also a new mini-interview with John Carmack regarding Doom 3 over at CGW.

Time Doctor writes "Linux and Mac gamers will be happy to hear that America's Army 2.0 is out of private beta, and available via mirrors at 3DGamers and HappyPuppy, among others. See this news post on the AA site for the gameplay changes." We covered the release of the Windows version of AA 2.0 a couple of weeks back, as this free FPS recruiting tool continues toward its goal of "providing civilians with an inside perspective and a virtual role in today's premiere land force, the U.S. Army."

Thanks to GamerFeed for the news that Bungie's Xbox FPS, Halo, has dropped in price to $29.99 effective immediately, but "is not a Platinum Hit", one of the many fruitless rumors which started after a fan-made 'TV commercial' and subsequent confusion had sites falsely reporting on Halo 2's early release. Meanwhile, GameSpy has announced a partnership with Microsoft to provide "online matchmaking, community, administrative and networking functionalities" for Microsoft's PC games over multiple years, including the just-released Windows version of Halo.

Thanks to Eurogamer for its interview with Deus Ex creator Warren Spector, as journalist and Deus Ex mod creator Kieron Gillen quizzes him about the PC/Xbox FPS sequel, Deus Ex: Invisible War. Spector illuminates the murky factions of the sequel: "My favourite moments are when people give you diametrically opposed goals on a single map", and explains the game's resistance of typical action game cliche: "There are no happy endings. There is no easy answer. There is no bad guy you can kill to make everything right." Elsewhere, C+VG has a two-part interview with Spector, also revealing a PC demo of the game is due close to its December 2nd U.S. release date.