Thanks to an anonymous reader for pointing to a new Gamespot hands-on preview of the forthcoming PC title Tron 2.0. This FPS, which we featured a preview of last month, now has a fully playable early version, and the writer says that "..from what we've seen, Tron 2.0 seems to do a great job of capturing the essence of the original film, thanks to its distinctive art design." The preview also draws attention to the unique weaponry, which, yes, has you controlling Discs Of Tron, but there's a possible dealbreaker caveat: "..the game seems to offer a few more jump puzzles than we'd prefer for a first-person action game." However, this Monolith-developed title, which also includes a lightcycle racing section, "..still shows promise" - watch for it later in 2003.

nexex writes "You can now download America's Army for Linux as a stand-alone installer. Previously it was only available as a full ISO on a Gentoo LiveCD." The official America's Army site has more info on this Army-sponsored FPS title, first released about a year ago for the PC, which "..provides civilians with an inside perspective and a virtual role in today's premier land force: the U.S. Army."

Thanks to an anonymous reader for pointing to a Gamespot first look at Unreal Tournament 2K4, which comes with the first 3 official screenshots of Epic's PC FPS. This title includes much of the goodness in UT2K3, "as well as new game modes, huge new maps, and controllable air, land, and space vehicles", and Gamespot mentions that one of the screens "provides a look at the space flyer in the assault mode, while the other two show scenes from the onslaught mode, which will take place in giant outdoor environments."

Several online sources have rumored the development of an as-yet unannounced Terminator 3 FPS title for the PC, Terminator 3: War Of The Machines, to be published by Atari for Xmas 2003. Apparently, the title is currently in development at European Steel Of Haste developers Clever's, who have a teaser splash screen on their site seeming to back up the rumor. The game allegedly has heavy online components, and is completely different from the console Terminator 3 title from Black Ops, which is also scheduled to ship later this year. Update: 06/03 14:26 GMT by S : Thanks to boomtown.net for pointing out they sneaked a look at this low-profile title at E3.

bani writes "Following just a month after the test release, Enemy Territory has finally made a full version release! You can download the Linux and Windows versions for free, it does not require the retail Return to Castle Wolfenstein product in order to play. Hats off to Id+Activision+SplashDamage for giving the community such an excellent 3d FPS, for FREE!" Update by J : Id has set up a BitTorrent for the downloads. And if anyone needs a Mac beta-tester, I'm available :)

Thanks to an anonymous reader for pointing out that developers 2015 (of Medal Of Honor:Allied Assault fame) have opened their official Men of Valor:Vietnam page on their site. It deals with the upcoming Vietnam-themed PC and Xbox FPS, which is running on a heavily modified Unreal engine, and showcases info and latest screenshots. The unofficial movv.com site has a little more info on this Sierra-published title, which looks to be one of the more eagerly-awaited FPSes of recent.

Thanks to Blues News for pointing to this online petition demanding a sequel to Daikatana. Reasons for wanting a follow-up to John Romero's infamous PC FPS include the fact that "Daikatana's former notoriety has left many people with a feeling of nostalgia for the days leading to the game's completion." Some of comments attached to the 37 current signatures also add insight, including Attila Houtkooper's comment - "Daikatana has changed my life, I need Daikatana 2 to change it back the way it was!"

So the E3 Expo in Los Angeles is finally done, and we wrap up our coverage with a look at the best of the other booths at the show, from Activision through Take Two to Eidos. Plus, we take a quick trawl round the evil troglodytic dungeon that is the Kentia Hall, deep below the main expanses of E3. Read on for info on virtual ping-pong, Starsky And Hutch, and Futurama....

It seems that Nokia's 'mobile game deck', the N-Gage has lured John Romero and his Monkeystone Games posse back from reliving their 2D shareware glory days with Hyperspace Delivery Boy, and onto his 3D shareware FPS glory days, with their own adaptation of THQ's first-person shooter Red Faction. Here are links to the new Red Faction N-Gage trailer in MPEG-4 and Quicktime.Update: 05/13 15:58 GMT by H : We had a story on N-Gage a couple months back.

bmnc writes "After nearly a year in development by Gearbox Software, info for the PC version of Halo:Combat Evolved is finally available at Gamespy.com, in both single-player and multi-player flavors." This is absolutely a big deal, especially since Bungie have been intelligent enough to use Gearbox, FPS veterans who've been heavily involved with extending the Half-Life franchise in the past with Opposing Force and Blue Shift, to do a definitive PC version of Halo.

It seems that Gamespot has an exclusive look at Thief III, the latest in the stealth action FPS series from Looking Glass Studios and now Ion Storm Austin. The PC and Xbox game shares an engine with the other new Ion Storm project, Deus Ex: Invisible War (also previewed on Gamespot recently), hence similarly advanced AI and use of dynamic shadows, but claims much more focused gameplay goals compared to DX2, as well as its markedly different medieval setting. Looks like this new Thief could continue the Looking Glass tradition in fine style.

ascii writes "Japanese company Boxmaster Lupo is offering the PCBox: a foldable PC case made entirely out of cardboard?! I have no idea about the target group although I reckon it may appeal to some casemodders *grin*. Overclockers should watch out though! You wouldn't really want to turn your shiny new case into a pile of ashes just for those extra few fps in Q3 would you?" And Arab writes "They arent really case mods, as such. But a friend sent me this link to a guy's webpage who has made humanoid cases. there is a girl one, one that looks like a Gundam, and one looks like some kinda bizzare fish dragon thing. The site is in Japanese, so I have no idea what it is saying, although it looks like there are step-by-step intructions."

According to Gamespot, who have exclusive details and a single piece of concept art up, Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines has been announced for PC, courtesy of publisher Activision and developer Troika Games (of Arcanum and former Fallout-involvement fame.) Quite apart from the excellent RPG pedigree of the team working on it, this is an FPS blend which is the first announced third-party title to utilise Valve's Source Engine, as being used in the gorgeous-looking Half-Life 2.

Guy Welch writes "Sierra and Monolith have just released the No One Lives Forever 2 toolkit, including the complete editing tools and source code. This toolkit allows users to create mods and all sorts of other changes to this first person spy shooter." Coming mere months from the original release date, this is good news for mod authors and creators who want to tinker with a slightly different flavor of FPS.

suedehed writes "The Star Trek: Elite Force 2 demo is out. And it ROCKS! Here's the Fileplanet link." Bonus links to Fileshack and Happy Puppy (registration required) - this is another worthy FPS demo (courtesy Ritual and Activision) that should be well worth checking out. Update: 05/02 22:02 GMT by S : Here's a BitTorrent link.

Victum_ writes "Over at Gaming Horizon they have posted some new Counter-Strike Xbox screens. These are supposedly the very first screenshots that have been released of the Xbox version. They look pretty much identical to CS:CZ screens, save the lower resolution." Anyone else feel like innovation in the FPS genre has stagnated since the introduction of Counter-Strike? I played this mod in college and loved it, and while I don't play it much anymore, I can't find another game that gives a better FPS experience.

An anonymous reader writes "MyGamer.com has a preview up on the upcoming MMOFPS Planetside. It's pretty in-depth and paints a pretty good picture of what the game should be like. Check it out." Even more massive than the massive 64 player Rocket Arena, and with a persistent world. I don't usually plan on living more than 10 minutes max when I play an FPS, but it sounds like they've already incorporated a myriad of ways to get fragged players back into combat.

ApharmdB writes "CNN has an article on the US military's fielding of a bandage containing clotting agents that can stop blood flow within two minutes. Obviously, the hope is that they will save a lot of lives. What's next straight from your favorite FPS? Who has an estimate on how long it will take for the Army to outfit its troops with anti-personnel rocket launchers?" Those have been around for quite a while.

aszoth asks: "I working on a project that is going to require approximately 4 hours of video recording per day for about two months. We are currently using DVM tapes, however the extraction and compression time has left us with a large library of tapes un-converted. We are considering other methods, in particular real time MPEG 2 or MPEG 4 Compression. We also would like to be able to slow down our frame rate from the 29.7 fps to something along the lines of 5-15 fps. I am wondering if any one has any suggestions on possible ways to do such compression (or get similar results) with a Linux box. Thank you for any help you can give."

Obiwan Kenobi writes "Looks like they guys at Maximum PC got lucky -- they scored the first ever GeforceFX benchmarks via an Alienware prototype machine. Two 'marks to notice: The Geforce FX scored 209 FPS in Quake 3 (1600x1200x32) and 41fps in 3dMark Game4 demo, while the Radeon 9700 Pro attained only 147fps in Quake 3 yet came back with 45fps in the 3dMark test. It seems that the GeforceFX is the clear leader in pure processing power, but in memory bandwidth the 9700 Pro is still king."