Some say that this will be the year of the online gaming boom. Some say it won't. In the meantime we keep on rolling and growing and raising our expectations for the future.

Looking back, it's sad that Barrysworld is shutting down. I had great moments there, back in the QWTF glorious days and even now with Q3F. But that's what life is all about: changes. As the elder say, that's a reason to celebrate because for each one that falls, seven new ones will rise and the online gaming community will continue its inevitable path towards massification and globalization.

It was a damned good gaming year mainly with Enemy Territory and Call Of Duty releases, let's just hope that the new one will be as good or even better than this one. Happy New Year! :)

Check out this interview about unwiring online gaming. The games are played on mobile phones using GPRS to deduce the physical location of the game player, which is used as part of the game.

"You're chased in the real city and the virtual city, at the same time. Three runners on the street are equipped with PDAs, GPS devices and walkie-talkies. To 'get' you, they have to come within five meters of your position. The game is physical and visceral, and we were amazed at just how clearly a sense of presence in time and space was communicated. Players in Seattle, Tokyo and Germany communicating with players on the ground in the U.K. could hear weather conditions, traffic, where the busy roads were". LOL

Don't miss it :)

Download the new version of Unreal-engine America's Army shooter here or at the mirror next to your house.

This version updates the Special Forces edition and it's a 9 MB patch if you update version 2.0 or a 228 MB patch if you choose to update version 1.9.0.

Check out K1ck's results at Navigator2 Counter-Strike Tournament. Although the conditions weren't so great, it is always nice to attend these kind of events.

The get together went on rather well and the team got some more experience at playing in LAN environment. The draw vs Exotic surely encourages them to go further up the ladder in the future.

Check out GameSpy's 2003 Game of the Year. They recognize the Top 10 Best Games for each platform, as well as the best Online Multiplayer games. As expected, Wolfenstein Enemy Territory and Call Of Duty are among them.

Some winners:
* PC First-Person Shooter - Call of Duty - Overall Game of the Year Nominee
* PC Multiplayer - Enemy Territory
* PC Modification of the Year - Desert Combat (for Battlefield 1942)
* PC Real-Time Strategy - Rise of Nations
* PC Turn-Based Strategy - Galactic Civilizations.

And the list goes on and on...

PB server admins should take note of the following, regarding PunkBuster Violation #60045:

"We have confirmed that new software (Bigpond Toolbar used primarily in Australia) has recently been released which raises pre-existing PunkBuster violation #60045. This violation number has been removed from our system. We encourage PB Admins to give the benefit of the doubt to players and ignore instances of this violation occurring after December 3, 2003."

Quake3 XCTF Mod has been updated to version 1.02. Go check these news features at Quake3 New Expert:

* Added some player Effects for 4 levels of health for all players, all game modes.
* Made crosshairname show health for enemies and/or teammates, all game modes.
* Weapons switching times have been dramatically sped up.
* Improved bot grappling a bit more, made them tougher to play and less predictable while grappling.
* Grappling a player and holding them will allow you to travel with them, while damaging enemies.
* Converted all items to Health items and medkits on map loads.
* Medkits can be used to restore to 200 health, or 30 if over 200, can not be used if health over 500.
* Added new configs for "Instagib Rail" and "Lethal Hook", Deathmatch, and CTF Game Modes.

Nvidia announces that it is bundling Call of Duty with select GeForce FX 5900 series graphic cards. The bundle is available from today at participating add-in card vendors, details of which are available at Nvidia's official Web site.

"Bundling Call of Duty with select GeForce FX 5900 series cards is an awesome opportunity for consumers to experience, first-hand, what the buzz is about," said David Roman, vice president of corporate marketing at Nvidia. "The value proposition of the 5900 series speaks for itself. By adding a great game like Call of Duty to the box, what gamer wouldn't put it on his holiday wish list?"

Io Interactive's plans to continue their Hitman franchise with more of the stealthy adventures of the assassin codenamed "47" in a game to be titled Hitman: Contracts. Check Hitman Contracts Website with a game trailer for the game, which is due "Spring 2004."

Hitman: Contracts delivers lots of missions, which you can play using an increased arsenal of firearms and close-combat weapons. The graphics engine is also new and even if you did not play the other Hitman games, it's easier for you to start a new career, shooting ppl by contract. :)

A small Steam update was released today. Changes: Fixed problem with command-line parameters not being passed through correctly (for shortcuts to launching steam games) * Optimized some Steam networking code and decreased startup time

Always on the move, and they really need to do so, because the problems are here and real. But it sure is nice to know that they keep up the fight.

We are remodelling the webpage, dusting around a little the 1998 looks, but because it would take too much time to do it all at once, we've decide to merge both worlds and keep upgrading the pages and graphics slowly, day by day.

So, until the work is finished, don't get mad ( we only listen to non-mad ppl ) if you find a link to nowhere or back-forward-navigation :)

Doom celebrated on the 10th December its 10th anniversary. Who would have believed back then that 10 years later we would still be playing the same kind of game and ( the most weird thing ) enjoying it ?

Follow the lead and pay a visit to Doom III to pre-order your copy and receive a special DOOM collectable with your order.

Now you can buy your favorite id games online on Idsoftware Store. Special editions, Collector's Edition sets, DOOM T-Shirts, and the Quake III Gold pack all available in a few simple clicks. Watch out for the games with "Download Only" written next to the "Buy Now" button. The downloads are small, and the games are great!

Far Cry will be moving into a closed beta test period soon. Check the new Official site and Register for the open Beta of Far Cry.

"To celebrate the launch of our new website we have made available 4 exclusive, previously undisclosed screenshots of Far Cry that reflect the level of detail and precision you may expect to find in the final version."

Check out the new Screenshots from Doom III, scary as ever. Although they are low-resolution screenshots, you can follow the work at Id Software and rise your expectations on the so long waited game release.

Yet another update on Steam. Changes: Fixed bug that would cause Steam to lock up for a long period on version roll * Fixed 'CacheFixedFileDirectory' crash * Fixed problem on version roll when cache was marked as read only * Added e-mail address confirmation in Steam when creating an account * Fixed crash on shutdown of Steam * Tighter checking for typos when entering a WON CD-Key * Catch cache corruption errors earlier on launch * Added a new cd-key authorisation step when adding a game to the 'My Games' list.

Not much, but surely on the right track to come up with an error free product. The update will be automatically downloaded next time you start the Steam program.

The Awakening XMP ("Expanded Multiplayer") is a single class-based level from Unreal II where teams use vehicles, cooperation and Unreal II devastating weaponry to battle it out on massive levels.

Quake 3 OSP Server - K1ck Clan Graveyard 193.126.109.37:30476 is up, along with Counter-Strike - k1ck.cs clan match server 193.126.109.38:30438. We would like to thank MyGamesPlayer and Rivotti for the time spent and goodwill displayed on the accomplishment of this goal.

Our website has already crossed over 100 000 hits this month, still on a growing tendence, day by day...

On PunksBusted interview with Tony Ray, head man over at Even Balance Inc., about Punk Buster and related topics, some stuff came out such as: "Some of our newer detection methods will catch private cheats that are compiled from source kits so that cheats that have never been distributed by the author are being detected by PunkBuster." Swell!

And admins will have access to a "repository system", which seems designed to allow a fully automated version of Punks Busted's caught cheater sharing.

Far Cry Trailer is there for the taking. Set on a lush tropical island environment, Far Cry boasts a hugely impressive feature list, including amazing visuals, realistic AI, and a complete physics system. Being the first FPS from Ubi Soft, it will be published in 2004 and is one of the most anticipated action titles in the gaming world.

Following a growing tendence, we have opened another division, this time Q3 DM and CTF. And to make it business as usual, we have joined BarrysWorld's Leagues. Soon we will be fighting and spreading Q3 wisdom all over the place :)

Check out the Hardcore-Life mod. "We've decided that Hardcore-Life was to fun of a project to give up, so all the original team members have returned with more experience and looking forward to develop for the Half-Life engine once more". Don't miss it because it can surely be fun.

Splash Damage have announced that Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory™ has been nominated for a 2003 BAFTA Games Award. The 1st BAFTA Game Awards are one of the Interactive Entertainment Awards given by the British Academy of Film Television Arts.

The BAFTAs are becoming recognized as the world’s largest and most prestigious interactive entertainment awards, recognising and rewarding creative talent in interactivity.

Activision have released the unsupported mod making and map making tools for Call of Duty, allowing gamers to create new modifications for their new World War 2 first person shooter. The first version of the Linux Server is also available. Download them at your nearest favorite server...

Being 18th November the first official release date for UT2004, we can all watch one of the most exciting new features: the Vehicles. Land, Air and Space vehicles, all available in a three minute movie.

You can stay tuned on UT2004 material ( screenshots, movie trailers and so on ), until it hits the shelves presumably in February 2004.

And after some trouble and some rough nights, C-D 4.7.0 is out and compatible with the new HLDS/Steam patch and also with the older versions of HL. New features include - Fixed 'laggy keyboard input on win9x/me' bug. - Tweaks for better fps. - Added support for Windows NT4.

Some news that might catch the attention of Unreal fans because Desert Thunder makes use of the Unreal tech and the developers are Digital Extreme’s second studio. "Groove Games, a global publisher of interactive entertainment software today announced the shipping of Desert Thunder™ for the PC to most major retail stores.

The game that drops gamers in the hot seat of one of the military’s most advanced battle engines can be found on store shelves this week."

If you make your way up in a game by watching other ppl demos, than you can't miss Seismovision. Version 2.24 supports demos for Star Wars: Jedi Knight, Jedi Academy and Call of Duty. RTCW Enemy Territory latest versions also supported.

Now you can take the text written in a console and pass it through to Q3Speech to hear those lovely comments loud and clear. It's a small package easy to install and the first text to speech software available for Q3 Arena.