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While not wholly related to gaming, it must be said that we at EuroGamer can't get enough Napster controversy. The latest (and possibly greatest) coup for the North American music distribution service is the official release of The Smashing Pumpkins' new album Machina II: The Friends and Enemies of Modern Music exclusively on MP3. Described as a "final 'f**k you'" to record label Virgin, the album can be downloaded over Napster and on several selected music websites. According to CNet, there are only 25 Vinyl copies in existance. The Reg' believes this to be a sign of the times, stating that it's a new trend for disgruntled musicians to release their wares via MP3, but a forum post on the Smashing Pumpkins' UBB states that "the band instructed some of the recipients to circulate and distribute the material," and that they describe it as "an official bootleg". The big question on everyone's lips must be where do Virgin stand on this. It seems like they don't care. According to the FAQ again, "Virgin was not interested in releasing a followup to Machina, so rather than pack up their gear and go home, they recorded and released it themselves." As such it's less of a "f**k you" and more of a "I told you so" to the label, who presumably believed that the album would be unpopular if ever released. If you want the album, look it up on Napster, and you can take a look at the artwork that would accompany it here, in high quality PDF form. Grab this while you can, because as far as The Smashing Pumpkins are concerned, that's it.

Last time we saw the trilogy of games based on the infamous horror movie "The Blair Witch Project", there was very little actual gameplay in evidence, and only the first of the three games ("The Rustin Parr Investigation") was very far into development. What we did see was surprisingly promising though - after all, you wouldn't think that a low budget movie about a bunch of students running around in a forest screaming and bawling their eyes out would make a very good basis for a computer game. Since then a lot has happened though, so at the recent ECTS 2000 trade show in London we took the chance to catch up with developers Human Head and find out more about their work on the second of the Blair Witch games, "The Legend of Coffin Rock"...

The latest UK release schedule has just arrived from Take 2 Europe, with several notable changes since last month. Several key titles have slipped, with the third of the "Blair Witch" games now delayed from the end of November to early next year, and "Oni" following suit - hardly surprising given the state the game was apparently in when we saw it at ECTS recently. Caribbean dictator sim "Tropico" has been pushed back from first quarter to second quarter 2001, and "Max Payne" has been delayed yet again, this time slipping from second quarter to third quarter 2001.

One of the more bizarre features of the forthcoming turn-based strategy game "Squad Leader" is that the men in your squad sometimes get letters from home. In an interview with Strategy Gaming Online, producer Andy Mazurek explains that "the letters from home represent a life-altering event for the soldier - it could be a letter informing him of his parents' death or a letter telling the soldier that he is about to be a father".

"Blair Witch Volume 1 : The Rustin Parr Investigation" has now "gone gold", meaning that the game is complete and has been sent off for duplication. It is expected on shelves in both the USA and UK on September 27th, and the recommended US retail price is confirmed as $19.99, which is likely to equate to somewhere between £15 and £20 in the UK. For those of you living out in the woods, Rustin Parr is the first of three Blair Witch games to be released this year, all based on the engine which powered last year's spooky action-adventure game "Nocturne" but all designed by different developers. This first one is by Terminal Reality ("Nocturne"), while Human Head ("Rune") are creating the second, and Ritual ("FAKK2") the third.

The latest Half-Life add-on from Neil Manke, "They Hunger 2", is now available for download

- GuillemotPrice - £130

Bruce Campbell is probably best known for his role as Ash in the Evil Dead movies, but he has also become involved in the gaming industry, most recently providing the voice of your character in "Tachyon : The Fringe". Soon he will combine the two with the release of "Evil Dead : Hail To The King", a zombie blaster based on the cult movie series and featuring Bruce's voice. Speaking in an interview with Games Mania, Bruce points out that "computer games have already become more movie-like and movies have become more game-like", and predicts that "in time they will be one and the same".

What is it about flying cars? People have been predicting we would all be buzzing around in the skies for decades, and yet here we are in the 21st century and we're still rooted to the ground with all four wheels sticking solidly to the tarmac. But although flying cars are common in the movies (Bladerunner, Back To The Future, Fifth Element etc), they are rather less abundant in computer games. Polish developers Techland are looking to change all that with Crime Cities, a kind of airborne 3D accelerated Grand Theft Auto for the new millenium...

Heading East? Singapore Airlines have just the thing to stop you losing your sanity.. As you may or may not know Singapore Airlines and Nintendo have had the "Super NES Gateway" in place on flights since 1994, allowing people on the go to relax with a selection of SNES games. As of November, passengers on 747-400 airliners will be able to make use of a GameBoy as part of the MAS System 3000 In-Flight Entertainment, with a large selection of games available for use. All of the usual titles including Zelda, Mario, Pokemon and others will be available. What puzzles me about this deal is that GameBoys (and the forthcoming GameBoy Advance) are at the height of portability - with battery life that lasts for quite some time. Surely the point of them is to have to take onboard aircraft and the like..

After their event at the Millenium Dome in London last weekend, Battletop have another tournament taking place this weekend, this time in New York. The Battletop NYC Challenge will again feature large cash prizes for competitions ranging across FIFA 2000, Age of Empires II, Starcraft, Quake 3 and Unreal Tournament, with a couple of hundred contestants expected to take part in the event. EuroGamer will be flying out to the big apple to manage the Age of Empires II and Quake 3 clan competitions, and will also be providing full coverage of the event afterwards. In the meantime you can find out more about these competitions on EuroGamer's NYC Challenge forums.

Cube.IGN have updated with a bunch of interesting news stories fresh from the Japanese press. For one they have news of a Famitsu Weekly poll that questioned 60 Japanese game developers about the next generation console. The results are interesting rather than revealing, with a lot of people who think the technical design, aesthetics and gimmick will sell the unit. Only two developers out of the 60 were willing to say they will not be developing for it. Also from IGN comes pictures of the external V90 56k modem built by Conexant and how it will be attached to the unit. The Hi-Speed Port and the Serial Port 2 haven't been spoken about, but users will be able to choose between a modem adapter and a broadband device for Serial Port 1, both built by Conexant. They will be sold separately. Nintendo has yet to announce its complete online strategy, although judging by Sega's difficulties with their online infrastructure it will be playing its cards close to its chest. Finally, they wrap up with a video reel of Spaceworld 2000 footage.

Somebody has finally found something useful to do with the Millenium Dome, the now infamous giant tent which has hoovered up vast quantities of government funding and corporate investment here in the UK, and the sole redeeming quality of which so far was its brief appearance in the intro sequence of the last James Bond movie. Korean based company BattleTop chose the Dome as the venue for their debut British event, running a large computer games tournament there which covered the usual Quake 3, Unreal Tournament and StarCraft, as well as Age of Empires II and soccer game FIFA 2000. Up for grabs was a total of around £30,000 in prize money, making this the largest event of its kind held in the UK so far.

According to Camille Scaysbrook, lead writer on the massively multiplayer role-playing game "BigWorld", "the mission generation system is one of the defining features of the game", giving players a wide range of interesting things to do instead of relying on a limited number of pre-scripted missions. Speaking in an interview with fan site BigWorld Vault, Camille revealed that "the system allows us to generate an interesting and diverse range of tasks on the fly, taking into account character abilities, personal history, and current game events".

3dfx have announced that they will be demonstrating their VoodooMAC 5500 PCI graphics card at the Apple Expo 2000 trade show in Paris this week. Described as the company's "first Apple Macintosh-dedicated Voodoo card", it will bring the Voodoo 5's full-scene anti-aliasing support and fast frame rates to the Mac. 3dfx's Luciano Alibrandi is quoted as saying that "the best computer platform deserves the best graphics accelerator solutions", which should go down well with the Mac community (all five of them). "Apple Expo is a great event for showcasing our new cards and we're confident that once people have seen just how good graphics can look on their Mac systems, they won't want anything else in there". For the full story, read the press release.

Barking Dog Studios are currently hard at work putting the finishing touches to "Homeworld : Cataclysm", a stand-alone expansion on last year's hit space-bound real-time strategy game. Featuring a whole new storyline, an enhanced engine and new ships and technology, it has become more than a mission pack but is also not a full sequel. In an interview with GameSpy.com, designer Chris Stewart explains that "a traditional sequel is something we felt was Relic's prerogative, not ours".

Ever since I reviewed Magical Racing Tour on the PlayStation I've been itching to see what a little extra time and effort could do for the Dreamcast incarnation. It's been quite a while in the coming for some reason, but now it's here.. and very little has changed. For those of you who cannot be bothered to go and read my original review (shame on you!), MRT is a racing title inspired by the Mario Kart generation. In other words the story is irrelevant to the action, the action itself is frenetic and half of the challenge is to make cunning use of the powerups and shoulder-button-jump powerslides. What is gained by adding a third dimension to the Mario Kart formula however is also lost against the often insurmountable challenge and the glitchy graphics. MRT places you in the shoes of Chip and Dale, the Chipmunks (although you can play as other Disney characters too), and unfortunately for Disneyland you have accidentally dropped some acorns into the "magic machine" that deals with the fireworks display. As such it has vomitously discharged its electrical innards and expects you to go and find them again in time for tonight's show! This is all lovingly explained to you by Mr. Jiminy Cricket, who appears in beautifully rendered cutscenes and provides hints in reconstructing the machine on the status page. We still don't understand why this collecting of pieces takes the form of a series of races against other Disneyland occupants nor why some of the races take place at night despite the "before tonight's show" emphasis. It's all in the name of fun for the children though, so we won't knock it. What we will knock however, is the graphics, sound, gameplay and challenge, in that order.

SimHQ have posted several new missions for tank sim "Steel Beasts"

Up until now the massively multiplayer role-playing game genre has been dominated by tree huggers, with all of the leading games (Ultima Online, Everquest and Asheron's Call) based in fantasy settings, and most of them featuring more than their fair share of elves, trolls and dragons. All that is about to change though, and one of the first science fiction inspired online role-playing games to be released is "Anarchy Online", an ambitious game which is currently entering its first round of beta testing.

The Quake 3 competitions ended somewhat later than expected at Battletop's big tournament at the Millenium Dome in London last night, but for those of you following the competition, here are the last results of the evening... The Quake 3 duel competition came down to a hard fought three map match between Timber and Blokey, who had previously faced off against each other at the UK's CPL-Europe qualifier earlier in the summer. In the end it was Timber who again emerged victorious, winning on Q3Tourney2, losing out to Blokey's rail on Q3Tourney, and finally taking the win on Q3DM13. Both players will represent the UK in Korea at the World Cyber Games Challenge.

If you're bored of the TV coverage of the Presidential election Stateside (lets face it, we are amused by it, not interested in it) then perhaps this new Quake3 mod will tickle your fancy. Entitled Political Arena, the mod lets you take on the guise of your favourite campaigner, be it Al Gore, George Bush, Joe Lieberman or Dick Cheney. It's certainly amusing although I'm sure it will cop some flak for the subject matter, so grab a copy while you can - the models are interesting enough anyway. Sadly Al Gore can't be made to finish off an opponent by choking them with his tongue. Perhaps in a later version..

I think it was about three years ago that I first discovered the dominatrix that was Grand Prix 2. Geoff Crammond's seminal Formula One racing simulation still stands strong today, although graphically it's been on the falling edge since 3D card evolution started speeding up in the middle of 1998. Back in the day it was all you could do to try and prise me away from Monza and Silverstone, and the game was so versatile that despite winning season after season and getting my lap times down to inhumanly low numbers I kept on playing, chugging away on my P233 until my eyes bled. Well not literally, I did have some limits. As such I've been quietly awaiting Grand Prix 3's arrival with baited breath. Could Crammond really win us all over again, would I be able to put up with the 1998 track data, would the new graphics engine put me off? Thankfully, after an eternity of waiting the time has arrived to assess the alluring pseudo-sequel for real, and it has to be said, Geoff has done a simply stunning job of it. The ease of use is unheard of - I loaded her up on my uber gaming rig and the game immediately proposed to decide upon the optimal graphics settings for me to be going on with. I could alter these at my discretion if I so wished, but having now tested the game on several PCs I've come to the conclusion that it hits the spot with a very small margin of error.

The finals of the Unreal Tournament duel competition have just ended here at the Battletop event taking place at the Millenium Dome in London. Played out on Deck16, Liberator picked up the first frag but his sniper rifle fetish didn't really work out, and Dougal had soon rocketed his way back into the lead. By half time Dougal seemed to be in control, and pulled out a 5 : 1 lead at one point. Liberator came back hard, picking up a couple of sniper shots followed by a shrapnel strike to make it 5 : 4. In the end it was Dougal who came through though, picking up two late frags to take the lead out of Liberator's reach. A good game, and both players will be flown to Korea to represent the UK at the World Cyber Games Challenge in Korea...

The final of the "Age of Empires II" competition has just ended here at the UK's first BattleTop tournament, taking place at the Millenium Dome in London. The game was somewhat confusing, as it was taking place on a very small map and the two players had chosen yellow and green as their team colours, making their units almost impossible to distinguish on the big screens showing the match. The game was close throughout, with DevilZ.HigH getting the early initiative with a first strike before claiming the center of the map, which became a battlefield strewn with corpses and burnt out buildings for the rest of the match. In the end it was HigH who came through and took the victory from his clanmate DevilZ.Loko, taking home the £1400 first prize. Nice.

We were shown a couple of impressive new PS2 racers and then demonstrated Oni, a third person action title due out in March of next year on PC, PlayStation 2 and Mac. Our host Jen explained that it was about 50% done, but it looked pretty complete to be honest, and with that March 2001 deadline looming you could be forgiven for hoping that it was farther along than that. The game centres around an anime-style plot and graphical style, with central character Konoko, an elite Tech Crimes Task Force agent on a mission to infiltrate a ruthless crime syndicate and bring it to its knees in a day-after-tomorrow futuristic Japan. Unfortunately she is framed for the murder of a couple of security guards and has to prove her innocence and fight her way to the truth through 17 large levels, using her martial arts training and weaponry skills to overcome her oppressors. As far as plots go it doesn't look like anything particularly to shout about, but the idea of mixing martial arts and shooting action into one seamless environment is quite endearing.

Not content with simply playing Half-Life : Dreamcast and its new episode Blue Shift at ECTS 2000, we've got onto the UK press office and squeezed 22 new screenshots out of them, with Blue Shift shots to boot. These shots really show off the new and improved weaponry and facial texture-mapping in particular, and also some classic areas of the original Half-Life are reinvigorated too with new textures and graphical jazz. Check them out!

The grand final of the StarCraft competition here at the BIGL tournament at the Millenium Dome in London has just ended, with strategy veteran Daishi coming through against Duellist. It was a close start .. literally, as the two players began the game within a stone's throw of each other. Daishi soon gained the upper hand though, surrounding Duellist's base with marines and turrets and ambushing his troops as they emerged. It was all over rather quickly, with Daishi's troops moving in for the kill and Duellist having nothing left to respond with. Both players will be flown to Korea to represent the UK at the $300,000 World Cyber Games Challenge though, and both walk away with cash prizes to show for their efforts. Next up, Quake 3.

The final of Battletop's "FIFA 2000" soccer tournament here at the Millenium Dome in Greenwich has just ended, with Karma Killer beating DomiGod 3 : 1 to walk away with the £1700 first prize. It had looked like a walk-over until half time, when DomiGod started to recover, and a spate of second half fouls left Karma Killer two men down. In the end DomiGod managed to claw back one goal in injury time to keep at least some of his dignity, but it wasn't enough. Congratulations to both players, who will be flown out to Korea to represent the UK at the massive World Cyber Games Challenge later in the year. Now, on to the Quake 3 and StarCraft competitions!

Last minute preparations are being made tonight at the Millenium Dome in Greenwich for the London qualifier of Battletop's "World Cyber Games Challenge Final" taking play in Korea next month. Various network issues are still at large but the team working to solve the remaining issues are confident that they will be ironed out by the morning and the tournament which kicks off at 1pm. A Shoutcast or Real server is due to be available for live streams about what's going on, and more details will be available via Quakenet IRC (irc.barrysworld.com) in the channel #battletop all day. We will be providing coverage after the event is over, with our roving reporter John Bye on hand to cover the games.

Over the last year NVIDIA has built up a strong position in the 3D graphics market, replacing 3dfx at the top of the pile when it comes to innovative new features and raw performance with the release of the GeForce 256 in September 1999, and dominating the top end of the graphics card industry with virtually no competition for almost a year, until the recent arrival of 3dfx's Voodoo 5 5500 and ATI's Radeon 256. During the recent computer games trade show ECTS 2000 in London, NVIDIA were again showing an impressive new graphics card, this time the GeForce 2 Ultra, which boasts an improved manufacturing process and faster memory to make the most of the old GeForce design. We spoke to the company's European marketing director, Alan Tiquet, to find out more about how NVIDIA got to the top, and how they plan to stay there...