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Although ridiculed by many for its soft looks and buggy gameplay, Day of Defeat has already earned a place in the heart of gamers sick of slow-paced sneak-em-up drudgery and twitch-kill action titles. DoD encompasses many different styles of play, and the turnover is fast and relentless. You take on the guise of either an Allied or Axis grunt, be it Light, Medium or Heavy infantry or a Sniper, and depending on the map you may have to capture and hold positions in a scarred townscape, execute a successful beach-landing under a volley of heavy weapons' fire and Snipers' bullets, and more. The new version, 1.1, fixes a multitude of bugs and improves various maps and models within the game. The visuals are now on a par with Counter-Strike at times, although the weapon models still look like they could do with some work, but the netcode is now far more reliable, and annoying niggles like the lack of a team-kill penalty have been dealt with. The team is said to be working on version 1.1 for Linux as we speak. You can already download version 1.1 for Windows from plenty of different locations. We found the server listed first quickest on our DSL line here in the United Kingdom. Your mileage may vary. Win32 update 1.0 > 1.1 (21.5Mb)

You may not have heard of SMT, but the chances are you have a fairly good idea of what SMP is. "Symmetrical Multiprocessing" is only supported by a few advanced operating systems like Windows 2000 and Linux, and isn't exactly perfect by any means. Many use it though, because any CPU-hungry program that uses multiple threads can split the load between the two chips and thus the speed that instructions are processed increases. The downsides to SMP are that programs which do not use multiple threads are forced to use only the main processor, and that more often than not, the setup slows because of an inability to keep threads moving to each processor. Intel, who currently boast a market-leading share of the server-based processor industry, know this all too well, and thanks to the latest mind-numbing three-letter acronym, they may have found an answer. SMT is fairly new compared to SMP. "Simultaneous Multithreaded" it stands for, and it was developed in the 90s. It does not require a fancy pants operating system to function, and it handles processes in an equally impressive manner. There is a very well written article today at The Tech Report, which takes an in-depth look at SMT, discussing how it works and where it came from. The article touches on many aspects of it, including its pitfalls, and the possibility that Intel are working on SMT processors right now as a replacement to its Xeon server CPUs. What's more, it was written by a human being, and not as a thesis! Could this be the end of SMP? Will the abbreviations never cease? The whole article can be viewed here.

Legend of Zelda : Link's Awakening is considered to be one of, if not the best Zelda game of all time. Although both N64 titles were exceptional, "classic" Zelda as its thought of is a much purer breed, relying on two dimensions and a sublime balance of action and adventure. It's been known for a while that Nintendo aimed to introduce two new Zelda titles to the GameBoy Color to keep sales alive even during the build up to the GameBoy Advance launch. The two games were tentatively titled Legend of Zelda: Mystical Seed, "The Chapter of Time and Space" and "The Chapter of Earth". The game will now be known as "Oracle of Ages" and "Oracle of Seasons" respectively. Originally the two games were meant to be three, a trilogy from Flagship, Nintendo and Capcom. Due to repeated delays, story changes and other teething problems though, the number was eventually cut to two, and the scope narrowed slightly. Players can apparently play either chapter without spoiling the other, and the games will be released simultaneously this May in the States. The two chapters can pass data between one another using coded passwords, and events in one adventure can change depending on your progress in the other. The first title, now known as "Oracle of Seasons," will focus on Link's combat whilst "Oracle of Ages" focuses on his puzzle-solving. Both games will take place in a distant land, and as so often happens to poor Link, he will get there by mysterious means and will spend most of the time trying to find his way back to Hyrule. The story opens with Link discovering a castle, and being blinded by the Triforce within. Upon awakening, he finds himself in a forest in the land of Hologram. His life is then gradually turned upside down by a young lass called Din, whom he encounters under rather peculiar circumstances that lead him to become part of a group of travelling entertainers. As usual, someone has other plans for Din, and in the process of plucking her from Link's grasp, the evil General Gorgon scramble's Hologram's seasons. Phew. In the other game, "Oracle of Ages," Link finds himself taken in by a young woman called Impa, who turns out to be the Dark Priestess Belan. The game is spent dashing around Hologram trying to find the either magical items needed to defeat the Priestess, who has escaped back in time. Players of the Super Nintendo's Zelda III will be right at home. Although a UK release date has not been confirmed at the time of writing, it is thought that the two titles will definitely arrive before the GameBoy Advance, which is due out in June Stateside and shortly thereafter in Europe.

In a cute Valentines Day story that just came across our desks (so to speak), British-based publisher Eidos have proven that gamers are in fact a bunch of sad gits with no life. No great surprises there then - just take a trip to your local LAN party if you need confirmation of this. In a poll on their website Eidos asked what their customers would trade in their girlfriend for - a top-of-the-line PC or next gen console, or a weekend in Paris with Lara Croft.

For many people a job in the computer games industry is a dream, with attendant visions of sitting around all day making cool stuff, playing deathmatch and drag-racing Ferrari sports cars at your local air strip. But the reality for the vast majority of developers is rather different according to Cliff Bleszinski of Epic Games. "I thought it was all roses and a pretty nifty place to be", he told Action Vault. "Luckily, I work at Epic Games, which is a dream. However, I have a lot of friends in the biz. And I've learned a lot."

3D Realms level designer Charlie Wiederhold announced in a shocking .plan update on Monday that he has "decided to just shut up until the game has Gone Gold". The trickle of news and screenshots of current project Duke Nukem Forever escaping from 3D Realms has been sparse to say the least, but one thing you could always count on was for people like Charlie Wiederhold and George Broussard to get involved in massive flame wars on messageboards and forums across the web. Whether this was at all related to the lengthy development cycle of their latest game is a matter of debate .. and one that Charlie won't be taking part in apparently.

Since the massively multiplayer role-playing genre hit the big time, companies like Verant, Microsoft and Origin have largely relied on volunteer helpers to police their worlds. In exchange for funky robes, prestige, or simply that warm glowing feeling you get from knowing you have helped somebody, hundreds of players became combination bug hunters, agony aunts and secret police.

It's the best news we've heard since the first time SNK invented it. Indications in the far east this morning are that SNK's Asian branch will resume operations from March. That does not mean that SNK USA or UK will necessarily spring back to life, but it's a step in the right direction. The company is expected to resume manufacture and distribution of the Neo Geo Pocket Color and future SNK arcade games. Amongst its return titles will be King of the Fighters 2001!

- Satoshi Kon Screenplay - Sadayuki Murai / Yoshikazu Takeuchi Filmed - Japan, 1997 DVD by - Manga Video

Several interesting facts regarding the new KT133A motherboards and the most recent versions of the Socket A Athlons came to light this week. For starters, many people are reporting that the new KT133A motherboards misreport core voltage figures. If you select 1.5V for your shiny new processor, the 'board actually goes ahead and gives it an extra 0.08V for good measure. Nobody is really sure why just yet. This is of course relatively harmless to the majority of users, but if you overclock above and beyond the level of most folk, you may want to take note of this.

Sony have forged a new alliance with Vodafone to allow customers to link their mobile phones to the PSOne. Sony have already announced similar agreements with NTT DoCoMo, described by FT.com as the leading Japanese mobile carrier, and NTT's six overseas partners, AT&T Wireless, KPN Mobile, Telecom Italia Mobile, Hutchinson 3G, Hutchinson Telecom and KG Telecom. The move is described as strategic partnership (aren't they all?) and will initially allow users to receive tips and the like via SMS. Something which we are at pains to point out doesn't require this much fanfare. Still, where there are purse strings there's a way. Both companies are looking to explore ways of "extending the PlayStation experience into the Vodafone mobile phone environment," which apparently means the company is talking about serving games over mobiles. Both companies are excited about the deal at any rate, and if you're yearning for more there's an unecessarily chirpy write up at FT.com. We can only assume the company intend to extend this relationship beyond the boundaries of the simple telephone, because in its current format we don't rate it. Perhaps they will opt for a system similar to that of the Neo Geo Pocket Color title Dive Alert, which allowed Japanese users to multiplay against anybody within a certain distance radius. Considering the amount of equipment both companies own, we wouldn't think it that unreasonable. Related Feature - Broadband Consoles - A Pipe Dream?

As if the industry wasn't in enough trouble already, a small British company called meltingpoint is apparently hell bent on destroying the entire internet economy as we know it, thanks to a little program with the unlikely name of "Fotino". This promises to allow "businesses with control over user access to the internet [to] extend their control of advertising beyond the boundaries of their home page". In other words, it allows ISPs and cyber-cafés to insert banner ads, pop-up windows and other annoyances wherever they like while you are browsing the web using their service.

Electronic Arts finally confirmed last week that they are working on a PlayStation 2 version of Quake III Arena, but exactly how they were going to bring the graphically intensive multiplayer-only game to Sony's console remained unclear. Now we know a little more thanks to id Software CEO Todd Hollenshead, who has confirmed that "[while] Quake III fans will see some familiar levels and characters from the PC version, [Quake III : Revolution] is a new game".

PC Gaming Online have announced that they will be running an official competition here in the UK for UbiSoft's "Pro Rally 2001", taking place over the next twelve weeks. Despite the organisers' name, most of the competition will in fact be offline, with every fourth stage involving a head-to-head online race. Kicking off on February 18th, "the championship will test drivers over a wide range of different surfaces and conditions until at the end, there is a winner who will take away a fantastic set of prizes", according to PC Gaming Online. Those "fantastic" prizes are a Thrustmaster 360 Modena Pro racing wheel, Peugeot 206 WRC team tool kit, t-shirt and cigarette lighter. Well, it's better than a kick in the teeth anyway. If you fancy your chances, head over to the contest website to find out more and sign-up.

Australian hardware company Ferraro Design have announced that they will be releasing an upgraded version of their "Claw" controller. Ergonomically designed to sit under your left hand and providing you with nine fingertip buttons, it was intended to replace the keyboard as a computer games control device. The Claw was certainly a nice idea, but it fell rather short of expectations here at EuroGamer, being declared "rather frivolous" and "a missed opportunity".

Ever since the announcement a couple of weeks ago that Sega were abandoning their roots in the console development business and syndicating their technology to set-top box firm Pace, we've been anxiously waiting to see an actual image of the device. Broad comments were made that the box would be seen at trade shows soon, and MCV ran a mockup image in their issue for that week, but it is for the first time this Monday lunchtime that the world has glimpsed the future of Dreamcast. And "glimpsed" really is the operative word here, because the press image provided is hideously obscured. The box will be unveiled properly at a London press conference next week, but until then all we have is this rather limited PR glossy, borrowed from our friends at MCVUK.com. We doubt the screen has anything to do with it. The set-top box, in case you missed it, will include Dreamcast functionality, and a hard-disk for storing game data downloaded from an outside source. Related Feature - Sega to become platform-neutral, Team up with Palm

With the imminent arrival of "Myst III : Exile", the latest installment in the multi-million selling adventure game series, publishers GAME Studios have launched a new official mailing list and newsletter dedicated to the game. "Updated every fortnight, the Official Myst III : Exile Newsletter will enable the 10 million owners of the previous Myst games - Myst and Riven - to get the inside track on the latest addition to the record-breaking series", according to the press release. To find out more, head over to the newsletter website.

This week's MCV trade magazine includes an interview with David Gosen, Managing Director of Nintendo Europe, who takes time out of his busy schedule ramping up for the release of an unprecedented two major consoles in one year to discuss matters with the general public. The interview includes an amusing exchange between Gosen and rival SCEE number Chris Deering, who fishes for information on just where Nintendo are trying to pitch the consoles. Gosen's last word is that "yes Chris, consumers will be buying both."

Despite a long history of fantastic RPG titles including the likes of the Final Fantasy series, Vagrant Story, the two Parasite Eve titles, Chrono Trigger and Cross, the Mana games and even more, Squaresoft are, at least according to some of the more pessimistic industry analysts, on the rocks. On the 8th February, three senior members of the management team submitted their resignations in answer to the recent slump on sales and general financial performance. Long-standing chairman of the board and MD Tomoyuki Takeichi, MD and VP Hironobu Sakaguchi and also director Masatsugu Hiramatsu have started a chain reaction within the company that will lead to massive changes both on the board and in general. The three executives' resignations have led to Square reorganising its management structure to include one MD/President/CEO and on MD/CFO, with several outside board members. Within minutes of clearing his desk and heading for the exit, Hironobu Sakaguchi was spun around and shifted into the job of executive producer, so that Square can retain the rights to develop his series, including Final Fantasy. With a reported figure of more than $150m spent on the series film already Mr. Sakaguchi is probably quite safe from the dole for the time being. The two other former executives, Mr. Takeichi and Mr. Hiramatsu, will return as a contracted advisor and executive official respectively. Although this move marks quite a shake-up for the worldwide games developer, the only effects are expected to be a failure to pay share dividends for this year to public stockholders, something that the company's bad performance is blamed for anyway. Late last week, Sega's president and chairman Isao Owaka, no doubt fearing for the future of his company in light of the recent Dreamcast announcements, donated £500m worth of stock in order to help make up for the losses. At this time, it's thought that Squaresoft aren't in quite such dire need of cash injection. Nonetheless, the movie budget alone is stretching them by now. Related Feature - Sega president goes potty

A few months ago we got our first look at Bohemia Interactive's "Operation Flashpoint", which at the time had just been picked up by British publisher Codemasters and undergone a name change from the rather unfortunate former title "Flashpoint 1985 : Status Quo". We were happy to report that the game had nothing to do with the dodgy rock outfit after all, and was instead an ambitous all-arms combat game set during a fictitious outbreak of hostilities between east and west at the tail end of the Cold War.

One story that we missed in the recent spate of doom 'n' gloom revelations from various gaming-related dot coms and publishers was the announcement last week that Dennis "Thresh" Fong's self-styled first gaming web portal Gamers.com has laid off over half of its staff. Bizarrely CEO Geoffrey Mulligan declared that the sacked personnel were luxuries that the company could do without. I'm sure that comes as a great comfort to the 50 people who have been added to the great dot com junk pile as a result of this move, although the revelation that the next victims of the cut-backs could be "senior management" might help to bring a faint smile back to their faces as they exit the building. And in an ironic twist, the last story in the "computer gaming news" section on Gamers.com (which hadn't been updated since last Tuesday at the time of writing) was a report on the closure of Gamecenter, starting with the fateful words "the dot-bombs just keep stacking up".

Having now played every game in the esteemed Blair Witch series, I can quite confidently state that only Terminal Reality really has a clue how to drive the Nocturne engine and its development tools, and I can also proclaim that like so many ill-thought-out trilogies, Blair Witch ends on a farce. The first thing I should do as a fan of the Nocturne engine is distance this game as far as possible from either Nocturne itself or Rustin Parr, TRI's other title, which for me marked the high point of the series, comparable to such trilogic openers as Die Hard. I would compare it to The Legend of Coffin Rock, which lacked flair, but even that doesn't really sinkt his low. The third Blair Witch title, entitled "The Elly Kedward Tale", pretty much abandons any real relevance to the facts and figures movie fans will care about, and casts you as Jonathan Prye, a witch-hunter from the 18th Century, who has gone and lost his faith in the Lord above. In order to overcome this droopy disposition, he travels to Blair, only to discover that it has been abandoned, with only a priest, constable and prisoners remaining, including a charismatic witch. It pretty soon becomes your job to investigate what became of Elly Kedward, who was banished from the town for witchcraft and who, rumour has it, is responsible for the sudden disappearance of the town's children. Of course, this is the least of the town's worries. Cue buckets of atmosphere. Now where are those dang buckets?

Crates have become something of a cliche in first person shooters over the years, with pretty much every title since "Doom" featuring crates at some point in the game. Whenever developers run out of inspiration when working on a new level, the first thing that pops into their mind seems to be "put a crate in it", leading to a terrifying proliferation of warehouses, factories and other crate-friendly locations in action games.

When reviewing the seminal figures in the history of PC games, it would be hard to find anyone who has been more in the middle of the action than Scott Miller. As head of Apogee Software he is credited as inventing the episodic game demo when he originated the use of demos to sell shareware side-scrollers.

It's a quiet day for PC gamers in the UK today, with just two new releases confirmed for this week. First up is "Theme Park Inc.", the latest installment in the long-running series from Electronic Arts which (as the title suggests) puts you in control of running a theme park. Also available is Codemasters' "World Championship Snooker", which is fairly self-explanatory as well. Slim pickings indeed, and next Friday looks even more spartan, with nothing at all showing up on our release date list here at EuroGamer. February should end with a bang though, with the release of gory fantasy action game "Severance : Blade of Darkness" currently expected on February 23rd.

Over the years the computer game cutscene has taken on a variety of forms, from the lavish FX-laden movies of the "Wing Commander" series to the grimy cartoons of "Thief", by way of the stunning CG movies of recent "Final Fantasy" games and the real-time rendered cinematics of "Metal Gear Solid", using the game's own engine to produce the required effect. Now the Bitmap Brothers are branching out into new territory with real-time strategy sequel "Z : Steel Soldiers", which will be one of the few games we can think of to use comic book style cutscenes.

Gameplay chairman Mark Strachan is quoted in this week's issue of MCV as saying that "there isn't a For Sale sign on Gameplay," despite claims from technology tabloids that Cisco is in talks to take up to 20% of the company. After cutting its losses last week and serving 275 employees P45s with their morning tea, the article explains that the company has restructured to focus on two key areas; Technology and Boxed Games. The reports that Cisco is interested in a stake in the retailer stem from an article in the Sunday Telegraph last week. The article stated that Cisco were at "an advanced stage" in negotiations, despite missing their financial forecasts for the second half of last year. The company's acquisitions have been plentifold recently though, so many felt the story would bear fruit. Nonetheless, Strachan insists that the company has received "no bids," and that although they talk to a lot of people, the matter is not one under consideration. Related Feature - Gameplay cut 275 jobs

AOL and Freeserve have continued their campaign to right the wrongs of BT's wholesale ADSL business, after it was suggested earlier this week that BT's own ISP Openworld may have been receiving preferential treatment. As we reported yesterday, the ADSL installation arm of the telco, "BTIgnite," handles nearly 500 Openworld customers a day, but a meagre 20 or so between AOL and Freeserve. According to AOL, BT's alleged cross department bias could be cause for some form of legal action. Speaking to ZDNet, AOL's chief counsel Clare Gilbert said that "Openworld is not the largest [ISP] player in the country, yet it seems it is being allocated more installations than its competitors". Continuing, she said that "Only BT or Oftel can provide the information on whether this is true. If so, it's a serious breach of BT's obligations as a former monopoly to act in a fair way to ensure competition for consumers." ADSL and other forms of Digital Subscriber Line are a hot topic at the moment, what with Verizon's troubles in the USA (particularly in New York), and the German telecoms watchdog probing Deutsche Telecom over its high-speed Net access. It seems that the rollout of broadband internet connectivity is difficult to achieve whoever or wherever you are. Related Feature - AOL and Freeserve lambast BTOpenworld

The Japanese get all the breaks when it comes to console goodies. Even though the Dreamcast is set to cease production on the 31st of March, it still retails for a staggering £150 in many places, while our Japanese friends can now pick up the console for an absolutely horrifying £50. Yes, fifty notes, half a ton, fifty squid. Some games cost nearly that in certain quarters around here. Daily Radar reckon we should buy an imported Jap console for a pittance and then use an adapter to play UK games, of which many now retail at less than £20, including classics like Soul Calibur and Crazy Taxi. We contacted Sega's UK press officer regarding the price cuts, but all we could get out of them was a standardized "We have not made an announcement regarding price drop" response. Hopefully this is set to change, but we're not holding our breath. And frankly, if you don't own a Dreamcast now, you might as well wait six months until they are really cheap and pick one up then. That said, we'll all be buying them in our DVD players and VCRs this time next year, so who's counting? Related Feature - Sega Confirms New Business Strategy

Development/publishing giants Electronic Arts have teamed up with Quake III: Arena developers id software to produce a PlayStation 2 version of the game, titled Quake III Revolution, as we reported last year. EA intend to release the game early this year under their new "EA Games" publishing brand. The press release is mostly fluff, with no real information on new additions and the like, but it does include some jolly comments from both EA's European managing director Bruce McMillan and id's CEO Todd Hollenshead. Related Feature - Console Quake III Wars