While console shooters like Halo have gotten a lot of press in recent years, I will freely admit to being a PC man first and foremost when it comes to the genre. Getting the chance to use mouselook and engage in some old-fashioned shooter action is a wonderful nostalgic thrill. While stories are nice, brainless, shiny, visceral action still has a place in modern games. Proving that tried-and-true formulas are still enjoyable today, Star Wars Battlefront II and Quake IV deliver visually impressive violence-fests that uphold their series pedigrees with distinction. Read on for my impressions of these two new games with thoroughly familiar experiences.

An anonymous reader writes that "Village Voice has a small article by Julian Dibbell about the Machinima Film Festival that takes place this Saturday (Nov. 12th) at the Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria. The festival is also holding their annual awards on Friday night. For me, the highlight is their honoring David Wright for creating Keygrip (the program behind the creation of Quake movies like Blahbalicious and Operation Bayshield) - which is a nice nod to machinima's roots. "

Timmus writes "nVidia's huge lead in OpenGL performance is apparently gone. According to Firingsquad, ATI's latest hotfix driver brings major performance improvements to ATI's RADEON X1800 cards in OpenGL games like Doom 3 and Quake 4. The X1800 XT is now faster than GeForce 7800 GTX, while the X1800 XL is faster than the GeForce 7800 GT in most cases. The article also includes GeForce 6800 Ultra/GT scores, including both in SLI. It's a pretty interesting read if you like graphical benchmarks." From the article: "A little over a week ago, rumors began spreading that ATI was working on a new tool that delivered substantially improved performance to their recently launched X1000 cards in OpenGL titles such as DOOM 3, Quake 4, and many others. Some reports claimed ATIs performance improved by up to 35% in these titles in 4xAA mode. Then, posts on Beyond3Ds forums and sites like Guru3D confirmed these rumors. So how did ATI pull this off?"

Crusader writes "id Software has released the Linux client and server for Quake 4. There's a FAQ page with installation instructions, notes, and download links."

Gamasutra is reporting on next year's inductees to the Sony Walk of Game at the Metreon in San Francisco. From the article: "Lifetime achievement nominees for the 2006 Walk Of Game are John Carmack, Peter Molyneux, Sid Meier, Toru Iwatani, and Will Wright. Game and character nominations include Castlevania, Civilization, Donkey Kong, Doom, EverQuest, Final Fantasy, Fox McCloud, Frogger, Grand Theft Auto, Half-Life, Lara Croft, Madden NFL, Mortal Kombat, Myst, Pac-Man, Pitfall Harry, Pong, Quake, Resident Evil, Samus Aran, Space Invaders, StarCraft, Street Fighter II, Tetris, and The Sims."

An anonymous reader writes "OptimalGrid is a self-contained middleware designed for developers to create grid-enabled parallel applications without themselves becoming experts in grid or high-performance computing (article). The Linux compatible middleware now includes automatic distribution and provisioning on to Grid nodes. See how the first release of Quake II was made massively multi-player [pdf] by running on a Grid. Get modified Quake II from Sourceforge to run with OptimalGrid and let the massive Grid games begin." Update: 09/19 16:12 GMT by Z : Marked the pdf as such.

An anonymous reader writes "Today sees the opening of the Official GP2X Site where you can see the new console from Gamepark.com, who last brought you the GP32 a fantastic console for homebrew developers. This console is a major step up with Dual 200Mhz cpus and is basically a Portable Linux handheld that can easily do ports like Quake, Doom and Emulators like Mame. Its Open Source SDK gives all amateur and commercial Developers the ablity to release software on a brand new console like the old Amiga/Commodore 64 days. More screenshots of the GP2X can be found at GP2x news."

inotocracy writes "At John Carmack's Quakecon 2005 keynote he promised that the Quake 3 Arena source code would soon be released-- turns out he wasn't just pulling our leg! Today it was released, weighing in at 5.45mb, it makes for a quick download and a whole lotta fun. Developers, start your compilers!"

TheRaindog writes "In addition to announcing the Quake III source code's impending release, John Carmack's QuakeCon 2005 keynote also covered the programmer's thoughts on Microsoft and Sony's next-gen consoles, physics acceleration in games, and what he'd like to see from new graphics hardware."

fwice writes "QuakeCon has just kicked off and at the end of the keynote speech, John Carmack made an announcement saying that the Quake 3 sourcecode will be released shortly. "

Andre Medeiros writes "CNet is featuring a visual preview of the upcoming entry in the Quake series." From the article: "Bodies everywhere - As you can see, Quake 4 stays true to a well-worn first-person shooter trope: no matter where you go, your expendable fellow Marines will litter the ground and silently warn that you're about to be ambushed by plasma-wielding aliens."

1up has some information from a recent release of Xbox 360 launch information. They have available for you the Launch Titles list, an assurance that the EU and JP launches will be this year, an overview of the event, and updates on the titles Ninety-Nine Nights and Frame City Killer. From the launch titles list: "Activision: Call of Duty 2, Tony Hawk American Waste, Quake 4, Gun - Capcom: Resident Evil 5, Dead Rising - Square Enix: FFXI - Microsoft Game Studios: Everyparty (from Game Republic), Ninety Nine Nights, PGR3 - Ubisoft: Ghost Recon 3"

Koskun writes "What appears to be a Russian design company has on their website a keyboard in which the keys are using OLED to display what function the keys represent. The product is Art. Lebedev Studio's Optimus Keyboard. The uses of this could be amazing. They have pictures of layouts for Photoshop and Quake, as well as a QWERTY and Russian. Here's hoping that this will make it to a production model and not just a design model."

The Next Generation site has an editorial up by veteran animator Steve Bowler discussing the loss of prestige id has suffered, at least in his eyes, as a result of the latest incarnation of Doom. From the article: "But one day, the industry changed. The consumer changed. It's hard to put one's finger on it. Maybe it was Counter-Strike. Maybe Unreal Tournament. Something happened to the genre between Quake III and Doom 3, and Id somehow didn't take it into account. Call it braggadocio, or hubris, but Doom 3 is no longer the top dog in the FPS market. Yes, it's upsetting. I tried not to admit it either. But it's undeniably true."

Lisandro writes "Nexuiz v1.0, an fast paced deathmatch FPS, has been released under the GPL. It uses a heavily modified version of the Quake 1 engine, with real time lighting/shadowing, improved particle effects and more. It looks really good and it's available for Windows and Linux, with a Mac version said to be coming soon."

Iphtashu Fitz writes "The earthquake that triggered last years tsunami was the largest one recorded in 40 years and kept the planet shaking for weeks according to new reports that are due to be released on Friday. This was the largest earthquake measured so far by a new worldwide array of digital seismic instruments, whose results will appear in six different reports being published in the journal Science tomorrow. The quake broke several records, including the longest fault line (720 to 780 miles) and longest duration (10 minutes). The water displaced by the rise of the sea floor in the quake zone also resulted in a rise of worldwide sea levels of 0.004 inch. In Sri Lanka, more than 1,000 miles from the epicenter, the ground moved nearly 4 inches. As many as 14 smaller quakes were triggered in Alaska when the tremors from this quake reached the northernmost U.S. state."

Gamasutra has up a feature discussing an E3 discussion session haunted by some illustrious names in game design. The topic of the panel was The Path to Creating AAA Games. Hosted by Carly Staehlin, the panel featured Matt Firor, Todd Howard, Tetsuya Mizuguchi, Tim Willits, and Will Wright. From the article: "'My biggest failure was Quake 3,' Willits said. 'The game offered perfect multiplayer for hardcore players. In fact, they're still playing it. But the more casual gamers, and other people who actually have money, found playing next to impossible.'"

An anonymous reader writes "bit-tech.net has the news that the eagerly awaited next installment to the Quake series, Quake 4, is on course to be released in time for Christmas. PCGamer grabbed the chance to have an exclusive play through of the upcoming title in the June issue of the magazine." Trailer also downloadable from 3D Gamers. (Scroll down for the non-reg links.)

Gamespy has a feature discussing the upcoming first person shooter Quake 4. More details about the title are revealed in an interview and screenshots provided by some of the folks at Raven. From the article: "I think we have a lot of diversity throughout the entire game. We have some dark areas, and we have outdoor areas that are brighter. I think how diverse everything is will really go a long way. We didn't really set out saying, 'This game is going to be dark, this game is going to be light' -- we set out to make a cohesive environment where you go through different extremes and you'll see a bunch of different stuff."

1up.com has details as released by Activision and id about the upcoming first person shooter Quake IV. The game, in development by Madison, WI company Raven Software, QIV is going to return to the single-player roots of the second Quake title. From the article: " The Strogg are quickly regrouping. However, with the Strogg's planetary defenses still destroyed, Earth's forces can deliver a full and final assault. This time, you're not alone. You are Matthew Kane, an elite member of Rhino Squad, and part of Earth's next invasion wave. An army of soldiers are fighting with you and an arsenal of weapons and vehicles are at your disposal in this heroic and epic battle between worlds."