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According To The Official Page Half-Life 2 can be Purchased starting 11am Today!, This doesn't mean it will be playable tommorow, but it does save a step.

A rather disturbing message can be found over on the Star Wars Galaxies web site. Apparently, their data centers have been shut down, effectively cutting off thousands of players from the Star Wars Galaxies universe. The brief, and disturbing announcement:
A tornado has forced us to shut down our data centers. All Galaxies will be unavailable until further notice.
I guess SOE and LucasArts never heard of secure data storage and environmentally safe colocation facilities. Go figure!

Valve Software now has pre-release versions of Half-Life 2 on their Steam network. The game is not playable at this point, but for those interested in purchasing the game online, downloading the Steam client now and updating will, in theory, get you the game faster when it is finally released.

The pre-release is rather small, about 1gb in size (when did 1gb become "small?"). It's been speculated that the only data currently available on Steam are files such as sounds, textures, and videos which have already been completed. The rest of the content and actual game engine probably will not be downloadable until Half-Life 2 goes Gold.

Microsoft recently "downsized" a department of Microsoft Game Studios responsible for the production of games such as "NFL Fever," "NHL Rivals" and "NBA Inside Drive" for the X-Box gaming platforrm.

Spokeswoman Molly O'Donnell said those franchises, which were scheduled for new releases sometime this year, have now been permanently canceled.

O'Donnell continued explaining the affected employees would be offered the chance to find other jobs within the company. The cuts were part of a broader strategy to focus on large-scale games.

Source: Reuters

According to an article at Spong, mega-publisher Acclaim will likely file for Chapter 11 on August 30, 2004.

Acclaim's Texas office was reportedly closed on August 26th. It's been rumored the entire staff there have already been laid off. As of today, the New York office remains open, but will likely close next Monday.

I suspect we'll see an Acclaim entry on a certain web site soon.

Today [August 25, 2004] is being celebrated as Linux's birthday. Linux is a free Unix-type operating system originally created by Linus Torvalds with the assistance of developers around the world. Developed under the GNU General Public License.

August 25, 1991, Linux Torvalds sent the following message to the Usenet newsgroup comp.os.minix:

From: (Linus Benedict Torvalds)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: What would you like to see most in minix?
Summary: small poll for my new operating system
Message-ID: <1991Aug25 [dot] 205708 [dot] 9541 [at] klaava [dot] Helsinki [dot] FI>
Date: 25 Aug 91 20:57:08 GMT
Organization: University of Helsinki

Hello everybody out there using minix -
I'm doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won't be big and
professional like gnu) for 386(486) AT clones. This has been brewing
since april, and is starting to get ready. I'd like any feedback on
things people like/dislike in minix, as my OS resembles it somewhat
(same physical layout of the file-system (due to practical reasons)
among other things).
I've currently ported bash(1.08) and gcc(1.40), and things seem to work.
This implies that I'll get something practical within a few months, and
I'd like to know what features most people would want. Any suggestions
are welcome, but I won't promise I'll implement them
Linus (torvalds [at] kruuna [dot] helsinki [dot] fi)
PS. Yes - it's free of any minix code, and it has a multi-threaded fs.
It is NOT protable (uses 386 task switching etc), and it probably never
will support anything other than AT-harddisks, as that's all I have .

...and the world was changed forever.

According to projections, Linux is set to take Apple's seat as the number two desktop operating system. Linus started a revolution 13 years ago; a revolution that just keeps on moving further and faster.

MultiplayerGamers.com is proudly hosted on a Linux server.

In these days of ridiculous US patents, Nintendo has decided to join the party by filing, this ludicrous patent for "Home video game system with hard disk drive and internet access capability." Basically, they now own the patent to what both Microsoft's X-Box and Sony's Playstation 2 have been doing for years.

It's a perplexing move for Nintendo as they have time and time again clearly stated the goal for their gaming hardware is not on-line game playing. Perhaps they've changed their minds afterall? We'll see.

At any rate, this patent is just another one in the long list of patents proving over and over again that US patent laws need a severe overhaul with respect to the digital age.

I came across a very interesting project from a little-known non-profit organization. The project, named Destiny's Wind, is a Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG) based in the Star Trek universe, taking place in a timeline after the 'Nemesis' movie. It's unclear how far along the game actually is, but the information on the Destiny's Wind web site is enough to make a Star Trek fan absolutely drool with anticipation.

www.arc-hq.net

ARC stands for Attack, Retrieve, Capture. It is a totally free Internet-based, multi-player action/strategy game. The basic concept is a simple one, simplicity being the ultimate goal and one of most redeeming qualities of ARC. You fly these "hovercraft" type ships (there is no official name for just what the heck they are, although due to the graphics in the earlier versions of ARC, the term "nipple" was often used, and still is today), and the goal of the game depends on what type of map you choose to join. There are two basic types, one being the flag game, where the object is to pick up all of the flags on the map (however many there may be), and return them to the flag holder at your team's base. The second type is the dueling (fragging) game, where the object is to simply kill, kill, kill.

The community is fairly large still. Name registration has been closed for 2 years and is now opened back to the public. Probabaly one of the best communities in any game. You will love this game!

There has been a rash of Jump to Lightspeed previews over the last couple days, which is an upcoming expansion that will add real space sim style combat to Star Wars Galaxies. Here are a few articles that I found interesting.

IGN

GameSpot

Gamespy