So to get things started, there are 11 new Quake reviews. Its a mixed bag this one. There are also 3 new Quake 2 reviews by Rush, who is a new Quake 2 reviewer here at MPQ. Welcome aboard Rush! Later on today I will have 6 Your Reviews from the Fat Controller, this guy is almost churning out as many reviews as me!!!

You may notice that the smaller screen shots now look better. I made switch from Paint Shop Pro 4 to 5, and 5 does a better job of resizing images. For proof check these two shots out. Both have been resized from 640x480 to 200x150 then back up again. [PSP 4] [PSP 5]. PSP 5 smoothes things better and generally does a much better job.

I'm now running a competition here at MPQ. Basically what you have to is draw your impression of Shambler, the monstrosity which runs these two sites, here and here. There is no prize, its just for amusement. The rules are simple just draw a picture (400x450 in JPG format) of him then send it to me. I'll pick the winner and stick it on the site. Anyone that does a Mr Potato Head picture will be instantly disqualified, thats just too easy. I'm going to have ago and I'm sure I can get Kable to rumble up something as well.

I'm going to rewrite the your review page. Just to make things perfectly clear. As in crystal. Probably end up like mud though, but I gotta try.

This gets my quote of the day. From Excessus :
To be honest, i found Baldm6 very disgusting, mainly for the texture set that Bal choosed
Now you see why I'm having problems getting Baldm6 reviewed at Inspection. Incidentally that review, along with another review, are now up at Inspection. So after you've finished here, go there.

I have been told on several occasions to mention this site. Goetz's FreeStylE Page. Basically this page is full of extremely cool demos for Quake. Lots of tricks and tips done in custom maps. Some of the stuff there is amazing! I think Goetz plays maybe a little too much Quake =).

5p34k1ng 0f wh4ck a55 T3xt, you might wanna pop by TEAMGimp,.TEAMShambler Quake reviews and check the news for the 24/07/99. It appears someone sent him an interesting email =). Also as funny as it sounds, the joke email I sent isn't far off the truth. There really are people who think an A is actually a 4. I've had a couple of those type of emails.

A new version of the Q3Test came out last Saturday/Sunday. I've already voiced some comments on it. The new map is probably the most playable of the three, since its small and I prefer 1-on-1. Thing is, I just think it looks crap. The architecture is very drawn out. The high up ceilings and stupid plain criss crossing roof bars. Still its fun to play but I hope in the finished product the maps are of a different style because I'm just not taken by this high tech gothic shit.

Monsto forwarded this link to me about a review by LowTax of the Doom comic book. Very funny!

Fileplanet is really beginning to get on my tits. The amount of times it gives crap links and I get time outs is getting a little too high. We also decided that the counters for downloads on FP must be broken. There just cannot be any reason why some maps are downloaded so many times.

I finally got my LAN working. To cut a long story short I changed two of the network cards with two of another brand, booted everything up and it worked first time. Very annoying, but it all worked out in the end.

I played and finished King Pin. The SP game is very short and isn't as good as Half Life. I do however really like the style of it, the moody atmosphere and lighting. Big ass baddies and cool weapons. Some of missions are interesting, but in last set of maps it just turns into out and out gun fights. DM is also good as well. Faster than Half Life and infinitely more interesting. I rate it on par with Quake 2 as far enjoyment goes. The weapons are cool and setting someone on fire with the flame thrower is very enjoyable. Watching Kable running around screaming is so cool. I hear that online though that its complete rubbish. Patches ahoy! This review really nails how the game is good and proper, well worth reading.

I also converted a couple of Quake 2 maps over to King Pin, not that its difficult. All you do it rename the entities in the maps to ones King Pin has. Easy peasy. The hard bit is converting the Quake 2 wal files to TGA files. The only problem is with the sky textures. They don't work. The maps load up with no problems but just do not use them. So anyway, I played with a couple of maps. One was Spogs Mobieus Trip (which incidentally you can read a review of at Inspection) and here are four screenies I rumbled up. [One] [Two] [Three] [Four].

I tried Descent 3 out in DM. Wow. It looks pretty amazing. Its more of a FFA game, 1-on-1 whilst interesting isn't too hot. Whoever has the most powerful missile usually wins. Its a case of he who fires fastest gets all. The thing which pissed me of though was the fact that mouse control was such a bitch. Configuring it was a pain, then once playing it was about as responsive as... erm... something which isn't very responsive at all. Erm.. yeah.

Heres something which just cracked me up when I heard it. I was watching the World Pool Championship on Sky Sports on Thursday night. Sid Waddell is one of the commentators and just comes out with some of the funniest shit ever. Anyone thats heard him before will know what I mean. The match was Jim Rempe against Francisco Bustamante. At the time the score was 7/8 (Rempe leading). It looked like Rempe was going to win, since he just needed to win this rack. Now he was flying away with it, the camera then panned over to Francisco. He was sat in his chair, shaking his head with hand on his fac, then Sid drops in with this...
<Sid> Blue chalk smeared on the thumb like warriors blood.
I mean wtf, now thats just funny. Or it could just be me...

I saw Star Wars earlier in the week. What a load of crap. One of the most boring films I have ever had the misfortune to see. It just seemed like they'd filled the film up with CG and forgotten to make it interesting. Reminds of quite a few computer games. Anyway, I just hope the next film is alot better. Couldn't be any worse!