Gamesindustry.biz recently conducted an interview with gaming industry vet and managing director of Bethesda Europe, Sean Brennan. The interview, a first of many, discusses their (Zenimax/Bethesda’s) notable success in marketing Fallout 3 in the UK. While bragging about how awesome Fallout 3 did, Sean also took liberty at poking fun at some (at the time) competing EA titles that did not fair as well in that region.

Sean also unveiled Zenimax/Bethesda’s diabolical plan to dig its tendrils deep within the remaining European territories with assurances of eventual world domination… and, oh yeah, assurances that “we’re still going to focus on what we’re doing best, which is 360, PS3 and PC, triple-A products aimed at a more mature market place” (Although, Sean hinted that Wii titles were not out of question).

The most exciting part of the interview was Sean’s teasing us with news of Splash Damage’s next title:

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At a recent event, Intel demonstrated Enemy Territory: Quake Wars with ray-tracing. ETQW reportedly ran at 14-29 frames per second in 1280×720 on a 16-core (4 socket, 4 core) Tigerton system running at 2.93 GHz on a 64-bit Linux operating system.

Trendwatch reports seeing physically-correct refractions of water as well as incredibly detailed glass reflections. Intel supports ray-tracing on 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Linux and Windows operating systems.

Check out TGDaily for a gallery of exclusive screenshots from ET: Quake Wars.

Not a bad week for the release of games especially if you are a PC user and have been awaiting the arrival of Mass Effect or the new Lost Planet: Extreme Condition Colonies expansion. Also, whether you are a console or handheld gamer there is something for everyone this week, so without further ado, here is what you can expect to see on shelves this week.

PC

• Lost Planet: Extreme Condition Colonies Edition – May 27
• Mass Effect – May 27
• Bus Driver – May 27
• Stronghold Crusader Extreme – May 28

PS3

• ET: Quake Wars – May 27

Xbox 360

• ET: Quake Wars – May 27
• Lost Plane: Extreme Condition Colonies Edition

Nintendo Wii

• Death Jr: Root of Evil – May 27
• Emergency Heroes – May 27
• Kawasaki Snowmobiles -May 27
• Monkey King: The Legend Beings – May 27

Nintendo DS

• The Metallic Rose Nintendo DS is available on May 27
• Super Dodgeball Brawlers – May 27
• USA Today Crosswords Challenge (GameStop Exclusive) – May 29

PSP

• World Championship Cards – May 28

All release dates are subject to availability, so some may be in stores on the day listed, the day before, or the day after so check with wherever you purchase your games because shipping times vary.

We have known that ET: Quake Wars would be coming to consoles eventually, but Activision has kind of danced around the subject of when and where for quite some time. Today, word on the street is that it will be bitting the PS3 and Xbox 360 on May 30th.

No word still on when the demos for both systems will hit, but stick around because I am sure something will be announced soon.

Thanks: Videogaming247

According to Nerve Software designer Greg Stone, Activision is planning to release playable demos of Enemy Territory: Quake Wars for both the PS3 and 360. No date as to when the demos will be made available or whether they will hit before the console versions this summer, but we will keep you posted.

ET: Quake Wars will contain all of the classes, key features and maps that the team-based multiplayer FPS had on the PC version and will also include bots and usability issues for the port to consoles has been addressed.

For more information on ET: Quake Wars, check out our previous posts.

Thanks: Eurogamer

Just in case any of you missed it, the highly anticipated Battlefield 2 modification, Forgotten Hope 2.0, was released over the weekend. For those who have not experienced the original Forgotten Hope modification for Battlefield 1942 (one of the best mods in the BF scene), take note here. Forgotten Hope, both original and the newest iteration, are attempts to bring a “more realistic” WW2 battlefield experience to the player. This, of course, results in a less arcade feel that is the staple of the Battlefield series. That’s not to say that making a more realistic game is any less fun.

(For those wanting to skip the wordy analysis, head straight to the goods by clicking here.)

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Have you fragged your FileFront staff this week? If not, tonight’s your chance!

We’ve opened up our FileFront gaming server for this weekend. We’ll be getting together at 9:00 PM EST for a few rounds of Battlefield 2 Conquest Enemy Territory: Quake Wars. Come on out, hop on the server, and take a few potshots at our staff. You’ll see folks from Gaming Today, FileFront site and forums, and the FileFront Network sites.

I hope to see you all there!

You can find our Battlefield 2 ET: Quake Wars server at 38.118.213.150. You can also find it in your server list named “FileFront.com’s ETQW Server.”

UPDATE: Yes, I see that we put up an out-of date server version – it will be corrected before the event starts. I still hope to see you all there!

UPDATE 2: Our tech staff has run into some problems with the latest version of the Linux server. As such, they have changed our game of the week to Enemy Territory: Quake Wars. We’ll face off in Battlefield 2 next week for your fragging pleasure.

The weekend is here, and if by some chance you find yourself without any plans why not check out some of the recent demos that have landed at FileFront in the past month? Girlfriend/boyfriend/significant other got plans for a night out with pals? Single and lonely with only a cat for company? Rigor mortis in the prime of life? Tired of watching the same crap the cable networks feed you with a dirty spork? Whatever your reasons for staying in this weekend, I am sure we have something that will help you pass the time before Monday hits and you have to go back to work/school – miserable and just counting the seconds to the weekend.Here is just a sampling of what we have to offer. Some may sound familiar, and some may not.

• Age of Empires III: The Asian Dynasties
• AGON: The Last Sword of Toledo
• Avencast: Rise of the Mage
• Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
• Clive Barker’s Jericho
• Darkness Within: In Pursuit of Loath Nolder
• Ememy Territory: Quake Wars
• Escape from Paradise City
• F.E.A.R. Perseus Mandate
• Hellgate: London
• Journeys of the Dragon Riders
• Lost Planet: Extreme Condition
• Painkiller: Overdose – Single and Multiplayer
• Path of Magic
• Plant Tycoon
• SEGA Rally Revo
• Steel Fury
• Stranglehold
• Tarr Chronicles
• The Aplocalyptic Game About Penguins
• The Chosen: Well of Souls
• Tiger Woods PGA Tour 08
• Time Shift
• Unreal Tournament 3
• Zoo Tycoon 2: Extinct Animals

These are just some of demos we have received since the middle of September, and we have many many more. Check out the list here.

Sitting down to play Enemy Territory: Quake Wars for the first time, I must admit to being a wee bit excited. After all, I’d just spent a fair bit of time in the beta test, and knowing the potential that this multiplayer online shooter possessed, I was anxious to see how much of that potential was realized at retail.

As a gamer who spent countless hours immersed in the Battlefield series of games, I have been waiting for a successor to that series to emerge since Battlefield 2142 drove a stake through the series’ heart. Would Enemy Territory be that game?

Set in the years prior to the events of Quake II, Enemy Territory: Quake Wars drops players in to the heart of a war-torn Earth in the year 2060. The Strogg, cyborg soldiers of the evil Macron, have invaded Earth in the hopes of harvesting humanity for spare parts and protein food for their cyborg army. The Global Defense Force (GDF) is fighting for their very lives against the Strogg invasion.

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In keeping in line with the current trend of patching a game the day of release, Splash Damage have gone ahead and released the first retail patch to Enemy Territory: Quake Wars. ET: Quake Wars, which begins showing up in stores today, went gold a month ago and a demo has been publicly available during most of that time. Splash Damage, being ever vigilant, began working on game improvements immediately after the demo release.

Since ET: Quake Wars is shipping with an in-game auto-updater, downloading the patch separately is not required. However, in the event that everyone and their mom takes off work today to play it (it is Friday after all), some external public mirrors will be available to offload such strain. The update is small (22 MB), so here is the list of those changes:

• Updated Linux client compatibility
• Fixed performance drop of soft particles on some graphics cards
• Removed XP award for destroying newly spawned vehicles (spawn camping)
• Improved bot control of the GDF Titan Tank
• Fixed dedicated LAN server administrators reverting to default group on map change
• Fixed players occasionally not being able to change the mission they are on
• Server Launcher now clears the map rotation when changing game mode
• Fixed localized clients reverting to unlocalized if player starts a lite server on the same PC
• Fixed image pure check (anti-cheating) erroneously failing for MegaTextures

For now, you can find a list of mirrors for the update here. Hopefully we’ll get the ET:QW patch hosted at FileFront asap. So keep an eye out for that patch via the link below:

Enemy Territory: Quake Wars 1.1 patch @ FileFront

Via EnemyTerritory

[Update: We've got the demo up and running on FileFront.  Click HERE to download it]