This week we interview Splash Damage's Supreme Commander of All Things Audio, Chris 'peaceful warrior' Sweetman. Chris comes to Splash Damage from Criterion, where he worked on the award-winning Black and Burnout Paradise. He also created the beeps and bops for a myriad of other games and before that worked on several movies, including Goldeneye and Twelve Monkeys. Suffice to say, Chris knows a thing or two about sound and we're excited to have him here in our tapir pen, if only to have him make the Star Trek door noise whenever somebody enters the office.

To find out more about Chris's sonic extravaganzas, how he ended up at Splash Damage, his process for sound creation, and much more, pretend the full interview is an audiobook and listen to it with your eyes.

In the wake of Splash Damage being named Best Independent Studio at the Develop Industry Excellence Awards, Develop Magazine decided to chronicle our history from the Quake III Fortress mod days to the AAA-filled present. The piece was written after a long chat with Splash Damage directors Paul Wedgwood, Arnout van Meer, and Richard Jolly and is laden with plenty of quotes and behind-the-scenes information on how Splash Damage got to be where we are now and what we've got in store for the future. Definitely recommended reading!

We're delighted to announce that Splash Damage's virtual enclosure has won an Ultraweb Award. The site was closely examined by a panel of judges and received Ultraweb's highest honor, the Level 4 Award. The Level 4 Award is one of the most difficult awards to attain on the World Wide Web, and out of a combined total of 16,242 reviewed sites to date, a mere 56 were rewarded with an Ultraweb Award, and out of those, only seven managed to scoop a Level 4 award. A list of all winners to date can be found here.

For those wanting to frag in style, the gaming system gurus at GameRigs have launched a brand-new line of gaming desktops and laptops based on Enemy Territory: QUAKE Wars. Clad in custom game artwork, the systems boast top-of-the-line components supplied by NVIDIA, Intel, and Crucial.

But rather than just slapping a game logo on a case, the guys also include ETQW mousepads and the official strategy guide with each of the systems, and even pre-install a copy of the game, so you can hop straight into the action when you get your new PC. Best of all, you can get $300 off for a limited time by using the coupon code QUAKECON08.

And finally, if you're a console gamer yearning for some ETQW goodness, GameRigs also has you covered with these rather pretty Xbox 360 and PS3 skins.

Snap to Grid, our regular look at up-and-coming user-created content for Enemy Territory: QUAKE Wars, series is back with another installment! This week, ETQW Mapping's lead singer Terry 'Salteh' Seidler focuses on Spirit Speedway, a map for the hotly anticipated Wheels of War mod for Enemy Territory: QUAKE Wars, and its objective-driven twin Free Spirit City. To top it all off, Salteh also manages to update us on the progress of three of the most popular user-made maps currently in development for the game.

Without further ado, here's the latest edition of Snap to Grid:

Representing our crack team of Production Coordinators, Jiri 'JFK' Kristek fearlessly throws his hat into the Ring of Interrogation for our latest staff interview. Jiri is currently attached to our art team (metaphorically, of course, otherwise that'd be pretty weird), where he makes sure that the guys and gals have everything they need to be as artsy as possible.

To find out more about Jiri's daily duties here at the office, how he ended up at Splash Damage, his gaming habits, and his giant Swedish brain, we heartily recommend slowly slurping the soup of words that is his profile page.

Like a scorching David Beckham free kick, the finals of the MCV & Xbox 360 Games 5s Football Tournament have flashed past our flailing arms and smacked into the back of the net of time before we had time to fully register it/them. Blink and you missed them/it. But fear not, if you didn’t happen to be on or adjacent to the pitch at the time, I am here to recount tales of foot-to-ball glory.

Summer and the associated drought of games are still in full swing (as if you couldn't tell by the gap between this installment and the last one), but we're now back in action! We've had a few games come out in recent weeks, with Xbox Live Arcade serving up the excellent Braid alongside Geometry Wars Evolved². Soul Calibur 4 appears to be the only notable retail release to hit lately, but September (and with it a fresh crop of games) is drawing ever closer.

In any case, let's see what we're playing, shall we? We've actually got several new faces in this installment, with recently crowned Audio Director Chris 'peaceful warrior' Sweetman and freshly spawned Lead Programmer Dean 'Deano' Calver hurling peripherals for the first time.

Engage:

DemonWare will be conducting some emergency maintenance on their cluster of game authentication servers tomorrow, which includes the login servers for Enemy Territory: QUAKE Wars. This sounds worse than it actually is - the issue in question involves a software update for one of the routers and is not expected to disrupt the service for more than 5 minutes. If you're connecting to the master server via Telia routes, you may be disconnected during that time, but if all goes well, the maintenance should go without a hitch and you won't notice a thing.

While out at QuakeCon 2008, Splash Damage ambassadors Jared 'jRAD' Hefty and Dave 'ducks' Johnston were dragged away by the EnemyTerritory·tv crew for a video interview featuring not just one, but in fact both of them. The dynamic duo discusses a variety of things, including the typical process a game update for Enemy Territory: QUAKE Wars has to go through, the value of large-scale beta tests, the ETQW console versions, and a rather hotly anticipated fruit analogy. You can grab the interview in a variety of flavors over here on the EnemyTerritory.tv website.

We are looking for several Environment Artists to add to our talented team. You'll be spending much of your time creating objects of varying shapes and sizes that infuse our game world with life and atmosphere. A full description of the position, including benefits, desired experience, and how to apply for it can be found here in the Jobs section. In addition to this opening, we've got a variety of other positions available across all development disciplines, so go take a look!

Slowest to skitter away from our Fiery Eye of Notoriety/duck beneath the Swishing Sword of Publicitisement this week was Splash Damage's code warrior Arne 'ao' Hallingstad. Arne cuts a dashing figure here in SD Towers, resplendent as he is in his floor-length satin robe embroidered with the Norwegian coastline, but he is most noted and famed for his jawdropping code-bullying skills. In fact the movie "Babe" is almost entirely about him, as long as you replace the pig with Arne, and the sheep with code, and wherever the movie is set with where we are. Seriously, he should sue the studio or something.

To find out more about where Arne's from, at and about, behold the entire and colossal interview which lurks within his new-fangled unmanned and horseless staff profile.

The chaps at GamesIndustry·biz recently cornered Splash Damage owner Paul Wedgwood and got at least one entire interview out of him. Paul discusses Splash Damage's relationship with its new partner Bethesda Softworks, life as an independent developer in the United Kingdom, and the recent calls for tax breaks to help the UK games industry. It's a very interesting read indeed.

Elsewhere on the internet, Spong teases their own upcoming interview with Paul by posting his (not very rosy) views on developers being acquired by publishers. Look for their full interview to be coming soon.

Out of the wondrous depths of the internet comes this piece of what some might consider to be pure awesomeness. Exactly how it came into being will forever remain a mystery, but when the end result is this magnificent, does it really matter?

The video stars Ben 'Randles' Hopkinson, Dave 'ducks' Johnston, Ed 'BongoBoy' Stern, Tim 'spacemonkey' Appleby, Tim 'Huntle' Rose in what is quite possible the finest performance of their lives. Look for an extended cut to come to a theater near you at a completely unspecified time in the far, far future.

With both Jared 'jRAD' Hefty and Dave 'ducks' Johnston out at QuakeCon 2008, we'll try and bring you regular coverage from the event in form of riveting and highly emotional blog updates and photo galleries. Find below the thrilling conclusion that was Day 3 of QuakeCon 2008!

It's all over!

In the morning, we stumbled over to the ET.tv guys, hoping they'd have found a spot in their busy schedule of shoutcasts and live matches to handle an interview they wanted to hold with us. Surprisingly, they were free, so off we all set back into the main hotel, found a spot, and spent about 45 minutes discussing aspects of ETQW, the console versions of the game, Splash Damage, our new partnership with Bethesda, and jRAD delivered an interesting analogy involving various kinds of fruit.