Archived News:
Nihilistic's Rob Huebner updated his
.plan with some pimpage for tomorrow night's IRC session ( story)
as well as a massive, detailed update on the state of their technology. If any
of this makes sense to you, I'm sure you'll find it fascinating, although even
if you don't you'll find their support for hardware accelerated Transform &
Lighting interesting.
Gamecenter has
posted their "fast track guide" for Westwood's Command & Conquer:
Tiberian Sun (thanks Frans). The guide
is essentially an excerpt from the full Prima Games book, but it's still a worthwhile
read if you want some general strategies.
Longbow Digital Arts
have released a new version (2.1) of their Tread Marks test demo (thanks Billy).
This version adds mouse control, team play, and Internet networking support
in addition to other changes.
According to Gone Gold, an authority
on this sort of thing, Terminal Reality's spooky adventure game Nocturne has
gone gold (although there's still no official announcement from the game's publisher). Expect the title to be on store shelves on Halloween weekend.
Gamecenter has posted a preview
of Monolith's Odium, offering a look at this strategy/RPG title. There's a number
of screenshots posted as well (thanks Frans).
In other Monolith related news, 3DActionPlanet
has posted an interview with Kevin Lambert, a game designer on Sanity, a LithTech
engine action game (that's played from an isometric perspective).
Dynamix has
announced that they will be releasing an on-line comic book which will detail
the storyline behind their upcoming TRIBES Extreme. The comic will be available
in three parts: the first to be released by IGN,
the second by GameSpot, and the third
installment will be available only on the TRIBES Extreme CD. The first installment
is set to be released this friday, so keep an eye out (thanks Planet-Tribes).
Outrage has posted the version
1.2 patch for Descent 3 (it's also available via the auto-updater in the game's
launcher). This patch has a slew of fixes, but also adds new enhancements for
Pentium III owners, support for EAX 2.0, reduced network traffic, and more.
There's also a new Linux server available for download, and a version 1.2.1
patch for European users, as some missing strings were left out of the original
patch. Thanks to the always astute Frans
for the tip who's also got the files mirrored over at 3DGamers.
Black & White Wire has posted their
first three interviews in Quicktime 4 format with members of Lionhead's Black
& White team. The first three are Paul Nettleton, Scawen Roberts and Andy
Bass, and more are promised soon, which should include exclusive game footage.
PlanetDaikatana has posted
a writeup of the ION Storm press reception from a few weeks back, entitled,
"Daikatana: Ready at Last". The article is very in-depth, with a full
rundown of all the game's features, and is illustrated with what appear to be
new screenshots as well.
Eidos Interactive
has posted a 25MB AVI file that contains the mission briefing for one of the
new levels in their special edition of Thief: The Dark Project, creatively titled
Thief Gold. If this is half as good as the briefings in the original game, it
gets a big ol' thumbs up from me. Update: Frans sends word that this movie isn't new, per se, but in fact a standalone version of the AVI that was included in the large version of the demo that was released a few weeks back.
The newly-launched AnachronoxNews.com,
devoted, as the AnachroName implies, to ION Storm's upcoming enhanced Quake
II-engine RPG Anachronox, is celebrating its grand opening with a new screenshot
showing off their namesake game.
A few chats to chat about, pull up a chair. First, a pair of reminders about
chats for a pair of games coincidentally related to movies: As mentioned
yesterday ( story),
there's an IRC chat session today with the developers of the upcoming space sim,
Klingon Academy, to be held today at 8:00 PM EDT (5:00 PM PDT) on the server
pc065.ed.bmc.org in channel #starfleet. Also mentioned yesterday ( story)
is a Ritual show on today's GameDive
with Tom "ParadoX" Mustaine and Robert Atkins talking about Ritual's
upcoming Quake III-engine third-person action/fantasy game, Heavy Metal:
F.A.K.K.2. The chat will be live tonight at 10:00 PM EDT (7:00 PM PDT), RealPlayer,
or equivalent, is required. Also there's another new chat on the horizon, as TheMasquerade.org
is hosting a developer IRC chat with Nihilistic Software tomorrow at 3:00 PM
EDT/Noon PDT. Details on how to join are on
this page.
According to Gamer's
Voice, Grand Theft Auto 2 has gone gold, and will be in stores on October
22. GTA 2 is of course, the sequel to the top-down game of thug violence, Grand Theft Auto.
More DS9 Screens
on GameSpot offers ten new screenshots showing off this Unreal-engine Trek
adventure, along with the following cryptic explanation: "Rather than just
post a few new screens of Simon & Schuster's upcoming Deep Space Nine: The
Fallen, we've decided to give you even more screenshots of this upcoming
action-adventure game." Okeedokee then. Thanks Frans at 3D Action
Gamers. The accompanying page, Showing Off DS9
reminds us: "The game is still scheduled for a spring 2000 release, with a
demo coming to the Web sometime this November."
An update to Mortyr.Net reiterates a tip on
how to select a separate Voodoo card over the primary graphics adapter when
playing the demo of this first-person shooter that sends you back in time to
fight in World War II. Among other things, the update also offers the following
details on the European Mortyr release, and lack thereof about its release in
the States: "Production on the European version is scheduled for October
18, 1999, with an expected street date of October 29, 1999. Unfortunately the US
dates are not set..." Thanks Frans at 3D Action
Gamers.
UnrealEngine.com
previews Wheel of Time giving a hands-on look at this upcoming action game
that, as befits the site's name, uses the Unreal engine to create a virtual
world based on the Wheel of Time book series. Here's a very short clip to
outline the game's three modes: Wheel of Time is comprised of three very
strong game-types: Single Player, starring you as Elayna in her search to
retrieve the missing seals as you journey through Shadar Logoth, the Ways, the
Blight, and the Fortress of the Light amongst other locals; Arena Match, a more
strategic (and more entertaining) form of Death Match; and Citadel Match where
each player fortifies their own citadel with traps and troops to protect their
collection of seals, then attempt to steal the seals from their opponents.
All three game types revolve around the use of Ter'Angreal, magical artifacts
that provide both offensive and defensive abilities. The tactics vary depending
on the type of game being played.
In addition to status reports on the status of the upcoming Mac versions Madden
NFL 2000, Civilization:
Call To Power, and Tomb
Raider III, a Westlake Interactive
Unreal Tournament Demo status report gives the lowdown on the upcoming Mac
version of the Unreal Tournament Demo (thanks 3DFiles.com).
Here's the skinny: Work continues on the Unreal Tournament Mac Demo,
which are currently expecting to release in about two weeks. We originally hoped
to have it out sooner, but we decided to go ahead and integrate the changes to
the 338 demo on the PC (released a couple weeks after the 3Dfx demo, version
322). This requires some work on the Mac code and some further testing, but will
mean Mac users will start with the latest demo and shouldn't have to download a
50MB demo based on 322, followed by a 10 to 50MB update to 338 later.
Current plans are still to release the 3Dfx and Software rendering version of
the demo first, followed by the Rave and/or OpenGL versions a week or so
later.
The report goes on to discuss their dilemma about whether to
support Rave, OpenGL, or both.
A new version 0.2.8 of the XaniA Proxy for
Quake II is now available. In addition to a bunch of features to refine
teamplay, the proxy also offers some cheat preventions, since it performs
checksums on the Quake II executable as well as models and sounds.
There's a giveaway on Dukworld offering a
Doom II box autographed by John Romero, Tom Hall, Jay Wilbur, American McGee,
and Shawn Green.
I'd like to thank the Academy, and of course, Frans from 3D Action
Gamers:
- CrotchBat sends word that the November print issue of PC Accelerator
magazine has a preview of Quake III Arena with screenshots and info on the
game, models, AI, and all...
- Game Forces previews
Kohan Immortal Sovereigns, an upcoming fantasy RTS TimeGate Studios. The
piece features three exclusive screenshots and an interview with the game's
Director of Development, Adel Chaveleh...
- Beta Bites'
Tales of Wonder and Woe in Asheron's Call has the fifth installment in
their ongoing preview of the beta of MS' online RPG...
- Gamecenter
has an Age of Wonders movie for download showing off this upcoming
fantasy-strategy game. The movie is 23 MB...
- The third issue of The Smoking Gun
gaming humor site is online...
Four links of the day is enough off-topic, and or bizzaro stuff for anyone's
taste, so I'll avoid laying it on too thick by simply making way for the
linkage:
Link of the Day: World Fence
News. You'd think this was about sword fighting, but nooo, it is "information regarding Fences, Gates, and Access Control."
Think it can't get any weirder? There's even a section for "fence
humor!" Thanks Awea Kinkesch and ShadowStar.
Story of the Day: Man Arrested After Hiding In A Hole For 12 Years.
Well of course they kept hunting for him... he was wanted for stealing $15.
Thanks DarkStar17 and DNapalm.
Image of the Day: A series of Tower Jumping shots on Forward Artillery
from the Asheron's Call beta. Sent by Myscha the sled dog. Banzaaaaii!
Bonus Image: iSmash... a
movie capturing an iMac keyboard versus a Ford Contour. The scary thing is how
well the keyboard stands up to the car, making me wonder which is safer to be in
during an accident. Thanks Scandalon.
PC.IGN has posted their
preview of ION Storm's upcoming Unreal-engine RPG Deus Ex. The preview is chock
full of info from the design team, including this bit, which is the first I've
heard of a possible multiplayer portion of the game: While the answer
to the multiplay question was "no way in hell" five months ago, the
team at ION has reevaluated the situation and it looks like Deus Ex will indeed
ship with a multiplayer component after all. "Even if all we can do is
deathmatch, then you bet your ass we're gonna do it," Warren brashly told
us. The team already has deathmatch up and running, and are considering even
more options. However, the main focus for Deus Ex is still on the single player
experience, so they've made no promises as of yet.
Smitty over at TRI sends along a
fix for Voodoo 2 & 3 users for the second Nocturne demo (53 KB). Here's
the poop on this from Nocturne Lead Programmer and Co-Designer Mark Randel: For
Voodoo2 and Voodoo3 users
Only to be used for Nocturne Demo #2
"DirectX is a very complicated API. Nocturne uses a blit function in the
DirectX API that 3Dfx does not implement yet in their D3D drivers. Other 3D
games do not use real-time shadows, and do not exercise some of the DirectX
functions that we use in Nocturne.
This TRIDX6.DLL contains code to emulate this blit function using the main CPU
instead of the Voodoo card. Because of this software emulation, Nocturne will
not run at an optimal frame rate, because normally Nocturne can do other work
(like cloth simulation) while the hardware takes care of this blit.
Please remember that Voodoo cards can only render in 16-bit mode. Nocturne is
optimized for 32-bit mode, so you'll have to decide whether you like 16-bit
hardware, or 32-bit software mode best.
Due to the software memory blit function, please only run 640x480x16bpp with
this video driver for the moment. Any other resolution will probably crash
immediately. Usage of this video driver is governed by the software license
agreement that you agreed to when installing the original product.
3Dfx is scheduled to release their next Voodoo3 update on October 15th. This
update contains the blit function that Nocturne uses, and Nocturne will run at
full speed with this new driver. When you download this driver, please delete
this TRIDX6.DLL and use the original one that we ship with the
game."
There's a Quick
Q&A With Mark Rein on GamesMania talking briefly with Epic's PR maven
about Unreal Tourney, and his thoughts on comparisons to the "other
guys." Thanks Voodoo Extreme.
It's another week, another shot as Act Two - No. 85
is the latest Diablo II screenshot of the week, showing off more gameplay from
the upcoming sequel to Blizzard's action/RPG.
An update to the official SWAT 3
FAQ adds a single answer to the question about the game's availability. To
spoil the suspense, here's the scoop: "SWAT 3 is scheduled for a November
1999 release in North America, the United Kingdom, and Australia. French,
German, Spanish, and Italian language versions will follow later this winter.
Please contact your local software retailer for availability." Thanks Frans
at 3D Action Gamers.
The Star Wars Episode I The Phantom Menace
game page has word of a new version 1.1 patch for this game that puts you in
the roles of Obi-Wan Kenobi, Qui-Gon Jinn, Queen Amidala and Captain Panaka.
Thanks The Adrenaline Vault.
3dfxGamers has posted
an interview with Matt Candler, the producer of Battlezone II, talking about
various gameplay issues with Activision and Pandemic Studios' first person strategy
game (thanks Vangie).
NGNetwork
has posted a two question Q&A with Epic's Tim Sweeney, talking about the
next Unreal (1) patch (which he says will be released once UT hits the shelves)
as well as this bit regarding mod compatibility between the demo and full versions
of Unreal Tournament: When the full Unreal Tournament ships, we expect
UT demo mods will need a small amount of upgrading and modification, rather
than having full binary compatibility. After UT ships and we start patching
UT, we expect few mods to break. The game, AI, and server framework is really
solid now. The kinds of things that are likely to break are mods that use the
C++ headers (rather than pure UnrealScript), and mods which tie into implementation
details that might change, like server browser minutiae.
The Australian games site Play
Now! has posted an interview with Raven Software's Kenn Hoekstra, talking
to the project administrator about his duties on Soldier of Fortune, the game's
realism, as well as a number of gameplay issues.
A patch has been released for the Half-Life mod War
in Europe. The patch updates the mod to version .51, and fixes a connection
bug, as well as a number of smaller bugs (thanks Rocketsauce[SBD]).
GameFan has
posted a new screenshot from Origin's 3D RPG, Ultima IX: Ascension. They promise
"as early as next week" full interviews with the development team,
as well as more screenshots.
Big news from Intel today: first off, they've finally announced
that the eagerly-awaited USB 2.0 will have a target speed of 480 Megabits per
second, as well as the rest of the final specs. According to the new
press release, the new speed will allow "consumers to back up a gigabyte
of data from their PC hard drive in less than a minute on USB 2.0 versus about
a half-hour on USB 1.1." In other Intel news, Forbes
is reporting that they've finally gotten around those nasty Rambus problems
that have been holding back their Camino 820 chipset (thanks Jacek
Fedoryński).
It's a little late, but this week's Wheel of Time update has been posted at
the official site (thanks Unreal
Universe). The game is very close to completion, as reflected in the update...here's
an excerpt, which hints that there may be a reward for players who complete
the game: We're not gold, but we're damn close. The reason that I didn't
update when I returned from overseas is that we've all been working at least
16 hour days. Personally, I haven't had room to sleep, much less update the
page. If Sabrina hadn't fed my cat, I'd have a very upset pet on my hands.
The single player game rocks. All of the final levels are in place, filling
out the holes contained in the pre-alpha review sent out to all of the reviewers.
By 4:00pm today, most if not all of the A and B bugs (as well as many C bugs)
will have been exterminated.
During the last week, we've had a chance to do some informal focus testing.
We brought in new eyes--both fans of the books and not--and had them play through
the game. The response was universally positive. Both types of players appreciated
the story, one for its own sake, and the other for how well it fits into the
books. They also loved the graphics, the gameplay, the opponents, the puzzles,
and the artifacts. Weak points were identified, addressed, and should all be
fixed by now. In fact, thanks to Ryan and Mike, I've been working at tweaking
all of the artifact-users (or, in come cases, channelers). Combat with them
has never been more fun.
And for those who play through the whole thing, we may have a little surprise
for you. Let's just say we have a way of knowing if you finished the game.
As promised last week, GameSpot
UK has posted their hands-on preview of Legend's Unreal engine title Wheel
of Time. It's very in-depth, looking at both the single and multiplayer games,
and there's 14 new screenshots up in their WoT
gallery (thanks Frans).
Stomped has posted two new screenshots
from Daikatana: one shows Mikiko (the female sidekick) attacking skeleton monsters,
and the other shows off the weapon radius damage effect. Daikatana, ION Storm's
Quake II engine game, is close to completion, and is expected on store shelves
this holiday season (they mean it this time). In other ION related news, Voodoo Extreme has posted a new screenshot of the main character from Anachronox, who as Billy points out, looks remarkably like Kyle MacLachlan.
Tomorrow's edition of the
GameDive will feature a couple of Ritual killers, Level Designer Tom
"ParadoX" Mustaine and Lead Artist Robert Atkins, to talk about
progress on Ritual's upcoming Quake III-engine extravaganza, Heavy Metal:
F.A.K.K.2, based on the movie/comic book characters created by famed Ninja
Turtle creator Kevin Eastman. The chat will be live tomorrow at 10:00 PM
EDT (7:00 PM PDT), and RealPlayer, or
equivalent, is required.
The Strange Company site has a new
version 2.05 of the StangeUtil freeware utility for those who create
Quake-family mods to distribute sound for their work as mp3s within a .pak file,
reducing the size of the pre-installation sounds by up to 90%. The new release,
produced with the assistance of the Quake
done Quick team (for their upcoming "Rabbit Run"), fixes the
"40 ms delay" problem, adds a script file creator (to automate setup
of the installation process), and fixes several other bugs.
The Future Technologies site has a
new version 0.9 of the Future Technologies mod. The new release of this
deathmatch mod for Quake II adds new graphics, and improves the locational
damage added in the last release, and adds a new weapon (nailgun).
Freespace2.com has another new .mp3
with music from FreeSpace2 on their FreeSpace 2 downloads page
with more of the music from this now-available space sim from Volition. Thanks The Descent Chronicles.
Also on the space sim front, IPlayGames
(devoted to everything Interplay), has word of an upcoming chat with the
developers of another upcoming space sim, Klingon Academy, obviously enough, set
in the Star Trek universe (the game is a prequel to Star Trek VI: The
Undiscovered Country, featuring Christopher Plummer and David Warner
reprising their roles from the movie). The chat will be held today at 8:00 PM
EDT (5:00 PM PDT) using any IRC client to connect to this server:
pc065.ed.bmc.org in the channel #starfleet.
Gathering of Developers' Mike "CatDaddy" Wilson updated
his .plan with his insistence that we all check out the just-released second
Nocturne Demo ( story)
along with more about the Voodoo3/Voodoo Banshee problems mentioned earlier ( story)
and word that a new-and-improved version of the demo is due soon. Here's the
deal: So, everyone MUST check out The Windy City Massacre demo of
Nocturne that is posted on Nocturne's official fansite, The Spookhouse.
http://www.3dactionplanet.com/spookhouse/ It's also on the Nov cd's for PC Gamer
and PCXL, if you want to save yourself the download time. This demo is much
better than the original Redeye, TX demo, IMO, and gives the player a real taste
of Nocturne's amazing technology, environments, and gameplay.
Having said that, you should also realize that this demo is a few months old,
due to those wonderful long lead times on magazine CD ROMs. Terminal Reality is
in the process of going gold with Nocturne this week, and after that, they'll be
updating the online demos with all the fixes and improvements that have made
their way into the actual game. Look for the new and improved versions late next
week.
BTW, for those reading the Voodoo-related posts, Nocturne runs just dandy in
software mode on a reasonably fast computer. 3DFX will hopefully release the new
drivers soon that will make all the Banshee and Voodoo 3 owners happy.
Again, this game is something truly original and well worth putting down Unreal
Tournament for a little while to get some unbelievable single-player goodness in
a dark room. (and i know you guys like to play with yourselves in a dark room as
much as i do).
GameSpot
has posted eight new screenshots from LucasArts' Indiana Jones and the Infernal
Machine, their third person adventure game starring everyone's favorite archeologist
(thanks Frans).
GameSpot
has posted their hands-off preview of Volition's Summoner, a RPG
from the creators of Freespace and Descent. There's nine images up, as well
as some brief details about the gameplay and storyline (thanks Frans).
A follow-up post on Spookhouse
adds a missing setup.dll file to the second Nocturne demo, which was posted
yesterday after its recent release on the cover CD with the November issue of PC
Gamer Magazine ( story).
The file has been added to the archive, and is also available as a separate
download for those who've already downloaded the whole 80 MB beast. Thanks J
Bozarth. Speaking of warnings that should be provided before the download, Ant
points out the second demo, like the one that preceded it, will not work on
Voodoo Banshee, Voodoo2 or Voodoo3 systems using the current drivers. Word is a future driver
release (expected soon), will fix the problem with Voodoo3 (and Voodoo
Banshee) cards (according to TRI, the problem is not actually in the game),
though there is no word yet on a fix for the Voodoo2 problem, which presumably
also affects Voodoo (1) Graphics cards.
Total
Video Games interviews Dave Perry talking to the happy shiny person from
Shiny Games in a Q&A that centers mostly on the console side of things.
Thanks skrewup. Included are tidbits like his take on the PlayStation 2 and
other systems, with no holds barred. For instance, Dave offers the following on
Sega's latest: "The Dreamcast is screwed. But I love it at the moment. :)"
The Adrenaline Vault
previews Asheron's Call with a look ahead at Turbine and Microsoft's
upcoming massive online multiplayer RPG. In addition to a rundown on gameplay
and all, the piece includes a Q&A with Turbine's Toby Raigani about the
game.
The Thunder site has version 0.5 of this
program that can created animated and colored player names for games that
support extended ASCII characters. The program currently offers support for
Quake, QuakeWorld, Q3Test, Hexen II, and H2World.
Clan BSP's RES
is a new single-player mission for Valve's Half-Life that has Gordon returning,
believe it or not, to another facility that's infiltrated by baddies brought
over by the resonance cascade dealie at the Black Mesa. The new mission is a 3
MB download.
GameSpot UK's Savage4 Mega
Giveaway is up. First prize is a "super-fast AMD K7 550Mhz PC" (no
word if there are actually super-slow versions to be had anywhere), and they are
also giving away some Creative Labs Savage4 graphics cards and copies of
Criterion Studios' TrickStyle.
After lazing around for 24 hours, Frans at 3D Action
Gamers is finally back on the job:
Today is the day that time forgot in the dusty Blue's
News archive, since the news entry for October 12, 1996, along with most of
the entry for the following day, were lost somewhere in the bit bucket back at
the time, to my knowledge, the only such glitch ever here that resulted in the
loss of news. I guess its time to give up hope that someone still has that page
stored in their cache?
Silent B0B broke is silence long enough to suggest a fourth day of follow-up
about Blue the Dog, to make sure that it was not confused with the Blue Dog,
the creation of Cajun artist George Rodrigue. Thanks B0B, you sadist.
Link of the Day: How
is Spam made? A question worthy of Cecil Adams. Thanks MInG.
Story of the Day: Woman To Build A UFO Watch Tower.
Thanks Ryan Russell. Of course it will be easier to see the UFOs from a full ten
feet closer. I mean, like...duh!
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