Archived News:
Also new from Valve are two new deathmatch maps, one called DoubleCross by
Dario Casali: and the other called RustMill by Valve's John Guthrie and Dave Riller. Again, the
mirror of Blue's News FTP courtesy of Walnut Creek CDROM.
Full descriptions accompany each map.
Gabe from Valve sent along a shot of the classes in Valve's upcoming TeamFortress Classic, along
with the names of each underneath to tell which is which. Here's your TFC enemy (and
friend) recognition chart:
The GT Web FTP Archives
has the multiplayer patch for Blood2, AKA the Point Release. Here's a local copy on Blue's
News FTP as well as our Walnut Creek CDROM mirror.
There's also a list of mirrors on PlanetBlood.
I received some info and images giving word on the upcoming release of a life-action short
film based on Half-Life Uplink by UK marketing agency Cruise Control. Here are the shots,
followed by a bunch from the press release:
  
"Half-Life : Uplink" : Live Action Film To Be Released On-Line!
Half-Life combines state of the art gameplay with all the suspense of a Hitchcock
movie. The game sets you inside a secret government research facility where a horrific
accident leaves you stranded deep underground and fighting for your life against marauding
aliens and marines.
Half-Life : Uplink follows a journalist who hears about ‘the accident’and
manages to break in to the Black Mesa base to see what’s going on….
The film was commissioned by Lisa Humphries, product manager for Half-Life at Cendant
Software. “This long awaited title has met all our expectations and more. The film
has been designed for two reasons, one to draw in new gamers and let them experience
Half-Life, and two, to supply the gaming fraternity with a different angle on the game.
Something to share and something to say thank you”.
Filming took place inside an underground military facility at a recently decommissioned
USAF base in Bedfordshire, UK. “The location was perfect and must have been exactly
how Valve imagined the Black Mesa base to look” said Chris Birch, producer of the
film. “We tried to stay as true the game as possible. With a perfect location we had
to get the right sound effects and thanks to Sierra we were able to draw on the entire
sound library from Half-Life itself”.
“Half-Life has such a strong following. The aim was to support and build upon that
as well as draw in new players whose interest will have been sparked by seeing the
film” said Chris Birch. Fans will even be able to download two different endings with
possibly a third to come. The second ending will be available two weeks after the release
of the film.
The Half-Life film will be available in a variety of formats on-line at www.cruisecontrol.uk.com from Monday 22nd
February. Please note that this website will not be active until Saturday 20th
February.
Quake II Coming to BeOS is a story on BeNews that offers Voodoo2 screenshots of
OpenGL Quake II on a Pentium III running BeOS R4.1 (currently undergoing beta testing and
expected to be available by the end of Q1 1999). The article goes on to say: "No
public date has been set for release of Quake II, however it is expected to be available
as a free download for purchasers of the original Windows CD shortly after the release of
BeOS R4.1."
PlanetStarSiege has posted some new
screenshots from the TRIBES OpenGL beta.
There are a bunch of Blood
2: The Nightmare Levels screenshots on The Adrenaline
Vault showing off action from Monolith's upcoming official Blood2 add-on, as well as a page of shots of
weapon and enemy models.
Fresh 3d interviews Martin Barlow, lead programmer for
the Kick Engine.
2015's Tom Kudirka sends word that Wages of Sin, their official Sin Mission Pack, has gone
gold, and is off to manufacture. Tom says the pack should be on store shelves next week sometime.
Gangland.Org has a post from Xatrix' Greg Goodich
that mentions plans for a full demo prior to the non-interactive demo release. Here's the lowdown:
It looks like we will most likely release the demo prior to the release of the non-interactive movie.
Let me explain why...
The demo is in its final stages now and will be ready for release very shortly. It will include the entire first episode and will most likely be quite large.
Non-interactive movie trailers in gaming serve a few purposes. The first is to generate excitement about the product (in the fan base) before an interactive demo is ready and the second is for retailers to play on the video monitors in
selected outlets. Unfortunately for us, the movie trailer we want to show you folks is much different (content wise) then what would be allowed to show in
retail outlets. Also, Sony/Columbia will not allow us to "give away" an entire song for free.
The result of all of this is that we have decided to get the demo out first in its "raw" and "un-censored" way and then follow it up with the movie which has been edited for viewing in the retail outlets.
Pel Interactive has posted an interview
with g.o.d.'s Mike Wilson. Talking about qtest, Quake, people, shareware, and many
more things.
Silicon Graphics Releases OpenGL Windowing
Code to Open Source Community Via World Wide Web is the announcement that's said to "Release Further Extends Proliferation of OpenGL Across All
Operating Systems." Thanks ShieldWolf.
Version 1.0 of the Starseige Tribes: Skynet Mod is out offering
new weapons, turrets, deployables, and kits. All original items and weapons are intact with a few exceptions described later.
Thanks PlanetStarSiege.
The Lone Gunman's TRIBES sniping guide has been updated with more tips as well as word from Dynamix's tim gift on custom reticle problems.
The newly opened Drakan.Net has an exclusive new
screenshot showing off their namesake game, Surreal's upcoming Drakan: Order of the Flame.
The monthly Eye on
Storm Newsletter is online, among its new features offering an interview with
Daikatana Producer Kelly Hoerner. Thanks CiDcO at StormTroopers.
This page has instructions on how users of
the registered Half-Life can combine the files from the Uplink demo with the normal
Half-Life installation to save space and make the Uplink demo act like a Half-Life add-on.
Also, Morpheus has cooked up a way for owners of the registered
Half-Life to install a variant on the demo after a small four-something MB download. I
wanted to make sure this second shortcut was okay with Valve before passing it along, and
they just wanted it known there are a few bugs with it (titles don't work, there's some
overlapping dialog, that will cause problems that aren't in the demo proper).
Dominik "BiTBUSTER" Volmer, one time unofficial
German translator for Blue's News, sends along a beta version 0.12 of his Volumer TRIBES
Volume extraction program, here's
a link to a local copy (189 KB), as well as a mirror thanks to the fine nuts over at Walnut Creek CDROM. This program can help those
interested in editing TRIBES to extract all the resources within the game's volume files.
As promised, The Coven Disposable Heroes
Downloads page now has the Linux port of version 3.0 of their M.A.D. mod for Quake II,
which makes for a full set of Linux and Solaris ports for all three Quake II mods
featured in the Disposable Heroes pack for Quake and Quake II.
QPL.ORG is holding a PaintBall QW league to play
Thursday nights with a cash prize of $20.
After originally posting the id Site Cracked story yesterday, I made a couple of corrections based
on responses: one to change the word hacked to cracked (something I've messed up on
before, but I think I'll get it right in the future), and another to correct the mention
of Kevin Mitnick being jailed for computer crimes.
Mr. Mitnick has been detained for just shy of four years now, but has never been convicted
of anything. Also, {EvEm]_Xtro admits it's a bit pedantic to point out, but in this
Starsiege Screenshot story yesterday, I used the word "mech," a MechWarrior
term, where it should be "herc."
Off in the wee wee hours in the BlueJet to the wilds of Dallas to check out the Voodoo3. I
head out at about 5:00 AM and hope to grab a chance to update around midday when I arrive,
and perhaps again in the afternoon, but there's a worst case scenario that I won't be back
online until pretty late this evening (I think the midday update should work out). More on
discussions of holidays and occasions, I've been chided (hey, get a calendar!) for failing
to note both the start of Mardi Gras, and the Vietnamese holiday of Tet. Today is Ash
Wednesday, as well. That's a mouthful, but I'm sure I've still forgotten something =]
Link of the day: Crow's
Rutherford B. Hayes speech (thanks Schwab), in honor of President's day.
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