Archived News:
Outcast Central has posted a new (and large!) MPEG movie from the upcoming first and third person shooter Outcast (download the movie if you're confused). The 22.5 meg movie's from the German mag Gamestar, so be ready for some fun German commentary (no Kraftwerk music, I'm afraid).
Human Head's Mike "CHAOS"
Werckle sends along word that Jeff Dewitt (animator on Heretic 2 for Raven Software) has joined their ranks as an animator on Rune, their Unreal engine
RPG in development. Also, the Human Head
web site recently underwent some plastic surgery, and now sports frames,
as well as Java and some spiffy sound effects.
Monolith's Jeremy "Loki" Blackman updated his .plan
with a brief update on the status of the LithTech engine's Linux port...here's
the skinny:
I've done a lot more work on the Linux port, and hopefully I'll have
more good news soon. I've tried to keep the code relatively clean, but I haven't
tried compiling it under FreeBSD or SunOS lately, so I can't swear I still compile
perfectly under them. I'm still going to try to keep the UNIX port fairly clean
so it should compile on more than just Linux.
According to a report on GA-Source, John
Jack will be departing Monolith where he served as producer, to take a position at Infogrames Entertainment as their Senior Product Manager for Sports and Driving Games. According to the story, Monolith Marketing Manger Joel Reiff will be taking over John's
responsibilities. Thanks AGN3D.
The official Homeworld site is now open, offering all new screenshots, sign-ups for the official Homeworld newsletter, and updates and information on Homeworld, due this June from Sierra Studios. The site has the Homeworld Unit Viewer (an online tool for viewing ships): a new ship will be released in the viewer every week. The site also features an ICQ listing set up so Homeworld fans around the world can be connected through ICQ. There are also 15 Homeworld
Screenshots on GA-Source, and Billy at VE
sends word that Homeworld.Org has posted a bunch
of movies that they found on the CD that accompanies the latest issue of PCGamer.
An article on Witchboy's Cauldron
offers the ION Storm designer's views on the factors involved in creating a role playing
game that uses the first-person perspective. Thanks Zealot at StormTroopers.
Acclaim sent along some
brand-new screenshots from their upcoming third-person action/adventure game Shadow
Man. The game, based on the Voodoo-style comic book of the same name, is currently
expected to be available in August. More info on Shadow Man, as well as some previously
released shots and a QuickTime movie are available on Acclaim's Shadow Man page.
Afflicted.Net is a website that's just opened its virtual doors to devote itself to the upcoming first-person shooter from Cavedog, Amen: the Awakening. To celebrate the opening, they have posted a new exclusive screenshot, the
first to show a character in the game, also showing off what Cavedog's Greg MacMartin describes as "curved edges." They also have an exclusive first look the M800 Assault Rifle, part of Amen's weaponry, as well as specs on the Amengine
(Amen engine).
There's a new SpecOps2 Preview at Gamers Depot offering a look ahead based on some hands-on face time with a pre-alpha of the upcoming sequel to Spec Ops, showing it off with a whole bunch of new screenshots.
Xtreme Gaming Network has just released their newest map pack for TRIBES, the Bosshog map pack, containing four levels designed by that guy who used to mess with the Dukes of Hazard. As always, only server operators
need download and install the maps.
The GenSurf homepage has
not one, but two versions of this Quake 2/Half-Life surface generator that,
"produces a .map file consisting of triangular brushes arranged in a uniform
grid." There's version
1.3, and a beta of version
1.4.2. (Anyone planning on making Half-Life maps with it should download
version 1.4.2, as 1.3 only supports Quake 2.)
Quite the day for editor releases! Not to be outdone, The Official QuArK Homepage has posted beta
5.9 of the Quake Army Knife level editor. There is no note on the page about what's new,
other than it's a beta. Also, Armin's
Page has new Build Packs for Hexen II, Half-Life, and Sin, which are "required to
compile and play maps with all versions of QuArK." Thanks Pels Interactive.
A new beta 5 of Terror Quake2 is now
available. The latest release of this Quake II mod adds more weapons to the stockpile of
realistic armaments already in there, as well as tweaking some features, and fixing a few
bugs. There is also a new player model pack that weighs in at about 21 MB due to the
"hyper-super-duper-mega detailed" visible models.
The
Adrenaline Vault Preview Aliens vs. Predator preview is up, as is Gamers' Crypt's preview
of AvP, each offering looks at Fox's imminent first person shooter that offers the
chance to do combat as either the Alien, the Predator, or the Marine.
There is a new FAQ for the X demo on the EgoSoft site answering frequently asked questions about
this just-released demo. Saw that on Voodoo
Extreme.
HardwareCentral
interviews AMD talking about their upcoming K7 processors. Here is the answer they
received to their question about pricing:
Unfortunately, I can't get into specifics on pricing. The rumors of a $2K K7 are
just that, rumors. You should see high-end, enthusiast PCs featuring the K7 available this
summer, so you should be able to guesstimate what price points the systems will most
likely be at.
AMD takes on Pentium with faster chip is the name of a brief News.com piece that claims AMD's newest K6-2 processor (which runs at 475 MHz) is more powerful than Intel's fastest Pentium II.
Woops...looks like this one missed our crack news hounds...the Quake
Done Quick team released their latest movie, Fiend
Run Lite back on April 1st disguised as an April Fools gag. The old-school
Quake movie is a 10 minute run through as a Fiend, accomplished via the "morph"
mod. It's a five meg download, and like all the QDQ movies, highly entertaining
stuff. Thanks Mickey.
The History and Continuing Legacy of id
is the name of an article published by The
Game of the Moment. The piece features lots of quotes from past and current
id employees, including this one from John Carmack regarding the Clan scene:
"It was so odd the way it happened -- internally, we had talked
of clans of warriors before the game was released, but I don't think we ever
publicly talked about it, and to have the same terminology apparently spontaneously
evolve in the user community was pretty weird. I love it."
The Prospect Vector page has the initial
release of the Tread Quake-engine level editor (not to be confused with the
long-abandoned, but once formidable Thred). Tread features full Quake, Quake II, and Hexen
II support, with Half-Life support on the way. There was a glitch with the very first
upload, so if you happened to be a really early adopter, you should head back over and get
the proper version.
Sure it's a little odd, but I'm posting my own p1mpage. Here's the rundown
on this week's edition of loonygames, posted according to my own dubious schedule:
- Under His Skin: Almost a year in the making, loonygames is proud to present
the definitive interview with Kenneth Scott, id Software's skin artiste. Featuring
lots of rare artwork, and answers to just about every question you could ever
have for the man! [Monday]
- Penny Arcade: PA takes on...User Friendly? [Tuesday]
- From the Mouth of Madness: Photoshop for webmasters! [Monday]
- User Friendly: Continuing this week, the ever popular Star Wars parody!
[DAILY!]
- PLUS: Another Penny Arcade [Friday], a new Beaker's Bent [Wednesday], a
look at the game that could be called Unreal for kids [Tuesday], a look at
the weird-o Microsoft Sidewinder Freestyle gamepad in Geek Toys [Thursday]
and lots more! And then some more, because we can't help it...we're drawn
that way.
A new beta 30 of QOOLE '99, the latest release of
the Quake Object Oriented Level Editor is now available on the Qoole 99 Beta 30 Mirrors page. Thanks qoole.gamedesign.net, who point out the new beta
contains a working (not perfect) texture manager and a plethora of bug fixes, and will be
the last public until the final version.
BW Wire (Black & White news) has posted a
Peter Molyneux audio interview in .mp3 format talking to the Lionhead designer about his
upcoming game, Black & White.
Ross "Jokey" Wigdor has cooked up another remake of DM3 for the old school Quake
crowd to follow up on his first popular remake based on the original source code. The new
version is available here
(I've currently got problems posting local copies that I hope to have cleared up soon),
and Jokey says it is "based on an idea I found on sCary's q3 messageboard for id to
take the old favorite maps and change em and add battle damage."
One more time for this one: the
beauty of madness Level Retrospective is back online (the site has gone down shortly
after this has previously been posted). Here's the blurb from the page: "Take a trip
down memory lane with Matt Sefton and Bill 'crash' McClendon, two of the guys at the heart
of the community during the 'good old days' of Quake level editing. This is a very long
interview with over 100k of text and 2.5mb of graphics."
nG! Online's GGF "Show Me the
Money" LAN is a big quake II competition next weekend in Brisbane Australia
offering cash prizes.
Thanks to all who've written in with congratulations on the addition of loony, I'm glad
that so many of you view it as a positive move as well. To kick off the new setup here I'm
going to try and get into the habit of posting the first posts of the day much closer to
right after midnight, so as to not hinder loony if he has something to post, which is
certainly a positive development.
Image of the Day: Mrs. Blue made my Easter by finding me some
heretofore unprecedented Blue Peeps, which also supply today's Image of the Day.
Here's an article on Unreal
Tournament Skins written by Shane Caudle, level designer, 3D modeler & artist for
Unreal and Unreal Tournament. The article shows artistic types how to create their own
skins for UT, and there are some cool images of the skins, models, and the process for
matching them up for those, like me, who just like the purty pictures.
Beyond 3D interviews John Romero,
discussing the current state of affairs at ION Storm, and progress on Daikatana, about
which John has this to say:
There are no more delays, we are currently working on finishing the game
in the next several months and hope to release it sometime during the summer.
I've had the whip out putting loony to work, you can see his first posts below, and he's also edited up the long, long-overdue Mailbag, which will be posted every Sunday from now on. Here's the new and de-uglified April 4
edition of the Mailbag. This week: Complaints about Q2 DM, "Is Sin the most under-rated game of all time?," more on Mech(tm) names, the return of the blank space mystery, still more clarifications, old-school hard-drive talk, Q3A jerseys, and the
inevitable more.
True Gamers International has posted
the results from their tournament this weekend (the largest international Quake
tournament ever, apparently)...check 'em out on their Live
Coverage page. They've posted a quick interview with Lakerman, the winner,
and you can find another one here (thanks
FPS Spectator).
KillQuake sends along word that the
Half-Life Game Launcher has reached
version 1.0. Here's a quick rundown of the features on this bad boy:
- Allow Cheats
- Allow Console
- Launch the game in "Dev Mode"
- Select what map you want launch
- Type any additional parameter(s)
- Select your game type (Multiplayer or Single player)
The Half-Life Deathmatch Maker and Map Cycle Editor will be part of version
2.0...you can check out some screenshots of these over on their screenshots
page.
Hiya! This is my first post here at Blue's News...and what a whopper it is, huh? Just wanted to post here and introduce myself: yep, I'm the new guy here at Blue's News, although I've been working on the site in one way or another since back in the days of Blue's Quake Rag...I'll make sure the site stays exactly the way you like it. If you've got a suggestion for the site or just want to drop me a line, I appreciate the feedback...send it along to jason@loonygames.com. Oh, and until we get a real news@bluesnews.com e-mail setup, I'd appreciate it if you could CC me in on any news sent to the smurf colored guy. Thanks, and I'll return you to your regularly scheduled Blue's News now. :)
Ritualistic has posted news of a Sin arcade game under development by an Arizona-based company called Ferris VR that will offer Sin multiplayer play in a LAN-like setup, as well as single player play versus the Redemption Bot (the update comes courtesy of Riever, author of the Redemption Bot). When I checked the Universe Arcade Software page referenced in Riever's update, I see that they also have arcade games in the works based on Jedi Knight, Heavy Gear, and Heavy Gear II. No word on when these will be appearing in arcades.
Xatrix Programmer Ryan "Ridah" Feltrin updated his .plan with words of encouragement for TNT owners, and prospective
TNT2 owners, about Kingpin performance:
For those of you running or expecting to run Kingpin on TNT/TNT2 boards upon
release, will be glad to know nVidia are doing a great job of optimizing their drivers for
better FOG performance.
You can expect a healthy jump in performance on TNT based chipsets in the final
release.
The following announcement on The Official glDoom
Homepage is sure to disappoint the many looking forward to future releases of this
suped-up re-working of the Doom source code. Thanks Darkstarr. Here's the update:
glDoom project on indefinite hold
Due to circumstances beyond my control, the glDoom project is on hold indefinitely.
The news sites will be informed when and if the project is resumed. No source code is
available for download at this time. This includes ALL ports of glDoom; Win32, Mac, Linux
and BeOS. Please do not ask for the source code or why the project is on hold more
information will be forthcoming.
CTF Survival Guide has the rest of their
map-specific guides for TRIBES, covering Stonehenge, Scarabrae, Snowblind, Iceridge, and Broadside-Blastside.
Word is that with this accomplished, SinCTF guides will be their next project.
Hoping "to revive the Hexen2/HexenWorld scene," beta version 0.90 of the Rival Kingdoms mod for Hexen II is now
available. This is a teamplay mod that requires version 1.5 of HexenWorld (in addition to
Hexen II), and offers eight player classes to choose from, and three new maps in the beta,
with a total of ten maps planned for the final version. Here's the description of the mod
from the page: "Two castles sit atop hills opposite of each other. You now become
both defender and attacker. Your objective? Find and secure the one key necessary to
capture your Rivals crown and unite the Crowns under one unified
Kingdom."
CrazyPete´s Toolbox has the English
version 0.5 Beta 2 of the Grissly Half-Life front-end for download, supporting
Half-Life through version 1.0.0.8 only. The new release features a couple of bug fixes.
The Console Stats Homepage has version 1.1 of the
Console Stats Preview. This Quake II file analyzer will let you produce stats from Quake
II log files and demo files (multimap demos are supported), including many popular mods,
and output them on screen or in HTML format.
Iikka Keränen's Quake-related
utilities page has a new version of the IKBASE texture set for Quake and Quake II,
adding about 35 new textures to this pack that's a favorite of many level authors.
- Registration for DC-CON 6, planned for July
16, 17, and 18, is now underway.
- Today is the second annual Quake Easter Egg
Hunt, By Mortal Funk. Starting at 8:00 PM Eastern, players can hunt for eggs in their
Quake II mod competing for a first prize of $75 cash and a copy of Extremities signed by
all the people at id Software. Head over to the page for more info and downloads of the
client.
- Understanding the K7
Hype or Next Generation CPU? is a new analysis on Ace's Hardware. Thanks Billy at Voodoo Extreme...
- Weapons Factory servers are
strongly encouraged to get the latest version of this Quake II CTF mod by an update on Captured.Com that says "Looks like some nasty
folk have found a way to rename players, send false messages and shut down Weapons Factory
servers." Thanks FX ~ Scott...
- The Windows 98 update dealie now has a fix for that Windows will crash after 49.7 days
bug mentioned here recently, fixing perhaps the hardest to reproduce bug in computing
history...
Announcement time: As of today, Jason "loonyboi" Bergman will be serving as editor here at Blue's News, responsible for helping manage the content on the site, and providing additional coverage on the news desk. Coming after close to four years of
continuous operation as a one-man website, this is a pretty dramatic move: The level of infinite control I have doing everything myself is wonderful, and addictive, it's difficult to give up. The upsides to this radical 100% expansion in the staff have finally swayed me, however, and I'm hopeful that this is a move that is as welcomed by all of you as it is by me, it will result in improved attention to the non-news content, a bit more consistent news coverage, and much better coverage while I'm travelling. Jason is extremely well-qualified for the role: He was one of the original folks who dug
up news to send in here long ago (and was damn good at it), and the job he does as Editor-in-Chief of loonygames (which will
continue on as before, btw), speaks for itself. So I hope you'll join me in welcoming Jason in his new role.
Link of the Day: Kevin Spacey doing Christopher Walken's Han Solo screen-test on SNL in streaming video format. Thanks Evan 'Moltar' Chantland. Now let me drag this dead horse out to that stinky stable.
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