Archived News:
The techies over at Tech Radio have posted an
audio transcript of their interview with Jens Anderson, one of the designers of Heavy Gear
II, Activision's newly released game of giant piloted robot (gear) combat in their show archive. The show
is in RealPlayer format, but an MP3 format version
could be made available if demand is high enough. Speaking of MP3s, while any of you who
are audiophiles are checking out their audio files, you may dig on
their Q&A with the Director of Advanced Research for Lydstrom about the Songbank
MZ3-5000, their just-announced home stereo component that plays digital music (up to 5000
songs on the main device) using compression technology from Lucent with audio quality said
to be better than MP3 (and the device is also MP3 compatible, to boot).
There's a Starsiege Sensors comparison on
Datumplane::Starsiege offering a complete rundown on the sensors in Dynamix' own game
of giant piloted robot combat. They promise more such articles in the future (you have
been warned).
The Los Angeles TFC Half-Life
Game Server File Downloads page has a new program to easily launch a dedicated server
to run the TeamFortress Classic Half-Life mod. Thanks Voodoo Extreme.
id's Graeme Devine updated his
.plan with details on Q3Test's new SOCKS support. Here are the details:
SOCKS Proxy Support
There are five cvars that control it. They are only settable from the at init
time (from the OS command line).
+set net_socksEnabled 1
+set net_socksServer
+set net_socksPort
+set net_socksUsername
+set net_socksPassword
Please note that you use the address (name or IP number) of the SOCKS server
(firewall machine), NOT a Q3ATEST server. The port number defaults to 1080,
you should not need to change this.
It supports no authentication and username/password authentication method (RFC-1929);
it does NOT support GSS-API method (RFC-1961) authentication.
L810C and Chris Kane both send similar news of a fun bug to play with in the new Q3ATest
using the cheats mentioned earlier ( story), and the lightning gun. Here's L810C's explanation:
I was trying the Devmap and the Give All mentioned in an earlier post when I
found this wierd bug. Use Grapple and grapple to something and hang there by pressing
another weapon. Then use Lightning Gun and you will be propelled anywhere you aim it, you
will be tethered to your original grapple spot, but can go anywhere. You can fly to the
upper limits of Q3Test2 and you can fly into other rooms in the other levels. You can fly
through tele's, but bounce pads will break it.
A tip for Linux server operators interested in running the latest version of Q3ATest that
is currently only available as a Win32 binary comes from moonbeam, who says, "Try
the wine!" BTW, I believe the proper address for the WINE emulator (or, more
correctly, the Wine non-emulator) is the Wine Development
HQ ( www.winehq.com/), rather than the address
listed in the quote (thanks Dave Slusky). Here goes:
Haven't seen this mentioned anywhere. The win32 binary will run under WINE (www.linuxhq.com) as a dedicated server. Works
surprising well actually. Just have to do the most basic of installations - it doesn't
need access to any windows dlls etc.
There's a Thief 2: The Metal
Age interview on GA-Source talking with Project Director Steve Pearsall from Looking Glass Studios about the upcoming sequel to their
stealthy stealing game. The interview discusses new features, new weapons, and
multi-player support, and offers two new screenshots as well.
There's a new tab on The Shugashack for
use with the GameSpy 3D server-browser to help
filter through servers to find the ones running the latest version.
A new Werewolf:
The Apocalypse Screenshot on GA-Source giving a look at the third-person perspective in this first and third-person action/RPG hybrid. Werewolf is based on White Wolf's pen and paper role-playing game, and is being created with the Unreal engine by Dreamforge Productions.
Thresh's FiringSquad has posted their own article on the new
Win32 Q3ATest release talking about what's changed from the previous release, like the
smaller smoke trails from rockets, and the 100 FPS cap on framerate. They top things off
by using the newly-fixed timedemo command ( story) to offer benchmarks on an AMD Athlon 600 MHz system, as well as
more SMP (Symmetrical Multiprocessor) results on both a dual Intel Celeron 366 MHz setup, and a dual Intel Pentium III 500 MHz (on the heels of Anand's, mentioned earlier ( story)).
The DEMISE site has a new Patch4TEST2 Pre-release for their OpenGL accelerated RPG. Thanks Voodoo Extreme. Word is "there could be many problems" with this pre-release patch, but the patch also "fixes many issues -- problems with drivers, Multiplayer, and more." One or two more tests before the full Patch4 release are expected.
Mikel Blanchard writes in to point out that you can check out the current effects and sounds (all mostly placeholders) of the Q3ATest grappling hook and the weapons not included in the current maps, simply by enabling the cheats. Start a map from the console using the
"devmap" command ( e.g., "devmap q3test1") and then grabbing the items using the command "give all," (or "give hook" for just the
grapple) to check them out. Again, most of this stuff is clearly just placeholders for the real deal, with temporary and missing graphics, effects, and sounds, but some of the stuff works, and you can grapple around the levels like Spider-Man if you so desire.
I.Am-KingPin has posted a new Skins department with new player skins available for download. There is also info there on how to create and edit skins for Xatrix' newly-released gangsta shooter, Kingpin: Life of Crime, including info on how to add your likeness to one of the player models (especially useful if you've got the Kingpin/John Goodman physique to begin with).
AnandTech has posted a bunch of benchmarks and commentary about Symmetrical Multiprocessor support in the new release of Q3ATest. Thanks Daniel. The numbers demonstrate that SMP indeed improves performance, though the difference between multiprocessor and single processor modes seems to narrow as the resolution gets higher.
Beta build 1043 of Q3Tweak, the Q3ATest
front-end, is now available, offering a way to "access Q3A console commands not found
in the in-game menus. The program allows you to tune Q3A for best performance, best visual
quality or a cross between the two."
Hardware reviews are up here this morning:
Kokak's Hexen Page has version
0.5 of Kokak's OpenGL port of the source code to Raven's Doom-engine shooter, Hexen.
Thanks Voodoo Extreme.
Thanks Frans at 3D Action Gamers for
these:
- Hero's Journey Vault has posted three AVI movies
featuring gameplay from Hero's Journey from E3 giving a low (320x240) resolution of this
upcoming 3D RPG...
- 3DFiles has posted a local copy of a new Dungeon
Keeper 2 Olympia Level just released by Bullfrog as a freebie add-on for for DK2.
Thanks Robert M Lowrey...
- A new version of the 3D Exploration OpenGL
3D viewer is now available...
To follow-up on the beans loony spilled the other day, he did indeed witness my purchase of a PlayStation: It is nice to be able to check out some of the games that have pushed the envelope of console systems lately, like Metal Gear Solid, it's been something I've been
meaning to do for a long time now. However, if loony thinks I am doing anything with those pokemon's other than creating a big smelly acrylic bonfire out of the cute little beasties, he's kidding himself.
Link of the Day: Squad Nuclear Slug: How to Start
Your Own Squad, a loving look at how to start your own totally 'l33t clan. Thanks
Densun.
Bonus Link: Game Development
Truisms, or, "You know your game is in trouble when..." Thanks Ben.
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