Archived News:
Next-Generation Online
Classic Gaming Expo 1999 Report looks back at the show that looked back at all those
games of yore from the early days of computer gaming. If reading reports that use phrases
like "the newest Atari 2600 cartridges," and "complete Intellivision I and
II systems on display," and wax nostalgic when hearing of games like Tron, Space
Invaders, BattleZone, and Missile Command, then this article is for you (as was the show).
Q3Center's Q3Tweak has what's described as
a "newish" version of this Q3Test front-end tweaking program. This release is
made with an updated installer so it won't expire, and will now properly add Start Menu
items. A version with actual new features is promised "soon."
KodiaK was nice enough to send along an
edited log from the chat session earlier with Scott Miller of 3D Realms (our second of
these in two nights!). Subjects discussed include Max Payne, DNF, and Prey.
Todd Hollenshead updated his .plan with his reaction to the Ottawa Sun
article mentioned earlier ( story) that's the subject of much hot conversation on sCary's messageboard, as well as our
own (ours a little tamer of course, not allowing anonymous posts). Here's the scoop,
which includes an email address for more feedback:
Well we've all seen the brilliant journalism of the Ottowa Sun (or whatever it
is). If you'd like to email them your thoughts on fairness and accuracy in reporting, the
address (from their page) is oped@sunpub.com. After
taking a look at the pounding they were getting from many of you over on sCary's
messageboard, I sent the editor the following:
Mr. Oliver:
I'm sure you're getting a mountain of email from people angry about the number of factual
inaccuracies in the story, so I'll just trust that you'll fix that tomorrow. I wanted to
let you know that you can email me directly if you would like to fact check articles that
discuss our games in the future.
And if this hasn't been made painfully clear to you already, Grossman's contention that
Quake III Arena has been pulled from the market is no more accurate than any of his other
assertions about id Software or our games. We're looking forward to an enormously
successful launch of Quake III Arena later this year. You can see what we're working
on for yourself at http://www.quake3arena.com.
Regards,
Todd Hollenshead
CEO
id Software, Inc.
Now if only someone could get Grossman's email address!
The Ęstats Page has a new version 4.13 of
the Ęstats log parser that offers statistical output for a variety of shooters. The new
release is a quick bug fix for version 4.12. Thanks Jacek Fedoryński. Binaries are
available for Win32 & Linux x86 (glibc5 & glibc6).
FAKK YOU!'s Interview with
Kevin Eastman has been posted to compensate for the news that the interview they had
posted earlier with Ritual's Robert Atkins ( story) had been pulled due to some FAKK up or another. Kevin is co-creator the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, publisher of and editor-in-chief of Heavy Metal magazine, and co-creator of Heavy Metal F.A.K.K.2, upon which
Ritual's upcoming game is based.
Continuing the space show theme, GameSpot's First Look
at Deep Space 9 shows off 10 shots from Deep Space 9: The Fallen, an upcoming game
from The Collective which will use the Unreal engine to recreate the Star Trek universe of
Worf, Kira, and Sisko. The game is planned for a simultaneous PC and Mac release in
spring, 2000.
The Docking
Bay of the official Babylon
5 site has a pair of new gunships from Sierra's upcoming Babylon 5 space sim dealie.
Thanks A Talent For War. On the subject, that Talkspot Game Dive on Babylon 5 ( story) starts in about an hour.
So many reviews to catch up on, I better not wait until morning. Special thanks to Frans
at 3D Action Gamers for helping sort
through these, which emphasize System Shock 2 and Shadow Man:
Datumplane::Starsiege has posted a short
interview with Dynamix programmer Zed Tinman (you mean his name really is
Tinman?), learning a bit about his job as a programmer on Tribes: Extreme developing AI
code (among other things), as well as TribesCon, and progress on his Tribes Hunters mission
type (based on the classic HeadHunters Quake).
Busily updating his pet monster since the release of the new bot-friendly version of
Half-Life, TheFatal sends word he has now updated The Jumbot to version 0.4.
This is described as "a fairly major release," which adds a waypoint option for
bots to jump at certain locations, fixes a delay which made execbots.cfg not work
properly, adds "item-getting troubleshooting methods," fixes a waypoint bug,
bots now try to strategically place tripmines, bots no longer shoot their own tripmines or
tripmines that belong to teammates in teamplay mode, bots will now gauss-jump to get to
items they cannot normally reach(!), and more.
There have been many articles lately about youth violence and possible connections to
video games and other media, but this article, Kid killers linked to video
games, sent along by our old pal ColdSun has had me scratching my head all day. I don't
know what else to do but post it, and point out that I'm speechless that an article so
filled with obvious inaccuracies could be published anywhere, irrespective of beliefs
about the impact of media on violence.
Saw on IPlayGames that videogames.com's MDK2 Preview
is up, looking ahead at the sequel to MDK, which of course stands for Mulder Digs Kolchak.
The BattleCruiser Online site has the
BattleCruiser3000AD v2.08 release candidate 2 rev. B patch that fixes some Voodoo1
problems with yesterday's rev. A patch ( story).
There's a Robert Atkins
Interview talking with the Ritual artist on the newly opened FAKK YOU! (same to you fella), dedicated, as you would
hope, to Heavy Metal F.A.K.K.2, the upcoming Quake III-engine game from Ritual.
Datumplane::Starsiege asked a couple of questions
of TRIBES/TRIBES2 lead programmer Mark Frohnmayer and learned that TRIBES2 will make use
of the GLSetup utility for OpenGL configuration.
They also asked whether Dynamix is considering adding Direct3D support to TRIBES2 (the
original TRIBES was Glide-only, and though OpenGL support has been added since, it has
mixed results depending on what accelerator is used). Here was Mark's reply:
Only if we can't get the performance we need out of OpenGL. If we did support
D3D it would be as an D3D->OpenGL wrapper.
Gameguides' System Shock 2 guide is
online for those stuck making their way through Looking Glass' new sci-fi RPG. Thanks
Billy at Voodoo Extreme.
After a glitch yesterday where they had exclusive shots from Half-Life: Opposing Force
that turned out to have been printed already in a magazine, ValveWorld is ready to give it another go, having
posted another shot from Gearbox' upcoming add-on that we are assured is really, really,
new this time, with another shot in cold storage to post soon.
Since when does a game-industry interview have anything to do with Sanity? When it is
about Sanity, Monolith's upcoming action/RPG, as is NGNetwork's interview with
Monolith's Kevin Lambert.
Though it isn't yet noted on the Winamp home, the new version of 2.5 of Winamp is
now available on their FTP site. Thanks Frans and BetaNews.
Bagpuss points out that one big change with the new version is that Winamp is now once
again freeware.
Todd 'Tungsten' Northcutt from Captured.Com sent
along a streaming link to the
interview referenced earlier ( story),
and Greg Ballard was indeed talking about the product after the next (Voodoo4/Napalm)
product, saying it is due in "first half of 2000."
In addition to the Descent 3 version 1.1 patch ( story) and the Linux patch ( story), it turns out that Outrage also released the new version 1.1 of
the the Descent 3 SDK on the Outrage Technology
page, where word is: "Note: Mods compiled with the earlier release of the SDK
will not work with Descent 3 1.1, and Mods compiled with the D3-SDK 1.0 will not work with
Descent 3 1.0." For more on D3 editing, visit the D3sdk Support Site. Thanks The Descent Chronicles. Finally, Frans at 3D Action Gamers also points out the read me for the patch is now
available ( he's
mirrored it if it's being slammed).
- Rumor of the day is This article on The
Shugashack, which takes some paraphrased comments on CNBC
attributed to Greg Ballard, the CEO of 3dfx to speculate that a Voodoo5 product might be
available first quarter 2000. At E3, someone from 3dfx specifically pointed out that the
time spans demonstrated in the changes from Voodoo to Voodoo2 to Voodoo3 represented their
roadmap of upgrades, so expecting the V5 generation product ("Rampage" or whatever it eventually
becomes) within six months, when the V4 generation product ("Napalm" or
whatever it eventually becomes), has not even been officially announced yet, seems
unlikely (I wouldn't be surprised if the product Greg was talking about turns out to be
the Napalm/Voodoo4). That's just my opinion... I could be wrong (see follow-up).
- Richard Turnbull sends word that he's repackaged the source code for version 1.2 of his
Blitz 3D engine, and posted it on ACID REIGN.
Here's the poop on the re-release:
I have re-released the source code to an earlier version of the Blitz Engine
(V1.2) due to demand for the entire project files and assembly object code. This release
therefore contains the entire project and is ready to compile along with a sample scene to
test. This source code distribution is not an example of my programming skills. In fact it
contains some quite poor code and unoptimised routines. The aim of this release is to
provide people with some help and a starting block to build their own kick-ass engines. It
contains code on BSP Tree's, S-Buffering, Portal rendering, Z-Buffering, Translucency,
Particles, Direct Draw programming, Direct Input Programming, Surface Cacheing, Collision
Detection and most importantly, my completely hand crafted 32-bit MMX optimised realtime
span level RGB interpolative rasterizer (Surface cacheing at run time) with span level
mip-mapping.
Wewp! Entertainment has posted a pair of new
screenshots from TRIBES Extreme, Dynamix' upcoming follow-up to Starsiege TRIBES that will
offer enhanced single-player play. They have a couple of other shots they plan on posting
tomorrow.
The TeamFortress2 movies released yesterday ( story) were not especially big by current standards, ranging between
3.7 and 6.7 MB each, but if bandwidth is a consideration, AGN3D
has popped up a copy of each movie squeezed down into streaming RealPlayer format.
OpenGL DooM Legacy News
has the release of beta 7 of this OpenGL port of id software's Doom. The new beta is
described as "probably the latest public release before the final version. All the
necessary files to run Legacy are available." The new version fixes a lot of
remaining bugs and improves the OpenGL renderer, and word is "Like the beta 6
version, it includes the new network code from boris (including "joiningame")
and two mouse support" (referring to portions of the "original" Doom Legacy
code, though the update from the 21st with beta 6 never actually appeared on the site
before today--I'm not sure they are aware of that). Thanks again Frans at 3D Action Gamers.
Frans at 3D Action Gamers points out that
in addition to the quiet release of the version 1.1 client patch for Descent 3 earlier ( story), Outrage has also released the version 1.1 Descent 3 Linux servers and
the patch on this page. In addition, there are also two new multiplayer map packs
(each with three maps) there for download. The patch is now also available on 3DGamers. It is noted
that: "This is only the patch for the US version. Patches for other versions will be
out soon."
Mark Kinkead sent along the latest version of
his Dungeon Keeper 2 editor, and since it's not posted elsewhere yet, I popped up a local copy on our rather
busy FTP server in case you're interested. This is an ASCII based map editor that
allows you to create dungeons, place creatures/doors/traps, and Hero Gates (the gates are
the new feature). It is not supported by Bullfrog (but has their blessings), and is
described as "not for the faint at heart, for it is a console program. It does work
with at least the German and French versions as well." Several maps mad with earlier
version of the program are available at DarkSword,
along with some support for the editor.
Descent3.net
News has word the "long-awaited" version 1.1 patch for Descent 3 is now
available. They have posted a link to download it that is broken (the poster notes he was
rushing for a plane), but I dug up the proper link, which is here (the link had a .zip
extension instead of an .exe). Here's a local copy on Blue's News FTP (897 KB), and word is you can also use
the in-game updater to install it over the Internet (according to the Outrage site, that's preferred, saying: "It's better to use the auto updater in the D3 launcher"). Thanks saiyajin.
On the heels of yesterday's release, a new version 2.01 of NOP is now available. NOP is the
Java-based Q3Test stats tool that can provide real-time webpage updates with info from a
game server. The rapid patch is to address the missing help.html problem in version 2.0. Additionally, NOP will now overwrite any existing old version nop2.dat (v1.1 -
v2.0 beta), which was obsolete anyway.
A new version 1.75 of The Cold Ice Mod
for Half-Life is now available. Fixes in the new release include the return of the
Off-Hand Grapple, an optimized SmartHud system, the long jump pack will be replace with a
jet pack, four new weapon models, nine new ammo models, more weapon slots (10), a new
version of the iceman model, and word that the voice command no longer works since the
1.0.1.3 patch.
The Codename Eagle interview
on GA-Source talks with Amir Haleem, designer for Swedish-based Refraction Games about this upcoming
military action extravaganza. The piece includes a half-dozen new screenshots showing off
action from the game, which uses a proprietary 3D engine.
- S3 Obtains Early Termination of
HSR Waiting Period for Proposed Merger with Diamond Multimedia is the press release
announcing that S3 and Diamond have cleared a legal hurdle, and: "As a result,
special meetings of the shareholders of S3 and Diamond Multimedia to consider and vote
upon the merger are scheduled to be held on September 20, 1999."
- Jim Decker sends word that the ATI drivers mentioned earlier (story) look like they were released a couple of weeks ago, sorry for
causing any confusion.
- Ace's Hardware has added some new info on
overclocking Athlon processors.
- The three simultaneous new reviews earlier on CGO (story) turn out to be no coincidence (or late-night Vivarin bingeing),
but rather the kick off of Computer
Games Online's Fall '99 video card roundup, which offers a plethora of new reviewage,
examining, or re-examining the 3D Blaster TNT2
Ultra, Maxi
Gamer Xentor, Maxi Gamer Xentor
32, Millennium
G400, Millennium
G400 Max, Stealth
III S540, Viper
V770, Viper
V770 Ultra, Voodoo3
2000, Voodoo3
3000, Voodoo3
3500TV, and the Winfast 3D S320
II (you may need to print some of these out for bathroom reading to get to them all).
- Ars Technica's Book review of
Expert C Programming Deep C Secrets gives it "5 out of 5 woo-hoos!"
- Beyond 3D previews Guillemot's
Upcoming Product Line.
- As a follow-up to his .plan yesterday, (story) Xatrix' Ryan "Ridah" Feltrin updated his .plan again with more on those under-performing
"value" TNT2 cards that he says it turns out are not just being offered by
"no name" manufacturers.
The Adrenaline
Vault Downloads Page offers the patch of the day for the German version of Egosoft's X
- Beyond the Frontier. The note says simply that the "patch fixes a few bugs and also
adds a few new features."
The Heavy Gear II
Downloads page has been updated with the third bonus map for Activision's game of both
on and off-planet giant gear combat. Thanks Frans at 3D Action Gamers, who points out that it
looks like we failed to note the second bonus map upon its release. To make up for the
oversight, here's a bonus, bonus map, as they have a map on their FTP site that Frans noticed that isn't listed on
the page. Here's the direct link
to the file, described in the read me like this: "Location: Veril Hills, AST,
Terra Nova. Background: The Veril Hills are along the border of the Mekong Dominion and
the Southern Republic. Conflict between these two political powers has arisen again and
the Veril Hills have once again become a battle ground."
Having sobered up after the travel day, loonyboi has sent along his Day Three Diary from the
Quake III Bus Tour, detailing all the events along the road to AMD where they ended up
dressing in bunny suits outside the bus (no joke--we've got photos!), and encountered
someone with the nickname "LOW AMMO WARNING" (I have to admit I thought of this
one day a couple of months ago, and it cracked me up for a few minutes, but I got over
it). loony also fired up the Gratuitously Expensive Blue's News Camera™ and took a load of photos
of the proceedings, including a dizzyingly different look at that Orbb model, and the
first shot of the Athena female model. And of course, there's the Quake
III Bus Tour Messageboard, in case you want to read or write more about the subject.
Billy spotted a post on Planet Kingpin in turn taken from Kingpinpost, that sheds a little vague light on
the status of the version 1.2 patch, said to be imminent in Ridah's last post to the Kingpin Beta Testing page on August 20 ( story), Here's the update:
Just wanted to drop a quick note and give everyone an update on the current
status of the patch. As reported on the beta page, the patch has gone final and is
currently going through our QA department and official signoff. Assuming no problems turn
up, and that we do not receive any additional updates from Ridah (Ryan Feltrin), the 1.2
final patch should hopefully be available for download from Interplay support sites within
the next 1-2 days.
Thanks!
Matthew Byrne
Manager
Interplay Customer Service/Technical Support
Saw on The Descent Chronicles that a thread
called Volition beta
testers wanted on the Volition Bulletin
Board gives word Volition is looking for serious beta testers for a
test of the multiplayer FreeSpace 2 Demo to iron out modem and connectivity problems. I
won't reproduce the post here to make to so easy to flood them with applicants (I
hesitated before posting it at all), but suggest if you really are interested in helping
them out, you head over and check it out. Serious beta testing is more of a pain in the
neck than it is just the joy of getting early software, so if you are not into the work
part of it, this probably isn't for you. The good news for the rest of us is that this
makes an updated demo sound fairly close.
It actually seems safe to announce that Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun is now
available in some retail outlets, and may be in stores near you. In keeping with loony's
sentiments, even after getting the official announcement that the game had shipped to
stores, I held off until I had eyewitness accounts (I still know loony will not believe it
until seeing it himself). Thanks to all the eyewitnesses who sent in word (we have your
new identities for the Witness Protection Program all set). Also, The Adrenaline Vault
News has seven new screenshots of Metal Fatigue, an upcoming real-time strategy game
from Psygnosis. Finally, Beta Bites' Submarine
Titans Preview looks ahead at this upcoming underwater RTS (where's Kevin Costner when
you need him?), and likewise offers some screenshots.
The newly-opened Head Trauma (better bandage it
then...), dedicated to 3D Realms/Remedy Entertainment's upcoming third-person action game
Max Payne, is holding an IRC session with 3D Realms' Scott Miller. The session
will be this evening (Wednesday, August 25) at 9:00 PM EDT in irc.inside3d.net (port 6667)
in the channel #max-payne. Scott will be answering questions about Apogee, 3D Realms, game
development and himself, and he may also take questions (limited because of the media
blackout) on "Max Payne and other 3D Realms/Apogee games that
Scott may have or had active participation in (Duke Nukem Forever, Prey, etc.)."
This evening's Talkspot Game Dive
will play host to designers Dan Foy and Marc Hudgins, who are working on the
soon-to-be-released BABYLON
5: Into The Fire, and they will be answering questions about this upcoming space
combat simulator, based, of course, on the science fiction series. The show is today from
10:00 PM to Midnight EDT, RealPlayer, or equivalent,
required.
Inside Mac Games Magazine has posted some more Unreal Tournament
Screenshots & VR Movies from the Mac version of Epic's upcoming shooter, the VR
movies again those nifty QuickTime VR
jobbies that can give you a 360 degree view of a level.
There was no description with those TeamFortress2 movies released yesterday ( story), so after checking them out, and seeing they were the movies
shown at E3, I thought I'd share what little I know about each: Ammoload
shows a soldier firing a mounted machine gun, and when he is joined by a teammate (a
female medic) to feed the ammo belt, the rate of fire increases (showing off teamplay), Combo
shows off a couple of classes, including the spy taking a life James Bond style, Voicecomm
is an example of how a characters lips match their words when using the real-time voice
stuff, and finally, my favorite, Tank
shows off the super animation effects -- the soldier you see climbing up and jumping off
the tank is another player (not an NPC or anything), and that's what the animation of him
climbing and jumping look like... notice how the grenade goes off a little sooner than he
expected, and the animation changes perfectly as he gets caught in the explosion.
In the article about bleem! yesterday ( story), I munged up the link to their page, inadvertently linking to
some perfectly normal homepage, I hope we didn't run up the owner's webhosting bill or
anything, thanks to all who wrote in with a heads-up on the error.
Yesterday saw another run of the new version of the pop culture game, which is now much
easier to spot, hanging out there with an asterisk and all (I think the quotes used should
be more obscure, as a result). Anyway, the quote offered was from Ghostbusters, and it's
the only one I can recall that had an actual "correct" answer (the reply quote I
was thinking of when writing the original, which is: "Ray, the next time someone asks
you if you're a god, you say YES!" which was probably in fact, the most common
response, and the quote offered by the first to offer a quote, CorD'un Xor.
Link of the Day: Old
Man Murray's Asheron's Call Beta Log.
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