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Archived News:
The first four screenshots from Command & Conquer: Renegade, the first
3D action title in the C&C universe, have been posted at GamesZone
News, a German games site. The text is all in German, of course, but you
can always stick a babel fish in your
ear if you need a translation. Thanks Ant by way of BattlegroundTS.
The final version of KeyGrip
2, the graphical Quake II demo editing program has been released. This version
adds support for non-GL video modes, the ability to change the block number
for a camera, and auto-splitting of multi-level demos among other things.
Sharky
Extreme has posted their comprehensive preview of Apple's recently announced
G4s. The preview features a rundown of the two different motherboards in the
new line, as well as the various processors (including a detailed explanation
of their unique features).
A new version of Æstats,
a log parser that outputs to HTML has been released and is available for download
on its homepage. This new version
features Action Quake II support and incident filtering, as well as enhancements
to games already supported.
I.AM/TFC has posted 70 new demos from
Team Fortress Classic, replacing the ones they had before the new patch (as
of 1.0.1.3 old demos no longer work). The new demos range from freaky fast speed
runs, to combat action to special techniques for each class.
U-Games' Incoming Forces Preview
is another preview from the U-Gamers running abut at ECTS in London offering a
few pages of their impressions of the game to go along with the 14 screenshots
they posted earlier (story).
I.Am-TFC's Team Fortress
Classic Strategy page has been updated with new strategies for playing TFC.
According to Halflife.net, where I saw
this, "It seems a lot of them are related to sniping on certain levels, and
there's some new strategies for the HWGuy."
They may be running out of steam, but they aren't through yet, GameSpot UK - ECTS99 Messiah Screens
serves up no less than 27 new screenshots released at
ECTS from Shiny's upcoming Messiah.
The Entron Deathmatch and Single Player Gaming Resource
has the release of "the complete collection of Entron goodies," which
includes a deathmatch pak, single player maps, Topaz's scripting tools with full
source, a huge texture pak, and a sound pak. This is the Open Source release of
what was originally slated to be a commercial product called Entron: Freedom's
Edge. To celebrate the whole shebang, they are having an IRC shindig, even as I
write these words, so if you read this before about 8:00 PM EDT today, you can
still catch the festivities (details about where to join are on the
page).
Delta-Force2.Com has posted a whole
bunch of stuff from their ECTS experience, including a pair of new Delta Force 2
screenshots (here's one
and the other),
as well as "BoneHead's"
ECTS report, photos
from day one, and an update on DF2
release dates, including an updated German release date of November 1999
(the US date is October 1999, and the rest of Europe is scheduled for February
2000).
In addition to the shots of Ragnar,
the hero from Human Head's upcoming Rune we posted earlier (next story),
The Adrenaline Vault News has posted three shots of their own, one of which is different than one of ours
(I guess that means we each have an exclusive, whoop!).
HumanHead sent along three
new screenshots from Rune, their game of Viking glory, which was recently
revealed will be running on the Unreal 2 engine. These are the first screenshots
from the game that feature Ragnar, their main character. They're pretty cool
looking, and one character even looks like a Wumpus to me - check
'em out.
U-Games' Half-Life Opposing Force Preview
is up with their impressions upon checking out Gearbox Software's upcoming
Half-Life add-on at ECTS.
Here's two stories I forgot to post the other day (don't blame Blue - he assumed
they were already posted). AVault
has posted a patch for Interplay's Starfleet Command. This patch contains a
number of gameplay tweaks, so I'd recommend downloading it if you're planning
on playing the game. Westwood revealed the story behind their action RPG Nox
the other day, and Gamer's
Central posted the press release along with four screenshots (although only
two of them appear to be new).
Epic's Brandon "YelloMarine" Reinhart updated
his .plan with word on the festivities at London's The Playing Fields
gaming center (rather, centre), where they have been, and will continue to be,
playing Unreal Tournament with attendees of ECTS, including some described as
"hard core Quake and Quake2 players." Here's what's happening:
Matrox G400 3D Gaming Enhanced
"Game" of the week is Egerter Software's
PowerRender3, described as "a general purpose 3D API which supports all of
the features the Matrox G400 can deliver, including Environment Mapped Bump
Mapping, DualHead displays, stencil buffer shadows, multi-texturing, and 32-bit
color. The API comes with utilities for importing and editing materials, so
developers can create and display fully bump mapped objects with no programming
involved." Among the shots that show off the API's power, is one showing off
a level in Quake II using environmental bump-mapping. Word is Power Render 3 will
be available to developers for licensing in mid-September.
U-Games' Team Fortress 2 Preview
is online after some face time with Valve's upcoming multiplayer teamplay
shooter at ECTS. There are no new screenshots, but the believe they
are getting some to post soon. I originally called this a SoF preview, sorry
for the confusion (as luck would have it my system went haywire after making the
error, delaying its correction).
The relentless GSUK ECTS coverage continues, as ECTS99 Max Payne
Screenshots on GameSpot UK
with a half-dozen shots (that I believe are new) from Remedy and 3DRealms'
upcoming third-person game inspired by the John Woo school of action.
Well looks like ECTS is going to make this a busy day, whether the world has
changed, or not. GameSpot UK - ECTS99 Black and White Exclusive Screens
show off a rather mind-boggling 63 screenshots from Lionhead's upcoming 3D god
game. As sCary once pointed out, you get that many shots, you're tempted to
break out the old .gif animator and see if you can make a movie.
Exclusive Soul Reaver Screenshots
on GA-Source shows off a dozen new screenshots from the PC version of Eidos
Interactive's just-gold 3D vampire action-adventure, Legacy of Kain: Soul
Reaver.
Still raging with the machine, ECTS99
Hostile Waters Screens on GameSpot UK offers (brace yourself) 47 new images
from Rage's upcoming action title. They've also posted the 14
Incoming forces screenshots mentioned in the following story as posted on U-Games.
GameSpot UK ECTS99 coverage gives word on a new game announcement out of
ECTS from Rage, who have unveiled Incoming Forces, which, as the name suggests,
is a sequel to Incoming, set 20 years after the original. On that subject, there
are a bunch (14) of new Incoming Forces
Screenshots on U-Games showing off the first look at action from the action
game. Also raging about Rage's upcoming titles at the show is PC
Arena's Expendable Preview which has posted a 17 MB movie preview of Rage's
upcoming Expendable in QuickTime format, and their Hostile Waters
Preview offers a 16 MB QuickTime preview as well.
New V3800 beta drivers, a new PowerStrip, and more on DX7's release date in this
morning's bits:
U-Games' WarCraft 3 Preview
is up with a complete transcript of the announcement of WarCraft III by the
game's producer.
This press release has
the world changing announcement of the day, which gives all the details WarCraft
III, the sequel to the successful RTS' along with details on how
different from previous RTS' it is, hence the world changing part (convinced
yet?). If you aren't, Gamecenter's
WarCraft III The First Details tries to shed even more first light on the
situation. The part they're all excited about is the addition of role-playing
elements to the RTS genre, and they're calling gameplay in WCIII Role-Playing Strategy.
Computer Games Online
previews Interstate '82 describing the sequel to the funky driving game
Interstate '72 like this: "Mad Max meets Miami Vice to uncover a web of
conspiracy." I loved I '76, but even the words Miami Vice still make me
shudder... I guess we'll see. The preview is illustrated with several new
screenshots. There are also some Heavy
Metal F.A.K.K.2 screenshots there, but they're the same four that were
posted here last week.
Unreal Universe has posted three
more Wheel of Time screenshots showing off Legend's upcoming Unreal-engine
action/adventure based on the book series by Robert Jordan. UU is promising a
full preview of the game this week.
The ReDeMpTiOn Main Page
has a new version 1.16c of the ReDeMpTiOn bot for Sin. The new version uses new
route file format, so your old one will need to be discarded and re-started with
the new version. Thanks Redwood. Also word
there is that The Quake2 Crew Home Page
has posted a ReDeMpTiOn bot front-end program. Also, I see on the bot loving Bot Epidemic
that numb has
"re-released" version 1.2 of the Holywars + Frogbot for Quake with "new
stuff" here (I don't know why that's a "re-release" rather than a new
version). Finally, there's a new version 0.11 of the Jumbot Launcher
front-end for the Jumbot for Half-Life.
gBi0Tch's Home Page has a new version 0.08
of his log analyzer, which parses logs for Q3Test and Half-Life Counterstrike
servers. The new release adds Q3Test support, the preliminary "CLAN
MANAGER," and more new features, as well as some bug fixes.
nV News' Tweaking Quake 3 Test Graphics
offers a guide to mucking around with the graphics in Q3Test,
describing various settings, showing the impact of their use on your framerate with benchmarks,
and illustrating their impact on the game's appearance with screenshots.
In a previous update, RSE predicted a demo for their upcoming Rainbow Six: Rogue
Spear sometime before the full game's release on September 15 (story).
Now, word on RainbowSix.Net has news
(via mplayer.com) that true to that
promise, the demo is expected this Tuesday:
Wolfs Unreal has posted a basic tutorial
on editing and getting started using UnrealED. Also, Wastelands,
"A Kingpin Mappers Resource," has opened for business, to start with
they've posted tutorials on skies, pawn-o-matics and lighting, with a promise of
guides to making cameras for cut scenes and safes for bagman to come. Saw both
of those on Rust, where they never
sleep, trying to bring you all the latest in game editing news.
Descent4.net's Texture contest
will include the best original submission of a 512x512 texture in the upcoming
Descent 4 (if this works out well enough, someone's going to make a whole game
that way). Don't forget, all three of you mailbombed loony into submission, so our
new trivia contest is up, as well.
The usual thanks to Frans at 3D Action Gamers:
Hey, yesterday was a pretty snappy news day, for a Saturday, especially on a
holiday weekend here in the US (Labor Day-I'm told it's also a holiday in Canada, thanks Creeker). Today might have some activity as
well, as Blizzard is threatening to change the world again today (I was so
excited at the prospect I briefly had the post up about it a second time today).
For those keeping score, this is the second time this week the world will have
been changed. In case this one turns out to be a dud, I will reveal I have plans
of my own. I won't be changing the world, but I do plan on changing my
toothbrush on Monday, or maybe it was my briefs.
Oh yeah, Pac-Man chomps its way toward 20 (thanks to all the many who sent that in), don't you think it's time he put on some pants? BTW, congrats to skinner Rorshach, who just announced his engagement. Link of the Day: Money.com Wise Guy
on Microsoft vs. Spain. Thanks Belgarion.
As promised earlier, here's a
local copy of the Nocturne demo released earlier (story) and a list of
mirrors. The demo weighs in at a hefty 109 MB.
3DFiles' Nocturne Demo
page has word that there was a problem with the cdrom.com mirror of the
Nocturne demo they posted earlier, and the link has been pulled while they fix
it. Meanwhile, if you tried downloading this whopper from there and had a
problem with a corrupted download, you can try resuming your download from there
when it's been finished uploading, or, perhaps resuming from the working mirror
they have posted. Thanks Ant (who I think is also the one who spotted the bad
file). Also, I saw on Voodoo Extreme
that there's a CGW Nocturne
Demo FAQ up for those who've gotten the download to work, but can't get it
running, but there's only one Q&A so far, saying "The most common
problem is it doesn't run because hardware acceleration is turned on by default.
The solution, is to turn hardware acceleration off, and run in 32bpp software
rendering." Finally, to help ease all the download strain, I'll post a
local copy here, with a list of mirrors I can dig up, as soon as I can.
HQH's Website has a new version
9.4 of the unofficial Half-Life FAQ, as promised, converted from a text document
(the text version has been discontinued), to an HTML file, which weighs in at a
whopping (for HTML) 400 KB, though there is a considerably smaller zipped
version for download.
Saw on PlanetQuake News
that DeathMatch 101 has
posted a new Quick Guide
to Quake III Test offering tips on how to come out on top of the frag heap.
I saw on Voodoo Extreme earlier that a new
version 0.7.5 of the Q3A Setup tweaking utility for Q3Test was available.
Unfortunately, upon downloading it I found it didn't work. Now, after checking
back at the 3DApp Home, I see a
version 0.7.5 beta fix is up, which actually operates, so if you're looking for
a front-end to help with some of the more obscure options in Q3Test, check it
out. Similarly, the tweaks at Q3Tweak
say a new release of their Q3Test tweaking program will be tomorrow.
Qamex Games Centre
has posted four exclusive new 800x600 Voodoo2 screenshots from ECTS showing off
action from Epic's upcoming Unreal Tournament.
Gamers.de
has posted an interview with Lead Programmer Markus Hadwiger on the upcoming
space shooter Parsec in both English
and German,
as well as four new screenshots showing off the game.
On the heels off yesterday's click2send
release of the Delta Force 2 trailer (story),
and the release earlier today of the movie as a zip file on NovaCentral News Network
(story),
comes word from NovaCentral News Network
that they now have the trailer as a bandwidth-friendly ~2 MB RealPlayer
version.
3DFiles Game Demos - Nocturne
page has a playable demo of Nocturne that looks to be from a magazine CD (if
I read correctly, the October 1999 Computer Gaming World magazine with demo
CDROM, on newsstands now). The demo is a whopping 107 MB, and it is noted that
the "demo is 3 months away from code completion. It has been tested on
Matrox G200/G400, ATI Rage 128, S3 Savage 3D, or TnT/TnT2 for 3D acceleration,
but many Voodoo cards have troubles with it still, although you can run it in
software mode. The faster the better, a 400 MHZ CPU is recommended for software
mode."
With a DX7 buzz already a buzzing due to a recent release candidate for the MS
Premium Elite, ActiveWindows
has posted a report that they've received an "official" release date
for DirectX 7, the next revision in the Microsoft's API, as next Friday,
September 10. Thanks 3DNews.Net by way of
the unstoppable Frans at 3D Action
Gamers.
The UrbanChaos.Net has posted an
exclusive interview with musician Martin Oliver and tester Justin Amore from
Mucky Foot about M.F.'s Urban Chaos, an upcoming third-person game best
described as Tomb Raider-esque. The piece includes news about gameplay,
technology, and a free music sample in mp3 format from the game's soundtrack.
Kenn Hoekstra's
.plan has an update on a touchy subject for some, the news that Raven will
not be supporting cooperative multiplayer play in their upcoming Quake II-engine
shooter, Soldier of Fortune. Here's the dope:
The Gore Screenshots page has a
pair of new shots of the player character from this upcoming first-person
shooter to show off the visible weapons and armor (you can see what your
opponent is wearing and carrying). In one shot he's armed to the teeth with a
spike gun a helmet and light armor, and in the other, fairly unfettered with no
armor, and holding but a pistol (which constitutes as heavily-armed in real
life).
BetaNews has word of some "Special
Purpose Drivers" for ATI RAGE 128-based graphics cards. Apparently the
special purpose is not like Navin Johnson's, word on the page is "These are
for those using a K6/K7 3DNow!, Pentium III SSE, or for those wanting to run
Quake3 Test. They are version 6.20CDH29 for Windows 9x and NT4." I can't
find a page on the ATI site, but the BetaNews folks have a direct link up.
There are scans of the
FreeSpace 2 magazine ads up on The Descent Chronicles
for those dying for more glimpses of this upcoming space sim (or for those whose
favorite parts of the gaming mags are the ads).
Frans, who clearly is off the decaffeinated, sends word that the Delta Force 2
movie released yesterday in that obtuse digital safe deposit box dealie (story),
has been posted as a normal download at the NovaCentral News Network
(thanks to Matthias at The Patches Scrolls
for spotting it).
He says the movie is 180x120, has a 1:22 running time, and is 22 MB, but he's
posted a 15 MB zipped version on 3D Action Gamers' Delta Force
2 page.
The Adrenaline Vault
interviews Stevie "Killcreek" Case talking with the ION Storm
level designer in a Q&A that talks briefly about her upcoming appearance in
Playboy (story),
progress on Daikatana, and primarily about her past, present, and future role in
the Cyberathlete Professional League (CPL).
As promised the other day, a new gallery section has been added to the
official American McGee's Alice home page, with five pieces of concept art
for you to look at, as well as another in their series of baffling riddles.
Insomniax.net
has posted a hands-on preview of Freespace 2 that's based on a build the author received, complete
with 22 new screenshots from this space sim.
Those zany guys at StrangeCompany
have released another one of their tools for Quake II demo movie authors...it's called
Lippy, and it allows for full lip-synching of characters, as well as the ability
to add emotions to their faces. It sounds pretty cool, so check
it out.
Planet FreeSpace
interviews Philip Holt talking with the director of product development at
Volition about FreeSpace 2, his background, his favorite things in FreeSpace,
the best Volition pool player, where is the best place to get pizza in the
Champaign area, and vital stuff like that. Saw that (along with the spiffy
description) at The Descent Chronicles.
There's a BattleZone II
preview on GameSpot UK with a hands-on look at this upcoming action/strategy
sequel accented with several new screenshots.
Kokak's Hexen Page has
a new version 0.8 of Kokak's OpenGL port of the publicly available Hexen
source-code (which is based on the also publicly available Doom source). Word
there is that since DoomGL shares its OpenGL engine with GLHexen (and
GLHeretic), GLHexen could also support MD2 files (the 3D format used in Quake 2
for the objects) soon, just like DoomGL
does. Also noted there, is that the ports on the page required Hexen 1.1, and
don't work with Hexen version 1.0 or the demo version of Hexen. Thanks again Frans at 3D Action
Gamers.
The Adrenaline Vault
previews Nocturne looking ahead at TRI's upcoming horror-noire game calling
it "a George Romero ode to Lovecraft with a deep tip of the hat to pulp
fiction ethos" (that's George, not John). In addition to the look ahead at
the game, there are several D3D screenshots showing off it's eye candy. And as
if that weren't enough, there are Nocturne
Screenshots on GA-Source showing off 15 scenes from the game.
Hexenworld, the
site, has word of a "tentative" version 1.00 release of the Chronos
Bot for HexenWorld, the program (the version of Hexen II enhanced with
QuakeWorld-style networking). Thanks Frans at 3D Action
Gamers.
The Collective, developers of the Unreal-engine title Star Trek: Deep Space
Nine - The Fallen are looking for an UnrealScript programmer to join their ranks
(thanks PlanetUnreal). Here are the
details:
Thresh's FiringSquad
has posted an interview with 3dfx' Scott Sellers, discussing a variety of issues
with the CTO of the company. The interview is particularly timely after this
past week's announcements from NVIDIA and S3 about their next-generation chipsets.
Here's a quote that shines some light on what their new technology will (and won't) be capable of:
Next-Generation
Online has posted a new preview of Prince of Persia 3D, with four new screenshots,
a bit of history about the title, and the rest of the usual preview text. Just
a reminder - the PoP3D demo was released last
weekend.
The AllGames Network
has posted their coverage of the $50,000 Descent 3 tournament, and while it's
not quite as entertaining as the one posted last night (story), it's still worth
checking out. Hey, it was in Las Vegas. It's just gotta be entertaining.
In addition to yesterday's Nocturne screenshots
and AVI,
there's also some new illustrations up on Spookhouse.org, showing off the characters from the game. Hop over there and head to their "research" section to check them all out (they're very impressive).
Yesterday was one of those days that proved just how great Blue's News readers
are. In case you missed it, in an effort to get me to finish up this week's
contest (which went
up yesterday - good luck, it's freaky hard), Blue posted my e-mail address
along with an invitation for people to send (cough) letters of encouragement.
Now I was expecting a deluge of flames, nags, death threats, and the usual bag
of disgruntled mail...but you know what? It didn't happen. Sure, I got a few,
but not nearly anything that would qualify as a mail bomb. You guys rule.
Link of the Day: Being Stephen King. A place where Stephen Kings all over the world can go to complain about how they get mistaken for the best-selling horror novelist. |
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