Archived News:
There are no confirmations from Valve or Sierra, but a blurb on Next-Generation Online
quotes "insiders at Sega" as saying an "Internet
capable version of Sierra’s Half Life will appear on Dreamcast in the
near future." Word is Sierra could not be reached for comment on the rumor
at the time the story went up. DREAMCAST.IGN.COM
is even more confident, calling the word from Sega a confirmation: At Sega's
pre-TGS meeting in Japan, it was announced that Half Life would be seeing
release for the Dreamcast in late 2000. That's a long time from now, but the
waiting period is apparently due to Sega's desire to equip the title with full
online multiplayer capability.
The RS Toolkit Homepage
has the release of version 1.0 of the RS Toolkit, which is a new version of the
former R6 (Rainbow Six) Toolkit that also supports the Rogue Spear demo (and RS
conveniently stands for both games). The toolkit is in effect a front-end,
offering automation of several useful functions within the demo. Word is a
version with support for the full game will be released when the full game is.
The story on The Adrenaline Vault News
about Billy Zelsnack joining Valve as a contract employee that originally
referred to Team Fortress 2 as being "at least a year off" ( story),
has been amended to reflect updated information they've received from Sierra on
this, saying: [Note: Although we were originally told Team Fortress 2 was
''a year off'' from release, Sierra has amended this statement to say the game
is ''due out next year.'']
Pandemic Studios' Official Battlezone II Site
has posted a pair of new shots of more units from BattleZone II, the upcoming
combo action/strategy sequel. Thanks Battlezone Nav Beacon.
This week's units are the ISDF
Walker and the Scion
Walker, and there's a
new screenshot of an ISDF Mortar Bike in trouble.
Excited about Diablo II, Blizzard's upcoming sequel to their smash-hit RPG
Diablo, but afraid you won't know what to look for in the stores when it's
released? Never fear this Diablo II Box
Art Shot, and this shot of the
Diablo II box itself just posted on GameSpot
can serve as mug shots to track it down. Thanks Ant.
Oops, actually there is an explanation for the missing DF2 demo (next story) on The Adrenaline Vault News,
where they say it turned out to be "an internal demo not intended for
public consumption -- even though it was posted on their public ftp site."
Word is the demo should be out September 20.
There aren't any details to explain why, but The Adrenaline Vault
Downloads page that previously had the Delta Force 2 demo for download ( story)
has been updated simply saying the demo was pulled at the request of the
publisher. Thanks Jack Allen Beck Jr.
A
chat log from Blizzard's first chat session for WarCraft III, held earlier
this evening on Battle.net has been posted on The
Unofficial Diablo II Site. The half hour chat provided new information on
"hardware support, units for land, water and air, the ECTS Cinematic,
ladder system and much more."
Okay, so the demo isn't out yet, but that doesn't mean you can't patch it when
it does get released, right? Well, that's the reasoning behind Brandon Reinhart's
.plan
update that features this
link to a fix for the ngStats bug posted earlier. When the demo is released,
just copy this .exe over the one that's installed by default.
Digital Theatre has
posted an interview with John Folliard, a programmer for Dynamix on Starsiege:
TRIBES and TRIBES 2. The interview covers his background, the wild and wacky
world of programming, and even his thoughts on Quake.
GameSpot's Legacy of Kain Soul Reaver
Demo page has a new playable demo of this third-person vampire game from
Eidos. The demo is 16.3 MB, and there's word on the page about issues with RIVA
128 and ATI Rage Pro accelerators. Thanks Frans at 3D Action
Gamers. Here's a bit on what the game is all about: In Legacy of
Kain: Soul Reaver you play Raziel, stalking the world of Nosgoth feeding upon
the souls of your enemies. As you seek to destroy your creator, Kain, you must
battle vampire clans while exploring an expansive 3D world tainted by a vampire
dynasty's rule.
Epic's Brandon
Reinhart updated his .plan once again with more on the imminent Glide
version of the Unreal Tournament demo, describing a problem, and its equally-imminent
solution with the included release of ngStats, as well as a bit about the proper
use of the demo's skill levels: Okay, the version of ngStats in the 3dfx
demo has a problem with it. It causes the player's name to show up wrong when
you view your stats. The NetGames guys are putting together a fix and will have
a new ngStats for UT distribution on their website soon. Probably before the
demo hits the net. I'll update my plan and our various webpages with the URL
when its available. Only people downloading the 3dfx UT demo and playing with
[local] ngStats will need to get this fix. I suggest you get it when its
available because ngStats is cool and fun to play with.
What else?
When you first play UT make sure you pick a skill level that suits your
abilities. UT's first four skill levels are easier, so that if Joe Average buys
the game he can have fun without getting spanked by the bots. If you play
online, chances are you'll want to pick one of the top 4 skill levels. In the
full version of UT, the skill level will ramp up as you play. In the demo it
does this a little, but because there are only 5 maps its hard to feel the
ramping.
I'll mirror this update on the techpage.
The in-game News Page will report information on the status of the NetGames fix
once it becomes available.
Beyond 3D interviews
Nick Caddick of S3 in a conversation that took place towards the end of the
recently-completed ECTS in London. The interview discusses sales of the
Savage4, the upcoming Savage 2000, and their marriage to Diamond., among other
things.
Happy Puppy's Septerra Core: Legacy of the Creator
preview is online, offering a look ahead at Monolith's
upcoming role-playing game, based on some hands-on experience with a beta
version. Thanks Frans at 3D Action
Gamers.
Brandon "BlueMarine" Reinhart updated
his .plan with word on the status of the 3dfx Glide Unreal Tournament demo,
as well as word on some stuff for server admins once it's available: The
demo is in 3dfx's hands. They'll release it once they and their partners are
ready to handle the demand.
Server operators should check out the remote admin tool in the demo. You can
turn it on under "Networking->Web Based Server Administration" in
the advanced options dialog.
When its on and you've set your username and password, surf to http://YourServersIP/ServerAdmin
to log in.
Server Admins should probably run servers with a playerlimit of around 8 to 10.
The deathmatch maps in the demo aren't really large enough to handle big free
for alls.
Also, if it wasn't obvious that the initially Glide-only aspect of this demo
was a sponsorship dealie, GA-Source
has a confirmation from Mark Rein that it is related to the "lucrative
bundling deal" with UT and Voodoo3s from a while back.
AnandTech
interviews Scott Sellers talking to the 3dfx CTO about the current sate of
the graphics accelerator market, reflecting on what's known about the newly announced
cards from S3 and NVIDIA. Here's a bit on the quest for the title of fastest accelerator,
and a seemingly newfound emphasis from 3dfx on running "color depths that
gamers demand": Once again, 3dfx has always been the speed king,
but this sounds pretty tough to beat and John (Carmack) certainly knows his
stuff. Do you think you'll be able to do it again? How and why?
Well, John C. has not yet tested our next generation product yet so the fact
that GeForce beats anything that’s currently on the market is really no big
surprise. The GeForce has an advantage with its onboard geometry capability for
lower resolutions and color depths, however we believe that our next generation
product will substantially outperform the GeForce when running at
resolutions and color depths that gamers demand. We have always placed a big
emphasis on being the premiere hardware platform for the Quake games, and expect
our next generation of products to continue to live up to that high standard.
3DRealms' Joe Siegler updated his
.plan with word that he's posted the commercial for Duke Nukem: Zero Hour
on the 3D Realms site in both MPEG and
Real Video formats. The commercial features a live action Duke (woo!) in addition
to plenty of in-game footage from this Nintendo 64 title.
A Warcraft III - Scroll of Knowledge (Frequently Asked Questions)
is now online to help those having problems understanding the concept of this upcoming cross-genre game.
IMG's Chat Transcript with Descent 3's Duane Johnson
is up, the "official" log from the event's organizers. The log is of a
recent chat with this rocket scientist (his day job is with NASA), who
moonlights as a programmer on the upcoming Mac port of the latest in the Descent
series of flying shooters.
The Official Soldier of Fortune FAQ at Soldier-of-Fortune.com has been updated with some new Qs and As about
Raven's upcoming Quake II engine shooter. Thanks Frans at 3D Action
Gamers, who says there are various changes, including an update to reflect
the game's expected November 1999 street date.
Saw on PlanetUnreal that the official
Unreal Tournament site has word
from Mark Reign that the 28.8 modem is again working in the Epic offices and
that the Unreal Tournament Demo may yet be released today as planned:
The office internet connection seems to be back. I'm continuing to upload a new
build for 3DFX and GT to test from my house just in case but Steve and Tim are
heading back to the office. Barring any further minor bugs we're confident the
demo release will go ahead as scheduled late today.
Gamers Central's
MDK2 preview is up, offering a look at BioWare's upcoming sequel to Shiny's
quirky first and third-person action game. The article discusses some of the
distinguishing aspects of the original game, and looks ahead at what might do
the same for the follow-up. MDK, of course, stands for Meshuganah Damn Kids(!).
We're not exactly in the hurricane belt here in New York, but it is the
eastern seaboard, and this is the season, so with Floyd making his run up the
coast things are getting a bit rough even up here. I just got word from loony
that while his ISDN is holding out, his voice line just went down, so I wanted
to mention the off chance that this situation would deteriorate and knock us
both off line. It doesn't seem like that's going to be the case, but hey, you
never know (now where did I leave that bilge pump?).
A bunch o' bits, including a bunch of ways to keep those hot components cool:
Epic's Alan Willard wrote in with a status update on Epic and the Unreal Tournament
demo in general (looks like the wrath of Floyd passed them by): We're
not dead, and we do have power. Floyd didn't hit anywhere near as hard as it
could have, and we only got knocked out for the night. We're going to continue
testing the demo to make sure we have a good release for today.
Thresh's Firing Squad
has posted a hands on preview of Unreal Tournament, which is based on a beta
build of the game. The piece is by Dennis "Thresh" Fong, and in typical
Thresh fashion it's very detailed, and loaded with lots of in-depth analysis
from someone who eats, breathes, and sleeps in deathmatch.
A 3.1 beta patch for CounterStrike,
the popular anti-terrorist mod for Half-Life has been released, and is available
for download at the official CounterStrike
page. This patch is purely a bug fix update, and you must have beta 3 already
installed before running it (thanks Stretch-E).
A new version of ZDoom, an enhanced
version of Doom based on the source code release from a while back has been
released (thanks Frans). This version
is labeled 1.18b.
A new version 0.7 of the Jumbot
for Half-Life has been released. This version has a great deal of new features,
including the ability for bots to run away if they feel they're at a disadvantage
in combat, and a whole bunch of other AI improvements and tweaks.
The Adrenaline Vault News
has posted seven new screenshots from Activision and Presto Studios' upcoming
Star Trek: Hidden Evil, an action/adventure game set following the Star Trek:
Insurrection movie.
The Adrenaline Vault Downloads Demo
has a 31 MB playable demo from NovaLogic's upcoming Delta Force 2, the sequel to
their voxelated first-person shooter that emphasizes tactics. Here's the word on
what this release can, and can't handle, as far as video: The pre-release
version of Delta Force 2, supports a limited number of 3D cards. Delta Force 2
will support cards that are truly 32 bit color polygon renderers, including TNT,
TNT2 and ATI Rage Fury. 3D card support is provided through Direct 3D. DirectX 6
or greater is required. Note that only polygon-based objects in the game will be
accelerated.
The Adrenaline Vault News
is reporting that programmer Billy Zelsnack has been contracted by Valve
Software to work on TeamFortress 2. Here's a bit of the update which describes
that, and also describes TeamFortress2 as being a year away, which, if it is the
case, is the first indication that the title is that far off: Now the
Adrenaline Vault has confirmed with Sierra and Valve that Zelsnack has been
contracted to assist the Team Fortress 2: Brotherhood of Arms development
team, and is doing engine enhancements for the next-generation Half-Life
technology being used for the title. Since the online-oriented 3D action game is
at least a year off, as a Sierra public relations representative mentioned
Tuesday when contacted about Zelsnack’s responsibilities on the project, both
companies turned down our request for an interview. But having him elbow-deep in
the code could mean very good things for the product.
Relic News sends word that they've
received a confirmation from Relic's Alex Garden that Homeworld is gold, and
this strategy/space sim should be available in stores in about two weeks.
Kickass Gaming Network Interviews
George Collins, director of BattleZone2 team about this upcoming sequel to
Activision's BattleZone, the 3D action/strategy homage to the arcade classic.
The article takes a very general approach to the game.
PC.IGN.COM previews Wheel of Time
looking ahead at Legend's Unreal-engine game saying, "It looks great, but
how does it play? We do some deathmatch, and give you the complete spell list."
The Thief Gold
website has some new screenshots of this upcoming follow-up to Thief, the
sneaky, stealthy shooter. Thanks GA-Source,
where they also have the shots posted.
Yup... thanks Frans at 3D Action
Gamers:
Well, I got my CPU returned, a matched pair on mail order to replace it. I got
what sounded like good advice to buy SMP CPUs simultaneously to avoid potential
problems, though I got advice on what looked like the best prices from mail
order after I ordered, so I'll save that for next time. I also finally
found a copy of NT (eight billion miniature Statues of Liberty in New York, and
one copy of Windows NT). It's finally getting through my thick skull that it's
historically always a soap opera when I go out hardware shopping, inevitably
requiring at least one return trip to the store, so I think I'm going to stick
to mail order from now on, which I've generally found much more reliable.
Thankfully, at least, for the first time in the history of this site, such a
saga (and this is easily at least the third time this has happened) didn't
result in a few days of spotty updates, as loony has been doing a great job of
keeping up as I've been gallivanting about buying components.
Link of the Day: Mitchell, South Dakota
Corn Palace. The world's only. No... really! Thanks toast.
News Story of the Day: ABCNEWS.com Fred Moody The Big Bang, Part 2
is another look at Brookhaven's Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider, already
discussed here previously, with an updated look at the potential problem. Thanks
LaRcEn.
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