Archived News:
The Adrenaline Vault
interviews Brian Burke with another Q&A on the same subject as the the
previously mentioned ( story),
the departure of CEO Greg Ballard that was announced earlier today ( story).
Don't put away those silver bullets just yet, as an update to the Werewolf The Apocalypse - Heart of Gaia
site declares "Werewolf Still Alive and Clawing." To prove their
point, there are new screenshots
and character
art on the site. All this is to point out that this upcoming Unreal-engine
horror game is not cancelled, or postponed (apparently there have been rumors),
but simply, as so often happens, delayed. Here's word that ASC Games passes
along on that subject: Hello Werewolf friends and fans. We wanted to take
this opportunity to clear up any misconceptions about the future of Werewolf The
Apocalypse: Heart of Gaia:
YES, the game has been delayed. This first person shooter not only has a huge
story, it also has enormous depth. These things take time.
YES, the game is now scheduled for a Spring 2000 release.
YES, the game will feature incredible graphics, real-time morphing, and three
forms with which to massacre the forces of evil - human, wolf, and werewolf.
NO, the game has not been cancelled, put on hold, delayed indefinitely - IT IS
ALIVE AND CLAWING.
Visit our Werewolf web site, located at http://www.ascgames.com
- for more of the latest information. We have screenshots of NEW enemy models,
sketches, and new character art which you can find at http://www.ascgames.com/100-GAMES/werewolf/index.html
There are new Voodoo3 3500TV Windows 9x Retail Drivers - AGP version 1.02.18
on 3dfx Gamers. Thanks Voodoo Extreme.
The new drivers offer improved stereo support, and a fix for a recording bug.
There turns out to be some confusion with the Nocturne AVI mentioned earlier ( story),
which is not actually the third AVI in the series of new gameplay movies being
released by TRI. Smitty from TRI points out the 50 MB movie from earlier is
actually the same movie released at E3, which he describes as one of the oldest
movies from the game. Never fear, however, as the third AVI is probably going to
be released tomorrow. Word is to look for that to pop up on GameSpot.
A redesign to Sierra's
official SWAT 3 website adds a bunch of new content (including an intro .wav
that sounds like Alvin & the Chipmunks) from this upcoming shooter that features tactical police operations. Among the new goodies added is a three-dimensional screenshot that uses QuickTime VR to show off an
environment from the game in a full 360 panorama.
There's a
mini-interview with Brian Burke on Thresh's FiringSquad talking with the PR
dude at 3dfx about the just-announced resignation of now former 3dfx CEO Greg
Ballard. According to the conversation, the move has the company's best
interests in mind, saying "He is doing what he thinks is best for him and
3dfx."
There's an interview with Todd Hollenshead
on the ViolentFemmes Q3 page chatting up the id Software CEO on a variety of
topics, including his Texas roots, how he got hooked up with id, and of course,
a bunch of questions and answers about Quake III Arena.
There are some new GeForce 256 Q3Test
screenshots on 3DGPU.com showing off scenes from Q3Test on NVIDIA's upcoming
chipset in side-by-side comparisons against the same shots running with the
lower level of curve detail on some non-GeForce accelerator or another.
3dfx Announces Resignation of L. Gregory
Ballard is the press release announcing the departure of 3dfx' CEO. Thanks Tweak3D.
Here's the sort announcement in its entirety: SAN JOSE, Calif., Oct. 7
/PRNewswire/ -- 3dfx Interactive® Inc. (Nasdaq: TDFX
- news) today announced that L.
Gregory Ballard, its president and chief executive officer, has resigned
effective October 31, 1999. The Board of Directors announced that an immediate
search would begin for his successor.
"I have had an extraordinary three years at 3dfx, in which sales have grown
from almost nothing to an annualized revenue rate of over $400 million,"
said L. Gregory Ballard. "During this time we have created a dominant
worldwide brand and have been the consistent leader at retail. We have put in
place a strategy and management team that will solidify our leadership position.
"I truly believe that the challenges in this next phase of the Company's
growth will be more technical than marketing and strategic and that 3dfx can
benefit from the fresh perspective that a new CEO can bring," he added.
"3dfx has a great future, and I look forward to watching its progress as an
investor."
"Greg has contributed greatly to the success of the Company, and we are sad
to see him leave," said Gordon Campbell, founder and chairman of 3dfx
Interactive, Inc., on behalf of the Board of Directors. "The Board will
take this opportunity to bring in an executive to continue the exceptional
growth that 3dfx has enjoyed. I have pledged my time and efforts to seeing that
the transition is smooth and causes no disruption to the conduct of our growing
business."
Ballard, with Gordon Campbell, who is also managing director of TechFarm, will
organize and direct a search committee from the 3dfx Board of Directors to find
his replacement.
Dynamix' Nels Bruckner updated his
.plan with word that the next patch for Starsiege: TRIBES (version 1.9)
is currently in QA and should be released soon. Here's the whole (brief) update: A
quick update - the Tribes 1.9 patch that I
mentioned a while back (which primarily addresses a server-side crash) took
a little bit longer to put together than I had originally anticipated. It is
in product certification now and should be available very soon. My apologies
for the delay.
GameFan has
posted three new shots from SWAT 3, showing off Sierra's new tactical shooter of anti-terrorist combat.
The Civilization II - Test of Time
site has a 3.4 MB patch to update this updated version of the sequel to Sid Meier's
classic strategy game. Thanks Gamer's Voice.
Terminal Reality has released the third AVI from their spooky adventure game
Nocturne. You can find it at Spookhouse's
media room, and presumably at the official
site soon. Like its predecessors, this movie's a big one, at 30MB.
In case yesterday's 100 new shots weren't enough for you, GameSpot
UK has posted another preview of Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation, offering
a look at the "Lost Library" level of the game, complete with, of
course, new screenshots.
Don't Shoot While
I'm Talking is the name of an article on id Software and Quake III: Arena
that's up on Forbes' web site (thanks Chris Van Doren). The article is a typical
mainstream look at the id phenomenon, with a particular emphasis on the money
making aspect of the title (hey this is Forbes, what did you expect). Also of
note is the mention of this here web site, as well as our friends at GameSpy.
ATI has announced their new product, the RAGE Fury MAXX, a dual processor,
64MB card (thanks Redwood). The card is
expected to ship, "in the fourth quarter" and retail for about $299.
Here's an excerpt from the
press release: Superior to single chip solutions, ATI's MAXX technique
achieves maximum efficiency by having each graphics chip render alternate frames,
cutting the rendering load in half. With the two chip setup, one chip renders
even frames only while the other renders odd frames only. Each chip performs
triangle setup for its own frame without having to wait for the other chip.
Since the complexity of a scene tends to vary only slightly from frame to frame
(unlike the complexity of different parts of each frame, which can vary widely),
the load between the graphics chips tends to stay well balanced. Also, because
each chip has its own dedicated frame buffer space in local graphics memory,
the final image is buffered to prevent any tearing, discontinuity, or other
artifacts.
GASource
has posted six new high resolution screenshots from Nocturne, Terminal Reality's
game of spooky horror, as well as word that the new AVI movie as well as the
second demo will both be released "in a matter of days." Nocturne
isn't gold just yet, but is expected to be gold on the 15th of this month, with
the game in store shelves on Halloween weekend.
Darkstone News has posted the official
1.0.3 patch for Darkstone. This patch has similar features to the one that was
released last month and promptly recalled (although I would assume that this
one is ready for primetime) including a new difficulty level, new monsters and
weapons, a larger chat box, fixed disconnect problems, and more (thanks Frans by way of VE).
Raven's John Scott updated his
.plan last night (we seem to have missed this one too) with details on the
video card support in their Quake II engine title, Soldier of Fortune. There's
a full list of cards that work great (the expected ones, naturally), as well
as a rundown of other cards on a case-by-case basis.
Well-Rounded
Games has posted a preview of Infogrames' third person game of giant robot
carnage, Slave Zero. There are 20 screenshots up, and they promise a full hands-on
preview in "the next week or so."
Ritual's Jack Mathews updated his
.plan with some thoughts on Rick Johnson's .plan update from yesterday ( story),
as well as some info on the possibility (or lack thereof) of a Mac version of
their title Heavy Metal: FAKK2 (thanks to Vangie for the reminder): Wow,
haven't updated in a good six months. Anyway, I just wanted to follow up on
Rick Johnson's .plan update about Voyager and SoF not having Macintosh support.
Well, it'll be hard to give Heavy Metal: FAKK2 Mac support as well without any
Macs here as well. So unless that situation changes we're not going to be able
to have mac support either.
Which is actually pretty sad considering we're using an engine that has Mac
cross-compiling built right in and no boxes to do serious testing and development
on. While developers and the dominance of Windows are being blamed for the disparity
in number of Macintosh games versus PC games, it's showing that Apple really
doesn't seem to care. We here have been begging for Mac equipment, but apparently
it has been into deaf ears. If Apple is going to pick and choose among five
or so companies to support and force everyone else to farm games to dedicated
porting houses, I don't see how they're going to even make a dent in the gaming
market at home.
So to let Mac Gamers know, this is Apple's misstep, plain and simple. If Apple
would support us in entering the Macintosh market, we would. If they're gonna
ignore our requests, I'm sorry, but we're not going to fight an uphill battle.
If you want games written for your Macintosh, give them a hollar. Tell them
to support developers, and developers will support them. That's the way it works
with every other hardware company we support.
At this weekend's Mac
Games Event, a Mac LAN party of sorts, you'll be able to check out the Mac
version of Unreal Tournament, as well as Heretic II, Rainbow Six, Descent III,
Civilization: Call to Power, Tomb Raider III, and more.
Version 3.0 of The Heretic Fortress,
a class-based mod for Heretic II has been released, and is available for download
at its homepage. There's a few new screenshots of the new spells for you to
look at while you're downloading as well (thanks Frans).
There's a movie from BioWare's upcoming MDK2 on Gamers Central
showing off gameplay from this upcoming sequel to Shiny's first and third-person
action game featuring the hang-gliding and sniping biathlon. MDK, of course,
stands for Miles Davis' Karma.
RIVA 3D Interviews Torgeir Hagland
talking to this programmer for Shiny Entertainment in a short Q&A about his
work on Shiny's upcoming third-person cherubic action game Messiah.
Particle systems' official Independence War
website is online, the definitive repository of all things related to this
series of space sims. In the works over there is the Independence War Universe,
described as "an indispensable guide to the Independence War story,
characters, and technology; including never-seen-before concept artwork and
in-depth articles." Look for that to be posted soon.
The Rocket Arena website has a
new version 2.25 of the Rocket Arena 2 server for Quake II. The new release offers an improved
Competition Mode (you can only track your team), a new Damage Scoring option
(individual points come from damage, not kills), and selectable arena.cfg files.
Word is the improved competition mode should help reduce the accusations of
cheating in clan matches by using RW or BFC. New versions are available for
Win32, Linux i386, Linux AXP. The SGI and Solaris Sparc ports are still at
version 2.22.
This BattleCruiser Millennium
announcement details plans for a new release of the BattleCruiser space sim
with all sorts of improvements over BC3K version 2.0. To make it easy to tell
what will be different, the release includes a link to this
list of changes for the new version.
Thresh's FiringSquad's
Asheron's Call Preview is up with a look ahead at Microsoft's upcoming
online RPG. Included in the hands-on preview are a bunch of new screenshots from
a beta build of the game.
3 on 3 Invitational @ The Frag 3
will be held at the Frag3 October 29-31 open to any team that will be attending.
Word is there will be prizes, and the German clan Schröt Kommando and possibly
other European teams will participate.
Thanks Frans at 3D Action Gamers
(but you knew that already, didn't you?):
I'm still pretty out of it, so I'd best not ramble at this point. I was going to
promise to be extra incoherent next go 'round to help make up for the
"loss," but I realize I've probably posted enough extra incoherent
stuff in this space to last a lifetime, so there's no sense in trying to balance
the books. Ooops I'm rambling already. See how naturally it comes? On to the Ls
of the D:
Link of the Day: Stupid Salt & Pepper Shaker Collection.
Thanks bryan. some of these are really freaky. Check out "Spice of
Life" and "I'm full of..." and remind yourself these are supposed
to sit on your dinner table (midi warning, but at least it's the blues).
Story of the Day: Hackers
Ascend Upper 'Echelon' (Wired News). Thanks DNapalm and Incubus439. Oh what
the heck. Let's see if we can get them to listen in here: FBI CIA NSA IRS ATF BATF DOD WACO RUBY RIDGE OKC OKLAHOMA CITY
MILITIA GUN HANDGUN MILGOV ASSAULT RIFLE TERRORISM BOMB DRUG HORIUCHI KORESH
DAVIDIAN KAHL POSSE COMITATUS RANDY WEAVER VICKIE WEAVER SPECIAL FORCES LINDA
THOMPSON SPECIAL OPERATIONS GROUP SOG SOF DELTA FORCE CONSTITUTION BILL OF
RIGHTS WHITEWATER POM PARK ON METER ARKANSIDE IRAN CONTRAS OLIVER NORTH VINCE
FOSTER PROMIS MOSSAD NASA MI5 ONI CID AK47 M16 C4 MALCOLM X REVOLUTION CHEROKEE
HILLARY BILL CLINTON GORE GEORGE BUSH WACKENHUT TERRORIST TASK FORCE 160 SPECIAL
OPS 12TH GROUP 5TH GROUP SF
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