Archived News:
Not one to let a news update go by without his influence, the always sharp-eyed
Frans at 3D Action Gamers points
out there is another new Gore
screenshot on the 4D Rulers page not
mentioned in their update.
The 4D Rulers page has a new screenshot from
Gore, their gory upcoming first-person shooter. The shot is of the bartender character
and shows off the power of the 3D
Studio Max plug-in that allows them to import their 3DSM characters into the
game. A future version of the plug-in will also support animating the characters
as well, and the update goes on to say the plug-in (and another editor) will
both ship with the game: End users will be able to model and animate in
either 3D Studio Max, or use Supredit, the stand alone program to do the job.
Supredit (our map editor and character modeling/animation program) will ship
free with the game, if you can't afford 3D Studio Max.
There are two-dozen new screenshots
from Wheel of Time on GPN Gamerspoint Network showing off gameplay from
Legend Entertainment's upcoming Unreal-engine game of action and strategy.
A new version 3.2 of the Assimilation
mod for Quake II is now available. The new version adds a new FFA mode,
improved voting rules, and a new admin mode. The Online Readme
has more details on the mod.
A new version 0.16 beta of the Licensed To Kill
Deathmatch and TeamPlay DM bot for Action Quake2
is now available. Changes in the new release include fixed respawning code, and
improved jumping. Thanks Killjoy.
An updated version of DKo5's UT Tweak Guide
is online, offering separate section for video card tweaking and drivers,
Windows 9x tweaking, as well as Unreal Tournament Demo tweaking.
The BattleCruiser site has some new
BattleCruiser Millennium screenshots on the personnel screen shots page of the
commander showing his arsenal. There are also three new fighters on the fighters
screen shots page.
Glide Underground
interviews Piranha Bytes talking about their upcoming RPG, Gothic that they
describe as a combination of "Ultima Underworld (exploration), Abe's
Odyssee (simple structure but lots of possible combinations), Fallout
(atmosphere, no fairy-tale fantasy), Dungeon Master (consistent and logic world)
and Tomb Raider (3rd person, only with a better camera)."
There are four more new Revenant Screenshots
on GameSpot showing off more gameplay from this upcoming Diablo-style RPG
from Eidos Interactive. Thanks to the relentless Frans at 3D Action
Gamers.
New Final Fantasy VIII Screens
and More Final Fantasy VIII Screens,
both on GameSpot give a bunch of new
looks at the upcoming PC port of SquareSoft's strategy-RPG. Yup, Frans
at work again.
Sierra sends along word that they've picked the winners of the competition to
find user-submitted maps for Half-Life: Opposing Force, Gearbox' upcoming H-L
add-on. Here's a good hunk of the press release, which includes word that an old
pal of blue's News, Avatar, is one of the winners: Sierra Studios(tm),
Gearbox Software and Valve are proud to announce the three winning Team
Fortress(tm) Classic levels to be included in Half-Life: Opposing Force, an
entirely new episode for the Game of the Year. The designers of the three
winning levels are: Mackey McCandlish, Erik Doescher and Preston Glenn.
"We were overwhelmed by the number of level submissions we received for
this contest," Randy Pitchford, co-founder and lead designer at Gearbox
said. "There are some really talented designers out and we're glad we can
give them this much-deserved recognition."
Along with having their maps included in Opposing Force, the three winners will
each receive a prize of $1,000. The rest of the map submissions will be posted
on Won.net(tm) for free download.
About the winners:
Mackey McCandlish: Mackey's map entitled "Alpine" contains unique
"Alamo" style gameplay where one team must defend their base against
an attacking team. Avatar, or Mackey as he is known to family members, has
enjoyed designing levels since the halcyon days of DOOM(r). Since then he has
devoted much of his time not only to crafting levels, but also dabbling in
programming, modeling, skinning and texturing. To further this end, he has spent
the past 2 years studying at the Savannah College of Art & Design, where he
currently resides. During off-hours he practices Shorin Ryu karate and tries to
master Starcraft(tm) Brood War(tm).
Erik Doescher: Erik's map entitled "BTUBE" has a creative layout and
strong play mechanics. By day, Erik is a freelance illustrator for DC Comics and
a teacher at the School of Visual Arts. At night he plays in a TFC clan called
AoW, and goes by the name of AoW|McCoy. Erik is new to level design. 'The Blood
Tube' is his first map, and started out as his tutorial for Worldcraft(tm).
Preston Glenn: Preston's map entitled "Openfire" is cleanly executed
and contains very solid gameplay. Better known as Hexadecimal to those who can
spell it, Preston has been interested in art, games, and architectural design
for as long as he can remember. It was only natural for level design to become a
very important part of his life. Not limiting himself to level design alone, he
has also worked in modeling, texturing, and any other forms of expression he can
get his hands on.
Rich's Project Warehouse has
a new version 0.9 of The Jumbot,
TheFatal's AI opponent for Half-Life. Described as what's "probably the
last release...with new features for quite a while," among what is new in
this release are fixes and improvements to bot AI, including their use of
secondary crossbow fire if they're far enough away, and new variables that can
optionally control how far bots can see. Also, I see on I.Am.Half-Life's
Half-Life Bots page that version 0.21 of the PhineasBot
for Half-Life is also now available, with new versions for both Windows and
Linux.
There are 21 more new Unreal Tournament screenshots on Multiplayer.it
as part of a preview of the game in Italian based on seeing the game at SMAU 99.
As always, a translation can be found at AltaVista Translations
if you need to brush up on your Italian (or maybe if you brush up on your
Italian nicely enough, your Italian will just translate it for you).
The fourth (and final) edition of the Nocturne gameplay trailer is available on GameSpot's Nocturne Download
page. Thanks Frans at 3D Action Gamers.
The latest movie from TRI's spooky action game is again in AVI format, and
weighs in at a bouncing 27 MB. Nocturne is expected to be available in time for
Halloween. Pretty scary, huh kids?
A new version 1.31 of the "semi-official" Half-Life Opposing Force Frequently Asked Questions
is now online, adding more Q&A to this resource about Gearbox Software's imminent
official add-on for Half-Life. Thanks again Frans.
There are six new exclusive Unreal Tournament
shots on GameFan showing off the Assault game mode in shots taken from a
recent build of Epic's upcoming first-person shooter.
There are almost two-dozen new screenshots on the I82 Media Mecca
showing off gameplay from Interstate '82, Activision's upcoming sequel to
Interstate '76 that takes this game of driving and shooting from the "me" decade of the 70s
into the "huh?" decade of the 80s.
There's an interview With Andy Frazier
on Redchurch.com talking with the sound designer for Wheel of Time, Legend
Entertainment's upcoming Unreal-engine extravaganza. The Q&A discusses the
path he's taken to where he is today, which began in the second grade when he
saw someone play the theme to Hogan's Heroes on the violin.
The Adrenaline Vault
previews Hired Guns looking ahead at this Unreal-engine powered game of
action and tactics that will put you in control of a few squadmates to
accomplish your missions. Here's a bit from the preview on how that will work:
The major innovation that sets this apart from the FPS crowd is that you
get to control and see the actions of four separate mercenaries. With a
quad-screen view available, you manage the four characters simultaneously, and
you need to choose wisely how to utilize each one. For example, there are areas
that can only be accessed by a particular mercenary with the appropriate
attributes, while the others are needed to perform their own specialized tasks.
In sharp contrast to so many other titles of this type, one heroic mercenary
cannot possibly accomplish the job alone. Knowing in an almost Mission
Impossible-like manner when to split up the team, co-ordinate their movements,
and bring them together is vital. Lead artist Brian Bearly contends that one of
their goals from the start was to allow the player to actually utilize the four
characters much more than in something like Rainbow Six, where they
generally follow the leader and get shot. In theory, this should provide four
times the excitement of just controlling one hero, but time will tell if this
indeed proves to be the case.
GA-Source's Special Feature - The Developer's Dream offers thoughts on the "perfect game"
from some developers if they were given free reign to create whatever game
they wanted to with no technological limits, system requirements, genre
specifications, etc. The feature includes dreams from Richard
"Levelord" Gray, Cliff Bleszinski, Warren Spector, Ensemble Studios,
and more.
The Team Ego FAQ has been
updated with a clarification about bump mapping support in Messiah, Shiny's
upcoming diaper-wearing third-person action game. Apparently bump-mapping
support is in, but the character art that need to be created to support it will
not be released until sometime after the game initially ships. Thanks Voodoo Extreme.
Also, the Messiah
animations page is up showing off animations from the game, along with some
text written by Messiah Lead Animator Gabriel Rountree to explain some of the
specialized animations he has done for the game.
BarrysWorld Gaming Guides is
online, incorporating SAS's guides to CTF, Tribes and Quake III. Until the pages
are completely moved to their new locations, there may be some broken links to
the demos and other zip files, but these glitches should be cleared up soon
enough.
The Rogue Spear
Database interviews Greg Stelmack from Red Storm Entertainment talking about
a planned upcoming patch for RSE's Rogue Spear.
Westwood Reveals Tiberian Sun Expansion -- C&C Firestorm,
offering "The very first look at Westwood's expansion pack for Tiberian
Sun." Thanks Ant.
The GA-Source MEGA
GIVEAWAY offers the chance to win al sorts of swag from Eidos, including
games, t-shirts, and watches.
Thanks Frans at 3D Action Gamers:
A request for forgiveness from those who expected this to be a Fruit of the
Loon, as loony usually does the morning update, but he was off last evening
being far classier than I ever get, at the opera of all things (we have similar
sensibilities, but he and I have fairly different tastes in a lot of things,
which I feel is good for the site). Anyway the young man wanted to go watch some
folks scream, and he's been doing such a great job of keeping on top of the news
as I've been terribly tied up with a lot of behind the scenes stuff here
(besides, of course, the usual napping and such) that it was very difficult to tell
him he couldn't go to the opera. Of course I told him he couldn't go anyway, but
he's smart enough not to listen to me. And this being bosses
day, to boot.
Link of the Day: Goat
pulling child photos. Thanks Schpidah. That's just plain weird.
Story of the Day: Zoinks! Scooby-Doo celebrates 30 years.
Thanks DNapalm. Euphemism of the day: "bookish."
Bonus Story: Paroled
Arizona murderer passes bar exam. Thanks Joe McGarry.
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