Archived News:
A new version 1.50.002 of GameHost
has been released. The new release comes hot on the heels of the release of the
previous version after a bunch of user feedback told them that some UT support
is better than none at all, so as you can infer from that, the new release
offers rudimentary support for Unreal Tournament.
The Qtracker Homepage has a new
version 2.3 Beta 14 of the Qtracker server monitoring program. In addition to
being a server browser, Qtracker is a server launcher, an MP3 streaming audio
browser, and an HTML server list generator for Windows 95/98/NT. The new release
enhances retail Quake III Arena support, Game and Music filter support has been
completely re-written to support plug-in plain text-based filters, and
QuakeWorld master support has been fixed, along with numerous other bug fixes
and enhancements.
Though at this point he feels it isn't a tool issue, a post titled Fullbright Levels after bsp Quake3World.com Forums
by Quake III-engine tools author Robert Duffy gives a couple of possible
workarounds for problems users are having with fullbright lighting problems
that pop up in some cases when making Quake III Arena maps. Thanks Tom
Longfield.
The Vault Network has 12 new pieces
of art from Vampire: The Masquerade--Redemption, Nihilistic's upcoming
blood-sucking, third-person action/RPG. Included in the dozen images are
screenshots as well as some concept art from the game, which is slated for
release sometime next year.
The Wheel of Time page has a
large update by Legend's Glen Dahlgren giving a rundown on all the positive
reviews Wheel of Time has garnered since its release. The update also goes into
the Shadar Logoth updates, a WoT
single-player map called Ill Haven map,
and even a preview of a user map in progress.
This Turrican 3D Movie Downloads
page on GameSpot has nine new screenshots and three movies, each around 20
seconds long, showing engine footage (as opposed to gameplay) from this upcoming
third-person shooter from German developer Rainbow Arts that is a modern-day
version of the original Amiga game.
A new
TeamFortress 2 screenshot section on PlanetFortress is online, and true to
the occasion, is home to a pair of new shots from Team Fortress 2: Brotherhood of
Arms, Valve Software's upcoming class-based teamplay shooter.
ICON, the Sydney Morning Herald's web page has posted an
interview in Real Video format from an interview with id Software's Tim
Willits and Paul Steed, who are currently touring the world down under. They
talk primarily about general issues with Quake III Arena, as it's from a mainstream
publication, but it's still worth a look.
GameSpot has posted a
hands-on preview of Raven's Soldier of Fortune, which is based on "an
early copy" of the game they received from the developer. While the preview
is a little light on text, it does have nine new screenshots.
The fine folk over at chUmbaLum
sOft have released a new version of MilkShape 3D, their low-polygon count
3D modeling program (thanks Cosmo3D).
This new version re-adds MD2 support, as well as new Unreal/Unreal Tournament
import and export functionality.
GameSpot News has posted a
first look at Picassio, a game coming out next year for the PC, Playstation
and Dreamcast consoles, that has a truly oddball premise, whereby you play an
art thief, sneaking into buildings and swiping paintings. It's odd, but it sounds
pretty interesting, and there's some screenshots posted showing off the PC version
of the game.
In my continuing tradition of mentioning what I'm currently playing, here are
some games that are on my desk: I just finished up Half-Life: Opposing Force,
which I must say, was very, very good. Congrats to Gearbox for managing to create
a worthy follow-up to Half-Life (no easy feat). I just started playing Omikron:
The Nomad Soul, and I'm really enjoying the fact that there's more to the game
than just a great soundtrack (and it really is a great soundtrack). Let's see...obviously,
there's Quake III Arena, Unreal Tournament and Starsiege: TRIBES...I've been
playing Ultima IX: Ascension on and off, but I've pretty much decided to wait
until the game is fully patched before moving on (what can I say...once you've
had one save file corrupted you're in no rush to go through that again). Lastly
there's Wheel of Time, Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation (what can I say...I've
played every TR game to date) and of course, Outcast, which will probably be
on my stack for some time, as I find myself continually going back to it. It's
a great game, but requires a ton of time. There you have it...think I have enough
games to occupy my time?
Link of the Day: Virtual
Death Incarnate (thanks dr will). I can't explain it, but I thought this
was really funny.
Real News Story of the Day: Brothel
Chain Plans Airport Outlet (thanks Mike Sewell). Adds a new meaning to the
term "layover" doesn't it?
Image of the Day: An
actual Q3A CD Key? (Thanks Brenton Klik by way of 3DGW).
3dfx has released new
drivers for their Voodoo 3 2000 and 3000 video cards. The new drivers have
an updated OpenGL ICD that fixes bugs in various games, as well as issues with
some Intel CPUs.
3dfx Gamers has posted five
new screenshots from Looking Glass Studios' upcoming first person title
(and the sequel to one of the only games to truly scare the fuzz out of me),
Thief 2: The Metal Age.
To follow-up on an earlier post, Messiah, the winner of the Daikatana
deathmatch tournament has beaten Daikatana creator John Romero at his own
game, with a final score of 5 to 4. I wonder if this means we'll be seeing a
"Messiah Shrine" on ION's website soon?
While there have been games with dinosaurs before, designer Sid Meier is taking them into a new, though for him familiar, direction: that of the strategy game. The official site for Firaxis' next game, Sid Meier's Dinosaurs (working title) has been opened, and offers the first insights into the game through the initial installment of "Sid's Dino Diaries". The game will be published by Electronic Arts and the official title will be announced early next year.
As expected two days ago ( story), the tank racing/shooting game Tread Marks by Longbow Digital Arts has gone gold, and should be available for sale through their website in January.
The weekly update of the official American McGee's Alice site brings an image of a new enemy character, the Snark, which apparently lives in the "murk-filled undercurrent of Wonderland's scotopic waters."
The unofficial Quake III Arena gameplay FAQ has been updated again, adding tips and info on Q3DM6 and Q3TOURNEY2, as well as a few other changes. Activision's Quake III Arena solutions FAQ has been updated too, with one more entry.
The Daikatana Deathmatch page
has the results of today's Daikatana Deathmatch Tournament, which was won by
Messiah (here's hoping someone named Daikatana wins a Messiah tourney one day to
even the score). Messiah defeated R-Gauss in the final 10-1, and for his
troubles will now get to go head-to-head with John Romero to see if he can beat
the ION Storm designer at his own game.
Eurogamer.net
interviews Magnus Bergholtz, co-founder and graphics designer at Swedish
developer SouthEnd Interactive, talking about Blitz-Disc Arena, their
upcoming multiplayer game. The Q&A discusses working in Sweden, and
gets into detail about the recently-announced
title, talking about gameplay and the storyline.
The flashy NOP page has a new
version 4 of the NOP log parser that supports both Quake III Arena and Unreal
Tournament. The new version adds daily / weekly / monthly stats generation, Q3A
bots support, Q3A full and UT full weapons support, as well as more new
features and some bug fixes. So many things have changed in the new
version that they say you'll probably have to re-install the whole package,
since old configuration files won't work.
There is a new screenshot on Unreal
Universe
showing off Rune, Human Head's upcoming game that will use the Unreal engine to
put you in the role of an axe-wielding Viking warrior.
NetGames USA's ngStats for Unreal Tournament
LAN Party Guide offers "a step by step list of 'everything you
need to know' about how to get ngStats for Unreal Tournament going at your
next LAN Party so that it will AUTOMATICALLY keep track of every game, score and
ngStats for every player and provide for a permanent post event archive of the
party."
Games Domain has posted an interview with Digital Extremes president James Schmalz, co-developers of Unreal and Unreal Tournament. The talk covers the history of the company, their involvement with the Unreal series, and what's up next for them. Here's a quote on the latter topic:
GDR: What can you tell us about your "Next Big Thing"? Unreal 2 engine perhaps?
James: It will be a First Person Action game, but with very different gameplay than we have created before. For now, 3d Action games
are what we love the most but in the future, after our next game, we may shift focus to something else. Certainly at this point, 3d action is
where our skills and interests lie.
As for the engine, Epic is highly enhancing the current engine even beyond that is in UT. This is great for licensees who need the engine to
remain current and cutting edge in the coming year. It's got some seriously cool features that are being added that we are very excited
about.
Legend level designer Matthias Worch is being productive even in his spare time, and is creating a free Unreal Tournament deathmatch level called DM-MementoMori, an adaptation of an old Memento Mori 2 level he made for DOOM II (a huge add-on fondly remembered by this old DOOMer). The level should be out before X-Mas, and Matthias has four screenshots on his site to show it off.
One day into the future, GA-Source has posted an interview with Hubert Chardot, writer at French developer GameSquad on their upcoming action/adventure game Devil Inside. As is to be expected from interviews of this kind, the talk examines the story and gameplay of the game, the engine technology, action vs. adventure aspects, and more.
Activision's Vampire - The Masquerade page has been updated with a new letter from Lucita to Beckett, providing more mood settings for Nihilistic's upcoming third-person action RPG, as well as descriptions of the four new screenshots that accompany it.
There are a couple of new screenshots of Legend of the BladeMasters on GA-RPG, showing off more game scenes from Ronin's upcoming 3D action RPG.
The aftermath of last night's Daikatana chat session is showing up online, there
is a summary of
the festivities on GameSpy.com, and there's an
edited log of the session on Planet DAIKATANA. The session talks about
gameplay, as well as discussing the recent announcement that the game's release
has slipped beyond this holiday season. Thanks Daikatana HeadQuarters.
Shadar Logoth has updated their Wheel
of Time Arena Strategy Guide, which now features a complete rundown of all
the game's offensive and defensive Ter'angreal artifacts (for those unaware,
these artifacts are the game's weapons).
Epic's Cliff "Pretty Fly..." Bleszinski sent along a
pair of screenshots from Epic's upcoming free map-pack for Unreal Tournament.
In addition to our shots, there is also a
new shot on Unreality, and another on Unreal Universe.
Here's what CliffyB has to say about this: I'm firing over a pair of
screenshots from our upcoming free-release pack for UT full.
At this time there are 6 maps that are ready to go with this pack.
There is a very high likelihood that this pack will also include some Unreal 1
characters that you can play as/against in UT.
When? Soon!
Multiplayer United Sydney Australia LAN
Gamers have posted word that the chat log posted yesterday ( story)
turns out to have been faked. They express their embarrassment and apologies
(along with some frustration), at having been duped, which was apparently the
result of someone impersonating one of their sponsors.
There are 14 new Soldier Of Fortune Screenshots
on PC.IGN.Com taken in their own "testing laboratory." They don't
feel these shots of Raven's upcoming Quake II mercenary game are for the faint-of-heart,
however, as they actually posted them along with this warning: "Due to the
graphical nature of the following screenshots, viewer discretion is advised."
The GameHost News page has
the release of a new version 1.50.0001 of GameHost, the program that "allows
you to easily setup, run, and manage most of your favorite network games,
including Quake, QuakeWorld, Quake II, Quake III Arena, Hexen II, Half-Life, Sin
and Starsiege TRIBES." The new version enhances the program's support for
Quake III Arena, though the hoped-for Unreal Tournament support is not yet in,
the update describes the difficulties they've had with that.
MDK2 Impressions and Screens
on GameSpot is a preview of MDK2, the upcoming sequel to Shiny's offbeat
action title, based on some face time with the game during a recent visit to the
GameSpot offices by BioWare, the game's developer. In addition to their
first-hand impression of progress on the game, the piece features some new
screenshots. MDK, of course, stands for Mentally Deranged Kittens.
GameGuide's Half-Life Opposing Force Game Guide
is online. The guide offers a Boot Camp and Enemy Guide, a Weapons Arsenal, a
Weapons Arsenal (they like that one so much they list it in the index twice), as
well as Cheat Codes and Easter Eggs.
Rust has posted version 1.06 of Q3Build,
the first front end compiler for Q3Map. I saw there that QERadiant.com
has posted a
tutorial on the new Curves menu for Q3Radiant. Speaking of QER, the first of
RiceBug's On-Line
Q3A Tutorials, with an introduction to the Q3Radiant editor. Finally, Rust
has also posted a downloadable list of keys for the Q3Radiant editor.
The map rotation on the Red 64
Q3A tournament has been set. They are "experimenting with maps that can be
used as a standard for professional Q3 Tournament."
DNapalm, always on the lookout for the wild and wooly from the world of
entertainment, sends along word that apparently Mahir, famed as the Turkish
stud, should be appearing on the Daily Show tonight, which leaves you only a
short time to invite the friends and neighbors, set up the VCR, and of course,
bug your local cable provider to add Comedy Central to your channel choices.
Remeber to always be prepared... your 15 minutes of fame might be next!
Link of the Day: Devil
Went Down to Dallas on PC Gameworld, an audio file in the vein of one of
yesterday's entries in the MailBag. With apologies to Charlie Daniels, John
Romero, and Charlie Daniels (who deserves at least two apologies for this
one).
Story of the Day: Food Preservative May Fight Superbugs, Study Finds.
The only thing that's cooler than a real news story about "superbugs,"
is one that hails the positive power of preservatives. Science marches on!
Thanks DNapalm.
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