Archived News:
As the Shogun: Total War demo released earlier today doesn't work due to incomplete parts ( story), the cover disk demo from PC Gamer UK has been uploaded and is now available from 3D Gamers as a single 95 MB download.
PC.IGN has posted a Summoner Developer
Diary, featuring Volition's Mark Allender, the game's lead programmer, who
discusses the pathfinding techniques they're using in this 3D action/adventure.
GamePower has posted a preview of Metal Fatigue, looking at the anime-inspired RTS in development by Psygnosis, with the added benefit of an interview with lead designer Jason Hough, as well as a movie trailer with nearly three minutes of cinematic and in-game footage.
Electronic Arts has released a demo of Shogun: Total War in the downloads section of the official site. Shogun: Total War is a 3D real-time strategy game set in medieval Japan, and this "Battle Trainer" demo includes tutorials to the gameplay, and a few small battles to put your acquired skills into practice. The demo comes as a jigsaw puzzle of 11 download files of about 10 MB each, with a batch file to glue them back together, but it is also available on the cover disk of the February 2000 issue of PC Gamer UK (which conveniently dropped into my mailbox today). Update: it appears that the 1st and 9th part are far smaller than the 10 MB of the other segments, so you may want to hold off downloading until this is resolved by EA. Thanks 3DFiles for the heads-up.
More RTS news, as there are three new screenshots of Ground Control on the newly opened Ground Control Center, showing more visual splendor of Massive Entertainment's upcoming 3D real-time strategy title.
TalonSoft has released a movie trailer of Hidden & Dangerous: Devil's Bridge for download (20 MB), showing off a round minute of game footage from the upcoming expansion pack for Illusion Softworks' tactical squad-action game, which is already available in Europe under the subtitle Fight for Freedom.
The official Age of Wonders site has been updated with a version 1.31 patch for the demo and retail versions of Triumph and Epic's fantasy strategy game, as well as an updated full demo download. The major changes mentioned are "improved AI, better multi-player stability, support for 5 languages and some balance tweaks," and a complete list of the fixes and improvements can be found here.
A new version of GLQuake q.a3 has been released on Quake
Engine Resources. This download is an executable only (it requires the full
download). This new version adds the "game" command for mods, and
fixes the "demo crashing bug" in addition to other changes. Also at
QER is a
tutorial explaining how to implement the "game" command within
the engine, as well as the latest news on a project to implement parametric
animation into the engine.
Today's Nox movie is
up, and at 5 meg, it's significantly smaller than the last two. Like all
the movies, it shows off in-game footage, and can be snagged from Westwood's
official Nox site. Look for another movie to be released tomorrow.
Incite Games has posted four
new screenshots from Icewind Dale, an upcoming RPG from BioWare, that utilizes
the Infinity Engine, the same engine that was used to power Baldur's Gate (thanks
A.J.).
3D Realms' Timothy Weisser updated his
.plan with some thoughts on his newly acquired Jolt Cola, but more importantly,
a request for fans to start a "Release the Code" campaign to convince
Ken Silverman to release the Build engine source code. The Build engine
powers such games as Duke Nukem 3D, Blood, and Redneck Rampage, and was authored
by Silverman when he was all of 19 years old. You can find out more details
on Ken's homepage.
The Tachyon: The Fringe
website, which like its namesake game, features the voice-over talents of
cult-favorite Bruce Campbell, has a page
up with info on how to beta test Tachyon, an upcoming space combat game from
NovaLogic. Thanks New Reality Gaming. You
qualify for their interest: "If you live in the greater Los Angeles area,
are 18 years or older, and are available Tuesday, January 25th from 5:45-10:00
pm." Those who are selected will be contacted later this week.
The version 1.04.26 patch for Delta Force 2 that was released Sunday through the
in-game auto-update function ( story)
is now available in downloadable form. The new version adds a new multiplayer
game type called Search & Destroy," and Maagic
warned at the time of the auto-update that this updates the mission editor to
version 1.36 "which removes some features from the version (1.31) that came
with the CD so if you don't want to use the less-complete mission editor, back
up your old files." Here is a
local copy of the patch (5.3 MB) and a list of mirrors.
The All Games Network's Lilith and Eve
play host to Raven Software's Jake Simpson tomorrow to talk about his work as a
programmer on Raven's upcoming Quake III-engine game, Star Trek Voyager-Elite
Force. The action begins live at 7:00 PM EST, RealPlayer,
or equivalent required.
The XSReality
Q3 Qizmo QTV page has the debut release of this Quake III Arena proxy by
Qizmo QuakeWorld proxy authors Zibbo and Perkele. Qizmo QTV allows multiple
spectators to connect to a single proxy and view action on a Q3A server. Word is
the proxy will be used at XSi this Friday.
FGNOnline has posted an
update on the port of Unreal (1) to the Playstation, featuring quotes from
a source at Pterodactyl Studios from the current issue of the Official PlayStation
Magazine (UK). According to the source, the game will be released in November,
and features a more single-player oriented experience, with 45 levels in now,
and more likely to be put in before its release.
Monolithic Illusions has posted an
interview with Epic's Alan Willard, talking to the level designer about
his work on Unreal Tournament, how he got his start, and his current work on
the (free) UT level pack.
The debut release of GameSpy's
ArenaSpy is now available, offering an enhanced version of the in-game Quake
III Arena server browser based on GameSpy technology. The new program offers
enhanced speed and a more complete feature set than the game's internal browser,
though it should be noted that it uses a compiled .dll, rather than the .vms
format that id Software recommends for game mods ( story), which crt tells me is because the server-browser stuff can't be done via .vms.
ArenaSpy is unsupported freeware.
Eurogamer.net
previews PowerPlay looking at the upcoming cross-company networking
initiative recently announced by Valve Software ( story).
Included in the preview are some quotes from Valve's Gabe Newell, and among the
tidbits mentioned is the point that even games that haven't been enhanced
to take advantage of PowerPlay will still reap some performance benefits from
the technology.
An Evolva Update and Screenshots
on GA-Source offers eight new screenshots from Virgin Interactive's upcoming
third-person action hybrid, Evolva, and a development update that says the game
is "well on target for an April release."
A thread titled invisible skin wtf !!!!!!
on the Quake3World.com Forums has inspired a response from id Software CEO
Todd Hollenshead on how to deal with the possibility that someone will sneak a
skin into a Quake III Arena skin pack that will allow them to unfairly hide more
easily (thanks Nathan Fahrenthold). Here's the deal: This stuff has been
around forever. In Quake II, people made models that were a one pixel cube and
tried to get people to download them. If you're afraid of getting a
"cheat" skin as part of a skin pack and aren't willing to check, then
you shouldn't download skin packs.
As far as whether we should "allow" this or not, we can't prevent it
without preventing all custom skins. There's no way to write a program that only
uses the "non-cheating" skins and disallows all of the others. If you
don't want custom skins, you don't have to get them. The game ships with 89
skins and 20+ models. And you can always use cg_forcemodel if you see someone
using a skin that you don't like until you can find it and delete it.
Lastly, you can always contact the skin download sites and ask them to remove
skins that appear to be cheats or at least give you the option of which skins
you want to download.
The Project C Gallery
has been updated with some new screenshots, and Lair of the Vampire's
Project C Interview talks with Larian Studios about their plan to establish
a strong universe as the basis for a series of games, the first in that series
being Project C, an upcoming RPG described like this: "Basically you could
say combat in Project C is a mix of Diablo and Baldur's gate, interactivity is
like Ultima VII, and has a better user interface than all those games.
Additionally, I think the immersion our world gives is really very high."
You may recall Larian Studios as announcing work on an action-rpg called "LMK,"
which has been cancelled, but the reference to that is simply: "We are not
a liberty to comment LMK for a variety of reasons." Also on the Project C
front is Blinkingdot's Project C interview
talking with Programmer Swen Vincke, and Sven also talks with The Vault Network
about the game.
GameWire.Org's
Allegiance interview talks with Executive Producer Joel "Solap"
Dehlin, Lead Designer Rob "Ribski" Girling, and Audio/UI Developer
Kendrick "Tesegar" Shaw about MS' beta space combat game. Also, the
Allegiance Vault has a list of known issues in the beta straight from the
game's developers.
There's a new Earth 2150 Movie on
PC.IGN.Com showing off 90 seconds of gameplay from this 3D RTS. The movie is
in .avi format, and is an 8.7 MB download.
The debut release of Domination-Q3A
brings Unreal Tournament's Domination gameplay type to Quake III Arena (I'll
spare the comments about who is flattering whom since it turned out my crack the
other day about the InstaGib Q3A mod ( story)
ignored the fact that InstaGib began as a Quake II mod). The mod allows you to
play domination on any CTF level, or build your own Domination-Q3 specific
levels. Word is the page is on the move over to PlanetQuake.
Last Man Standing for Q3A
page has the debut version of a Quake III Arena modification that offers classic
last man standing competition where players who are fragged must sit out the
remainder of the match until one combatant remains to be declared the winner.
The Strange Company page
has the release of version 2.98 of the StrangeSaver utility that allows the use
of demos in your screensaver, including demos recorded in Quake, Quake II, Quake
III Arena, Half-Life, Sin, and Heretic II, and the new version now adds the
ability to run any executable as a screensaver.
Red Storm Entertainment, Inc. Announces
U.F.S. Vanguard is the press release announcing an upcoming tactical space
combat game that will put you in command of a capital ship, as opposed to the
smaller attack/fighter craft of most such games.
The QuickTime Download page
has the release of version 4.1 of QuickTime, Apple's "complete technology
for handling video, sound, animation, graphics, text, music, and even 360-degree
virtual reality (VR) scenes."
Please allow me to brush humility aside for the moment and mention that we are
quite pleased, proud, and probably most of all, stunned, to learn that the
January print issue of Yahoo Internet Life, which features their 100 best websites for
2000, has picked Blue's News as their choice for best PC games
site. That's
right, the recognition comes not just for our coverage of our prime focus (action games and shooters in
particular), but for the whole durned genre. Needless to say, this
would not be possible without the world-class support we receive from all of
you, including the word-of-mouth advertising so essential to a site that does
zero outside advertising or promotion. So thanks to Yahoo Internet Life for
the recognition, and to all of you for making it possible. Rest assured we will
do our best to rate such an honor again in 2001.
Link of the Day: SexyMouse International.
CyberSex will never be the same. Thanks MwhahahA.
Repeat Story of the Day: Incompetence is bliss, say researchers.
The story from yesterday, but no registration required. Thanks Larry.
Raven's Rick Johnson updated his .plan with a status report on the Soldier of
Fortune demo, which is sounding pretty imminent: The Demo is currently in
final release testing (i.e. a 2nd QA group who has never touched the product
before hammers on it for a day). They came across one crash bug, which we've
identified and corrected. They are now verifying the fix. The demo would have
been out tonight or early Thursday morning if it wasn't for this last minute
bug. In other words, very soon... Bake me an SoF!
GameSpy 2.19 Shareware
on FilePlanet is the shareware release of version 2.19 of this server
browser, for which the registered version came out last week. New to the new
version is full Quake III Arena support and full BattleZone II support.
Monolith's Jason Hall updated
his .plan with word that programmer Mike Dussault has moved to Valve
Software. Here's the lengthy update, which includes a bit on how this shouldn't
impact LithTech2 development too badly: I would like to congratulate Mike Dussault on his recent acquisition
of a new position at Valve!
I have worked with Mike for nearly four years and it is very tough to see him
move on, but I'll be the first to admit that the opportunity that was presented
to him was very much in his current area of interest - so it was definitely the
right move.
I'd like to clearly state for the record that LithTech would not be where it is
today without Mike's incredible talent and effort. He has helped to build a
great and highly skilled engine team, and his personal efforts have been nothing
short of spectacular over the last few years.
I am proud to have worked with him from the beginning, see him learn and grow,
and now spread his wings and meet new challenges...hmmmpphh, it kinda makes me
feel old though...
Mike we will miss you, and you know where the luv is. You have done a great job
of making sure your "baby" will flourish and continue to grow.
Now - to help alleviate any future gossip or rumors regarding Mike's departure,
here is his "All Monolith Personnel" farewell e-mail. I share it with
you (unedited) because it says it all so succinctly:
-----Original Message-----
From: Mike Dussault
Sent: Sunday, January 16, 2000 2:39 PM
To: All Monolith Personnel
Subject: farewell
Dear Monolith,
The time has come that I must leave Monolith. I have received an offer from
Valve Software that is extremely difficult to refuse. I will be staying at
Monolith for one week (until January 21st) to finish my current tasks, then I
will be going over to Valve. My Monolith email address will be setup to forward
mail to me at Valve, and I'm more than happy to provide any engine help that I
can.
It should be stated that Valve came to me - I never would have sought a job away
from Monolith. Monolith is one of the best game companies I've ever encountered
and it has been great to me. The past 3.5 years I've been here have been some of
the best years of my life, and I had no complaint that would have caused me to
leave. It's simply that Valve offered me an exorbitant amount of money to go
work there.
The timing for my leaving is very fortunate for several reasons:
· We have recently gotten some great programmers onto the Lithtech team who
will be able to take over my work.
· All of the features in Lithtech2.0 are virtually complete. The remaining work
entails bug fixes and optimizations (although I'm sure Kevin Francis and Jeremy
won't restrict themselves to that!!)
· About 95% of the engine is in various people's heads at Monolith. A year ago,
this wasn't the case so it would have been very difficult for people to move it
forward if I wasn't there.
I will greatly miss everyone from Monolith. It's hard to imagine there being a
more colorful group of people anywhere else. I'm very glad Valve is in the area
so I can stay in touch. I look forward to seeing the kickass games Monolith is
working on come out.
If you have any questions, concerns, or things you want me to do before the
21st, please drop me an email or come by my office.
Farewell, Mike D
....Mike, you will be sorely missed...
Good luck in your new adventures!
Your friend,
Jace
The NewMod homepage has the latest version 1.9.2 of this Quake III Arena utility that "can create a new source code project (mod) from an existing project which will compile into the mod's proper
folder in your Q3A folder." This release includes a new backup command and a CompileMod utility to build your mod from anywhere on your path, and the author says it will likely be the last release "until someone decides to port the code to other OSes or make a GUI version."
The latest update to ION Storm's
Daily Informant has a rundown of the Daikatana team, with each person detailing
what they've been working on as the game wraps up. Most of them seem to be working
on crushing those last few bugs, and Romero says he's been working on finalizing
the multiplayer game.
Westlake Interactive updated their
news page with the status of the upcoming 405b patch for their Mac port
of Unreal Tournament. Here's the scoop: The 405b (b is just an internal
version number, it doesn't stand for Beta) Mac update for Unreal Tournament
is currently being worked on, and will include all of the fixes from the PC
405 as well as several Mac specific changes. We hope to have all of the changes
integrated and tested with in a week or two, so we can release it.
The current 400 version of UT Mac works perfectly well with 402 and 405 PC servers,
so you can still keep playing UT on the hundreds of Internet servers while we're
working on 405.
Among the Mac specific fixes we've implemented already are:
- Fixed a bug that caused custom skins & maps to not auto-download when
joining a server.
- Added some extra code to the RAVE driver to boost performance on newer AGP
Rage 128 cards.
- Added an option for dedicated servers that will detect if the server has stopped
accepting connections (which can happen after 2 to 10 hours of running). If
the server sees this has happened, it will relauch itself with all settings
entact.
- Fixed remote web administration code, you can now change settings, kick/ban
players, and even type directly into the server console of a Mac server all
from a standard web browser.
Lionhead's official Black &
White homepage (actually, the site's in color, but...oh, never mind) has
posted ten new
screenshots from this upcoming genre-busting "god game" (thanks non).
TheMasquerade.org has posted a
new screenshot from Nihilistic's Vampire: The Masquerade - Redemption, which
they say shows, "Christof decapitating a szlachta." I have no idea
what a szlachta is, but it sounds like something my Grandmother might call me.
![=]](/miscimages/smiley4.gif)
Volition has revamped the official Summoner website, releasing a boatload of new screenshots of their upcoming 3D RPG, as well as some new concept art and a new soundtrack MP3. Summoning some related news, Inside Mac Games reports that the game will be ported to the Mac for a scheduled Fall release.
Federation HQ has posted a brief interview on The Rift, with Trushwave's founder James Thrush giving a rundown of the features in their upcoming 3D space-based RTS. In related news that also fits into this space, there are three new screenshots of The Rift at GA-Strategy.
Monolith has
announced that Hyperion Software, the company behind the Amiga and Macintosh
ports of the LithTech Engine, has been contracted to port the technology to
the Linux OS. The first game to benefit from this will be Shogo: Mobile Armor
Division, although other titles in development, such as Monolith's Sanity, or
Third Law's KISS: Psycho Circus may benefit from this as well. Details are available
in the
full press release.
Well, lookie here, it's a
new edition of the Blue's News mailbag. On time, nonetheless! In this week's
installment are still more guesses at the mysterious number (let's keep flogging
this one guys), beating those pesky bots, an issue with the GPL license, downloading
PK3 files with Netscape, and lots more. Lay
back and take a load off.
CheckOut has posted an interview with Chris Taylor, talking to the designer of Total Annihilation about his new venture Gas Powered Games, and the hybrid 3D RPG-adventure game Dungeon Siege he's working on now. The article also covers a bit of history about games he did before TA, at Accolade.
At a live press conference broadcast
online by ZDNet, Transmeta officially unveiled their Crusoe processor, which
uses the .18 micron process and their own, custom "code morphing"
software based system. The hardware is ideal for laptops, as it uses very little
power, generates very little heat, and actually optimizes x86 instructions on
the fly. Details will be available at their
official site when it opens at 12:00 PST this afternoon. For gamers, the
real highlight of the conference occurred when Linus Torvalds (the "father
of Linux") and Dave Taylor (former id designer) actually did a live Quake III Arena deathmatch
with one PC running Windows, and one running Linux.
Now there's a novelty: instead of the familiar screenshot-a-day features we see every now and again, Westwood plans to release a new gameplay movie of Nox every day (without specifying for what period). The first pair of 12 MB movies is now online.
According to this
story on AVault, Jay Wilson, former designer at Monolith where he headed
up Blood 2, has been hired by Electronic Arts to work on an unnanounced game.
Expect an announcement Real Soon Now™ as to what the mystery game is.
XQ's Deus Ex Zone has posted an interview with Warren Spector, grilling the lead designer about his 3D action RPG currently under construction at ION Storm. Thanks Vault Network. A variety of topics are covered, including this bit on the overall story and plot of the game:
How important to the overall story of the game will be the path of enhancements and skills, chosen by the player, be?
If enhancements (or augmentations, as we call them) and skills aren't vital to the way Deus Ex unfolds we've done
something very, very wrong! But, remember, there's a distinction (in my mind at least) between "story" and "plot." The
Deus Ex plot -- the sequence of major events in the game -- is going to be the same for all players. Skills and
augmentations won't affect that at all. The story -- the specific, minute-to-minute events that lead to the major plot points
-- that will differ radically, I hope, from player to player. And the skills and augmentations are two powerful tools for ensuring story differences.
There is a preview of KISS Psycho Circus: the Nightmare Child up at Daily Radar, with most of the article actually consisting of an interview with level designer David Namasky, going over the various features in Third Law's upcoming first-person shooter that is inspired by the Todd McFarlane comics.
GameSpot UK has posted one of their sprawling screenshot galleries, displaying 32 new images of Thief II: the Metal Age, along with a brief introduction to Looking Glass' upcoming stealthy action game.
If you don't have enough after that, incite games has another seven screenshots with a brief preview up as well.
There is a new interview on Dragon's Lair 3D online at PC.IGN.com, quizzing producer Steven Parsons of Dragonstone Studios about their upcoming 3D adventure. This sequel to the 1980's game Dragon's Lair is still early into production, but the article contains a fair amount of info, as well as the inevitable comparisons with other third-person action adventures.
Adrenaline Vault has posted half a dozen new screenshots from Earth 2150, the futuristic 3D real-time strategy game in development by Topware, along with some basic info on the premise of the game.
The Mod Shop has the release of
version 2.0b of the Pinger console based interactive game server browser for
Linux. Pinger currently offers support for QuakeWorld and Quake II, with plans
to add support for other games soon.
WOTGame has word of a post to the Official
Wheel of Time Forums by Legend's Glen Dahlgren that says that a patch for WoT is
complete and is now in GT's hands for pre-release testing, so that can probably be expected soon if there turn out to be no problems.
An updated beta 2 of the Decimal
Mod for Quake III Arena is now available, adding scoring bonuses for awards accumulated during the match (don't you wish awards were tallied on the
Q3A scoreboard anyway?) to this mod that rewards damage dealt to your opponents,
rather than frag count. There is also now a Spanish translation of the read
me.
There's a new beta version 2.64 of the FightClub
launcher, which describes itself as the "Swiss-Army Knife" of Quake
III Arena launchers, offering "comprehensive support for listen servers,
dedicated servers, connecting to servers, and automated benchmarking." The
new release features a new map preview window, a player model preview window,
automatic scan for custom maps and player models, support for Q3A point release
cvars, and much more.
A version 0.03 of the Q3A Waradmin Mod
is now available, offering various remote administration options for Quake III
Arena servers, including the ability to have elected admins. They are also at
work on a future release of a custom HUD for Q3A clients.
The SDL Hexen
page has a new version 0.2.3 of SDL Hexen, an unsupported cross-platform SDL
port of Raven's class-based Doom-engine fantasy shooter. Thanks Jacek Fedoryński.
Team 5150 (TRIBES tribe) has the debut
release of TeamStream, their freeware voice communication program "for
extreme game players." TeamStream features computer generated speech for
battlefield sequencing, a powerful commander mode for multiple channel support,
DirectX 5-7 compatibility, "and perfect voice quality modes for
professional teams."
The next GamesCon event has been
announced, slated to be in the Bay Area February 19 & 20 offering gaming
exhibits, a LAN tournament, and a "celebrity challenge." The first Quake III
Arena ladder is open on The 99 cent Value Ladder,
offering Q3A CTF, with plans to add a Q3A DM ladder and a Quake II CTF ladder.
The set up is fully automated, so little user or administrative intervention is
required. GameCreate is the Queensland Gamers League's
new extension of PowerUp Internet's
official Server Creation system,
developed for online gamers in Australia that offers a fully-automated system to
setup, customize, and run your own game server that will run for four hours
before automatically shutting down. Games supported include Quake II (L-Fire CTF
v1.20, Rocket Arena v2.50, and Action Quake2 v1.52), Quake III Arena (FFA, 1-on-1,
Team DM, and CTF), and Half-Life (Counter-Strike, TeamFortress Classic).
WOTGame's Wheel of Time level design
contest offers the chance to win a Voodoo3 3500TV for the best WoT level.
Yesterday's mention of the cold the previous day was a bit premature, as it was 2 degrees
(without the wind chill) yesterday in New York City(!). We've always suspected the
heat was on the fritz to some extent here in the Blue Tower, as it's never
really too warm in the winter, while some New York City apartments can be famous
for their all or nothing heat that can put apartment dwellers in the odd
position of cracking open windows in the winter to ease the heat. However, when
folks from the building came in to do a storm window inspection, and one of
them commented "it's pretty warm in here," I knew our radiators were
doing as well as could be expected. Next stop, the local appliance-atorium, to
pick up a couple of space heaters that promised "instant sun-like
warmth" (that is really what the box says--needless to say we didn't
believe it, or one would have sufficed). I also picked up some long underwear to
boot, which is probably way more than you wanted to know about what's going on
here, except the image of myself sitting here doing the high-tech news in a
genuine low-tech red Walter Brennan union suit (complete with the flap in the
rear), amuses me, so I thought I'd share (just call me Gran'pa Blue). Oh, for
the record, I believe the space heaters may actually be a few degrees cooler
than the actual sun, but it is helping... if it gets any warmer, I can take off
the mittens, which should improve my typing.
Link of the Day: mIRC
Announces 10th Registration.
Story of the Day: An ordinary Dutchman stumbles into African kingship.
Thanks NippleEye.
Bonus Story: Among the Inept, Researchers Discover, Ignorance Is Bliss
(NY Times registration required). Thanks Jeff Magill. This reports "...that
the skills required for competence often are the same skills necessary to
recognize competence," quoting a researcher saying "Not only do they
reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence
robs them of the ability to realize it..."
Image of the Day: The Game Cook
- The Game Patch.
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