Archived News:
ZDTV's Game Blast Awards
features video footage ( RealPlayer, or
equivalent required) with Epic's Cliff Bleszinski and Tim Sweeney and
Digital Extremes' James Schmalz all talking about the selection of Unreal
Tournament as best PC game of the year. Thanks PlanetUnreal.
The deathmatch map winners in the $150 000 Make Something Unreal
contest have been announced. Also, there's a beginner's editing tutorial
on Unreal Envisioned and there are some
new UT texture tutorials on Muad'dibs Maps. Finally, upad, a simple Unreal
script editor is now available from Revolver.
Thanks again PlanetUnreal.
As promised when the first shot was posted yesterday, there's another new Obi
Wan screenshot on JediKnight.Net,
showing off more of LucasArts' upcoming shooter based on the Star Wars universe.
Here's a bit from the accompanying post to help clarify a couple of the common
questions about the game: The game has always been described by LucasArts
as a First Person Shooter, but apparently there is an option for a variation of
the camera angle. I should have a clarification on the camera angles this week.
Another question people are asking is whether Obi-Wan uses the Jedi Knight or
jacked up Jedi Knight engine... aka, Mysteries of the Sith engine. The answer to
that question is no. This engine has been built from scratch folks... and these
screens don't really do the game that much justice because of the resolution
they were originally sent in.
Gurutech.org's Industry
Hardware Introspective is the second installment in the series, quoting game
developers Jake Simpson, Paul MacArthur, Berenger Fish , Pat Lipo, Gil Gribb,
Kevin Lambert and Dave Moore, all answering the following question: "What
sort of decisions go into the hardware-of-the-end-user aspect of game
development? What is more important to you as a whole; great graphics on a
select amount of systems or great performance on the majority of systems? Do
these limitations motivate you to make a game that can be enjoyed even without
great graphics?"
The first beta release of Freeze Tag
for Quake III Arena, the Q3A port of this popular Quake II mod, is now
available. In Freeze Tag, fragged players are frozen, either to be thawed by a
teammate, or to be shattered into gibcicles if the entire team becomes victim to
the big chill. The new mode makes use of a new entity shader, thought to be a
first. Also included with the download are a GameSpy tab and an example
server.cfg file.
A public beta version 4.5 of The Heretic Fortress
is now available, an update to this modification that brings some of the
class-based teamplay action of TeamFortress to Heretic II, the Quake II-engine
sequel to Heretic. The new beta
code is only running on a single server at the moment, but an update for
previous version of the client is available, and testing is encouraged.
A new copy of the Q3A Shader Editor is now available for download on Bert Peers' Homepage.
This program handles these fully-scripted texture entities by parsing a script
and presenting it in a Windows GUI which is a bit more user-friendly than "the
bare C-like" Shader text files.
GameSpy.com
interviews Steve Pearsall the project leader on Looking
Glass' upcoming Thief 2: The Metal Age, talking about progress on the sequel
to Thief: The Dark Project, the non-Rambo first-person shooter. In addition to a
lot of detailed information about the game, the Q&A also discusses Steve's
start in the business, and even life before gaming.
Q3Center's Q3A One-on-One
Strategy guide offers some general tips on Quake III Arena tournament play. Also, K-Cheats Quake III Arena Tactics Helper offers all sorts of tactical advice, but it's written in German, so if you are not fluent there's always AltaVista Translations. Finally, FvF World's Q3A Modeling Tutorial Part II: Model Skinning for 3DSMax Users is up showing how make like Buffalo Bill and skin a large model.
The first beta release of Capture the
Gunz (CTG) for Quake III Arena is now available. CTG is a teamplay mod that
gives all members of a team access to a type of weapon when your team is the
last to control its spawn point, while none of the opposition will have that
weapon until regaining control, which likewise deprives their opponents. In
addition to control of the arms race, these captures are a significant part of
the mod's scoring, as grabbing a weapon nets you three frags and two more for
each of your teammates.
Continuing the TLA theme, The Black Knight Productions
page has a new beta version of the PoW (Prisoners of War) mod for Quake III
Arena, a teamplay mod where you can play The Great Escape. In addition to
the new beta, which adds a new HUD and other features, there are a pair of new
PoW maps for download.
A download called GameQuery
on PlanetQuake3.net is tersely described as: "An ASP component that can
do server queries against Quake2 & Quake3Arena servers." Also, Equims Emporium
has the first release of EliteHUD for Quake III Arena, a client-side HUD with
configurable options placing the health, armor, and ammo stats next to the
crosshair, adding a mini-scoreboard, and moving all the weapons but the railgun
to the center of the screen.
This TRIBES
World Championship Teams page on PlanetStarsiege has contact info for team
leaders of a planned upcoming quest for global Starsiege TRIBES domination so
you can head to the local recruiting offices and volunteer. Also, registration
for the DeCL is underway, with
Q3A CTF and UT CTF leagues for German clans, as well as clans from anywhere
close enough where they can have a competitive ping. Finally the CWN/Q3Center Q3 Ladder ends
in about ten days, which is still time to jump in and win one of several spiffy prizes.
- Software Makers Aim to Dilute Consumer Rights
reports a disturbing LA Times article about tech bills up springing
from the Uniform Computer Information Transactions Act (UCITA), saying:
"Microsoft Corp. and other powerful software companies are quietly
pushing state legislation across the nation that would dramatically reduce
consumer rights for individuals and businesses who buy or lease software and
database information."...
- The usual big old skin update at Synchroplay
has tons of Rollercoaster Tycoon rides, TRIBES skins, UT skins, NASCAR
3 Paint Jobs, and Kingpin skins...
- Brass Knuckles interviews
Jiho (Nara) Kim, head developer of Archmage, described as "one of
the largest, free, web based, games on the net" about Archmage II, the
sequel...
- There's a
new version 1.2.5 of Voodoo Lights on DemoNews.com, offering a non-beta
version of this cool screensaver...
My brother, WalterEgo of the teensy ping, pointed out that I failed to note the
best chance of a point of reference for most folks when rambling the other day
about Doug and the Slugs, which is that Too Bad, the theme to the Norm
show, is originally by Doug Bennett and his salt-fearing cohorts, so there's a
chance some of you are actually already semi-familiar. Not nearly as many if it
were the theme to say, Cheers, or some of those Ron Popeil infomercials, but
what can you do.
Thanks Brian Young for correcting a mistake I posted for a short while the
other day in the mention of the passing of comic book artist Gil Kane, who it
turns out was not actually the son of Batman creator Bob Kane (I have been
laboring under that misconception for a lot of years).
Link of the Day: Email
address based combat. Thanks Sean Cardus. Too bad the attributes actually
seem to be randomized.
Story of the Day: Coffee Is Your Friend
(where else but on Wired?). "Scientists are waking up to the health
benefits of coffee." Thanks Ant.
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