Archived News:
A new version 1.1 of the S.H.U.D.
modification for Quake III Arena is now available. This mod replaces the game's
normal heads-up display (HUD) with one that offers real-time display of your
number of shots fired, hits, hit percentage, and more. The new version adds in
the scoreboard as well as accuracy info on your number of consecutive hits and
maximum consecutive hits.
Unreal Universe and the Sled Dog
is an interview with T. Elliot Cannon, AKA Myscha the Sled Dog, formerly of Epic
Games, and now lead level designer at the Collective, where they busily buzz
away on Deep Space Nine-The Fallen, the upcoming third-person Unreal-engine
action game. The Q&A discusses Myscha's departure from Epic, Laguna Beach,
some background stuff, and even a bit about the upcoming game, like whether you
can add a "buck naked Kira" (strictly from the academic point of view
about licensing issues, of course). Multiplayer is also discussed, with Myscha
anticipating "some super relaxed fun multiplayer scenarios" to be
created "once the single player game is finalized and tight."
More space (and Trek, for that matter): The Allegiance Zone
interviews Joel Solap Dehlin, talking with the executive producer (and a
designer) on Allegiance, Microsoft's space combat game, currently in open beta.
They have also updated their Allegiance Tech Tree,
added a
page of Allegiance Commanding Advice, and posted some Belters Faction
screenshots showing the high-resolution coolness seen when encountering this
faction that occasionally pops up in the beta (apparently used by Microsoft to
see how client machines handle the enhanced art). We also have a bunch of Trekkie
stories, as Sci-Fi Gaming
interviews Gary Wagner talking with the president of Gizmo Industries about
Dominion wars, the upcoming Star Trek: Deep Space Nine game. Sci-Fi Gaming
also interviews Liz Braswell talking with the producer on SSI's Warp 2, the
upcoming sequel to Starship Creator that will now allow you to create Klingon
and Romulan spacecraft in addition to Federation ships. Finally, the Strategies
section on the Star Trek Armada site
has been updated with some strategies for this upcoming Trekkie RTS, so if you
think you will get the game, you can bookmark what would seem to be a case of
premature strategization. Thanks Tymetodie.
Speaking of strategy guides (smooth like raisins through a goose with the segues
this morning, eh?), parts two,
three,
and four
of the Battlezone 2: Combat Commander guide on Computer Games Online are all
up, following the part
one mentioned yesterday. Also, the first update in a couple of months to
the GameFAQs Thief Gold
walkthrough adds loads of new stuff, three new areas have been added to the GameFAQs Ultima Ascension
FAQ/walkthrough, various updates have been added to the GameFAQs Septerra Core
FAQ/walkthrough and there's a brand new GameFAQs
The Sims FAQ/strategy guide.
Beta Bites
interviews Jim Tso talking with the senior producer for the US/Canada
release of Earth 2150 (already available in
Europe), the upcoming sequel to Earth 2140 described as the "first all-terrain, 3D real-time strategy
game." In addition to the Q&A, the piece also offers up a bunch of
1024x768 OpenGL screenshots.
There are nine
new Aquarius screenshots on GA-Strategy showing off gameplay from this
upcoming 3D action/strategy hybrid where players vie for control of the planet
"Aquarius."
It's Unreal Tournament map madness week over at deCyber,
where they've released over 15 new UT maps. Also, ztn's page of utter crap-o-la
has Beat Box, ztn's new Q3a map (thanks Cached).
Also, a new single-player episode for Half-Life titled Deliverance
is now available (thanks atomic8). As far as can be told, there's no squealing
like a pig involved, but rather "you reprise your role as Gordon Freeman in
a story set after the end of Half-Life."
A sort-of sequel to the low-poly love doll contest is up, as The Cute Doll Contest
on polycount offers modelers the opportunity to square off (or would that be
triangle off?) against id Software's Paul Steed in a contest to create a
sub-1000 face model of "a CUTESY cartoon character based on a recognizable
commercial property."
- Dick Lee's web page has his Quake III
Arena screensaver that displays "the various models/characters of Quake3 Arena
randomly on your screen or bounces them off the edges of your
screen"...
- As is their way, Painful Detail
has posted still more new UT stuff, with four new player models, six new
voices and two new tutorials...
- Teamplay.Net
is putting together a Quake 3 map pack for use in upcoming events and are
looking for submissions of professional-quality custom Deathmatch and
Capture the Flag maps...
- The screenshots page on the Official UltraHLE Website
has new OpenGL screenshots of an upcoming version of this currently
Glide-only Nintendo64 emulator. Thanks EmulationHQ...
Blow out the candles, Blammo, as today is the first anniversary of the use of
the Blammo news database here, meaning there is now one full year's worth of
databased news in the archive to go along with the nearly three years of
HTML news. There have been a couple of attempts to convert the old HTML to the
new database to make it more searchable, but it's tough to say whether that will
ever be practical. Being able to search the entire archive from the handy
"Search!" box would help in cases like yesterday, though, when Slashdot
posted an article on Textmode Quake, since this inspired a bunch of folks
to send this in as news, while if the HTML archive was as searchable as the
database, it would show that a story about the Text Mode Quake page
appeared in August '98 ( here),
and probably serve as an aid to those who use the archive for research as well.
On the subject of Slashdot, this also brings up something I've been meaning to
mention, which is that we get occasional Link of the Day submissions of stories
that have appeared in their pages (I believe the reverse happens on occasion as
well), so I thought I'd mention that we'd rather not knowingly dupe up on these
kinds of links (or "Oddly Enough headlines," etc.). The net certainly
has enough wacky stuff out there that we should be able to manage something
screwy enough on a daily basis nonetheless. Speaking of Blammo, I'm working with
furn to see if we can add the JavaScript focus() dealie to a Blammo preference
option so it won't impact those who find it troublesome (I've killed it in the
meantime).
My fondest possible farewell to Charles M. Schulz, who died last night (CNN.com
story-thanks Vad3R [DI]), creator of the most beloved comic strip of my
youth.
Link of the Day: Furious George
(and his cross-country crime spree). Thanks Josh Fletcher. It's a web-based game
that includes a scoring system. It is a bit simple, but can be amusing (or
disturbing) based on the number of different "atrocities" you
can commit from their randomized database without duplicating yourself.
Story of the Day: Brain Activity is Visibly Altered
Following Sleep Deprivation, and surprisingly, not always for the worse!
Thanks armypants. We've had the coffee is good for you story, now the (sort of)
sleep depravation is good for you story, now we need something covering junk
food.
Image of the Day: Q Lopez.
So why does Jennifer Lopez have the Quake logo wrapped around her face?
The Tectonic page has a new version 0.9
of the BotPlugin module for the TecArena front-end for Quake III Arena. The new plug-in
allows you set different names for the bots, and will now find all bots in
baseq3, including those not in .pk3 files.
There's a Dave Taylor
interview on G3d talking with the ex-id Software programmer and Crack dot
Com founder about his current work as an engineer at Transmeta, who recently
announced plans for Crusoe, their upcoming cross-platform, low-power, mobile
CPU. The Q&A discusses Cruse as well as gaming, going into Dave's most and
least favorite games of all time, and his start in the business.
The Ęstats Page has a new
version 4.33 of the Ęstats multiple game log parser for both Win32 and
Linux x86. The new release offers Opposing Force support, updates the Counter
Strike 5.2 support, fixes a Y2K date problem(!), fixes a Kingpin bug, and more.
Word is ngStats support for Unreal Tournament is in the works.
The Flatware Design Gaming Division
has the release of version 1.00 of Holy Wars for Unreal Tournament. Though they
point out there aren't likely to be any servers running right away, the debut
release does offer gameplay versus bots. This is the UT version of the Holy Wars
mod where players (AKA sinners) are fighting over the Halo in order to become
the game's Saint. It's then saint versus sinners in a one-versus-many battle.
French site Le Ouaibe Joystick has posted an audio interview with Ray Gresko, discussing all things Nihilistic and Vampire: The Masquerade - Redemption ( Real player or equivalent required). The nine minute talk is of course in English, but if you want to read along with the French transcript, AltaVista Translations may be of service. Thanks Alex.
LucasArts has updated their Star Wars: Force Commander preview site with five new screenshots (and three familiar from this preview), as well as four rendered images of structures in the game.
There are several new development updates on the official Star Trek: Klingon Academy site describing Interplay's efforts to beat the upcoming demo of their space-combat sim into shape, and word on the KA forum now is that it is expected to be released around Wednesday next week. Thanks GreenDoh.
Speedy 3D has posted a couple new screenshots of Incoming Forces, and also a pair of Hostile Waters screenshots, both 3D action/strategy games under construction at UK developer Rage. Incoming Forces is more focused on the action, as can be expected from a sequel to their arcade-like shooter Incoming, while Hostile Waters uses more of a strategic approach.
Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn Interview on PC.IGN.com is a talk with producer Ben Smedstad on BioWare's role-playing sequel, discussing the various ways this title aims to improve upon the first one.
An edited log of last night's IRC chat with id's David "Zoid" Kirch is now available for your perusal. The lengthy discussion covered all sorts of topics, ranging from the next point release ("when it's done" - did you expect anything else?) to very specific questions about Zoid's CTF levels, the Q3A source code, and lots more.
AVault has posted a profile of Rebellion, developers of Aliens vs. Predator, talking to Jason Kingley not only about the company, but also about their recently announced 3D action RPG, Gunlok. Three new screenshots of this title are at hand.
Raven's Eric Biessman has scribbled down another installment of his Soldier of Fortune diary at SoFCenter, and entitled "A night in the life of Raven Software," it describes an exhausting couple of hours out of the crunch mode development time their mercenary shooter is going through.
Counter-Server, the official Counter-Strike server admin resource, is now open for business and aims to provide everything you need to run and optimize servers for the popular Half-Life mod.
PowerPlay has announced that seven
new companies, including Bungie, Dynamix, and Raven, have all joined their
initiative to improve Internet game performance. Here's the scoop: FEBRUARY
9, 2000 -- PowerPlay, an effort to make the Internet a better entertainment
platform, gained momentum this week as six leading game development studios
and content and Internet tools developer, Applied Microsystems, joined the initiative.
The latest additions to the list of developers who have gone on record in support
of PowerPlay are:
- Bungie -Oni and Halo.
- Dynamix -Tribes, Tribes 2.
- Gas Powered Games -- Dungeon Siege.
- Jellyvision - You Don't Know Jack, Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?
- Nihilistic - Vampire: The Masquerade - Redemption
- Raven Software -Soldier of Fortune, Star Trek: Elite Force, Hexen 2
"It's hard not to support a movement aimed at improving everyone's Internet
experience," said Chris Taylor, CEO of Gas Powered Games. "The list
of game developers and other tech companies supporting PowerPlay is a great
example of industry cooperation that will have a positive impact on all of our
games."
The PowerPlay initiative is composed of Internet companies, service providers,
and game developers cooperating in the definition and deployment of an open
industry standard to improve the Internet entertainment experience.
The first stage will be a proof of concept deployment for US dial-up customers.
Following the initial deployment, PowerPlay service will be available outside
of the US and for higher speed connections (DSL/cable modem).
The PowerPlay initiative also includes Bioware, Captivation, Cisco, Click Entertainment,
Ensemble, Epic, Gearbox, Looking Glass Studios, Outrage, Red Storm Entertainment,
Relic, Ritual, Shiny, Valve, and Volition.
The first part of CDMag's
guide to Battlezone II has been posted (thanks Voodoo Extreme). The guide
features some general tips, as well as mission-specific hints.
This week's "3dfx Game of the Week" at Daily Radar is Thief
2: The Metal Age, and to celebrate this, they've posted a whole bunch of
new, high-resolution screenshots from the game.
The Freak of Geeks has posted a
multiplayer guide for the recently released Nox demo. The guide covers all
the various aspects of the game's multiplayer, from starting a server and configuring
the Nox.cfg file, to how to best torture your friends.
Version 2.0 of Q3ServerKit, the Quake
III Arena server monitor and administration program, has been released. This
new version adds a new color scheme, a realtime chat panel, a start panel, support
for the Q3Demo and more. The program is available for the Win32, Solaris and
Linux platforms.
A brief Quake III
Arena programming tutorial is up on Q3Center, teaching you how to make a
simple mod that changes the names of the weapons in the game.
GameSpot News has posted some
new screenshots from Republic, a strategy game by Elixir Studios, a company
founded by Demis Hassabis, the co-creator of Theme Park. The game's engine is
capable of processing over 20 million polygons on screen, and the shots are
remarkably detailed.
Also new on GameSpot News are a
handful of new screenshots from Ground Control, an upcoming tactical combat
3D RTS title from Sierra.
- TheMasquerade.org is throwing a
wallpaper design contest to win a copy of Vampire: The Masquerade - Redemption.
- QGirlz has posted the winners
of their female model contest, and are throwing two more contests, this time
to create skins and sounds for the model.
- I.AM Half-Life is giving
away three Microsoft Sidewinder Dual-Strike gamepads...all you have to to
is join their mailing list.
So, did everyone check out that story yesterday about the number of bugs in
Windows 2000? I gotta admit, I figured it had a few holes, but 63,000? That's
a bit too many ship with (more than Ultima IX, even!). I'm in a bind now, because
I'm pretty much sure that I'll be upgrading my desktop computer to Windows 2000
(under Win98 it seems to be remarkably unstable, even spontaneously restarting
from time to time) but I'm not looking forward to suffering from "early
adopter syndrome." Of course, I give Microsoft six months before they release
the first Windows 2000 service pack...but by that point I might be so fed up
that I'll just install DOS 5 again instead. Gotta love these newfangled computers.
Link of the Day: Bananarchy!
This site is so weird it defies explanation.
Link of the Day (2): The
Amazing Cam Cam. I suppose it was only a matter of time before this popped
up.
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