Archived News:
Lionhead’s Master Plan
on CheckOut.Com alludes to the recent "engine wars" dispute,
describing the method of game production at Peter Molyneux's Lionhead Studios as
a third alternative to creating or licensing game engine technology, making the
analogy to the old "studio system" of movie production. The method
actually sounds like a more full-featured version of a traditional licensing
agreement, but maybe there are unmentioned provisions for sleeping with studio
executives or something.
CheckOut Games also interviews Kevin Perry talking with the Red Storm
designer about progress on Shadow Watch, RSE's upcoming strategy/RPG that goes
against the current trend of cutting-edge 3D graphics by following an old-school
2D design.
There are a couple of shots
from Neocron on GA-RPG from Neocron: Virtual City, an upcoming online 3D RPG
from Reakktor Media "set in a 27th century metropolis." According to
the caption, "These screenshots show how the textures add detail to the low
poly tank class character."
There's a new Vampire: Masquerade--The Redemption video special for download on the German
site The Graveyard,
that's taken from the covermount CD from the German gaming magazine Gamestar.
The file is in Windows
Media Player Format, with a German voice-over, but the video portion is
about half gameplay with the other half consisting of cinematic sequences, the
first such scenes made available as far as we can recall.
Eurogamer.net
Evolva interview talks with three members of the Evolva team, Vince
Farquharson (Producer), Rik Heywood (Lead Programmer), and Karl Wickens (Lead
Artist) about Computer Artworks'
upcoming first- and third-person shooter.
FAKK2 Engine Details and Screenshot
on GA-Source offers a look at Ritual's "Morpheus Script System"
they are using in their Quake III-engine game that "allows for unsurpassed
control of actors and objects." The update includes some engine details
from Ritual Programmer (not to be confused with a Ritual Killer) Scott Alden
giving some details about this tool, which F.A.K.K.2 has inherited from Sin.
A
comment by John Carmack to a thread titled Dave
'Zoid' Kirsch Leaving id Software on SlashDot (thanks ShugaShack)
discusses the reasons behind the Zoid's recently announced departure ( story),
starting off saying: "I had talked with Zoid about it a few times over the
years, and I think he is making a pretty good decision," and concluding:
"We are parting on the best of terms (leaving right AFTER a project
completes is the considerate way to go). He is going to finish up the Quake2
linux updates (better X/GLX support), even if he has to complete the work from
his new job."
VRND Nearing Completion, Dark Magic in Development
on GA-Source offers development details and screenshots for both the
"architecturally accurate representation of the Notre Dame Cathedral of
Paris," and Dark Magic, which is looking to bust out of being just a mod to
become a full retail UT product. There are also some new high-resolution screenshots
of Earth 2150 on Beta Bites showing off the upcoming 3D RTS that, for no
reason you could ever justify to me, offers the subtitle "Escape from the
Blue Planet." GameSpot UK's
Command & Conquer Tiberian Sun Firestorm Preview is accompanied by a
modest (for them) seven
shot Screenshot Gallery. Also, Starbase Armada
has screenshots of the upcoming Star Trek Armada multiplayer beta, scheduled to
enter a limited round of closed beta-testing tomorrow ( story).
Also, there are four new
Sudden Strike screenshots on Gamesurf.De. The first LightBikes
version 2.0 shot is up. Finally, there are shots of new upcoming enhancements to
the Blitz 3D engine on the ACID REIGN
page.
Computer Games Online
's Shogun: Total War preview offers "a Japanese combo platter, with
rice, Part 2" (presumably this is from Column B, while yesterday's part
one ( story)
would be from Column A). Shogun: Total War is an upcoming 3D RTS from Creative
Assembly where you play a warlord in feudal Japan.
A new mutator (in the most literal sense) for Unreal Tournament titled Crotch Shot
is now available. It doesn't take much imagination to figure out that this is a
modification that rewards you for shooting someone where it hurts, prizing the
Crotch Shot as much as the C.O. giving the photographer his marching orders for
the Ann Margret USO show in Full Metal Jacket (there was a long run for a
short bus ride, huh?).
A new release of the BoomBall
for Unreal Tournament Modification (A.K.A. Nuke the Flag) is now available.
BoomBall is described as similar to Capture the Flag, where two teams compete
for a single ball (which they point out "looks suspiciously like a redeemer
rocket") which will spawn at any point on the map, emitting a noise to aid
in location (its heading and distance are also noted on the HUD). Scoring is
accomplished by returning the "ball" to your base, where it will
explode, making any glory you will receive for your efforts to be posthumous,
although you can die knowing you will take any pursuers to the grave with you.
A new release of MouseBall for
Unreal Tournament, frogstomper's oddball mouseball sport for UT, is now available. The new
release adds "Trigger Darts" a placeholder projectile weapon
(temporary until a more mouse-oriented metaphor can be conjured up), and other
changes including a ball that acts more like a ball.
The "much anticipated" public beta release Classic CTF
for Quake III Arena is now available, promising the "Same Game, Different Engine!"
Word is "The public beta includes a grappling hook, runes, super nailgun,
weapons stay, CTF Optimized Weapons Physics, as well as lots more. There's a new
exclusive high-quality map in there, too!"
A new version 3 of the Elite HUD for Quake III Arena is now available on Equims Emporium.
"Features include a new mini-scoreboard (don't need to press 'tab' to see)
and the ability to 'hold' your weapon in multiple positions (e.g. in your left
hand, your right hand or in the centre, Quake 1 style)."
A new version 1.7 of The Jumbot
for Half-Life is up on Rich's Project Warehouse
changing the bot so that the default map CFG is executed every level right
before level configs, so level settings can be applied on top of the default
settings, fixing a small bug in item retrieval, and many other bug fixes.
There's a new version 0.1.1 the QuakeForge
OpenSource Quake development project. "This version fixes all known bugs in
0.1.0 and will hopefully be the last version in the 0.1 series. The project is
busy working hard and making major progress with the 0.2 series which we hope to
bring you soon!"
There are some Unreal
2 editor bits & pieces on Unreality and Unreal2Ed
Shots and Info on Unreal Universe each talking with Warren Marshall, level
designer at Legend Entertainment (currently working on Unreal 2), about
Unreal2ED, the updated Unreal level editor mentioned in several .plan updates
yesterday ( story) that will be released by
Warren "when he's feelin' randy." The MapFinger site has passed the 900
map mark and now lists over 500 map authors with their own .plan files. Version 0.31 of the DOS-based Quake Unit Conversion Tool
will quickly convert various real-world measurements into quake units and vice
versa. Turn down your speakers before visiting Grandpappy's Cabin,
where they are posting a .utx file with new Unreal Tournament textures every day
for the next week. Word on the Tread 3D
page is the project may not be dead just yet (thanks FloppyDisks). Unreality's
Mini Q&A with Clawfist talks with the author of three of the maps in the
new UT Bonus Pack. Finally, Pure DM's
editing contest has two phases: a Dead Simple contest and an Empire contest,
with rules, and prizes, and everything.
The winners in the Domination category of the $150,000 Make Something Unreal Contest
have been announced (thanks Josh Tyrell). The First Place winner is
DOM-Reliquary by ruineR, second
place is DOM-Hysteria by Entropy
and Cyanlongbow, and third place is DOM-Syncronicity][- by No
ReMoRsE.
That missing Eudora 4.x-4.3 update for registered users is finally up on
the Eudora Pro Email
v4.2.2 Updaters page, also beta 2 of WinZip
version 8.0 is now available (thanks Schnapple). A new beta 1 version 1.2.6
of the Voodoo Lights screensaver
(thanks Voodoo Extreme) has been released and a new
version 2.0 of the PondLife
screensaver is up on DemoNews.com. Finally the year 2000 Geek Pride Festival
has been announced.
- Painful Detail has
another update with eight new Unreal Tournament skins and ALPHAwolfs Den
has a new model among their collection for Quake III Arena...
- Word from Majesty - Dragon
is that Majesty: The Fantasy Kingdom Sim, Cyberlore's upcoming fantasy/strategy
sim is now gold, and should be in stores soon...
- Some updated Descent Manager Modules are available from the Descent Network Team,
who have updated versions of ANIVIEW32, FSMVIEW32, VPVIEW32, and the Descent
Manager FreeSpace Kit...
- GameTrakker is
now available, a GPL Perl app "that will help a server administrator
keep track of server usage" acting as a "'glue' program which ties
Steve Jankowski's QSTAT with Tobias Oetiker's MRTG in order to present a
very nice web-based game monitoring platform."...
- There's a new UT
Weapon Guide on Unreal Tournament Center...
- Pamela
Lee Does Gaming reports The Adrenaline Vault (thanks The Oxygen Tank).
I'm not going to touch that headline (or anyone who has been with Tommy Lee
for that matter) with a 10½ foot pole...
In case you tuned out during loony's "what's on TV as I write this"
update yesterday, tonight's episode of the X-Files is an episode co-written by
cyber-punk author William Gibson titled First
Person Shooter, which has the following description on The X-Files
site, "A murder inside the high-tech world of a virtual reality game
leads Scully to battle a deadly digital character in order to save Mulder's
life." They also have images
from the episode and video
(in RealPlayer format) from the filming of
the episode. Thanks Drew and the many others who mailed in about this.
Link of the Day: Squirrel Fishing.
Thanks Fredrik Skarstedt.
Bonus Link: Something.Com. Thanks DethMan. Sorry, there doesn't seem to
be a low-bandwidth version.
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