Archived News:
PC.IGN brought a camcorder along with them to GDC, and they have posted a
handful of Quicktime movies from Peter Molyneux' Black & White demonstration.
The movies have Peter showing off various aspects of the game, from a general
explanation of how the game works, to gameplay specifics and some technical
marvels that can be accomplished with their engine.
Also on PC.IGN this evening is a
new preview of Urban Operations, the upcoming add-on pack for Rogue Spear.
The preview goes into depth about all the new features in the pack, including
the new single player missions, the new multiplayer levels, and the new mod
editor amongst other things. There is also the requisite batch of new screenshots
up alongside the preview, with shots from some of the new locales.
Digital Anvil's official Starlancer site has been updated with four
new screenshots from this upcoming space-sim from former Origin designer
Erin Roberts.
The oddly named Zupit has posted a few Heavy Metal: FAKK 2 interviews...first
is an interview
with Ritual's art director Robert Atkins, and senior animator Darrin Hart,
where they talk about working with the Quake III: Arena engine amongst other
topics. In addition to that text interview, individual interviews with Heavy
Metal: FAKK 2 creator (and Heavy Metal magazine publisher) Kevin Eastman and
his wife Julie Strain are up at Zupit
Radio, talking about the upcoming FAKK 2 game.
Dark Reign 2 Interview: Part 2 on The Adrenaline Vault continues to interrogate Pandemic's project director Greg Borrud about their upcoming 3D action/strategy game Dark Reign 2. This installment discusses the multiplayer options, and what kind of game modes are being created.
Microsoft sent along the official announcement that Allegiance, their online-only space combat game, has gone gold and should arrive on stores shelves in early April for an anticipated street price of US$40. Allegiance will be playable on the MSN Gaming Zone as well as via independent game servers worldwide.
Digital Anvil's official Freelancer site ( Flash required) has been updated with a new developer journal (no Flash), in which programmer Ed Maurer accounts for his recent work on a multiplayer demo, and how various problems were solved to meet an internal milestone.
A new preview
of Digital Anvil's space epic Starlancer has been posted at GamePower. In
addition to the usual preview fodder (including some screenshots and a trailer
that has been available for some time), they've conducted a
Q&A with designer Erin Roberts, talking to him about several aspects
of the game, including the multiplayer component.
Future Gamer previews Flying Heroes looking ahead at this upcoming fantasy action flyer from Illusion Softworks and Pterodon. The article, in their typical Q&A format, also showcases an even dozen new screenshots.
games xtreme has conducted an interview with BioWare's Greg Zeschuk, chatting about their upcoming third-person action game MDK2. The article mainly focuses on the changes made to turn the story and gameplay of MDK into that of its sequel. MDK, as everyone knows, stands for Mad Dog Kennels.
Gone Gold, who is usually dead-on at these things, reports that Thief II: the Metal Age has gone gold, and as previously announced by Eidos ( story), should be in stores by March 20. To wet your appetite, 3D Action Planet has posted a lucky 13 new Thief II screenshots.
There is a new version 0.99.2 of JHexen, the OpenGL and Direct3D port by Jaakko Keränen, available at the JHexen site. This release brings a lot of improvements to the sound code, a selectable crosshair, as well as "slightly faster texture loading" and other fixes, and the source code is available too. Jaakko also inquires after help with creating a Glide renderer.
With a narrow escape from that dangling hammer, Legend has released a new Wheel of Time THUMB utility, or Ter'angreal Hand Utility Modifier and Builder. THUMB offers "a clean, intuitive way to completely remap your keys and ter'angreal placement," and this new version 1.1.7 provides support for a mini-interface, a Talk BindType, Say and TeamSay, user created artifacts, and more, as well as improvements to the way your configuration is saved in .ini files.
PSX News attended the Game Developer's Conference over the weekend, and they've
posted a writeup of the
Playstation 2 Unreal Tournament demo. They were also shown some of the new
features of the Unreal engine, including the new outdoor environment system.
Here's a quote: Not knowing what to expect, I was given the chance to
see the latest outdoor graphic technology being added to the existing Unreal
engine (we may see it in the PS2 port in the future once it is officially announced).
The outdoor engine allows gorgeous outdoor worlds to be rendered without losing
frame rates through DirectX. The system will be a Fully Integrated Outdoor System.
The outdoor environment we saw featured gorgeous trees, that were realistic
looking, and also contained independent branches. The leaves were detailed using
alpha-blended (the leaves will feature deep detail such as veins going through
the leaves). The water effects are still being worked on, but what I was shown
was the same effects featured in the PC version of the PS2.
A detailed
preview of Earth 2150, TopWare Interactive's upcoming 3D strategy game,
is up at CDMag. The preview appears to be hands-on, and features several screenshots
as well as conceptual artwork.
Action Forms has released Direct3D patch for Carnivores II, their first-person dinosaur hunting shooter. The patch contains the "latest version of Direct3D driver that fixes a sky problem on some 3D accelerators, including PowerVR, GeForce, Voodoo 3 etc."
GA-RPG has posted a new
Quicktime movie featuring in-game footage from Vampire: The Masquerade -
Redemption, as well as a demonstration of how the Maya API was used for the
character creation, and even some quotes from Nihilistic team members. It's
fairly high-quality, and certainly a promo-movie of some kind, although the
source isn't stated on the site. Update: it would appear that this movie was originally posted back in November (here's the original post), so if it seems oddly familiar, that's why.
A new preview
of the upcoming first person shooter Gore, has been posted at The Oxygen
Tank, featuring quotes from 4D Rulers president Joel Huenink, describing the
different features of the game and its underlying technology (the Amp engine by Slam Software).
Ritualistic has posted a
Q&A with Peter Annuss, a software engineer at Hyperion Software, the
company behind the upcoming Linux and Amiga ports of SiN. Peter discusses some
general info about the ports, including some system requirements for the Amiga
version.
Ground Control Center has posted part 1 of their Ground Control preview, using a visit to Massive Entertainment's offices to learn more about their upcoming 3D action RTS. This first, brief installment covers the introduction, story, and briefing in the game, and more is promised to appear soon.
There's a TWINE Q&A
on GA-Source talking with David Luoto, the creative director at EA for The
World is Not Enough, their upcoming Quake III-engine James Bond game. The Q&A discusses
working with the Bond franchise, working with the Quake (3) engine, and tries to
pry loose as many details about gameplay as possible.
JediKnight.Net sends word that the
German-language Obi
Wan preview on GamesZone News (here's that BabelFish
if you want a rough translation) has been updated with four new screenshots of
Episode One: Obi Wan, the upcoming first- and third-person Star Wars action game
that will put you in the role of Darth Vader's mentor.
The Daikatana.com website has received a
complete makeover (looks like an "Autumn" to me) in anticipation of
the game's imminent release. The update to the site's
news section promises the release of a new trailer for the game soon, and
adds the following concise reminder of tonight's IRC shindig with the Daikatana
team: And don't forget, tonight is the night for the latest edition of
the Daikatana Team Chat featuring members of John Romero's Daikatana Team.
The event kicks off at 8PM(central) and lasts for one fun filled hour.
This is your chance to hassle some of the most talented developers in the gaming
industry and find out the latest details on the very soon to be released
Daikatana.
You can join in by pointing your IRC client to www.ionstorm.com #ion, or you can
used the javascript based chat client at ionstorm.com.
GameSpot's Preview of WarCraft III
has been updated, catching up with the latest developments in the development of the
upcoming next installment in Blizzard's successful RTS franchise. As has
previously been announced, the plan continues to be to add more significant
role-playing elements than found in prior WC titles, but as the preview notes,
the game is taking shape with more strategy elements all the time:
After we talked to Rob Pardo, lead designer of Warcraft III, a few days
ago, we learned that the game would continue to have many role-playing elements,
such as heroes, interactive environments, a seamless world, story-driven
gameplay, quests, and experience for heroes. However, a change in direction now
lets Blizzard add more strategy elements that were absent in the original
design, such as scrolling, free-form building, and possibly even
expansion-building, and a more elaborate resource model.
There's a new Preview
of Starlancer on The Gamer's Voice looking ahead at Microsoft and
Digital Anvil's upcoming space combat game. In addition to the hands-on
impressions of the game, the piece also offers a
screenshot gallery with no less than 38 images from their beta build of the
game.
There are new O.R.B. Screenshots on Gamer's Alliance Strategy
showing four more views of gameplay from Off-World Resource Base, an upcoming
out-of this-world strategy game from Strategy First.
Proclaiming "l'Univers des jeux de Stratégie temps réel!" Ouare
Games previews Homeworld Cataclysm. As that quote demonstrates, this is a
French site, so if French is Greek to you, AltaVista Translations
can help out to some degree, and there is also a
gallery with a couple of exclusive screenshots and sketches which speak any
language, showing off the upcoming follow-up to Homeworld.
A problem with the recent version 0.5 release has spurred a quick follow-up on
the Counter-Strike Alias Binder
page, where version 0.51 is now available. It turns out a mix up in the code
on the previous release was serious enough that you will basically need the new
version to play on Counter-Strike
beta 6.0. Also, an update to the Counter-Strike
page (thanks Killjoy) gives word on
some workarounds for problems folks are having with the new release, which
include odd animations (caused by custom models), use of night vision goggles,
and lag problems (which it turns out are probably coincidence, since the net
code has not changed).
The Screaming Fist website has
the debut public release of version 0.5.4b of the Screaming Fist modification
for Starsiege TRIBES. According to their about
page, the mod leaves "Nothing of the original Starsiege TRIBES game
remaining," promising all new weapons, all new gear, all new vehicles, all
new mission types, all new maps, and all new armor types.
A new version 1.36 of the Challenge
mod for Quake III Arena is now available. Challenge adds several
tournament-friendly features, including a pre-match warm-up period, and the
ability for players on the server to vote on many aspects of gameplay.
Version 4.5 of The Heretic Fortress
is now available, described as the latest "and last?" version of this
mod that brings the class-based teamplay of TeamFortress to Heretic II. The
update adds changes to classes,
scoring
system and gameplay,
and adds a "damn" new voice command.
A new version 0.97 of the Q3Log mod is
now available. The new release of this log analysis program for Quake III Arena
adds support for custom variables, which allows you to create your own
statistics to track, a new full HTML help file, easier setup, and more.
The latest in what's turning out to be a release-a-day of the Admin Mod
brings this Half-Life administrative front-end to version 0.70. The new release
adds a nick reservation system, two new commands: "admin_pause" and
"admin_unpause," and "admin_help" output has been reformatted
to be more useful.
A big update to I.am/TFC adds more than a
dozen new "exotic and complete player configuration sets," as well as
other new scripts and aliases, 15 new TFC maps, and other miscellaneous files
like TFC desktop themes for Windows and "audio/visual enhancement kits for
TFC." What they (!?) call the "big news" is the addition of more
than 50 new training demos to help refine your gameplay in the TeamFortress
Classic mod for Half-Life. "These include exciting Combat-Action demos,
amazing Special-Technique demos (with all new techniques for the latest maps
such as BadLands) , and the ever-popular Speed-Run demos!"
"Stuff" is such an elegant term: There's a
new mapping tutorial on Quake3mods.net showing how to create a map with an
outer space feel to it. Also, Quake III Arena
Textures on The Mean Arena is Kiltron's first free texture pack, which features
96 textures designed for Q3A. Finally, word from the folks at MapFinger
is they are now host to over 1,100 maps for various games, comprising the work of
over 700 map authors.
Sign-ups are underway for PC Gamer Championships
a £5,000 Unreal Tournament competition in Nottingham, England (hence the
"£") on April 9. Also, voting is now taking place in the Quake3World
Quake III song contest.
While it's by no means a hard-and-fast rule, it has been noted previously in
this space (and elsewhere), that webmasters tend to come in two general shapes:
miniscule and gigantic. I fall into the former category myself, and am often asked
my secret for maintaining the same weight I had back when I was supposed to be
attending high school. Well it's certainly no secret, since it's been posted
here before, but since we're upon it's anniversary, I'll post another link to the
John Cash Diet, originally published three years ago. Remember, before
starting any diet, consult your physician: Blue's News (and John Cash, no doubt)
cannot accept responsibility for possible health impact of following this plan,
much less any other side effects... like offspring.
Link of the Day: I've
Been Probed Anonymous. Thanks lap. I wonder if Eric Cartman is a member?
Story of the Day: Charles
Gray R.I.P. Best known as the Rocky Horror professor, but also featured in a
pair of Connery Bonds in two different roles.
Computer Artworks has released a playable demo of their tactical genohunting action game Evolva on the official German Evolva site ( Flash required). The demo, which is multi-lingual and not just in German, is available on the download page (no Flash) in two flavors: one 30.3 MB regular demo without cinematics ("allerdings wurde sämtliche Movies herausgenommen"), and another 120.9 MB version that includes various cinematics ("hier sind Movies integriert"). Thanks 3DFiles, who has a mirror here.
GA-RPG interviews Niklas Weidel
about Archaean, a "massively
multiplayer online RPG in progress that they refer to as a second generation MMORPG.
According to the article, Archaean aspires to add a TLA called MOW, which stands
for Massive Online World, and the Q&A looks to uncover what this all means.
The intriguingly-titled chUmbaLum sOft
page (pAgE?) has a new version 1.2.0 of the MilkShape3D modeling program.
The new release offers full Quake III Arena .md3 export, while support for
importing the .md3 format is still in the works.
The release of the first episode of the Dawn of Darkness
TC for Quake II is now available, a free public release that is a
continuation of a project that was originally intended for commercial release.
There's not much news with the release, but according to the
about page, DoD offers "Seven versatile new weapons, four powerups,
more than 12 all new enemies, and unrelenting combat that's in your face and
up-close!" Thanks Linny Amore.
A new version 1.2 of T.E.C. for Quake III Arena
is now available fixing some bugs, including the one that could cause all the
techs to spawn on the same spot, and adds a few new features like a new hook,
team colored grapple trail, and more (thanks The Oxygen Tank).
The new version also includes some changes intended to make gameplay smoother.
The page also has an update about a bug that effects running mods under Quake
III Arena: There is a bug with id's code that causes a double startup
when running mods. It not only affects T.E.C., but other mods as well. There is
a way to get around this annoyance by creating a shortcut (Windows only) to the
game which has fs_game already set to tec. This problem can be annoying but
isn't going to cause you any problems with playing the game. We'll release
something that you can use to launch T.E.C. with the next patch.
The first public release of the Loaded Q3A
mod is now available. Loaded offers a load of new features and over 115(!)
new configuration commands. All of the mods features can be individually toggled
on and off, among the options offered are an enhanced message of the day, an
advanced high scoring system, respawn protection, "absolute" item
banning and replacement, and more.
A post on DiabloII.Net has some
commentary on the RPG Gamer
Diablo II beta story mentioned earlier ( story)
saying that its reference to this being an open beta is incorrect, and they have
some doubts about some release date speculation they've seen, as well, saying:
"If you're puzzled, it is indeed the Closed Beta Test that is being
finalized, rather than the Open Beta Test that is mistakenly cited in the
article. And we must comment that rumours of a summer/early fall release date
are definitely not confirmed by Blizzard at this point." Some of this seems
to be semantics, since the earlier report refers to sign-ups for the open beta,
which on some level is contradictory. Thanks The Oxygen Tank.
Work on an official Quake III Arena mission pack from id Software is underway,
this having been revealed at the Game Developer's Conference. There are a
few shots in GameSpy.com's GDC Coverage
showing off models created by id's Paul Steed for the pack. The shots aren't
actual screenshots, but are photos of a monitor displaying the images, though
the quality is not bad.
The Mortyr Website
has posted some new images calling them "three fresh screenshots coming
from our latest project." There are no more details on what game the shots
are from, though it has previously been announced that the Mortyr engine will
power an upcoming first-person shooter titled Warhammer 40,000: Agents of Death
based on the Warhammer 40,000 franchise.
There are two new Soldier of Fortune screenshots on SOFNews.com,
saying "These things are like Chicklets(TM) you just can't have enough SoF
Screenshots." While I won't argue with the latter, I'm guessing it's
actually not that hard to have too many Chicklets.
A report called Diablo II Beta News
on RPG Gamer gives word of an announcement out of the Game Developer's
Conference that an open beta of Blizzard's highly-anticipated Diablo II is
nearing completion, and to watch their site
for information on how to sign up for the open beta, which should appear within
the next few days. Thanks GreasyPete.
Pandemic
Discusses Dark Reign 2: Part 1 on The Adrenaline Vault with a look ahead at
the sequel to Dark Reign, Pandemic's RTS offering. The article talks with Greg
Borrud, a director at Pandemic, about progress on the game, and offers up
several screenshots to show off the 3D effects of its new engine.
There's a Force
Commander Preview on Games Domain Review talking with Garry Gaber of
LucasArts about this Star Wars RTS that is due in stores March 20. The Q&A
gives a rundown on gameplay, and features some screenshots.
Hentai, who says "I coulda SWORN I'd stomped out all the bugs...," was
obviously mistaken, as he sends word of a new version 2.3.6 of the Viz mod for
Quake III Arena on the El Niño Quake Extensions
page, hot on the heels of version 2.3.5 ( story).
The new release fixes behavior of how your weapon appears from your point of
view.
Another rapid-fire new release comes from Alfred's Page
where there's a new version 0.67 of the Admin Mod for Half-Life, which comes
quite soon after the release of version 0.65 ( story).
The Admin Mod allows limited administrator access to selected players on a
server, without giving them access to that dangerous console. The new version
adds a new "admin_help" command, as well as a new WIN32 version.
Making Animation Child's Play
on Wired looks at the art of making motion pictures using game engines, also
known as Machinima by the strange folks
at Strange Company, who are a
primary focus of the article, dedicated as they are to making movies using
Unreal and Quake. Speaking of game movies, Unreal Movie Studio News
has a new version of Unreal Movie Studio that supports Wheel of Time for making
game movies, as well as Unreal and UT.
The Synergetics Entertainment website
has a new public beta 2 of the DarkEdit level editor for Quake I & II, Hexen
I & II, which also offers limited Half-Life support. DarkEdit is based on the
BSP level editor, developed by Yahn Bernier, who is now developing tools and such for
Valve Software. The new version offers improved reliability, improved
performance, and full support of the Genesis3D engine version 1.0 and 1.1.
Support for Heretic II, Sin, and other Quake-engine games is in the works. Also,
Cambone's Crypt has a new
alpha version 0.85 of the Unreal Script Editor that adds a few nuances, like
auto-indent and smart-tabbing, and fixes a few bugs. Finally, a new coding
tutorial on Quake3mods.net
shows how to add your own menu commands to the Q3A UI.
Playing games with ‘box specs’
on MSNBC points out that on occasion, what the box can tell you about a
game's minimum system requirements can be an outright lie, saying: "One of
the most agonizing torments in computer gaming is to tear the shrink wrap off
the title you’ve been drooling about for months, do the monster install and
find that the game runs like a slide show — or, worse yet, not at all."
Thanks Conan Ford and Hanson.
Well it was two down and one to go until yesterday, when Frans' cable modem went
belly up last night leaving all three of us off line from our digital connections. Whee!
Fortunately, even as I type these words, he's popped back online, which is good
news indeed, as this is certainly a misery that needs no company. Now loony and
I can look forward to the resumption of regular business hours tomorrow, when
the folks looking into the problems with both of our ISDN lines can resume
shrugging their shoulders and scratching their heads (among other body parts).
Link of the Day: Target1,
which allows you to play Quake III Arena using Flash, although you must follow
the strict newbie method of not moving. Thanks Ant
and Ryan Stotts.
Story of the Day: Iranians buy Soviet 'killer' dolphins
(London Times). Ripped right from the pages of Day of the Dolphin.
"Ma love pa!" Thanks Dr. Will Vuong and the Rogue Spear Retreat.
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