Archived News:
3dfxgamers has released their Voodoo3 3500TV Windows 2000 Drivers - Version: 1.00.00 BETA. This is the first release, carrying the usual all-caps warning that these beta drivers are unsupported, so download at your own risk.
incitegames has posted a movie of RUNE, previously released on their magazine cover CD, featuring in-game and concept art footage from the third-person Viking action game by Human Head. Tim Gerritsen and Chris Rhinehart are at hand to provide commentary, and the movie weighs in at a pretty hefty 44 MB.
GameSpot has compiled a History of Star Wars Games feature, looking back at the property that LucasArts has been turning into a long series of games, including the first-person shooters Dark Forces and Jedi Knight, and the space combat titles in the X-Wing and TIE Fighter series. There are also brief looks ahead to Force Commander and Obi Wan, the latter illustrated with a few images from a video tape. Note: it appears this was a 'classic' feature first posted in May 1999, but we didn't report it at the time, so here it is as yet ![=]](/miscimages/smiley4.gif) .
Also online at GameSpot this evening is a preview of Crimson Skies, examining the fantasy action flight sim by Zipper and Microsoft, set in an alternate 1930's "Untied State of America." The article describes this story background, looks at gameplay, graphics and other aspects of the game, and comes with a bunch of new screenshots.
Blizzard has announced that sign-ups for the Diablo II multiplayer beta test will open on Monday, March 20 12:01 AM PST at their website. This first test is limited to players from United States and Canada, and 1,000 testers will be selected from those applying. Thanks DiabloII.net.
There is a new Ground Control preview online at GameProWorld, looking ahead to the 3D action RTS in development at Massive Entertainment by way of a recent build of the game. A handful of new screenshots illustrate the gameplay and game interface on offer.
French gaming site Joystick ("Le Quaibe Joystick") has conducted an interview with Gabe Newell, CEO of Valve Software, where you can listen to the English conversation in RealPlayer audio and read along the transcript in French (possibly by sticking a Babelfish into your other ear). The extensive interview covers a whole bunch of topics, such as how games are designed at Valve, their upcoming Team Fortress II, supporting the mod community, the Powerplay initiative, and more.
Raven's Kenn Hoekstra updated his .plan to describe a couple of updates to the official Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force site. Here is what's new:
The Official Elite Force Website has been updated to include a new desktop wallpaper that features the Hazard Suit as well as a new developer profile of lead animator Brian Shubat. In addition, the images and biographies of the Hazard Team have been added.
Thanks to Rob Gee for his handiwork. =)
Fox Interactive has opened the official site for their just-announced game based on the Buffy the Vampire Slayer TV series ( story), featuring information and images of some of the character models from the game. Also, GA-Source has posted the first pair of
in-game shots.
Interplay's official MDK 2 site has been updated with 7
new screenshots from the PC version of the game. They promise 5 new screenshots
from the Dreamcast version will be posted tomorrow. MDK, as everyone knows,
stands for More Downtrodden Kids.
incitegames has posted an
MPEG movie featuring footage from Starlancer, Digital Anvil's upcoming space-sim.
The footage comes from their press build of the full game, and they promise
more will follow over the next few days.
Ground Control Center has added the second part of their Ground Control preview, covering the gameplay, interface and missions in this upcoming 3D action RTS. As with part one ( story), the preview is based on a visit to Massive Entertainment's offices in Sweden.
id Software has released the final version of the Quake III Arena Point Release,
numbered version 1.16n. Unlike its predecessors, this is not a beta release,
and features the addition of the id designer player models amongst other changes
(a full list can be obtained on our download pages). In addition to the new
version, id has released the 3D Studio Max files used for the new models in the
patch, which are available as a separate download. Here are file pages, complete
with local copies and mirrors:
id Software's Robert Duffy updated his
.plan with some details on the just-released update to Quake III Arena (see
above) as well as some info for mod developers. Here's the scoop: The
1.16 point release is done. It should start appearing on mirrors soon, in all
three flavors. The release also contains the original player models done way
back when for Xian, Carmack, Hellrot, Paul Jaquays, Willits, and Brandon James
( now at Rogue ). These are included in the PK3 file. Available separately are
the Max files for each as well.
There were only a few changes between 1.16m and 1.16n, the readme details what
was changed. I should get the code bundled up and out within a few days as well.
Any problems with the release ( or the game in general ) need to be e-mailed
to livehumanfeedback@idsoftware.com,
this will ensure the issues get added to our bug database and looked at.
The Mod scene is pretty much exploding, I have a very long list of Mods to look
at and play. A few issues have come up that are centered around Mod coding and
requested features.
-Config files. The q3config.cfg file IS propogated to each mod directory as
a set of defaults. If you want to use mod specific configurations, just use
a yourmodname.cfg file and execute it at load time and save it out when appropriate.
-Server side DLL support for pure servers. This would allow pure servers to
load DLL's on the server side only while keeping the clients pure. This will
likely be possible in a future release.
-Client identification. Cheating is obviously a big issue. It seems that some
people just cannot get over the fact that they suck at the game and have to
cheat to try and make up for it :-) This along with abusive players has caused
quite a few requests for the ability to generate a unique user ID based on the
end users CD Key. This would allow servers to ban troublesome players or habitual
cheaters. This method would not compromise the CD Key in any way but would provide
a unique string that would identify a particular user irrespective of their
user name, ip address and so on. Our current thought process is to implement
a system very similar to caller ID. This would allow a server to be setup to
accept only clients that provide their ID or accept all ( anonymous ) clients.
Clients would be able to specify whether or not to provide their ID or be anonymous.
Any feedback on this is welcome ( This is NOT in the game at this time but is
under consideration )
Tools
-----
There should be a new release of the tools available within a few days as well.
The editor is still undergoing quite a few changes but I want to get it out
so people can work around the nVidia stipple slow down and take advantage of
the new plugins that are about to hit the streets. Tool feedback still needs
to go to tools@idsoftware.com
Some folk from GameSpy attended Shiny's Sacrifice demonstration at last weekend's
Game Developer's Conference, and they took
some pictures (with a digital camera) of the game in action. Because they aren't true "screenshots" they're a little on the fuzzy side, but they
are very impressive nonetheless. Sacrifice is Shiny's upcoming 3D RTS game,
which will be fully revealed at this year's E3 (hopefully).
File this one under inevitable...Fox Interactive has
announced an upcoming third person action/adventure game based on the Buffy
The Vampire Slayer TV series. The game is being developed by The Collective,
the same people behind the upcoming Unreal-engine title Star Trek: Deep Space
Nine - The Fallen, and will be published for the PC, Dreamcast and Playstation
platforms this Fall.
The Wargamer has posted their preview of Starlancer based on the press beta. The detailed article covers many aspects of this space opera by Warthog and Digital Anvil, including the story background, installation and documentation, gameplay and multiplayer, graphics and sound, and more, illustrating each step along the way with a couple of screenshots.
Sneaking one more preview up on us before the recently gilded game hits retail stores next week, EuroGamer looks ahead to Thief II: the Metal Age, the stealthy first-person action game by Looking Glass. By now most of the screenshots look familiar though.
The official Messiah site has a new gallery of 20 screenshots, showing off more scenes from the futuristic third-person possess-em-up that is nearing completion at Shiny.
GameSpot has posted a very in-depth Nox Game Guide, available for online perusal or as a download-for-pay PDF. The guide covers single-player strategies for all three player classes in Westwood's isometric action-RPG, detailed single-player walkthroughs, multiplayer strategies, and even the cheat codes if you're completely stuck.
A couple of updated guides are on offer at GameFAQs: the Thief: The Dark Project Gold FAQ/Walkthrough reaches a perfect version 10.0 with new and updated mission walkthroughs and other tips. Also, the Ultima IX: Ascension guide was expanded with new sections covering the Shrines of Honor and Valor. Finally, there were some minor updates to this guide for The Sims by Dan Simpson.
Part 2 -- FMVs, Breaking the Rules and Killer Ewoks! sees Daily Radar continuing their conversation with Garry Gaber, producer on Star Wars: Force Commander. This installment covers the use of units, the FMV sequences in the game, the 3D gameplay, and even (ieek!) the presence of Ewoks.
There's a Dreamcast.Net Chat with Bioware
planned for today at 8:00 PM EST talking about progress on MDK2, BioWare's
upcoming sequel to Shiny's quirky action game (the chat is on Dreamcast.Net, but
the game will be released simultaneously on the PC). In addition to the Java
version at the page above, the session can be attended with a normal IRC client
by joining the channel #mdk2 on either irc.damaged.net or irc.ipa.net. Dr. Greg
Zeschuk and other members of the MDK2 team will be in attendance. MDK, of
course, stands for Many Dumb Komments. Also, the Allegiance Vault
has plans for a chat session with the developers of Allegiance,
Microsoft's upcoming space combat game that just went gold. The chat will be
tomorrow at 9:00 PM EST (6:00 PST) on irc.vaultnetwork.com in the channel
#vault. Planned attendees include Executive Producer Joel Dehlin, Lead
Designer/Art Director Robert Girling, Dev Manager Curt Carpenter, and Test
Manager Mark Snyder.
X-Com Alliance Gameplay Revealed
on GA-Source talks with Martin DeRiso, producer on X-Com Alliance, the
upcoming Unreal-engine installment in Microprose's X-Com series. The piece
discusses how gameplay will unfold in this action installment in the turn-based
series, saying it "will be something like Swat3 meets 'Aliens', with
Half-Life or even Prince of Persia style gameplay."
There's a Deus
Ex development update on Unreal Universe by Bob White giving the latest on progress on ION Storm's upcoming Unreal-engine RPG. There aren't really many
details other than word that work on several areas continues, though the mention
that work is beginning on the manuals and strategy guides is further indication
that the end of the game's development cycle is nearing.
A new version 2.0 of MapViewerPro,
the utility that makes it easy to browse through your collection of maps, is now available. The
new version adds Quake III Arena support to the program's Unreal Tournament
support.
A new version 1.51 of the Q_Check
mIRC auto-away plug-in script for GameSpy users is now available. Q_Check detects
when a user joins a game server via GameSpy and automatically sets the user away
and announces the name and ip address of the server to the channel.
A version 0.02 of the Crusade mod
for Quake III Arena is now available offering an opportunity to play an
early test version of a Q3A mod in the works from Termite and CompWiz, both
veterans of the Future versus Fantasy QuakeWorld team.
Today's version of the Admin Mod
for Half-Life is 0.73. If you are keeping track, there was an interim version
0.72 since yesterday's Admin Mod story, but at this point we'll try to
stick to one update per day of this administrative front-end for Half-Life.
A new version 1.2 of the Q3Map
Explorer is now available, updating this front-end to the Quake III Arena
level design tools, the new version supports compiling and running maps from a
mod folder, and fixes several bugs. Also, there are a pair of new tutorials
on Quake3mods.net, one on using
prefabs, and the other on even more complex doors than their previous complex
door tutorial.
ZDNet News Intel wins X-Box deal at 11th hour
answering "How did Intel snatch away the coveted role of primary chip
vendor for MS' game system?" Thanks Frank Lemire. Also, the J Allard
interview on GameSpot UK talks with the MS X-Box ""guru"
about the already quite-hyped upcoming console system from Microsoft, while the Derek Perez
interview on Planet GeForce talks about NVIDIA's participation in the
project. Finally, X-Box -- Threat or promise
is a MacGaming editorial examining
whether Mac advocates should be circling the wagons.
The Microsoft Age of Empires II: Age of Kings
scenario contest on the Gaming Zone looks to pick a grand prize winning
scenario that will be included on the Age of Empires II: The Conquerors
Expansion pack CD.
Happy Ides of March... it's certainly turning out to be a better Ides than
Caesar's, as the mysterious problems with ISDN (which was beginning to stand for
It Sits Doing Nothing) seem to have cleared up for both loony and me. When these
problems popped up, MrsBlue commented that Mercury was in retrograde or
something, and predicted that it would clear up yesterday, and that's indeed the
way it played out (I'm considering having her debriefed by an exorcist). Anyway,
the solution seems to fit into the grandest tradition of F.M., the F'ing Magic
that's behind so many computer difficulties, as the only way I could get the
ISDN to connect is by disabling Win98SE Internet connection sharing, so after
some wrangling, I am online again and sharing my connection using good old SyGate.
In case there was a doubt about the F.M. part, loony found disabling Internet
sharing worked for him too, but he was using SyGate to start with, and still no
explanation of why this popped up for both of us simultaneously... surely F.M.,
or at least Mercury retrograde.
Link of the Day: Jay's Kids,
looking to locate any of the up to 57 children possibly fathered by late rocker
Jalacy J. ("Screamin' Jay") Hawkins. Thanks Zdim.
Bonus Link: Condoms @ CondomTown.
Safe e-commerce even without SSL. Thanks [POLO] Irishman.
Story of the Day: Couple Charged With Cohabitation
(ABQjournal). Thanks Buclerpp. Gotta love archaic laws.
Image of the Day: This
eye test. Thanks Ozh.
Cliff Bleszinski updated his
.plan with word that he's posted the
materials from his lecture at the Game Developer's Conference at his home
page. The lecture is titled, "The Art and Science of Level Design"
and contains lots of useful info for level designers, regardless of whether
or not you use the Unreal engine.
The first batch
of screenshots from UFS Vanguard, Red Storm's upcoming space-sim, have popped
up at GameSpot News. As shown in the shots, the game is played from a third
person perspective, although according to GameSpot you have full control of the camera
during battle.
Soft Enterprises have released a German patch for their first-person shooter Skout. There is no information on the changes in this version 1.4 patch, but it likely resolves some of the known problems listed on the previous patch page.
ST-Armada.com has posted the
intro movie from Star Trek: Armada, Activision's upcoming Star Trek themed
RTS. The movie is just under 45 MB, and is in the high-quality Bink format
(viewer available at RAD Video Tools),
which is very likely the same format the full game will use.
A new version 1.13a of The Unofficial GLQuake Update Project is now available at the project's homepage, offering only one but significant change, the addition of the "much-awaited" GL QuakeWorld Client. Updated source code of the project is also available for download.
Adrenaline Vault has an update on the current state of development of MDK2, which is described as "content complete." BioWare is now entering the final stretch of testing and bug fixing their third-person action sequel to MDK, but they are focusing on the Dreamcast version (of which a few new screenshots are included), so the PC version will be lagging a few weeks behind that. MDK, of course, stands for Mother-Daughter Kinship.
A brief developer diary on the official Star Trek: Klingon Academy site brings the latest information on Interplay's space combat sim, mentioning some of the bug fixes and design tweaks they made as a result of player feedback on the recently released demo ( story).
Third time's a charm, as another developer diary was posted last night on the official Star Trek: Armada site, in which Dr. Ian Lane Davis presents his Mad Doctor's Designer Diary discussing Activision's space-based RTS. The update covers the development of tactical and strategic AI that control the four different races and their ships, and also talks about the networking and interface for the game.
incitegames has posted a movie of Warcraft III, previously available on their magazine cover CD-ROM, featuring cinematic and in-game footage from Blizzard's role-playing strategy game, interlaced with comments from producer Rob Pardo on the various features they are designing. The in-game sequences were filmed from a computer screen, so they suffer from some scanline effects.
The weekly update to the official Summoner site puts a new screenshot on offer, showing two characters from Volition's upcoming 3D role-playing game, and there is also a new soundtrack MP3 entitled "Wolong".
StrangeCompany has updated their
official LithTech Film Producer web site with some new screenshots (in a
16x9 aspect ratio) from the GDC LithTech 2 engine demo, as well as new information
on this upcoming LithTech 2 engine powered software for making real-time 3D
animated films.
Rust has posted a
Q&A with Alex Mayberry, the lead level designer at Electronic Arts on
their upcoming Quake III Arena engine title, The World is Not Enough. Alex talks
about how he wound up in the gaming industry as well as the changes they're
making to the Q3Radiant editor (they have a programmer devoted exclusively to
it) and what it's like to make a level for the PC and PS2 platforms simultaneously.
Gone Gold, the (bad pun alert) gold standard
for news of this nature, has received official word from Activision, that Soldier
of Fortune has gone gold, and is off to manufacturing. While Raven had already
signed off on the title (see below) whether or not to actually release the game
yet was up to Activision. Expect the game to hit store shelves by the end of
the month.
An update to Rick Johnson's
.plan gives word that Soldier of Fortune, Raven's Quake II-engine mercenary
shooter, is about done, calling the game's current status "baked to a light
GOLD." Here's the scoop: Unofficially, SoF has been baked to a
light GOLD! We are code released! Masters have been sent off to duplication.
Technically, the head of QA has to sign off on the paper work tomorrow to make
it official, but we are done! All 5 versions (US Full Violence, US Low Violence,
UK Full, French Full, and German Low) have made it through QA. At this time, we
are not aware when it will hit the stores, other than it will be this month.
There is a chat log on Daikatana HeadQuarters
and a pre-chat log on
Bennyland along with a
chat log and a post chat
log, all recounting activity at last night's chat session with the Daikatana
team.
There's a short TRIBES
2 Q&A on GameArena.net asking five questions of unnamed members of the
TRIBES 2 development team. The conversation focuses on differences between the
upcoming sequel and its predecessor, although by the end they are already
impatiently poking around for tidbits on the possibility of a TRIBES 3.
GamesWeb
interviews Sverre Kvernmo talking with the designer at Third Law Interactive
about KISS: Psycho Circus, their upcoming tongue-wagging, blood-spitting
shooter. The Q&A is in German, but as always, a fairly acceptable
translation can be found through AltaVista Translations.
Thanks PsychoNews. The Q&A includes
some new screenshots. Update: there is also an English version on the site itself.
An update to Bobby Pavlock's
.plan offers a request from the Rogue level designer for feedback on what
folks want to see included in Alice, Rogue's upcoming Quake III-engine game that
looks to take gamers through the looking glass. Here's the deal: I'm
really curious to hear what everyone would like to see in Alice. Let me be
completely clear in that this is strictly a personal curiosity, and doesn't
necessarily mean any of it will end up being seen in the game. But I am
interested in hearing the community's thoughts and ideas, etc. So if you have a
minute and want to share some of your thoughts about what you would like to see
in Alice, drop me an email at bobby@rogue-ent.com
and lemme know what ya got on your mind. Feel free to discuss any and all
aspects of the game. I'm not going to make any promises about having time to
reply to everyone, as this is going to be a very busy work week for me. Got a
deadline coming up this Friday and all.
There are new StarLancer
screenshots on GA-Source giving a dozen more looks ahead at Microsoft and
Digital Anvil's upcoming space combat game.
There's another new screenshot on the Camelot Vault
showing off this upcoming MMMORPG (Medieval Massively Multiplayer online
role-playing game).
The official Star Wars Force Commander
site, rather frighteningly musical itself already, has been updated with a
pair of new musical selections from Force Commander, LucasArts' upcoming Star
Wars RTS. The music, in that .mp3 format that all the kids are talking about, is
from "Imperial March Leviathan" and "Redemption at Abridon,"
both selections of original Star Wars music composed and conducted by John
Williams. Thanks FCOutpost.com. Also,
part one of a Star Wars Force Commander
interview on Daily Radar is up, talking with Gary Gaber, the producer on the
just-gold title.
There are new Devil Inside
screenshots on PC.IGN.Com showing off gameplay from Gamesquad's upcoming
"supernatural action/thriller." The thumbnails may appear broken when
you visit, but the images are really there, though the server seems to be
having intermittent problems. There are more shots on The Adrenaline Vault
(with working thumbnails) along with word that though the game was announced as
having gone gold last month, that this was the European version, and that North
American consumers will have to wait for a "retooled" version that
will be released in the Fall.
There are three new Messiah screenshots
on The Oxygen Tank showing off gameplay from Shiny's upcoming possessive
third-person action game.
Domination-Q3 Download and Installation
page has a new version 1.2 of the Domination mod for Quake III Arena. The new
version offers a new Windows front-end to launch both clients and servers, a new
HUD with "UT style" display of current point status, and improved Bot
support (described as "still not perfect, but slightly more playable").
The release of the day of the Admin Mod
for Half-Life is a new version 0.71, a bug fix for what were apparently some
show stoppers in version 0.70 of this administrative front-end for Half-Life.
The first release of James McCombe's DOOMling
is now available, believe it or not, bringing some form of Doom gameplay to Palm
handheld organizers. Thanks Terror_5.
There are some X-Box Demo Movies on
PC.IGN.Com with some camcorder footage of the video demonstrations of the
X-Box at the GDC, and likewise X-Box
in Motion on incite offers what they call "illicit video" of the
X-Box from the GDC. Also, The X-Box has landed
on gameplay.com recaps the unveiling of the X-Box in the UK, and PCRave's Microsoft X-Box Analysis
offers speculation on the announcement, in case you can't come up with your own.
Finally, HARDWAREGURU interviews Derek
Perez of NVIDIA about NVIDIA's contribution to the X-Box spec. The site is in
German ("die tägliche PC-Zeitung im Web"), but hitting the
"NVIDIA X-Box Interview" button will launch an English-language
version of the Q&A.
Teamplay.Net's QIL
page has news that TP.Net and the QIL are heading into their own form of
March madness, as they round into the playoffs. Word is the QIL3 Finals will be
held in San Francisco, CA (April 28-30), with the Final Four Teams to be flown
in free of charge for the three day event to decide the undisputed #1 team in
North America. There are also plans for a small BYOC event, as well as live QTV
and Shoutcast broadcasts from the event.
- Games Weekly Magazine
interviews the MechCommander team about plans for MechCommander 2...
- Upon returning from GDC, Nihilistic's Rob Huebner updated
his .plan, including advice on crafting a resume that will help you land
a job making games...
- If you (or your lawyer) follows these things, the CPL sends word that a
resolution has been reached in their dispute with EA of the use of the term
"cyberathlete," and their related lawsuit has been dropped...
Hmmm about 10 hours at work on the ISDN yesterday leaves it just as broken as
before, the consensus is that "it should be working." While this
explanation appeals to me as much as it does to those trying to fix this, the
ISDN seems unimpressed. It's been a week now, and there's basically no end in
sight. At least keeping the bandwidth requirements on the site fairly modest all
these years is finally paying off for me personally...
Link of the Day: Roadside America Video.
Thanks EvilToast, who points out this
one offers about two weeks worth of links of the day.
Story of the Day: Dungeons & Dragons to go open-source
on Salon Technology. Thanks Ant.
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