Archived News:
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.
|
Twitter 
