Archived News:
There are two new Enclave screenshots on Adrenaline Vault, offering another glimpse of this first-person shooter by Starbreeze Studios that was announced earlier today ( story).
The official O.R.B. site has been updated with four new screenshots from Offworld Resource Base, the upcoming space-based RTS in development at Strategy First.
UT Cleaned is now the home for this very comprehensive Unreal Tournament FAQ, answering any question you may have on Epic's acclaimed first-person shooter. Elsewhere, the detailed Thief: The Dark Project Gold FAQ on GameFAQs was updated with a walkthrough for Mission 11 and various improvements throughout, while the Half-Life TFC multiplayer guide was also updated.
Activision has released a patch for the OEM version of Heavy Gear II that came with the 3Com US Robotics Game Modem. Like the previous OEM patch ( story), it corrects the Single Player mode problem of this particular version.
Microsoft sent along word that at an unspecified time on Wednesday, March 22, interested gamers can sign up for the beta program at their Starlancer site or participating websites. Also, the official Starlancer UK site opened today ( Flash required), sporting ten new screenshots and offering two UK gamers the chance to win a trip to "Space Camp." Thanks StarLancer.Org.
There is a new high-res TRIBES 2 screenshot on the official TRIBES Players site, sporting an impressive desert view of Dynamix' upcoming team-based action shooter. Thanks Starsiege-Tribes.De for the tip. Also new, I believe, is this lower resolution screenshot of a player model set in the environment known from previous images.
3dfxgamers has released new Voodoo3 3500TV Windows 9x WHQL Drivers - version: 1.04.02, separating the drivers/3dfx Tools from the VisualReality kit "to make download easier," and offering more VisualReality help files for non-English languages.
Version 1.3 of SHUD, an improved
heads-up display for Quake III Arena has been released. This new version adds
frags per players and player efficiency stats in addition to other changes.
An article in USA Today (it's available
online as well) gives some preliminary details on Verant and LucasArts'
upcoming massively multiplayer Star Wars RPG (thanks AVault).
While there still aren't any major details, the article does say that the game
will take place on Tatooine around the same time as the first Star Wars movie
("A New Hope" not "The Phantom Menace"). It also says that
you will not be able to play as recognizable Star Wars characters, but instead
you'll be able to fit into one of several different character types, such as
rebel soldier, bounty hunter and mercenary.
SpecForce, normally dedicated to the Spec Ops series of tactical shooters, has posted a pair of screenshots from Navy SEALs, the repeatedly cancelled and resurrected tactical action game, first by Sierra and then by Codemasters. Five more are promised later today, presumable coming from the same set of eight screenshots that are already available at GA-Source. Although the title is officially cancelled ( story), this story on Well Rounded News indicates that there may still be a glimmer of hope that the license will appear "in some other context."
- Blade Universe has posted its Blade screenshot of the week, depicting a fighting scene in the upcoming third-person action game by Rebel Act.
- Bethesda Softworks have announced that they will publish Echolon, the futuristic combat flightsim by Russian companies Madia and Buka, and they have released three new screenshots from the game. Another triplet of new images is online at FileClicks as well as GA-Source.
- Tales of a smart-mouthed wizard and his hat is a preview of Simon the Sorcerer 3D on Computer Games Online, offering a handful of new screenshots of the NetImmerse3D-powered adventure by Headfirst.
- There is a gallery of The Longest Journey screenshots online at GameSpot UK, providing more looks ahead to this 3D adventure game that features polygonal characters on prerendered backgrounds.
The Unreal Tournament Server Announcer, a little system tray application that
notifies server admins when players join their server, has been released, and
is available
for download at FilePlanet (thanks PlanetUnreal).
The Delta Force 2 HQ has conducted a
new Q&A session with NovaLogic's Dan Bennett, talking to the PR manager
about their tactical shooter Delta Force 2. Dan clarifies some of the rumors
that have been floating around, and says flat out that they do not plan to yoink
support for Delta Force 1 from NovaWorld as had been speculated.
In other NovaLogic news, GameSpot UK has posted a
preview of Tachyon: The Fringe, their first foray into the space-sim genre.
The preview sports 10 new screenshots from the game, which uses an original
polygon-based engine, not the venerable VoxelSpace engine used in the Delta
Force titles (as well as other games from NovaLogic).
A new, hands-on
preview of Starlancer, Digital Anvil's upcoming space epic, has been posted
over at CDMag. The preview is based on a build of the full game, and compares
it to, "a very refined Wing Commander." In other Starlancer news,
some pre-rendered
images from the game's CGI sequences have been posted at 3D Gaming World.
Ooops, forgot these earlier... here goes:
Version 0.99.3 of JHexen,
an enhanced version of Hexen based on the source code, has been released. This
new version mostly contains bug fixes, including correcting some nasty crashes,
but also adds a new "flare fading" feature, and a way to specify a
minimum light level. Also released is the first version of JHeretic, a version of the JHexen engine that supports Heretic, Raven's precursor to Hexen.
3D Action Planet has posted a
new MP3 file containing some of the music from Rune, Human Head's upcoming
Unreal-engine, third person action title.
The Starbreeze Studios Enclave
site is now live (thanks TeleFragged),
dedicated to this newly-announced first-person shooter from Swedish developer Starbreeze
Studios. There are six
Enclave screenshots on this page, and an
Enclave movie on this page showing off 1:19 of gameplay in your choice of a
six MB 320x240 .mpg, a 12 MB 320x240 .mpg, or a whopping 114 MB 640x480 .avi
(Intel Indeo5 codec), with the movie soundtrack also available as a one MB .mp3.
In a possibly related note, the Starbreeze
news page mentions the termination of the Sorcery
project, a first-person fantasy/RPG that lost its funding when Infogrames
acquired Gremlin, though they note that "Starbreeze retains all rights to
use the Sorcery-Engine for future projects." Back to Enclave, here's a bit
from the Starbreeze page describing the environment in which you play, an arena
called The Dome: Rust, dirt, fantasy and primitive machines. The
environments are large and moving, with massive machinery that affects the
gameplay directly. At some points you will even find yourself inside the
machines themselves, to be grinded into pieces between cogwheels, or sucked
through enormous ventilation systems.
Here's a reminder that today is the day to sign up for the limited public beta
of Diablo II, you can sign up on the Diablo II Public Beta
page. Only 1,000 applicants will be selected, but you do not need to rush:
as long as your application is in by the end of today, you have an equal chance
of being one of those randomly selected to test the follow-up to Blizzard's hit
isometric-view RPG.
There is a Soldier of
Fortune: First Impressions article on Thresh's FiringSquad looking ahead at
Raven's imminent mercenary shooter that just went gold last week ( story).
The preview, based on some hands-on impressions of a gold master they received
from Activision, discusses what's changed in the full version since the
release of the demo, illustrated with some new screenshots showing off weapons that were not included in the demo.
The Demonic Capture the Flag page
has the debut release of Demonic Soccer, a Quake III Arena mod that attempts to
combine the competitiveness of Q3A with the brutal violence of soccer (or
something like that). Like the original Quake soccer way back when, gameplay
involves kicking a skull around, which will react appropriately when it's kicked
through a teleporter or off a jumppad, etc. Included in the mod are five new
maps.
The YAQALA site has the release of
YAQALA, which concisely stands for Yet Another Quake Arena* Log Analyser. This
freeware program "can count all your frags, deaths, items, maps, games,
awards and all of things related to Quake III Arena," and in a rare turn of
events, is declared to be bug-free, non-beta software.
Cliff Bleszinski's
.plan has an update from the Epic Games level designer giving a detailed
explanation of why the Zeroping mod for Unreal Tournament, intended to even the
playing field as far as differing connection speeds goes, actually has problems
that make it unfair in many ways (though basically in the same way
"normal" netplay is unfair, since Zeroping at times actually rewards
players with bad pings the way regular matches reward those with good
connections).
Today is the Spring Equinox in this neck of the proverbial woods. As has been
noted here before, global warming and what-have-you have reduced the
transitional seasons of Spring and Fall to very brief affairs in New York, much
shorter than Winter and Summer. So with the brief period with mild weather and
buds on the trees beginning sometime about now, I'm going to make a point of
making a rare trip outdoors to check it out before the rapid shift in weather
that causes the tar in the streets to melt amid the classic free sewer steam baths.
Yum!
Link of the Day: Crazy Bitch Home Page,
home of a story that's received considerable attention... with good reason...
this is a wild one. Thanks [Pfeffer]EnragedTech-TPF.
Story of the Day: EML Optimem Home,
which has info on how they are attempting to create a drive with 10 GB of
capacity, using a roll of commercial adhesive tape as the medium (just
don't go wrapping presents with your dissertation). Thanks Scott.
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