Archived News:
There is a brief preview of Sacrifice on incite, looking ahead to Shiny's new hybrid action/role-playing/strategy game, which includes ten impressive looking new screenshots.
A bunch of support items springing up for Raven's just-released mercenary shooter: the official Soldier of Fortune FAQ has been updated with information to help you run dedicated servers, use the Logitech Wheelman Mouse with the game, and troubleshoot the game on Windows 2000. Also, Soldier-of-Fortune.com points the way to this forum post with tips to get a joystick working, as well as to a list of cheats on Soldier of Fortune Center if you're really stuck in the game.
- As promised, a new screenshot of the day is online at the official Dogs of War site, showing off a new scene from their soon to be released 3D action RTS.
- eUniverse has posted five new screenshots of the just-announced Dreamcast version of KISS: Psycho Circus (story). If the distorted gamma bothers you, you can also check out four of the images at Adrenaline Vault.
- Also on AVault are four new screenshots of EverQuest: The Ruins of Kunark, the upcoming expansion pack to Verant's popular MMORPG.
- CamelotVault has posted a pair of new screenshots from Dark Age of Camelot, along with a brief development update on this medieval MMORPG.
- GameUnit offers the first three screenshots of 4x4 Evolution, a newly announced off-road racing sim by Terminal Reality and Gathering of Developers, which aims to allow PC, Mac and Dreamcast players "to compete head-to-head with each other regardless of platform."
The fourth and final part of PlanetStarsiege's
massive TRIBES 2 preview is online. Like the previous installments, the
preview consists of tons of questions about the game answered by the developers.
This portion focuses on the gameplay, server administration and more.
Gamecenter has posted a new demo of Tachyon: The Fringe, this version supporting multiplayer in the Base Wars game type for the price of a 56 MB download. Tachyon: The Fringe is Novalogic's mercenary space-combat title that features the voice of actor Bruce Campbell.
RPG Vault has confirmed with Origin's
David Swofford that Richard Garriott (Lord British to Ultima fans) his leaving the company he founded almost 17 years ago to, "pursue
other interests" (most likely to work on the game known as "X").
Here's the scoop from RPG Vault: Richard
Garriott is leaving and he's decided to pursue other interests. He's not yet
made up his mind on what his plans are. As part of an overall restructuring,
Origin has eliminated 20 positions, but the changes will have no impact on UO2
and UOLive. Contrary to the report, there are not another 30 positions planned
for elimination. That is absolutely false. And there are other projects in development
at Origin that are currently unannounced. So the statement about the cancellation
of all products except UO2 is not true.
Game-Interviews has conducted, what else, an interview on Battle Realms, talking to Liquid Entertainment president Ed Del Castillo about his recently announced 3D real-time strategy game. There is not a lot of detail yet as the game is still early in development (they are shooting for a Spring 2001 release), but the article does give a general idea of the kind of gameplay they are aiming for.
A new version 1.1 of the Equilibrium mod for Quake III Arena is now available at its AZ Development Team site on the downloads page, and is expected to be the final code release of this teamplay mod. All servers and players need to upgrade to this version "as the .pk3 layout has been changed."
A new
movie featuring footage from MDK 2 is up at incite. Unlike previous MDK
2 movies, this one focuses on the animated cut-scenes and comic book-style images,
making it somewhat unique. MDK, as everyone knows, stands for Masticated Door
Knobs.
Digital Extreme's Steve Sinclair made an
update to their news page with a brief status update on their upcoming massively
multiplayer Unreal engine deathmatch game Dark Sector, as well as word that
they've converted their custom mutators to work with the recently released Unreal
Tournament 413 patch. Here's what he had to say: We took a quick break
from Dark Sector development to fix our DE mutators to work with the latest
UT version 413. Download it here.
As far as Dark Sector: things are really starting to come together as we work
towards a very important milestone in the next few weeks. I must say it was
exciting to look out from within a Space Station into space and see player ships
flying about!
Epic's Stephen Polge made an update to the
Unreal Technology Page regarding some issues with the recently released
Unreal Tournament 413 patch. Here's the scoop (the earlier update he refers to
is a recap of the D3D issues reported
here the other day): Several issues with the 413 patch have been pointed
out. We will have an updated patch as soon as possible to address these issues.
In the meantime, if you are having D3D video performance problems, see Erik's
update below. If you are having problems installing UT, or getting an error
after installation that "UnrealTournament.exe is not a valid Win32 application"
or "UnrealTournament.exe is too big to fit into system memory", try
installing into the default directory for UT (c:\UnrealTournament). Our patch
installer seems to be occasionally corrupting files when installing into different
directory structures. We are still working on the problems of the 413 patch
not working with minimum installs, and problems patching the Spanish/Italian
version of UT.
Here's some more Black & White news for you this afternoon...GameSpy.com
has posted the
first part of their ongoing Black & White Developer's Diary, with two
more installments to come tomorrow (after which new editions will appear on
a monthly basis). Today's edition features Lionhead designer Steve Jackson talking
about the engine's development, and their user interface (which is controlled
via "the hand of god").
Bethesda Softworks has opened up the
official site for The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, which contains the official
announcement about the game, as well as a letter from the development team to
fans of the series, and the first batch of screenshots (that were already available)
with detailed descriptions.
Black & White Vault has posted the
second report on their trip to Lionhead Studios. This portion takes the
form of a Q&A with Black & White creator Peter Molyneux, where he talks
about the control scheme, and the nutty method the game has for casting spells.
GameSpot UK has posted a hands-on preview of Project IGI, the upcoming thinker shooter by Norwegian developer Innerloop. The article gives a good overview of the gameplay on offer but, unusual for GSUK, is devoid of any new sprawling screenshot galleries.
Also up at GameSpot UK today is a new preview of Praetorians, one of three games in development at Pyro Studios. Praetorians is a 3D real-time strategy game set in Roman times, with gameplay that is compared to Shogun: Total War, and there is a gallery of screenshots to show what it looks like.
An upgrade patch for the English version of The Sims is now available at the official site, with other languages presumably to follow soon. The patch fixes bugs and improves gameplay, and you need to be a registered user to be able to download it. Thanks Ant for the tip.
A new, not-so-weekly news update on the Wheel of Time site is online, with lead designer Glen Dahlgren explaining the delay in updates, bringing the news that there won't be a Point Release for Wheel of Time, and his usual sweep over the WoT community activities. Here is an excerpt on why there won't be a Point Release:
Let me just get it out there: the point release is not going to happen. I'm sorry,
but here's why.
Ryan has been working tirelessly for the last few months to produce
multi-player bots, which were intended to be the cornerstone of the point
release. Recently, it became clear not only that the work wasn't finished, but
that the effort would also require significant reconstruction of every
multi-player map out there to support it.
With Unreal 2 spinning up, Ryan's time was limited. He did what he could, but
he had to move on. We also simply didn't have the level design bandwidth to
reconstruct every single level. And, even if we did all of this, the package
would have been too immense to download.
Bethesda has taken the veil of secrecy off of The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind,
the follow-up to the popular RPG, Daggerfall, and AVault is celebrating this
with a full preview of the
game that aims to present, "the most detailed virtual world ever created."
Their preview features the first batch of screenshots and an interview with
project leader Todd Howard.
A new interview with
Epic's Tim Sweeney has popped online at RPOV. The interview deals with a
number of technology issues (which of course makes sense since Tim is the lead
programmer of the Unreal engine) and also touches on Epic's plans for the future,
including some predictions for multiplayer games, and upcoming features of the
engine, which Tim expertly dodges by saying, "we'll be talking about Epic's
next big thing at E3."
The first of PC.IGN's Three Nights
of Masquerade is online, featuring an interview with Ray Gresko, Nihilistic's
project lead on Vampire: The Masquerade - Redemption. Ray talks about the game's
Nod engine (which was developed in-house), their unique "storyteller"
multiplayer mode, and even the sad fate of teenage pop singers. The next two
installments will feature new screenshots and movies of game footage, and even
a hands-on preview of the game.
PC.IGN.com has posted their detailed Nox Strategy Guide (free registration required), providing game tips and walkthroughs for Westwood's recently released isometric action RPG. Also, Computer Games Online continues their series of Nox Trinkets and Tips into part 3.
CGO has also posted a preview of Commandos 2, looking ahead to this WWII real-time strategy game based on a visit to the offices of Pyro Studios in Madrid. Part 2 of the preview is also online, although neither part appears to contain any new screenshots.
A few weeks may have gone by, but RPGVault has just posted their
writeup of Dungeon Siege from Microsoft's Gamestock 2000 show. They were
given a demonstration of the game by producer Jake McMahon, and the writeup
contains a great deal of detail about a number of aspects of the game, from
the interface to the soundtrack and inventory management. In other Dungeon Siege
news, fan site The Historian has conducted a
brief Q&A with Chris Taylor, the creator of the game, talking to him
about the game's extendibility and storyline amongst other topics.
If you need help running Messiah, the just-released third-person possess-em-up by Shiny, then this official Messiah Troubleshooting page offers information and solutions for a variety of problems you may be experiencing with the game.
An update to the Horizons - Empires of Istaria site brings the animation of a Lamurian character in Artifact's upcoming MMORPG. The animation comes as a 2.5 MB high-res .AVI file.
The official Fading Suns: Noble Armada site has a playable demo available for download, giving a taste of this upcoming hybrid strategy space-combat game with RPG elements, in development at Holistic Design. Thanks A Talent For War.
After a three month hiatus, a new beta version 0.4 of ZDoomGL v1.22 is now available on Kokak's DOOM Page, adding several new features and bug fixes to this OpenGL version of the popular DOOM port, including 3Dfx MiniGL driver support, better dynamic lighting, FOV support, and more.
A new Deus Ex
Development Update on Unreal Universe
gives the latest "from the trenches" by designer Bob White detailing
progress on ION Storm's upcoming Unreal-engine RPG. The update outlines the
fine-tuning currently underway, discussing resource balancing, voice recording,
and Bob's appearance at the Game Developer's Conference. The end sounds like
it's ever more in sight, as he also says: "We have begun work with the
Incan Monkey Gods group here in Austin who will be producing our manual and
strategy guides." Also, after a week off, a new Allegiance Designer
Diary on PC.IGN.Com offers chapter six of the ongoing account of progress on
the upcoming space simulation straight from Joel Dehlin, the game's executive
producer.
Several reports indicate the availability of both Soldier of Fortune and Messiah
at many retailers, so if you are looking forward to Raven's mercenary shooter,
Shiny's possessive third-person shooter, or both, you may want to verify that
copies await you and pick them up. Raven's Kenn Hoekstra updated
his .plan mentioning that there are copies at a Madison, WI Software etc. hand-signed by
the development team.
There are three new Hitman Codename 47
screenshots on GameGirlz showing off this upcoming game of paid
assassination in extremely high resolution (1280x1024). Here is the accompanying
description of the game, which you have to love, if for nothing else than the
inclusion of the phrase genetic butchery: "The Hitman is the
world’s most accomplished and wealthy assassin, however, he is plagued by a
troubling past of deception and genetic butchery. The ingenious story will
evolve over five chapters of heart-stopping action. The world of contract hits
rewards a quick intellect more than a quick trigger finger."
The front page of Gamasutra has the
keynote address from this year's Game Developer's Conference featuring
Microsoft's Bill Gates announcing the X-Box console system. The video is
available in 28 kbps and 150 kbps varieties. Also on Gamasutra is a piece called
GDC Wrap-Up: Graphics
at GDC is a recap of the state of the visual art as demonstrated at the
show, written by old friend from the community Bernd Kreimeier.
There may not be a spoon, but there is a new patch for Matrix
Quake II, the Q2 mod based on the mind-bending (and now Oscar®-winning)
sci-fi hit. In addition to the patch for the mod, there is also a patch to
update the source code to the latest version. In spite of all the updating,
there is literally no word on what has changed, but I guess that's okay, after
all, unfortunately, no one can be told what the Matrix is.
The UPlug Home has the
debut release of the UPlug ActiveX browser plug-in for Unreal Tournament, which,
like the similarly named QPlug for Quake, will allow Unreal and UT users to find
online games through server list webpages, and join the game by clicking a link.
Currently the "change server" function is not supported under
Netscape. Thanks Unreality.
Video Game Makers Sue
Yahoo is the Reuters headline announcing that: "Three of the world's
major makers of video games have sued Internet portal Yahoo! Inc. to bar the
sale of allegedly counterfeit video games on Yahoo's Web site." The
plaintiffs are Nintendo of America, Sega of America, and Electronic Arts. Thanks
Kristopher Gilbert.
As I said, yesterday was "supposed" to be DSL day, so today's
follow-up would be either payoff or punch line, and true to form, it turned out
to be the latter. The good news is the phone guy really does seem to agree that
this is possible in my area, so I'm becoming fairly convinced it is. The bad
news is, he needed access to a basement to which I don't have a key (though
frustratingly, I just returned a copy to someone I was holding to let someone
read a meter a week ago). The only neighbor I could find didn't have a copy, so I had to
send the phone man away with my new connection nearly within my grasp. Of course, just to
turn it all into a comedy, 10 minutes after his departure, the neighbor knocked
at my door, having called her husband to ask about it, and it turns out they did
have a copy of the key. With the way my luck was running at that point, I bet
the police find where I hid her body. Anyway, I'm back in the queue to get back
in the queue to get an appointment.
Link of the Day: The Gravitational SpaceCraft from Fran De Aquino.
Thanks David Webber. Complete with equations to show how the theory works,
though, sadly, no blueprints.
Story of the Day: Iowa's
prison porn rules stand. Kinda makes you think. Thanks Buclerpp.
Image(s) of the Day: Messiah Goes Oscar Gold
with Oscar®-night photos of Gary Coleman and Dave Perry doing the Hollywood party
scene in their limo.
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