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Archived News:
A new, hands-on preview of
Summoner is up at PS2.IGN this evening. While it's a look at the Playstation
2 version of the game, Summoner is in development for both the PC and PS2, and
the two versions will have more similarities than differences. In addition to
their rundown of the general gameplay and graphics engine, there are a lot of
new screenshots and gameplay movies for your downloading pleasure. Also, Daily
Radar has a
number of new gameplay movies in MPEG format, taken from their PS2 build
of the game.
TRIBES fans will be quite pleased to know that there are a heaping handful
of new shots from TRIBES 2 up this evening, apparently taken from alpha builds
of the game. The lucky folk at PC.IGN
have 17 shots, while 10
more are up at GameSpot, and all of them show off the recently revamped
terrain system.
GameSpot's
detailed preview of Star Trek: Voyager - Elite Force is online, featuring
a hands-on look at a build of the full game. In addition to the author's impressions
and an in-depth look at the gameplay, there are almost 40 new screenshots from
various missions throughout the game. Also, TrekWeb has posted their
look at a pre-release build, although they label theirs a full review, as
it has everything you'd expect from a review, complete with a score at the end.
Kicking off their Three Days of Sacrifice, a
huge batch of new media from Sacrifice is up at PC.IGN. There are 13 3D
screenshots in QuickTime VR format (each with two different resolutions) as
well as two large movie files containing gameplay footage and a look at the
world builder.
PC.IGN has posted the latest in their continuing
look at the characters in Throne of Darkness, focusing on the Swordsmen.
Each individual character is illustrated with a description, and there are a
few pieces of concept art thrown in for good measure. In related news, RPG Vault
has a whole
lot of new screenshots from the game, showing off a number of different
spells and characters.
The first part of Gamecenter's
massive interview with John Carmack is online. Much of the information contained
in this installment is similar to his talk at QuakeCon last weekend, with Carmack
talking about the Dreamcast version of Quake III Arena, his thoughts on next-generation
console systems, and his plans for future platform development. The second half
will be posted on Friday.
GameSpot follows up on the announcement of Thief 3 (see below) with a quick interview with Warren Spector, lead designer at ION Storm Austin which will be working on the project. Warren comments that development hasn't started yet nor that an engine choice has been made already, but that they will very likely continue working upon the foundation set by the first two games in the series and tie up any loose ends left by them. Here is a quote:
GameSpot: Has development already started on the new game?
Warren Spector: Nope. Our first priority is to sign up some critical team
members - the folks who will work together to flesh out the
game design and storyline, and around whom we can build an
entire team. It would be the height of arrogance, as well as
fundamental foolishness, to try to foist off a finished game
design on a team. You always want your team to participate in
the creation of the design. That's especially true when a new
group (albeit one built around folks already experienced with
Thief) is charged with continuing someone else's work. Team
first, design second, then development.
Ritual's Mark Dochtermann updated
his .plan with a workaround for Voodoo 2 owners that are having problems
with Heavy Metal: FAKK2. Here are the details: We figured out why some
of the voodoo owners out there were having trouble and this will definitely
be addressed in the upcoming patch. In the meantime you can do the following
to run with a vodoo2:
- delete your config.cfg in your fakk directory, should be c:Program FilesRitual
EntertainmentHeavy Metal - FAKK2fakkconfig.cfg
- Either modify your shortcut in the Start menu, create a new short cut or run
FAKK 2 from the command line. Add "+set r_colorbits 0" to the shortcut.
There is a problem in the executable that has since been fixed where if the
colorbits are already set to 16, it will not fail on the last check for starting
opengl32.dll (the default OGL driver which happens to be software only when
you have a Voodoo 2 in your machine) and subsequently special Voodoo 2 code
is never executed.
As noted in this
press release at Through the Looking Glass, Eidos Interactive has formally
announced that they have acquired the rights to to the Thief series, and that
ION Storm Austin will be developing Thief 3, under the watchful eye of designer
Warren Spector for the PC and Playstation 2. Here's an excerpt from the press
release, which should no doubt make Thief fans extremely happy: SAN
FRANCISCO, August 08, 2000 - Eidos Interactive, a leading worldwide developer
and publisher of interactive software products, announced today the purchase
of the immensely popular Thief franchise. Eidos Interactive plans on continuing
the series for PC CD-ROM and the PlayStation® 2 Computer Entertainment
System.
Eidos Interactive is pleased to report that further iterations of the Thief
franchise will be developed in the Austin, Texas offices of Ion Storm and
will be led by Warren Spector, who contributed on the original Thief: The
Dark Project. Warren has also produced other highly praised titles including
System Shock, Ultima Underworld, and most recently, Deus Ex. Several members
of the original Thief team have already signed on with Ion Storm to continue
working on the series and more announcements are expected soon.
Warren Spector states, "With Thief, LookingGlass Studios created an entirely
new kind of game and, in so doing, changed the face of gaming forever. We
here in the Austin office are thrilled, proud and a bit humbled at the prospect
of continuing and building on the work of the talented men and women who made
Thief and Thief 2. Several of us cut our teeth working with those folks, our
design philosophies were developed in collaboration with them and, plain and
simple, we're fans ourselves. To all the other fans out there, we say: Rest
easy. We respect the Thief tradition and we'll do everything in our power
not only to live up to everyone's justifiably high expectations but to surpass
them."
"This is great news for all fans of the Thief series," states Eidos’
Vice President of Development, Nick Earl. "Warren has proven his game
design talents time and time again. The next Thief will undoubtedly be the
greatest to date."
No release date has yet been set for the tentatively titled "Thief 3."
Blue Byte sent word that their official Battle Isle: DarkSpace site is now open for business, offering game information, new screenshots, a FAQ, and more on the online-only strategy space-sim currently docking at PaleStar (where it was previously known as DeepSpace).
TalonSoft has released a version 1.03 patch for the US edition of Dogs of War, available for download from their ftp server (2.1 MB). The patch fixes a couple of issues with Silicon Dreams' recently released 3D action RTS, such as undead Corvoids, troop voices, low detail shadows, and more, while now forcing you to watch the first Warmonkey cutscene. Thanks Patches Scrolls for the tip, which has a mirror here.
Despite the fact that the site itself hasn't gone live just yet, Meejahor has
posted two interviews dealing
with Project ABC (working title), the recently announced game from 3000
AD. 3000 AD head Derek
Smart discusses why he licensed the Serious engine for the game, and explains
how the game will not contain any sort of violence or profanity. Also, Croteam's
Alen Ladavac talks about their licensing plans, as well as their projects
before Serious Sam (which include a sports title and a game for Croatian television)
and the company's future.
id Software's John Carmack made a
large post to Slashdot, commenting on the current state of games for Linux
in a thread
related to his talk at last weekend's QuakeCon. Here's an excerpt: Yes,
the linux sales figures were low. Low enough that they are certainly not going
to provide an incentive for other developers to do simultaneous linux releases,
which was a good chunk of my goal. The sales would cover the costs of porting,
but they wouldn’t make a bean-counter blink.
I think Loki did a fantastic job – they went above and beyond what was
required, pestering us (a good thing in this case) about the linux deliverables,
taking pre-orders, doing the tin box run, shipping CDs first, then boxes when
available, etc.
Loki’s position is that the free availability of linux executables for
download to convert windows versions into linux versions was the primary factor.
They have been recommending that we stop making full executables available,
and only do binary patches.
I hate binary patches, and I think that going down that road would be making
life more difficult for the people playing our games.
That becomes the crucial question: How much inconvenience is it worth to help
nurture a new market? We tried a small bit of it with Q3 by not making the linux
executables available for a while. Is it worth even more? The upside is that
a visibly healthy independent market would bring more titles to it.
The fallback position is to just have hybrid CD’s. I’m pretty sure
we can force our publishers to have a linux executable in an “unsupported”
directory. You would lose technical support, you wouldn’t get an install
program, and you wouldn’t have anyone that is really dedicated to the issues
of the product, but it would be there on day 1.
Voodoo Extreme has obtained an
update from Third Law's Jonathan Wright on the upcoming multiplayer patch
for KISS: Psycho Circus. According to Jonathan, they are currently finishing
up the GameSpy support, optimizing bandwidth usage, and testing their new maps.
He says to expect the patch in two weeks.
Gamecenter
is reporting that The Sims: Livin' Large, the add-on pack for the wildly
popular "people sim" The Sims, has gone gold. The PC version is expected
to hit store shelves in the first week of September, while no firm date has
been set for the Mac port.
GamersEd's Week in Our Worlds rolls on, with today's Q&A sessions with
Michael Raymond-Judy
and Jon Zuk,
two designers at Raven Software. Like their previous Q&As, the questions
deal with what they do and how they wound up in the industry (along with a smattering
of other questions).
GA-Source
is reporting that Rebellion, developers of the original Aliens vs. Predator
game and the upcoming Gunlok, are currently working on a third person action/adventure
title based on The Mummy. Their report says that the game will take place in
some of the same locations as the movie, suggesting that it is based on the
original film, and not the sequel that is in production (and will be released
next year).
BarrysWorld interviews David Braben to find out more from the co-designer of the classic space game Elite about his early days in the games industry, more recent projects such as V2000 and Infestion, and his company Frontier Developments, while sidestepping any questions about the upcoming Elite 4.
Wireplay interviews
Dean Sekulic, talking with the programmer about his work at Croteam on the
frenetic shooter Serious Sam, as well as his thoughts on the industry, their
plans for multiplayer, the huge tracts of land in their game, and lots more.
Inside Mac Games has posted a
new interview with id Software's Graeme Devine, talking with him about the
state of Mac gaming, OS X, and id's plans for the Mac platform. Graeme reiterates
that id will continue to support as many different platforms as possible, and
confirms that the upcoming Team Arena mission pack for Quake III Arena will
ship as a Mac/Win32 hybrid CD.
A new Q&A with
Sandy Petersen is up at StrategyZone, talking about his career, and his
current work on the Age of Empires games at Ensemble Studios. Petersen, for
those unaware, was the author of the original Call of Cthulhu table-top RPG,
and was a level designer at id Software where he worked on Doom, Doom II and
the original Quake.
Microsoft has released Game
Voice Share, a freeware version of their Sidewinder Game Voice software.
This version is limited to chat, but allows for full duplex voice chat over
the 'net (thanks ActiveWindows).
3DActionPlanet took a virtual tour of sorts through Human Head's offices and stopped by six of the Blair Witch: Legend of Coffin Rock developers to ask them a few questions about their work on this upcoming third-person horror adventure. Taking a brief time-out from their hectic schedules are modelers David Gulisano and Brett Hawkins, programmer Matt Sweeney, level designers Mike Flynn and JP LeBreton, and project lead Tim Gerritsen. Elsewhere, Gamers.de got a hold of texture artist Greg Marshall to query him about a few topics related to Human Head's other project, the third-person Viking slashfest RUNE. The Q&A is available in English or the site's native German.
There is a new movie trailer of Black & White on BW Zone, illustrating Lionhead's upcoming 3D strategy/role-playing game. The 31 MB movie, which was uploaded from Gamestar magazine with permission, shows nearly three minutes of in-game footage demonstrating various creatures and spells, accompanied by a German voice-over.
Stomped
interviews American McGee, talking with the former id Software level
designer about his current gig at Electronic Arts, where the finishing
touches are being added to Alice, their upcoming Quake III-engine collaboration
with Rogue Entertainment. The conversation covers the unusual inspiration the
game is drawing from the Lewis Carroll books, what the game will be about, the
pressures of making a game named after you ("American McGee's
Alice"), and more.
Damage Gaming
interviews Derek Smart talking with the smarty man game developer of the
BattleCruiser series. Like a couple of other similar recent Q&As, this one
focuses on the recently announced Project ABC (working title), an upcoming
non-FPS title (according to Derek: "Heck, even my guys don't know what kind
of game we're going to be doing") that will use the CroTeam's Serious
engine. MSXbox also
interviews Derek Smart in a conversation that covers the intricate history
of the BC3k series, as well as future console plans.
FiringSquad's
Sacrifice preview is online, taking a look ahead at this RTS title currently
in development at Shiny Entertainment. The preview is based on some hands-on
experiences with the game following a recent visit to their offices by Shiny's
Dave Perry to show it off, and therefore the article contains some brand
new screenshots, as well as information gleaned from speaking directly with Mr.
Perry.
Gamers Central
interviews Harvard Bonin and Mark Skaggs talking with the pair about their
work on Westwood's next installment in the Red Alert portion of their Command
& Conquer RTS series that lingers in the icy grip of the cold war. The
conversation covers how the final game (which is due soon) is shaping up,
learning why features like deformable terrain and full 3D support were dropped,
as well as getting a feel for what is included. Likewise, Computer Games Online's
interview with Harvard Bonin is also online, asking more questions about
RA2. This interview was posted along with their Command
& Conquer: Red Alert 2 preview, profiling "The Surreal Art of
War."
The Reactive Software website has
a new version 1.19b of the Q3Comp competition mod for Quake III Arena. The new
release adds newer and stronger methods for validating files on the client's end
to prevent various forms of cvar cheating.
Cyberathlete Professional League has
announced a Doom II tournament to be held at The FRAG 4 in Dallas. Also, details
are now online for Multiplay UK's i5
tournament, slated for the end of this month in the UK. Finally, more
QuakeCon wrap-ups can be found on thalion.net,
including loads of photos, GameWire.Org,
where they recap the general experience, and the Rocket Arena
site where there's a write-up, including photos.
The Icewind Dale Main Page has a
new script compiler to allow "advanced users" of this new RPG to
create character scripts for the game.
Like the one mentioned yesterday ( story), this
Doom FAQ is dedicated to the upcoming Doom game in the works at id software,
this FAQ has been maintained for a while now. PlanetHardware's
Unreal Tournament Tweak Guide is aimed at tweaking the UT visual experience.
- Short Video Games Don't Boost Aggression
(Reuters) Thanks Sir Asi9. "Perhaps aggressive children prefer violent
games, or perhaps the long-term exposure to violent games causes the
children to prefer aggressive solutions, the psychologists said." So
perhaps they just don't know? Wonder if my taxes paid to blow the lid off
this one? Perhaps...
- Netscape 6 Preview Release 2
is now available. Thanks _blue (huh?). On that topic, Netscape
6 'preview': Close, but ... on ZDnet is skeptical. Meanwhile, Netscape to Offer Patch to Shield Users From Glitch
(thanks Robert Kee for those last two)...
- Burn, Pillage, Destroy
on Gamecenter offers "Eight Upcoming Turn-Based Games Revealed."
Thanks Robert Kee...
- The Oddworld website has been
updated with over 150 pages on Abe's universe...
- Who Watches
the Lieberman? Game Developers Speak on Stomped gets reactions from game
developers on Al Gore's choice of the outspoken critic of violent video
games as his VEEP candidate. I'll just point out that in the US, barring health problems for the
president, the VP's main jobs are opening Congress, attending state
funerals, and preparing for potential mediocre presidencies (as this
1996 election site will point out)...
Upon reading my goofy announcement that my beloved mourning doves had returned
to roost, more than one reader wrote in to suggest a mourning dove web-cam. I'm
actually sort of intrigued by this as a project, which is theoretically possible
using my snappy sDSL connection, but it will not come to pass. Among other
things, it's not practical because of the location of the fire escape in
question, and besides, it would just be one of those proof-of-concept
experiments to play with setting up the cam, in case there were something more
useful to be done with it in the future. But what are the chances of that? The
last really practical, non-voyeuristic web-cam I recall was one
of the originals, pointed at a remote coffee pot so caffeine starved
researchers at the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory would not make a
trip for java in vain (this has been up so long it was a remote cam before they
had a web server). Well, at least I may be able to beat the Blue's News
'way-too-nice camera' out of loonyboi's grasp and snap a few family photos.
Link of the Day: Video-Game Characters Denounce Randomly Placed Swinging Blades
(The Onion). Thanks Matt Godlaski.
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