Archived News:
As promised, Daily
Radar has posted the second day of their four-day look at what they think
will be the best games of 2001. Tonight's lineup consists of Neverwinter Nights,
Freedom Force, TRIBES 2, Command & Conquer: Renegade and Star Trek: Away
Team, and for each there are new screenshots and a Q&A with one of the developers.
An update on the official Sven Co-op site brings a patch for the Linux server version 1.9 of this cooperative multiplayer Half-Life mod, adding the Uzi code missing from the latest release. Also available is a optional Player Model Pack, adding a few new player models that are said to have "pretty high poly-counts," so a beefy system is recommended when applying these.
Developers Fragile Bits have released a movie trailer of The Ward, their upcoming 3D adventure that will be published by On Deck Interactive. The trailer is available in two sizes and offers close to two minutes of footage in self-running Bink format, freely mixing cinematic cutscenes with in-game bits that together set the futuristic story to the game.
Wired News has published their
annual vaporware list, containing ten eagerly anticipated products that
were promised in 2000 but didn't quite make it. A few games make the list
every year, and this year's is no exception: TRIBES 2 is in the #10 slot, Warcraft
III is in #6, Black & White made #3, and at #2 is Duke Nukem Forever. It
should be pointed out that many of the games labeled in the past as vaporware
have been released and have sold quite well, including Diablo II, which was
on the '99
list and the original Unreal which was on
the '97 list. Thanks Warcraft III.net.
Refusing to let another twelve hours pass before their next one, Stomped has
posted yet another of their year end Q&As, this time talking
with Bob Stevenson, the cofounder of Planet Moon, the developers of Giants:
Citizen Kabuto. Like all of their interviews in this series, the questions all
look back at 2000 and ahead to 2001, and Bob points out that they have been
working on finishing Giants up for so long that he's had his head buried in
the sand for the past year. In other year-end fun, Israeli gaming site VGames
finishes up their series of year-end interviews today with
a Q&A with Juan Diaz-Bustamante of Rebel Act Studios.
Croteam has released a patch for their test demo 2 of Serious Sam, available for download from FilePlanet. This version 2.1 patch addresses firewall/router problems, improves network packet compression, offers a true dedicated server, and includes a series of other, mostly networking related fixes. For networking games both servers and clients need to be updated.
Gone Gold is reporting that The Outforce,
an RTS title from Strategy First, has gone gold and will be available on US
store shelves, "later this week." Note that this is the North American
version that is gold - it's been available in Sweden since September.
Stomped
is reporting that the latest issue of PC Gamer (which some subscribers are
getting today) contains the first details about Medal of Honor: Allied Assault,
a Quake III Arena engine title from 2015, the developers of the SiN mission
pack and publisher Electronic Arts. While the previous two Metal of Honor titles
(the original MoH and Medal of Honor: Underground) were confined to the Playstation,
this is very much a PC title, and the few details that are available suggest
that like the other games in the series it will take place during World War II, with an emphasis on squad tactics and the ability to utilize military vehicles.
It is worth mentioning that this is yet another Quake III Arena engine title
from Electronic Arts, who are already working on the PS2 version of Q3A ( story),
The World is Not Enough, the just-released American McGee's Alice, and even
Ritual's new, unannounced FPS ( story).
Stomped's series of year-end interviews looks to survive longer than the year
itself, as today they have posted a
new Q&A with Larry Holland of Totally Games. You may recognize Totally
Games as the developers of the X-Wing series, and Larry talks about their Star
Trek title in development, and hints at their unannounced Xbox game they are
developing for Microsoft in addition to talking about what he's looking forward
to in the year to come.
GameSpy 's series of interviews dealing with the artistic side of game design
continues today with an
interview with Whitney Ayres, an art director at ION Storm Austin. Like
the previous such interviews, the questions all deal with the art creation process
rather than any specific game (although they do try to sneak a Deus Ex 2 question
in there), and Whitney provides details on the tools and software he uses as
well as what games have inspired him.
Also new on GameSpy.com this morning is the
first installment of their One Must Fall: Battlegrounds diary. Battlegrounds
is the sequel to the venerable One Must Fall 2097, and this edition consists
of the various team members introducing themselves and talking about how they
wound up at Diversion Entertainment.
There's an Ace of Angels Q&A and Preview
on The Corporation looking ahead at Ace of Angels, an upcoming
massively multiplayer online role-playing game in the works at Flying Rock Enterprises.
The article offers an extensive look ahead at the game, along with some
conversation with the Georgia-based team toiling away at its production.
A new version 1.09 of Quake III
Menu is now available, adding some new commands and fixing some bugs in this
program that allows menu-driven access to many of the Quake III Arena commands
that are normally found a bit more under the hood.
Beta 015 of a Serious Sam scripting program is up on The Hardware Pub,
which offers a checkbox user interface to create a script that tweaks your
settings for better performance when playing the Serious Sam test.
Nintendo may be toying with idea of buying Sega
reports CBS Marketwatch, thanks Amer at GameSpot. Speaking of G.S., GameSpot's Final Fantasy X
first impressions looks ahead at a future loonyboi obsession. Finally, Daily
Radar's Great Games of 2001 series isn't just limited to PC titles, as they have
also posted their great games predictions for PS2,
Nintendo,
and Sega. Update: As noted in this Reuters story, Nintendo has completely denied that they are in talks with Sega, while Sega has said, "the report is absolutely groundless."
WarcraftIII.Net's Unofficial WarCraft III FAQ
is now online, offering answers to frequently-asked questions about races, heroes
buildings, multiplayer, the world builder, and more. Also, Destination Morrowind's Morrowind
FAQ has been updated to version 3.5, adding a bunch of new information from
recent previews and chats with the development team. Finally, Joe
Waters' .plan update offers a tip on how to defeat the second red queen in
Alice, which is a definite spoiler, so be sure you're stuck before resorting to
it.
The Infiltration website
has posted an image of the new player model which will be featured in the
upcoming version 2.85 of this tactical Unreal Tournament mod.
Well, while I still may not have digital Internet access, it doesn't mean I
can't pay for it. I'm not referring to more astronomical phone bills for my
modem usage, but rather the fact that two months after moving, I still have not
been able to convince Ma Bell, or Ma Verizon, or whatever she's calling herself
these days, to stop billing me for my ISDN line from the old apartment. The sad
thing about this is that the ISDN line was retained as a backup when I got DSL
in that location, so who knows when the last time it was used before we moved,
never mind the idea that I would still be using it now.
Sometimes the same question comes to many minds at once, and for some reason
the last 24 hours has inspired another load of queries about what happened to
our links page, so I'll mention again that it's in the shop getting a tune-up
and an oil change following our redesign, and should be back on the information
superhighway soon enough.
Story of the Day: "A random act of kindness for the
holidays," on Salon.com Technology.
Describing a mini-trend of buying items on the Amazon wish lists of strangers.
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