Archived News:
Fallout Tactics Designer Diary, Part II at RPG Vault offers a new installment in the series penned by lead designer Chris Taylor on the upcoming turn-based tactical combat game. Today Chris discusses how Fallout Tactics fits in the Fallout universe, why it's not an RPG like the first two games, and the mechanics of game development and publishing within Interplay and its divisions.
Keeping up the pace with their second Q&A today, Stomped has posted a brief interview with Lionhead's Peter Molyneux, putting him through the same set of questions about the year that was and the one that will be like countless developers before him. And likewise, Israeli site VGames has also posted a new Q&A quizzing The Collective's Doug Hare about the similar topics, as well as PC versus console gaming.
There is a brief preview of Commandos 2 on Gamers.com, looking ahead to the squad-based tactical combat game in development at Pyro Studios. The article is based on a visit to publisher Eidos' offices, and while it's not very detailed, it offers impressions of the maps and camera system, the units, missions and more, and is accompanied by a gallery of some 30, mostly new screenshots.
Orange Smoothie Productions has released version 0.99q beta of their
tournament mod for Quake III Arena (thanks Stomped).
This version contains a host of fixes, as well as the ability to drop items
in CTF (assuming it's enabled on the server), new 64-character server-side MOTD
messages and a new format for the client authentication system.
Version 1.64 of the Forward Edge
Battle Arena mod for Unreal Tournament has been released. FEBA is a teamplay
mod that sports over 40 characters with over 25 weapons, and this latest release
consists of mainly bug fixes and miscellaneous improvements.
Quarter
to Three's latest 60 second preview looks at Magic & Mayhem: Art of
Magic, the 3D follow-up to the original Magic & Mayhem. As this is a 60
second preview, it's hardly in-depth, but it does contain an overview of the
game along with some new screenshots.
Today appears to be turning into DOOM port day, as a new version 1.666 beta 1 of Vavoom is now available, updating this port of the "sources of Doom, Heretic, Hexen and a little bit from Quake." This release brings a major change with a new rendering engine that features a wider look range, tilted death view, skyboxes, zooming, and other changes, while slopes are expected to be fully functional in the next version. As usual it's available in DOS and Windows binaries, as well as source code.
The Armchair Empire has conducted an
interview with Dave Perry, the always outspoken president of Shiny. The
interview's all over the map, and pretty much sticks to trends in the gaming
industry, but he does also comment a little on Messiah and Sacrifice (the most
recent titles from Shiny) as well as the future of graphics hardware.
Hot on the heels of the previous patch ( story), Croteam has released a version 2.1a patch for their Serious Sam test demo, as before available for download from FilePlanet. The patch upgrades the previous version 2.1 as well as the original demo, and fixes a pair of problems with firewalls and multiple IP addresses on clients and servers.
An update on the official JDoom site brings a new patch for this 3D accelerated port of the public DOOM source. This release addresses a pair of graphics issues. Also, an earlier update by author Jaakko Keränen provides a summary of the latest on-goings with his Doomsday project, but word is not to expect too much progress until his service in Finland's army ends.
GameOver has posted a Kingdom Under Fire gallery, sporting nearly 40 new screenshots they captured from a playable build of the isometric role-playing RTS by Phantagram that will be released early next year.
Stomped's series of year-end interviews rolls on with today's
Q&A with Louis Castle, the cofounder of Westwood Studios. Like all the
interviews in the series, the questions all look back at 2000 and ahead to 2001,
and Louis points out that next year will be a big one for Westwood, as their
persistent world game will go beta (and hopefully ship), Command & Conquer:
Renegade and Emperor: Battle for Dune will be released, and they will also be
shipping a PS2 title that has been in the works for several years now (although
it is still unannounced). Another year-end Q&A can be found at Israeli site
Vgames, where they have posted a
brief Q&A with Mike Kulas, the president of Volition.
GameSpy.com wraps up their week-long series of talks with gaming industry artists
with today's interview
with Nick Carpenter of Blizzard Entertainment. Nick is the director of the
cinematics on the ambitious RTS Warcraft III, and he talks about the sort of
style they're aiming for, what tools he uses and what has inspired him artistically.
Jerry Waugh
of Alien Logic is interviewed on RPG Vault this morning, talking about their
upcoming third person RPG Survivor of the Ages. As most people aren't familiar
with SOTA, the interview contains a decent chunk of background information,
but there are also plenty of gameplay details here, including info on their
spells system, the various monsters in the game and lots more.
After a half year hiatus, Kokak's DOOM Page now offers a new version 0.5b of ZDoomGL for download. ZDoomGL is an OpenGL port of ZDoom, itself a port of the public DOOM source, and this release fixes a variety of bugs, including MD2 model display and the automap, and adds several graphical improvements and other changes, as detailed in the README. The release comes in binary and source distributions.
The official Demise - Rise of the Ku'Tan site features an update on the support of this 3D role-playing game by Artifact Entertainment, and while programmer Rick Simmons who supported the game over the past few months ( story) has since moved on their Horizons project, word is a new programmer will be assigned soon to continue his work. And in related news, HorizonsVault has conducted a brief interview with Scott Blinn, producer on Artifact's upcoming MMORPG.
There are half a dozen new ARX screenshots on Stygian Abyss, showing off new scenes in the fantasy first-person role-playing game by French developers Arkane Studios (thanks RPG Vault).
This story on Daily Telefrag has some storyline information as well as game and engine details on Sea Dogs 2, the recently announced piraty 3D role-playing sequel by Akella ( story).
The Destroy All Monsters site now sports the first level, entitled Godzilla Vs. Titan, of this Quake II mod by COR Entertainment. Here's how the authors describe the mod: "Destroy All Monsters is an arena style game, that pits the player against
some of the all-time greatest movie monsters of all time such as Godzilla, Mothra, Gabarra, Mogera....some of the most enormous and spectacular creatures to inhabit any game!"
The Programmers Part
III on Fragland.net corners another couple of victims (their word) for their
conversation about game programming, posing a set of general questions on the
subject to Alen Ladavac of Croteam, currently at work on Serious Sam, and Smarty
Man Game designer Derek Smart, whose current project is Battlecruiser Millennium.
The following question and answer(s) ask the classic, 'which came first, the
chicken or the egg?' question: 2. What's first ? The idea for an
engine, or the idea of a game ?
Alen : If it only was that simple... It takes a lot of combinations,
trials and errors and lot of right decisions at the right times. Software
development is always a cyclical process. You start from something and you
develop it towards its final result, which usually is not exactly clear in the
start.
Derek : For me, the idea comes first. Once you get that squared away, you
can figure out the technology aspects. Of course, this can be taken on a case by
case basis. e.g. if you are going to do a first person shooter, then you know
that you can either develop the engine, or license one, depending on priorities.
For my Battlecruiser games, all my technologies are developed from the ground up
and I've never had to license any engines.
A page on the Piranha Bytes website descriptively titled Auf dieser Seite findet Ihr vorerst einmal nur
Links has links to several different German language sites that each have
posted a new screenshot from Gothic, P.B.'s upcoming RPG. A couple of these
shots have been mentioned here already ( story and
story)
Following up on the announcement noted yesterday that the Battle.net Diablo II
ladders would reset at the first of the new year ( story), a small
additional boldfaced note has appeared on their
website with a significant detail: The Hardcore Ladder will not be
reset.
The Daily Radar's look ahead to 2001 continues, rounding up their usual suspects
of console systems: Sega in 2001, Day Three-The Sports,
The Nintendo Greatness of 2001, Day Three,
and The PS2's Second Wave.
The Mod Author Wish List
on PlanetUnreal is compiled from the requests from many UT mod authors.
Also, The Mean Arena has
posted a screenshot from the upcoming Bones- Legacy Of The Vadrigar
Quake III Arena modification.
Jonathan C. Forster, a pretty regular contributor to this site, writes in to
point out an article in the New York Times (free subscription required) called D.S.L. Service for Linking to Internet Is Problem Ridden
which is basically a good-sized recap of my own DSL woes (a misnomer, since
calling this situation my DSL woes implies I have DSL, which I don't). The
article describes problems with finger-pointing between the multiple vendors
often involved in providing service, and the severe woes of the many ISPs and
DSL providers involved that are trademarks of the current state of affairs. It's
quite a situation they describe, and I imagine it might almost seem comical...
provided of course you already have your broadband Internet connection. It just
makes me want to cry (*sniffle*).
Link of the Day: Hatchmusic.Com
(The Music of Senator Orrin Hatch). Thanks Miguel. Any shot at a William Shatner
collaboration here?
Story of the Day: Demand
for U.S. Sperm (ABC). Thanks NightTrain. "A Uniquely American Export Is
Becoming Popular Overseas."
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