Archived News:
Blizzard has released the official Diablo II demo, which is available
for download over at FilePlanet. This demo seems to be the same as the unofficial
one that was made available earlier today ( story) however it
is six MB larger, suggesting that there are some changes that give it its official
status.
- Emperor
The official Emperor: Battle for Dune site sports a new pair of screenshots from the cutscenes in Westwood's upcoming 3D real-time strategy game.
- Far Gate
GameSpot has posted four new Far Gate screenshots, illustrating the space-based RTS by Super X Studios that was already released in Europe last month/year/millenium.
- Battlecruiser Millenium
And speaking of millenia, there are five new Battlecruiser Millenium screenshots on the 3000 AD site, showing off more from their upcoming space-combat sim.
- GTA 3
Fansite Gouranga! has posted the first screenshot of Grand Theft Auto 3, the 3D sequel to Rockstar's top-down action games (thanks AVault).
RuneGame.com (which is an official site) has posted an
update they received from Human Head's Chris Rhinehart, where the programmer
provides details on what they're working on for the game. Chris says that they
have been working on the localization for other territories, but to combat that
they have also been cooking up some extra stuff for Rune fans, including new
deathmatch maps (which he says will be released in "the near future")
and new models/skins, and he also says that they have been working on the next
patch, which will contain bug fixes and multiplayer gameplay tweaks.
The fifth
edition of RPG Vault's ongoing series of Q&As with Oliver Sykes, lead
designer on Dragonriders: Chronicles of Pern is online this evening. While brief,
this installment contains details on the voice acting, localization and the
overall length of the game.
We have been contacted by Blizzard Entertainment, who inform us that the Diablo
II demo that made its way online this morning ( story) is not
"the official final Diablo II demo." We will of course post when that
version is released, but until then, if you're curious about the currently available
one you can head over
to Diablo II.net's demo page, which contains lots of information about it,
and constantly updated mirrors list.
BadKarma.net has conducted a
brief Q&A with Eric Lanz, senior mission designer at Dynamix on TRIBES
2. Despite its size, the questions cover a number of different topics, including
how the off-line mode differs from the normal multiplayer gameplay, how development
on the original Starsiege: TRIBES helped (or rather, is helping) the development
of TRIBES 2 and more.
A preview
of Cossacks: European Wars, the RTS from CDV which is already available
in some parts of the world, is up at GameSpot this evening. The preview is hands-on
and quite detailed, and compares the game to Age of Empires II, going so far
as to say, "Were it not for the fact that the game focuses on Europe instead
of the world, there might even be a few fans crying plagiarism." Naturally,
there are also plenty of new screenshots as well.
Gone Gold is back on track with reports that a couple of games published by Gathering of Developers and On Deck Interactive have gone gold: the isometric RTS Kingdom Under Fire by Phantagram is expected to ship in the US on January 15 (it's already out in some countries overseas), while the 3D point-n-click adventure The Ward should appear on store shelves around January 23. There's also a confirmation of the news back in November ( story) that all versions of Oni should ship on January 29. Finally, while Resident Evil 3 is already out in Europe, Gone Gold also has word that the US edition of the third-person horror adventure by Capcom was sent off to duplication, and is expected to land in stores on January 18.
Version 2.0 of the Alliance
CTF mod for Quake III Arena has been released. It's available for download
as either a huge version for new users (118 MB) or as a slightly more reasonable
version for those that already have Alliance 1.0 (71.3 MB), and as its size
might suggest, is loaded with new features, including 26 maps, three gameplay
modes, new sounds and lots more.
A whole
bunch of shots from Operation Flashpoint are up at French gaming site Simactu.com.
There are 56 shots in all, and contain a look at several different aspects of
the game, including some showing the inside of a helicopter, which is just one
of the different playable vehicles available in Operation Flashpoint.
Belgian site De SpelletjesGarnaal has posted a new video preview of Severance: Blade of Darkness, the third-person melee-combat game in development at Rebel Act. As is their way, the movie in Windows Media Player format features enthusiastic commentary in Flemish, but it also offers some 14 minutes of in-game footage in that universal language of sorts, introducing the game's environment, features, and more.
Spanish gaming magazine GamesReview has posted a
demo version of Diablo II. Note that this has not been officially released
by Blizzard, however it is available online at GR, and it will also be included
on the CD-ROM with the next issue of German magazine Gamestar.
According to DiabloII.net, the demo is
most likely an updated version of the original Diablo II stress test that was
used during the public beta test, and contains the Barbarian character only.
A new
preview of Blade of Darkness is up at Computer Games Online this morning.
There aren't any new screenshots here, but it does have a brief look at the
gameplay along with quotes from John Foster, PR manager on the game at Codemasters,
who provides some info on the title, including an explanation as to why it won't
be called "Severance" in the US ("It's sound like you're getting
fired.").
GameSpy.com has posted a
preview of Cossacks: European Wars, the upcoming RTS game from German developer
CDV. The preview doesn't contain any new screenshots, however it does have a
hands-on look at the game, as it's already available in some parts of the world.
A post called Important Diablo II Character Information
on the Diablo II Realms offers details on a plan by which Hardcore Diablo II
characters that died between December 19 and January 1 will be revived to
compensate for a bug (since corrected) that possibly contributed to their
demise. Thanks DiabloII.Net. It's not
clear from the Battle.Net post, but it seems apparent that this is related to this
story on Slashdot called "Diablo2 Apocalypse Now" that indicates
this was the result of crackers gaining access to accounts and
"murdering" characters, among other things.
There's a new Dark Ages of Camelot screenshot on
Camelot HQ the first of what's promised as a series of daily shots showing
of Mythic's upcoming medieval MMORPG.
A new version 2.12 of Q3A Quick Statistix for
Windows/DOS is now available, updating this utility that can extract statistics
from a Quake III Arena server log and present them in useful HTML format. Thanks
RTD Quake 3.
The UI Enhanced website has a new
version 0.99 of the UI Enhanced modification, which, true to its name, enhances
the user interface for Quake III Arena making it easier to set up games the way
you want them. The new release is Q3A version 1.27g compatible, offers the
ability to disable selected map items, and supports the new separate head and
team models of the new point release.
Also looking to alter the Q3A UI is a new mod called Eternal Menu, the first
beta release of which is now available on Q3Center.
The utility requires Q3A version 1.27g, and only supports multiplayer play,
there are no single-player or bot options on the menus.
The Official Urban Terror website has
a new installer that will correctly configure UT for Q3A version 1.27 on
Macintosh systems.
Skindom is a newly-opened site dedicated
to the art of creating skins for models in games, focusing primarily on Quake
III Arena and Unreal Tournament. To get things off on the right foot, they have
posted a skinning FAQ, a
tutorial on flesh skins, a
tutorial on metal skins, and an
interview with Roger "666" Bacon, who has been known to knock out
a skin or two. Also, MrBunwahs' Guide To Achieving A Perfect Single Player Review
Score adds parts 8 and 9 to their "How Not to Make Single Player Maps"
series.
- Arctic Silver Thermal Adhesive on G3D.
- Kensington TurboRing Trackball on TheGamingGarage.
- Shuttle Spacewalker FE22 motherboard on PC Hardware.
- Visiontek Geforce2 Ultra 64 MB video card on 3d Retreat.
For those keeping tabs at home, the new graphic over the logo today is a Shgliek
from Heavy Metal: F.A.K.K.2. Frequent contributor Jeff Magill writes in pointing
out that on this date in 1984 Zenith became the first manufacturer to stop
selling VCRs using Sony's BetaMax format, sounding the first death-knell for the
system that lost out to VHS. Additionally, Jeff also points out that today would
have been the birthday of the late science fiction legend Isaac Asimov. In the
words of another sci-fi giant, and so it goes.
Story of the Day: Napster sues e-tailer for logo theft.
Thanks Jason Malone. Someone check with Alanis to see if this qualifies as
irony.
Weird Science: Y2K bug belatedly hits Norway trains
(CNET). Thanks Skywalke77.
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