Archived News:
Microsoft sent a press release describing Bill Gates' unveiling of the Xbox at
this year's Consumer Electronics Show in a demonstration that featured "The
Rock" of WWF fame (Xbox meets the XFL, or some such thing). The release goes on with current system specs and a
description of the couple of pre-release games they demonstrated. Meanwhile, www.xbox.com
is now sporting an interactive Flash animation featuring the upcoming console
system, and Planet GeForce
has re-posted some Xbox pictures they had previously pulled, as well as some new
ones, while ActiveXBox'
CES Roundup recaps the speech, and there's an
XBox chat log on XboxFaction featuring comments from MS' J Allard.
There is a new interview on Project Entropia at Stratics Central, talking to MindArk's Patric Sundström about their upcoming 3D MMORPG. In the first part of the interview, Patric discusses how they intend to incorporate elements from the real world economy into their subscription-less game, while the remaining part includes the usual MMORPG topics like the community system and player killing. Additionally, Stratics Central has posted a hands-off preview of the game, complete with a short character animation clip in two sizes.
Fansite UltorCorp has conducted an interview on Red Faction, grilling Volition lead level designer Matt Boynton about their upcoming first-person shooter of destructable environments. Matt describes his previous experiences with level editing, working with their proprietary RED editor, and implementing the storyline into the level design. The Q&A is also available in the site's native German.
A brief update on the official Aquarius site reports that this 3D action/strategy game by developers Jack in the Box has now reached beta version 1.0, and to highlight its current state they have released a new gameplay movie. The movie is available in two sizes and clocks in at a whopping 4:50 minutes, showing off the engine's ability to render the landscape from above as well as in ground-level first- and third-person modes, demonstrating combat in flying vehicles, tanks and on foot, and illustrating the visual extravaganza with which the action ensues.
There are six new Project Eden screenshots on Games Domain, illustrating the upcoming action adventure by Core Design that will stray away from their familiar Tomb Raider franchise by offering first- and third-person perspectives to control a squad of four characters into a futuristic world.
A new beta version 1.2 of the Western Quake 3 mod is now available at its official site. WesternQ3 is a mod that "wants to bring the awesome wild west-atmosphere to your stunning quake 3 engine," and this release brings point release 1.27g compatibility as well as several gameplay improvements and bug fixes, and comes as a small patch to update the previous beta version. Thanks Stomped.
Valve Software has released a new Half-Life dedicated beta server patch, available for download at HalfLife.net, which is labeled a Release Candidate. As usual, the server patch is available for Windows and Linux platforms, and it offers several new engine and server features, as well as sizeable list of bug fixes.
There are half a dozen new, high-res Jumpgate screenshots on Adrenaline Vault, accompanying some new details on the structures in this massively multiplayer space sim by Netdevil, as well as a sign-up for the beta.
The latest pair of Mafia: The City of Lost Heaven screenshots that publisher TalonSoft has been doling out over the past few days is now online at VoodooExtreme, showing off more scenes from the third-person mobster action game by Illusion Softworks.
Version 1.10 of Quake III Menu is now available, updating this "huge script program that allows you to set virtually any cvar and command known to man from the console." This release adds even more commands, a performance tweak, and more.
Daily Radar has posted a
preview of PlanetSide, which is actually reprinted from a recent issue of
PC Gamer. Much of the information in here has already made its way online, but
there are some quotes from Verant Interactive's Kevin McCann about their attempts
to meld an EverQuest-style persistent world with conventions from first person
shooters (although he stresses that the game will be light on the RPG elements)
as well as a handful of screenshots.
Gamecenter's
Majestic preview looks at the upcoming game from Electronic Arts that will
attempt to invade your life by contacting you via your fax, phone, e-mail and
instant messenger. The preview says that the game will be released later this
month ("released" meaning you can sign up for it on EA's web site)
and it contains some quotes from creator Neil Young who explains some of the
oddball gameplay elements (from what I understand, Crazy Horse wasn't involved
in the project, nor were Crosby, Stills or Nash). There are also a few new "screenshots"
from the game, although as it doesn't really have any sort of gameplay "engine"
there are shots of a web browser and some webcam pictures.
Two new movies from Clive Barker's
Undying, the nearly complete Unreal-engine title from Dreamworks Interactive
are up at PC.IGN this morning. These movies are different from the two that
were released yesterday ( story), however like those, they are
in QuickTime format, and available in two different sizes.
Beta 1 of the Pirates, Vikings & Knights
mod for Half-Life has been released. PVK is a teamplay mod that incorporates
classes from three different time periods, and this first release is described
on its official site as being, "very buggy and very incomplete." Thanks
Total-Reload, who have lots
of PVK-related media up for you to look at while downloading the mod.
The official Ultima Worlds Online: Origin
site has been given its weekly update. This week's update consists of a
new entry in their developer
comments section by lead programmer Jeremy Gaffney, which contains some
new gameplay details, and 11 new images on their
screenshots page.
Juan Diaz-Bustamente of Rebel Act
Studios is interviewed on PC.IGN today, talking about Blade of Darkness,
their all-but-gold third person action game. Juan talks about why they decided
to make such an ambitious project as their first game, and he also talks about
their plans for Blade 2, which will be for PC, Playstation 2 and Xbox, and will
have a more prominent multiplayer component.
Also on PC.IGN this morning is a
preview of Kohan: Immortal Sovereigns, the upcoming fantasy-themed RTS title
from TimeGate Studios. The preview isn't hands-on, but still contains lots of
details, and is loaded to the hilt with images: roughly 25 concept art pieces
and 40 screenshots.
Blizzard Entertainment has updated their
Employment Opportunities page with the news that they are looking to hire
a level designer for an unspecified game. The job description says that hey
are looking for someone, "with experience building levels using QERadiant,
Worldcraft or other similar 3D level building tools" (presumably UnrealED
qualifies) so if that's you, head
over and apply away.
A new article on FiringSquad
looks at The Underdogs, those truly independent developers that don't always
get much in the way of publicity. Remarkably, this article looks at the real
underdogs, instead of some of the more well-known independent titles (such as
Serious Sam) which have already been given some coverage in the press, and among
the titles they focus on are Axis from Korean developers Jamie Systems and Shattered
Galaxy from Nexon.
The official Star
Wars Galaxies site has been updated with a
restructured FAQ, complete with four new questions, and several new editions
of their Developer's Digest, which collects questions posted to their message
boards. In game guide news, GamePro.com has posted some
general tips for Giants: Citizen Kabuto, and REViLLA sends word that after
nearly two years of work, his
massive guide to Quake II is complete, and is loaded with gameplay tips,
information on key bindings, and downloadable config and pak files.
Well, today is the first day of the Consumer
Electronics Show in Las Vegas, which means it's Xbox unveiling time. Keep
your browser pointed to Microsoft's official
Xbox site, as they will be broadcasting Bill Gates' keynote address at 9:15
PST ( Windows Media Player required), and MSXbox
will be holding a chat with members of the Xbox development team right afterwards.
In response to all the silly talk about Nintendo buying Sega (see story
and story), Daily Radar has posted a tongue-in-cheek article
with five
games they'd like to see from "Nintega" (although it looks like
Panzer Mario 64 didn't make the list). Also, PSX.IGN
is reporting that Rockstar Games will announce that they are porting Rune
to the PS2 next month. Lastly, Xbox.IGN has posted four
new screenshots from New Legends, the upcoming game from Justin Chin's Infinite
Machine, which a few months back made the switch from a PC title to an Xbox-exclusive
( story).
Worldwide registration for the second season of the
Challenge Smackdown QuakeWorld deathmatch league is now open, and the deadline
has been set for January 15th. In contest news, XGR.com is giving away lots
of Sacrifice goodies in their
latest contest.
Chapter
11 of Z-Axis'
guide to making a perfect single player level is online, and contains another
tip for level designers: include more than just marines to fight against.
ValveNews has conducted an
interview with Axis, a programmer on the Day of Defeat mod for Half-Life.
As Blue pointed out yesterday, we rolled out the new speedier version of the
design the other night, and it seems to have gone off without any major problems
(there has been one report of problems with IE 3.0, which I'm going to look
into). I still have some things to fix, such as getting the retro colors to
work with Opera without breaking IE4, and some other minor tweaks, but for the
most part, it's looking like it's finished. Which is good, because that means
I can get back to work on our new links section, which will be really, really
cool. Trust me. In the meantime, if you've got any suggestions (reasonable ones
please...we're not going to add a Flash interface or anything) feel free to
mail them to me or post 'em to the message boards.
Story of the Day: Police
calm clubbers with lollipops (BBC). Thanks Chris Jones.
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