Archived News:
Day three of the Oni Special Moves Feature is now online ( Flash required), highlighting combat moves in Bungie's imminent third-person action game of anime art and martial arts. Today's short movie clip shows off the Crescent Moon move that makes your character Konoko perform a backward somersault to "Knock enemies out of the air!"
There is a new interview on Shattered Galaxy, the massively multiplayer RTS by Nexon, at Planet Shattered Galaxy (one of those rare sites not part of the PlanetEverything network). Shattered Galaxy has been in operation in Korea for some time, but is currently in beta testing in the US, and Nexon's Kevin Saunders and David Huang are at hand to discuss the origins of the game, the challenges in creating their online world, the beta test, and the anticipated subscription rate for the final game.
Bungie's Matt Soell returns with a brief Halo update, this time on rampancy.net (thanks halo.bungie.org). This installment looks back at the Bungie Fan-Fest and their "Second Annual Bungie Pentathlon," as well as offering updates on programming clean-up, unit variations, and vehicle navigation in their upcoming 3D action game.
- Undying
Italian site Multiplayer.it has posted ten new, high-res screenshots of Clive Barker's Undying, illustrating the first-person horror shooter in development at DreamWorks Interactive.
- Bridge Commander
The official Star Trek: Bridge Commander site has been updated with three new screenshots (the shot of the week and the pair below it) offering new galactic scenes in the capitol ship space sim by Totally Games.
- EVE
A single new screenshot of EVE is online at Eve HQ, accompanying a bio of CCP's Torfi Frans Olafsson, one of the developers working on this massively multiplayer online space-combat strategy/RPG (oof!).
- Shadowbane
More MMO gaming today, as the official Shadowbane site sports half a dozen new screenshots of the fantasy online role-playing game being crafted at Wolfpack Studios.
- RIM
German site ZOCKS has posted a brief preview of RIM with seven screenshots of this 3D space-combat RTS by TriNodE and Fishtank Interactive (an English translation can be obtained with their own translation link or trusty Babel Fish).
- Tropico
A brief but hands-on preview of Tropico on Daily Radar UK looks ahead to the isometric tropical island management game by PopTop in words and ten new, low-res screenshots.
GameSpy.com previews Evil Islands: Curse of the Lost Souls anticipating a Spring release of this 3D role-playing strategy game by Nival and Fishtank Interactive that is already available in Germany and Russia. The preview examines the role-playing and strategy elements, the gameplay, 3D engine, multiplayer, and other features, all underlined with quotes from Fishtank's Jerry Wolosenko and a handful of new screenshots.
Also on GameSpy.com this morning is Fighting the Good Fight: The State of the Real-Time Strategy Genre, an article by Liquid Entertainment president Ed Del Castillo discussing the real-time strategy genre, its progression since the seminal Dune 2, and how he thinks the evolution of technology will help bring the depth of strategy boardgames back into RTS games on the PC.
Icewind Dale: Heart of Winter Designer Diary, Chapter 7 on RPG Vault brings word from designer Josh Sawyer that this isometric RPG expansion pack by Black Isle is "extremely close to being finished." The diary proceeds with a brief account of the play-test/bug-fix cycle as well as their efforts to improve gameplay balance.
A new version 1.2 of SCTA, the SuperConfigurable Team Arena mod, is now available at its official site. This release adds a slew of new features, including a new map rotation method, "remotely-detonatable holograms," new voting options, and lots more.
More configuration news, as a new version 1.3 of the Half-Life Menu has been released at the Game Menu Headquarters. Half-Life Menu is a script that allows you to set virtually all console commands in a convenient way, and this release brings new demo and sound submenus, some new commands, and bug fixes.
Daily Radar has written a
new preview of X-COM: Enforcer, the third person Unreal-engine title from
Microprose. The preview is brief, but has their hands-on impressions of the
game along with some new screenshots.
Also new on Daily Radar this morning is a
preview of Hostile Waters: Antaeus Rising. Like the above preview it's based
on their hands-on experience with a beta build, but it also has some quotes
from Dan Kingdom, the game's producer. There are of course some new screenshots
up as well.
The first edition of the
Ask the Civ Team column at Firaxis' official Civilization III site is online.
The questions are all fan-submitted, and deal with how culture, nationality
and diplomacy will factor into the gameplay among other topics.
The official Shogun:
Total War site has been updated with a
new image in their "tour" that shows off some of the new features
from The Mongol Invasion, the upcoming add-on pack for the game (which will
be released as The Warlord Edition here in the US). They will be adding a new
image to the tour every week.
The first public release of Half-Life
ServerInfo is available for download at its official site. ServerInfo is
a freeware utility that allows you to monitor a specific server for changes
and notify you or launch Half-Life based on specific criteria (I.E. when a server
is no longer full it will launch Half-Life and connect to it).
The official Ultima Worlds Online: Origin
site has undergone its weekly update. This week's update is comparatively
small as it consists entirely of a
new edition of their Team Comments column, where lead designer Damion Schubert
explains how their Master Game Database affects every thing from in-game economy
to what attacks a monster can perform and how this is a good thing.
Three new questions have been added to the
Star Wars Galaxies FAQ at Sony's official site. Also, the
gargantuan unofficial Sacrifice FAQ at fan page The Ambassador's Domain
has been updated with new info about problems with 3dfx cards, how the karma
system works and lots more.
Off the Record on PS2.IGN
has some rumors that LucasArts is going to be announcing some new games in the
next few weeks, including word that Obi-Wan will be an Xbox exclusive, and possibly
even a PS2 version of one of their graphic adventure games. More rumors can
be found at Xbox.IGN who says that Buffy: The Vampire Slayer may wind up an
Xbox exclusive, as well as Cube.IGN, where
they're reporting that in-store promotions for Nintendo's Gamecube system
will be arriving in stores this summer in time to build hype for a Christmas
launch. Lastly, chalk one up for the fans, as Gamers.com
is reporting that SquareSoft has listened and will be releasing their Playstation
remakes of Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy IV in the US (woo hoo!).
The winners in the fake Duke Nukem Forever screenshot contest have been posted
over at 3D Realms' site. Also,
Hercules is giving away three copies of their
GameTheater XP audio system in their new contest, and The Hardware Pub is
giving away some Athlon case stickers and cables in
their latest contest. In tournament news, ClanCrap! has started a
discussion thread regarding the OGL's decision to modify their
terms of service agreement to include rebroadcasting rights, which is likely
linked to this announcement
that GameLoft will be broadcasting matches online.
The official Firearms Half-Life site
has been given a massive update that has details on the upcoming version 2.5
release of the mod, complete with pictures of the new weapon models (thanks Stomped). In other
Half-Life mod news, new shots from the next version of the Science & Industry
mod for Half-Life can be found over at Total-Reload.com.
Lastly, the Strike Force: TRIBES 2 and Strike Force: Unreal Tournament mods
have both relocated to the newly unveiled Strike
Force Center, which will provide all your Strike Force needs in one place.
After almost a year of eerie silence, I updated loonygames
the other night, so those of you that were wondering what happened to the site
now have some closure. I've also put up some links to places where you can find
loonygames contributors during our indefinite hiatus. As far as the Blue's News
design goes, we have uncovered a strange bug. Apparently from time to time people
show up and find everything randomly broken because the smaller advertisement
at the top has mysteriously become a larger one. This is some sort of error
on UGO's part, combined with a bug in some older versions of Netscape where
it will override the height/width tags in IFrames. There's not much we can do
about it, so if you see it, just hit refresh a few times and it'll fix itself.
Ph, and my anime recommendation of the week is Serial Experiments Lain. Especially
those great DVD collections (I bought the set, so I've got the lunchbox too).
Great stuff.
Story of the Day: Constipated
Scots jewel thief gives up loot (thanks Ross).
Weird Science: Scientists
Bring Light to Full Stop, Hold It, Then Send It on Its Way (NYTimes, registration
required). Thanks Trey Walker.
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