Archived News:
As promised ( story), the Counter-Strike map pack for owners of the retail version of the popular Half-Life mod is now available for download at the official site. The pack weighs in at 17.5 MB and includes those maps missing from the retail edition so that players won't have to download them from game servers.
Rampancy.net is the lucky recipient of the weekly Halo update in which Bungie's Matt Soell, apparently unscathed by this week's Gamestock mania, offers the usual round-up on progress in the development of their 3D action title. This edition has word on AI improvements, a swamp level, waterfalls, storyboards, and the proverbial more.
- Anachronox
The official Anachronox site has been updated with a handful of screenshots (some new, some old) illustrating the Democratus area in ION Storm's upcoming 3D role-playing game.
- Necrocide
GameSpot offers half a dozen concept images of Necrocide drawn by renowned fantasy artist Brom who is contributing to NovaLogic's upcoming horror 3D action title.
- ARX
GA-Source has posted half a dozen (small) screenshots of ARX illustrating the first-person RPG being crafted at Arkane Studios.
- TRIBES 2
More TRIBES 2 screenshots from the ongoing 'meta' test of Dynamix' team-based shooter are up at Tribes Universe (thanks Ruben).
- Anarchy Online
Likewise, three new Anarchy Online screenshots from the ongoing beta test of Funcom's MMORPG are up at both Gildenweb and AO Basher.
- UWO: Origin
The official Ultima Worlds Online: Origin site has been updated with four new screenshots (the first four images in the spiffy rotation window) showing new scenes from the 3D MMORPG in the works at Origin.
While it has been rumored about but not officially announced (to our knowledge), the latest Askin' Haskins column at the Gathering of Developers site now unveils RUNE: Halls of Valhalla, an expansion pack for Human Head's Viking slash-em-up that was released last Fall (thanks Stomped). There is a box shot as well as a few details on what the pack will bring, apparently not requiring the full game for multi-player gaming. Here is an excerpt describing the two new multiplayer modes that will be included:
Arena pits players against one another in 1-on-1 combat, and some maps and servers will allow for larger teams. You equip yourself with weapons and shields, then take you place in a queue until it’s your turn to get it on. A number floating above your head indicates your place in the queue and, after a countdown, you’ll be transported into the arena. Survive your battle and you’ll walk away with full health and all your weapons for the next bloodbath.
HeadBall could best be described as ‘basketball for Vikings’. Once an opponent’s head has been severed, any player on your team can pick it up and make a mad dash for goals strategically placed around the maps. Some goals are open to any player; others are team-specific. Variant maps contain multiple goals where each scores a different number of points per head, with tricky or distant goals worth more.
GameSpot has posted a short movie trailer of Steel Soldiers, showing off the 3D real-time strategy game nearing completion at The Bitmap Brothers. This 6 MB clip runs for a bit under a minute, offering a couple of dozen seconds of gameplay along with rather lenghty title screen sequences (if you care for that sort of thing).
Also on GameSpot this evening is more Battle Realms fun, as they have posted a new installment in their regular look at the units in Liquid Entertainment's 3D real-time strategy game. This part concerns itself with the multiplayer-only Lotus Clan, introducing its backstory, structures and units, illustrated with new screenshots.
A Q&A
with the Fighting Legends development team at Maximum Charisma Studios is
up at 3D Gaming Daily. The developers talk about their upcoming massively multiplayer
title, explaining what sets it apart from the competition, and there are five
new screenshots here as well.
The official Star Wars Galaxies site has been updated this afternoon with another
of their continuing
looks at the various character species in the game. This time focuses on
the Trandoshans, and like the previous ones they have posted a
general description and two new concept art images of the species.
More triplets of Battle Realms screenshots have found their way around the Internet, popping up at Gaming Age, Adrenaline Vault, Computer Games Online and Daily Radar, all sporting the same not-so-exclusive update on the development of Liquid Entertainment's 3D real-time strategy game, as does GA-Source's more expansive Battle Realms gallery, where they have also posted a short in-game movie clip that demonstrates the Wolf Clan's ballistaman unit.
Digital Extremes has released a playable demo of Adventure Pinball: Forgotten Island for download from FilePlanet. The demo clocks in at a svelte 16.9 MB and offers you a taste of this 3D pinball game that was created using the Unreal engine. Update: there are mirrors on DemoNews and Electronic Arts (direct ftp link).
Fan page Resurrection has conducted a
Q&A with Brady Bell, the producer of Clive Barker's Undying at Dreamworks
Interactive. Brady talks about the changes they made to the Unreal engine as
well as the chances of there being a patch that enables multiplayer, and he
also says he's currently working on a Playstation 2 port of the game.
Build 489 of the Unreal Fortress mod
for Unreal Tournament has been released (thanks GamersRevolt for the tip). This new version
adds new pre-match features, map voting, two new maps and a host of other gameplay
tweaks and improvements.
A few days have passed since Microsoft's GameStock event, and so just about
everyone in attendance has posted their wrap-up articles. Gamesmania's
GameStock coverage includes a journal of the event along with previews of
each game they saw, while FiringSquad,
GameWeek (thanks Stomped)
and GamePen
each have their own looks at the various games on display. Finally, GameSpy.com
has posted brief previews
of three more games they saw at the show: MechCommander 2, Flight Simulator
2002 and Microsoft Train Simulator.
GameSpot UK winds up their 12 days of Black & White with a hands-on preview of Lionhead's god-playing game that went gold today ( story). The preview offers their impressions of the gameplay and comes with more new screenshots. And in related news, Morn sends words that Peter Molyneux is to appear on German TV in the Giga Games show on NBC Europe, showing off his magnum opus at 10:00 PM MET (which translates to 4:00 PM EST, but that seems kinda pointless in this case).
Adrenaline Vault has posted a feature on Real War which, after a brief introduction, rolls over into an in-depth interview with Jim Omer, lead designer of this realistic military RTS under construction at Rival Interactive. Jim introduces the project's origins as a strategy simulation for the US military and discusses the game's features in detail, and there are also a few new screenshots among familiar ones.
Version 1.1 of CSCop is now available, updating this anti team-killer monitoring utility for Counter-Strike server admins, the main change being accommodation of the new C-S version 1.1 log format. Consequently, it requires that Counter-Strike version as well as Half-Life 1.1.0.6.
Real.com has released patches to update the downloadable version of Team Fortress Classic to version 1.5.0.2, making this standalone edition of the Half-Life mod compatible with Half-Life version 1.1.0.6. There is a patch for the free demo and one for the full version that can itself be downloaded for a price. Thanks Stomped for the reminder.
There is a five question Q&A on Anachronox at VoodooExtreme, quizzing ION Storm lead designer Tom Hall about the upcoming 3D role-playing game. Tom addresses the game's current status, the improvements made to the Quake II engine, the amount of play time the game should offer and plans for a playable demo, and there are also four new screenshots.
German fansite D2Network has posted a quick interview with Blizzard's Bill Roper, discussing the upcoming Lord of Destruction expansion pack to Diablo II (thanks RPG Vault). Topics on the table include gameplay balancing and difficulty levels, the new character and item classes, and several other details. The Q&A is available in your choice of English and German.
The second and final installment of the article on Half-Life mod development by Valve's Robin Walker is now online at Stomped. This part offers a five week plan to organize the building process and achieve the best possible result when the time comes to release the mod, and as before much of his advice can be helpful to mod teams for other games than Half-Life as well.
Spellbound and Infogrames have released a German playable demo of Desperados: Wanted Dead or Alive, available for download from Swiss site gamesweb.com. The demo clocks in at 60.0 MB and allows you to play one episode in this isometric squad-based combat game set in that illustrious Wild Wild West. Update: Infogrames sends word that English and French playable demos are expected next week, so if German is not your thing, you may like to wait for one of the other editions.
After days of anticipation, Lionhead has officially announced that Black &
White has gone gold. Peter Molyneux sent out an e-mail to members of the official
Lionhead forums with the news, saying that the game will ship worldwide on March
30th and should be on the shelves by April 6th. Here's his letter, reprinted
from Black & White Center: Lionhead
Studios is very excited to share the news that Black & White for the PC
HAS GONE GOLD!!!!!!!
"Everyone at Lionhead has been longing to see those words and it is with
profound sense of relief that I am writing them.
Black & White has been the most epic project I have ever worked on and it
feels as though these past few months have been the longest of my life. Everyone
here at Lionhead is very proud of what we have accomplished. I would like to
pay tribute to each and every one of them for their creativity and hard work
in making what started out as a two page description, become the stunning experience
that is Black & White.
I should also like to thank the press for their continued interest and enthusiasm
for the game. Most importantly I would also like to say thanks to all the fans,
it is has been their support that made the hard times worthwhile.
Yours faithfully,
Peter Molyneux
Thanks to all who have been supportive over the past 3 years, we truly hope
you'll love the game as much as we have loved making it.
- The Lionhead Team
p.s.
Mark your calendars and get your pre-orders placed - Black & White is scheduled
for a massive worldwide release with a shipping date of Friday March 30th, it
will be in your store on April 6th 2001. :)
Update: Electronic Arts sent out an official announcement that says it will be released on March 27th in North America.
The Adrenaline Vault
previews Independence War 2: The Edge of Chaos looking at Particle Systems'
upcoming sequel to Independence War, their space combat simulator. According to
the article's author, the vastness of space is one of the final frontiers that
has not been adequately represented in a game like this, at least until now, as
the following excerpt explains: Very few space-combat sims have ever been
able to truly capture the feeling of traipsing about in the vastness of 3D
space. Some latter titles in the Wing Commander series have come close,
but still the mark has not been set. Until testing Independence War 2, I
have never seen a 3D space environment capable of truly immersing and
captivating audiences. The new rendering engine developed by Particle Systems is
dubbed the Flux engine, and works perfectly in rendering both small and large
ships, not to mention the massive nature of space to a truly amazing degree.
Navigating through space in Independence War 2 requires quite a bit more
finesse on the part of the pilot than many of the more pure-action oriented
sims.
Likewise looking towards the heavens is Computer Games Online's
Startopia Preview which looks forward to this upcoming game from Mucky Foot
that features life on a space station. The article combines thoughts from the
developers with impressions from a playable build of the game to give a feel for
its unusual nature, which they say includes "a distinctive sense of humor
and personality."
Still more from space, there is a
new designer diary on the Earth and Beyond website written by Paul Robinson,
who describes himself as the head story-teller for the Earth & Beyond
universe. The diary mainly describes Paul's background as both a writer and a
game designer, trying to give a feel for the passion and professionalism he
wants to bring to the project. Meanwhile, a different note on the Earth and Beyond
site has word that producer Eric Wang and lead designer Janus Anderson will
be attending a live E&B chat next Tuesday (March 20), at 9:00 PM EST, a
visit to the site on that day should lead to the specifics on how to connect up
with the session.
The first edition of RPGPlanet's
HORIZONS Diary is online, with David Allen, CEO of Artifact Entertainment
talking about HORIZONS: Empires of Isteria, the MMORPG from the makers of Demise:
Rise of the Ku'Tan. The debut diary doesn't really offer much about the game, as
it primarily concentrates on the growth of the team and other aspects of
managing the project, but it does mention plans to announce some new features
that have yet to be mentioned around the (unspecified) time the game goes into
beta testing.
With the flood of recent news about games going gold, the obvious side effect is
that we are starting to see a flood of new releases on store shelves. Gone Gold reports that Fate of the Dragon and Star Trek: Away Team started showing up in stores yesterday and The Moon Project and Star Wars: Battle for
Naboo appeared on shelves the day before. Likewise, we have received word that a
couple more games are going to ship today: Kohan: Immortal Sovereigns and
Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel.
The official Hostile Waters: Antaeus
Rising website is online, offering a Flash-only resource for Rage's
upcoming action strategy game. Among the goodies housed there are a batch of new
screenshots, as well as a new Hostile waters FAQ.
The voting page for the Sacrifice
mapping competition is now online, offering the five finalist maps for
download, as well as the opportunity to cast your vote for your favorite
to help determine the winner. In an effort to keep the proceedings fair, only
one vote per CD key will be permitted and voting is taking place over the coming
week to give folks a chance to play all the maps.
The Red Faction preview on
PS2.IGN.Com offers four movies showing off gameplay in the PS2 version of
Volition's upcoming shooter, two of which were part of the
batch we already mentioned on GameSpot ( story), while the
other two are new. Also, Escape from Monkey Island comes to the PS2
on GameSpot announces that Guybrush Threepwood is sailing towards consoles. 10
ways a built-in hard drive makes the Xbox a better videogame console than the
PS2 on Daily Radar avoids the next obvious step in talking about advantages
all PCs have over all consoles in areas such as this. Also, GameCube Ready for Expansion
on Cube.IGN.Com quotes leaked documents in reporting that you may be able to
ram more RAM in your Cube. Meanwhile, New Details on Phantasy Star Online
Ver. 2 on Dreamcast.IGN.Com offers just that, details on the expansion (incorrectly
called a sequel yesterday, thanks Chris "3-D" Fowler for the
clarification), while the Petition to bring Phantasy Star Online v.2 to the US-Europe
is already lobbying for an export version. Finally, this
thread on the IGN messageboards (thanks Davis Lentz) explores the
possibility that Microsoft has been applying a little Photoshop magic to an Xbox
screenshot.
This Blizzard Entertainment Employment Opportunities
page has been updated with a help wanted ad for a texture artist.
The Tutorial
index on The Backburner is online with a whopping 35 new Quake III Arena
editing tutorials, 31 of them are mapping tutorials, while the other four are
on the use of Shaders.
An Activision Product Solutions
for Star Trek Away Team page is now online, offering troubleshooting tips
for technical difficulties in the game, though if you are stuck for hints you're
just going to have to violate the prime directive or threaten Scotty's job to
get more power or something.
- Sega says outspoken president Okawa dies
(Reuters), announcing that Sega Corp's "outspoken president Isao Okawa,
who recently grabbed media headlines for his 85 billion yen ($695.7 million)
private donation to the struggling gamemaker, died of heart failure on
Friday. He was 74 years old." Thanks Kaspian...
- GameSpot's Indie Games Week
rolls on, every day they are offering a brief preview of a different IGF
finalist along with "in-depth interviews with the development teams"...
I know there was a discussion of the nature of this "Ides" stuff
before, but for the life of me I can't find it searching through the archive.
Anyway, I have been informed that the reason no one makes an ominous connection
between the Ides of April and U.S. tax day (which is April 15) is because the
Ides of April falls on the 13th, as quickly pointed out by both Kevin Mescher
and Michael Smit. Michael also sends along the following informative link on the
subject: Ides of March on
InfoSeek, in which we learn that in addition to an Ides, each month also has
similar points of reference called Kalends (the 1st day of the month) and Nones
(sometimes the seventh, and sometimes the fifth). So there it is: besides the
warning to beware the Ides of March, you should also beware the Kalends of
April, since someone may ring your bell after dropping a bag of flaming dog-doo
on your porch.
We missed wishing a happy birthday yesterday to our esteemed colleague Rich
LaPorte of Gone Gold, who took the
occasion to post the story of his injury (received in the line of duty as a
police officer) on Gone Gold,
offering the upbeat conclusion that working on the site has been helpful in the psychological
healing process.
Link of the Day: Liftoff Home.
Thanks zombie69.
Bonus Link: The John
Cash Diet Plan. Now over four years old (!), but I think I will post this
once a year in perpetuity.
Story of the Day: Cop shows he's one tough cookie
(The Atlanta Journal-Constitution). Thanks Buclerpp. Speaking of John Cash, I'll
just resume an old feud and point out the Magic Mint cookies are the finest of
the Girl Scout cookies.
Bonus Story: Australia:
Junk Food Fuelled Athlete Too Good to Be True for Fastfood Giants. Thanks Chris Johnson.
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