Archived News:
Newly launched eUniverseGames (formerly GA Network) kicks off with a quick Harbinger interview, quizzing Silverback lead programmer Andy Muir about their upcoming isometric action RPG. Andy provides an update on the game's development and talks about some of its features, including the AI, combat system, and more.
GameSpot's daily preview today covers Operation Flashpoint, the tactical 3D action game by Bohemia Interactive. The preview is based on their impressions of a recent build that apparently includes more missions than earlier press demos, and comes with a dozen new screenshots.
Although it still hasn't been formally announced yet, this month's issue of
PC Gamer (which should be widely available next week) will feature a preview of Soldier of
Fortune 2, the Quake III Arena engine sequel to the original SoF. A scan of
the cover artwork can be found at 3D
Realms' site (as the same issue features a Max Payne cover story) and a
discussion thread
on Raven's official message boards says that the article claims the game
will ship with no multiplayer, but a post by Brian Raffel suggests otherwise
(thanks Stomped).
Firefly Studios has recently opened their official Stronghold site, showcasing their upcoming isometric city-building real-time strategy game. The site offers details on the game's backstory and features, glimpes at some of the characters, a dozen new screenshots and a wallpaper.
- Conquest
The Conquest: Frontier Wars fansite has posted eight new screenshots of, what else?, Conquest: Frontier Wars, the in-between-publishers space-based RTS by Fever Pitch Studios (formerly by Digital Anvil).
- Tropico
The final three characters (the Miner, General and Showgirl) have been added to the Flash-only official Tropico site, each illustrated with three new screenshots of PopTop's management strategy game.
- Dark Age of Camelot
Similiarly, the official Dark Age of Camelot site sports a pair of new screenshots introducing new characters in the medieval MMORPG by Mythic Entertainment, who will open sign-ups for their next beta testing phase on Monday.
The first public release of Judgement,
a mod for Half-Life that takes place in Judge Dredd's Mega City One is now available.
The official site has a list of mirror files for both the Win32 client and the
Linux server, as well as some servers that are running the mod.
WomenGamers.com
previews Fighting Legends, looking at this upcoming role-playing strategy
game from Maximum Charisma Studios. The author was able to take a look at an
early build of the game, and the preview contains some gameplay details (including
info on the various clans) as well as some new screenshots and character renders.
Loki Software has released Linux native versions of the Quake III Arena mod
making tools. The file is available on Loki's FTP site (1.7 MB direct FTP link), and contains Linux versions of q3asm and lcc as well as the Q3A game source code.
The second half of EuroGamer's
interview with Bill Roper of Blizzard Entertainment is online. Like the
first half this is a transcription of an interview from Blizzard's recent press
event in London, and this portion focuses on the upcoming Diablo II Expansion,
with details on a player combat arena system that was considered but ultimately
dropped, and he also talks about the planned upgrades for Battle.net.
The Covert Gaming Corner at MacNN has conducted a
World War II Online interview, talking with Russell Mirabelli, Chris Sherland
and Rodney "Hatch" Hodge, the Mac OS programmer, producer and PR manager
at Cornered Rat Software about their upcoming massively multiplayer title. There
are lots of gameplay details, and the trio say that the game is simply "HUUUUUUGE"
and talk about how it differs from other tactical titles out there, such as
Counter-Strike and Rogue Spear.
An interview
with Pavel Sinagl of 7FX is up at German gaming site Schlapphut Entertainment.de
this afternoon. Although the introductory text is in German, the interview itself
is in English, and Pavel fields questions about their upcoming tactical action
game Team Factor.
AVault
is reporting that Headfirst Productions has secured the rights to create
a game based on the Deadlands pen and paper RPG. This is no less than the third
licensed property that Headfirst has landed, as they are already working on
games based on the Call of Cthulhu RPG and the Battle of the Planets series.
A new edition of the
Throne of Bhaal diary at RPG Planet is online today. This installment is
by BioWare's Kevin Martens, who talks about how large this upcoming add-on for
Baldur's Gate II is (apparently it's larger than most full games) and how they
are going about tweaking and pruning it for release.
Inside Mac Games checked
in with Mark Allender, the lead programmer on Summoner at Volition regarding
the status of the Mac OS port of Summoner. According to Mark they are currently
tweaking the graphics and sound and adding in the networking code, and it may
be complete within the next few weeks. They also contacted
Croteam's Alen Ladavac and asked him about the possibility of a Mac version
of Serious Sam, and were told that although they would like to port the game
to the Mac and Linux platforms, as a small developer they can't devote the necessary
resources to get it done. He does say however, that he believes "this situation
will change in the future."
After some technical difficulties last night PC.IGN has finally updated, and
they have posted a preview of
Throne of Bhaal, the upcoming add-on for Baldur's Gate II. BioWare's Ray
Muzyka and Alan Miranda dropped by the IGN offices with a build of the game,
and the preview is based on what they were shown, and contains eight new screenshots.
They have also posted the first
of their weekly looks at the various items in the game, examining "the
mystical Shakti."
Stomped has conducted a
Q&A with Dr. Ian Lane Davis, the founder of Mad Doc Software, talking
with him about their upcoming title Star Trek: Armada II. Dr. Davis talks specifically
about the creation of Mad Doc Software (which is made up of former Looking Glass
employees and members of the original Armada development team), how they are
moving the series into 3D, and what Star Trek actors will be lending their voices
to the game, saying that "a number of very familiar Star Trek The Next
Generation actors" will be participating.
Action Trip's O.R.B.
Interview talks with Christina Ginger of Strategy First about this upcoming
3D RTS title. The questions are all of a general sort, touching on the overall
premise of the game, its campaign structure and interface as well as what will
separate it from the other strategy games in development.
Westwood has released a new movie trailer of Emperor: Battle for Dune for download from their ftp server (11.1 MB). This trailer introduces House Ordos, the third and last faction in their 3D real-time strategy game, in a cinematic clip running for some 50 seconds in MPEG format.
The official Black Isle Studios: TORN site, previously a single page, has now been revamped into a more fully-fledged affair, offering information on the gameworld and its inhabitants, details on their special S.P.E.C.I.A.L. rules system, five new screenshots, three very short character animation clips, and more on this 3D role-playing game.
A couple of posts on PlanetBlackAndWhite
(thanks Tod Bouris) offer information on possible problems that you may
encounter when trying to run Black & White, Lionhead's just-released game of
dominance and submission, deity style. One post points out that EA's
tech support pages are pretty useless, so they've started their own B&W
Tech support page with actual workarounds they've devised or have been sent
for various problems folks have encountered. In a less easily addressed
situation, they also have a news post up with word that some retail B&W
packages accidentally (or they speculate, possibly deliberately), ended up with
some beta code for the game, rather than the final gold version. Here's what
they say about that: Apparently, a huge number of beta versions of Black
and White were shipped to stores around the world. EA, it seems, messed up some
files and replaced some of the Gold-Version BW files with the betas. I've heard
it rumoured that EA intentionally made beta copies in order to get BW out by the
27th. Whatever.
Well, when I heard this news I quickly called EA and emailed Lionhead
simultaneously. EA told me that it was an honest mistake. Also, they gave me
some interesting news that everyone should know. That bug with the Athlons and
the Dial-Up Networking is actually a RESULT of this beta mix-up. How bout that?
Anyway, EA plans to announce a recall (if you will) of all the beta copies out
there. If you have a copy (and you know you do if you get the DUN error) EA
would like you to call them. The promise to either refund or replace your game.
Sorry about all this confusion. At least we can still hope that the final
version has no bugs, (heh).
Phone Number: 1-888-842-6388 This is the Account Services Department (the
only phone number I could find). EA's not up there with the people friendly tech
support.
Lionhead hasn't replied yet, but when they do I'm sure they will be able to shed
some light on this serious matter.
Update: As has been noted on our messageboards (thanks Do_Or_Die), Lionhead's
official Black & White site has a blurb up
that directly refutes this: There seems to have been a rumour spread
about that EA shipped a beta version of the game instead of the final GOLD
version. This is not the case. The versions on sale are the
final GOLD version.
If you are experiencing any problems with installation or the running
of Black & White, then please contact the support department at
Electronic Arts. Their email is : support@ea.com
or uksupport@ea.com
If you have sent an email to bwgame.com or lionhead.com, then you
are advised to resend your mail to EA's support team who can deal with
your problem much more effectively than we will be able to.
Throne of Bhaal Nears Completion
is an unusually late update on GameSpot
that offers up a batch of new screenshots from the upcoming Baldur's Gate II
expansion, following their recent visit to the offices of BioWare to check it
out. The near completion they refer to in the headline relates to word that the
upcoming RPG add-on is "feature-complete and is undergoing rigorous testing
until the game is ready to ship sometime in the middle of the second quarter."
Offering "In space, no one can hear you yell 'boo yah!'" as their
trademark clever sub-headline, Computer Games Online
previews Zero-G Marines with a look ahead at this game that offers
first-person combat in the gravity-less environment of space, where even if they
can hear you scream, they probably don't care. The preview discusses gameplay,
offers some new screenshots, and even more fun with headlines: "From the
Halls of Montezuma, to the storms of Ganymede... We will fight our country's
battles, even without gravity." You gotta love that.
GameSpy.com previews Nexagon-The Pit,
looking ahead at the upcoming RTS game from Strategy First that was previously
called simply, "The Pit." The analogy-filled preview relates the game
to such widely-varied items as Lego, The Matrix, and AOL/Time Warner, and, as if
that wasn't enough to paint a clear picture of how Nexagon will operate, they've
posted a batch of screenshots as well, though these have all been previously
seen elsewhere.
The Sound of Musica
on GameSpy.com is Jeff Smith's account of how he created the music in
Tropico, PopTop's upcoming island dictator RTS offering, describing his efforts
to enlist outside expertise in infusing the tunes with the appropriate Latin
flavor. Also, the JavaScript-heavy Earth and Beyond
website features another diary from this upcoming space-based game, this one
from the game's director of Customer Service. Finally, the fourth edition of the
Morrowind
Design Diary on Voodoo Extreme has been posted, offering thoughts from
Bethesda's Christin A. about progress on this upcoming RPG.
Guidelines for Developing Successful Games on the Ensemble Studios website has thoughts from
Ensemble's Bruce Shelley on game creation, offering a 19 point plan for success,
as well as the PowerPoint presentations that accompanied the GDC presentation.
Also, RPG
Vault's GDC 2001 Report, Part 1 and Part 2
are both online, recapping what they saw at the show.
A report on GameSpyDaily
written by ION Storm's Harvey Smith, who is a former employee of Origin, gives
the lowdown on a wake held last night for the basically defunct game company.
The article is illustrated by a couple of photos, and offers a recap of the sad
event, which was attended by many former Origin staffers, including Richard
Garriott, Lord British himself, who had some bittersweet t-shirts printed for
the occasion with the sad, but proud message: ORIGIN
We Created Worlds...
1983-2001
The Silver-Forces website
now has beta 3.1 of the Silver Forces modification for Soldier of Fortune. The
update is only available as a 20 MB full installer, though work is currently
underway on a smaller file to patch previous versions of Silver Forces. The mod
offers a few variations on SoF gameplay, including a familiar rescue the
hostages scenario, as well as a football game.
The Quake 3 Server Wizard page
has a new version 1.2 of this Quake III Arena front-end. In addition to
addressing a few bugs, the new version adds support for the OSP mod, the InstaGib
Mod, more options for FreezeTag, and more.
Xbox.com now offers Bill Gates'
keynote address from the Tokyo Game Show in streaming video format. Also, It's Official! Sega and Microsoft Sign
Multi-title Deal declares Xbox.IGN.Com announces 11 planned titles,
including an updated Panzer Dragoon. Meanwhile, Sega Hints at Pending GameCube Announcement
on Cube.IGN.Com speculates about a similar upcoming partnership between Sega
and Nintendo. First Shots of Japanese Xbox Controller
on Xbox.IGN.Com shows off the non-Gaijin-sized Xbox controller for the MS
console systems, while shots of the Xbox broadband adaptor are up on Xbox.IGN.com.
More news and stories from the T.G.S. can be found on Daily Radar.
Finally, Microsoft Partners with NTT Communications For Xbox Broadband Gaming Network
on Xbox.IGN.Com offers more info on the partnership mentioned in this space
yesterday.
The Savage UK Ladders
page has word of the creation of a Savage Q3 Classic CTF Ladder as well as
four new Rocket Arena 3 competition ladders.
- Haemimont Multimedia has released a
patch for TZAR:The Burden of the Crown (5.5 MB-direct link) to
address balance issues and add GameSpy Arcade support. The file is mirrored
on FilePlanet...
- Threshed.com
interviews AJ Morand, talking with the VP of Operations for Moshpit
Entertainment about the "Bloodmoney Universe," their "online
financial platform for the gaming industry." Along the way they explain
their reasons for pulling out of their sponsorship agreement with the CPL...
Well, I have a line on my copy of Serious Sam, but today I'm going TRIBES 2
hunting (I know, I should just be doing a better job of weaseling freebies, but
I hate weaseling), and I'm not taking no for an answer, so if you hear of a
hostage situation at a Best Buy where a crazed webmaster is demanding to talk to
someone at the warehouse, you'll know I hit another sold out situation. For all
our sakes, I hope it doesn't come to this.
Link of the Day: Marks Custom Kits,
with an illustrated account of his restoration of the original kit car, K.I.T.T.
from Knight Rider. Thanks Ant.
Story of the Day: Beholden
to a Higher Law (Fox). A prison inmate is suing in federal court, demanding
recognition as the Messiah. Thanks theAntiELVIS.
Weird Science: Scientists
Stunned by Gender-Bender Chromosome (Reuters). Thanks [MP] Wolverine [MP].
The sequel to the popular Scientists stunned to learn universe may be accelerating
and Scientists
Shocked by 70% Depletion of Arctic Ozone Layer, and of course, this
letter that says "Scientists were stunned recently when it was revealed
that air bubbles trapped in fossilized amber had been analyzed and found to
contain oxygen levels of 38%." I think we may need to work on finding some
less flappable scientists--they're just too easily stunned.
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