Archived News:
World Online's
Operation Flashpoint interview is online, talking with Marek Španěl, producer
and lead designer on the upcoming cold war shooter for Bohemia Interactive
Studios. This is the English translation of the interview on this Czech site
with this Czech developer, and topics include what they are currently working on
as the finish off production on the game, reaction to the Op Flashpoint demo,
the status of the multiplayer demo ("We will start to work on multiplayer
demo when OFP is gold, but perhaps multiplayer demo may be out before the game
arrives in stores"), and more.
Frans has put on his happy demo hunting hat, and posted a new Conflict Zone demo
on 3D Gamers for your downloading pleasure. The demo is a 120 MB whopper,
its large size possibly due to the fact that it originally appeared on the
cover-mounted CD with a game magazine. Here's the description posted along with
the file: Conflict Zone is a 3D real-time strategy game by MASA Group set
roughly in the present day that puts the ICP forces (UN-type organization)
against the Ghost forces (a terrorist organization). We now have a playable demo
for this game online that includes three single-player missions on the ICP side
from the full game.
Update on Monday: A mirror is now available at the ftp server of Ubi Soft Germany ( Flash-only).
The Siege Works
interviews Scott Bilas of Gas Powered Games talking about Dungeon Siege, their
upcoming RPG, and more specifically, the Skrit system that is the game's
scripting language. The conversation goes into quite a bit of detail about
Skrit, which will allow those interested in modifying the game beyond the scope
of the Dungeon Siege editor to get further under the hood of the game, when it
is released.
Gaming Age Specials' One Must Fall: Battlegrounds Interview
catches up on the upcoming follow-up to One Must Fall 2097, the computer-based
version of Rock-'em Sock-'em Robots. The conversation is with Saul Bottcher, the
musician and webmaster at Diversions Entertainment, and offers detail on many
areas of the game, not just the music.
A post on Tribalwar.com
has word that Mark "Got Milk?" Frohnmayer has joined the ranks of
ex-Dynamix employees at GarageGames, currently devoted to the care and feeding
of the licensed version of the TRIBES 2 engine. Far from being an unexpected
move, those with memories like elephants' will recall it was actually announced
last summer that Mark would be joining GarageGames after TRIBES 2 development
was complete ( story).
There's a short Independence
War 2 update on A Talent For War based on some feedback Particle Systems has
received based on the closed (or at least what was supposed to be closed) beta
testing for Independence War 2. Overall they are pleased with the response, but
want it made clear that the impression given by some sites that this was an
official demo was incorrect, and this is only intended to test the game's
multiplayer component.
- New ASUS BIOS
Some new BIOS files have been posted by ASUS
Germany: A new A7S-VM
BIOS (direct link), a new A7V
BIOS (direct link), and a new A7V133
BIOS (direct link). Thanks SocketA.com.
- New NvMax
A new version 2.047 of the NvMax
NVIDIA tweaking utility is available, described as the last version 2.0
beta. Thanks Savage News.
- New Radeon Tweaker
The
Radeontweaker Homepage has a new version 1.1.1 of the Radeon Tweaker
utility for ATI video cards.
Exclusive
CIA Operative Info And Screenshots on Stomped offer info on CIA Operative, a
just-gold game using the Quake engine developed by 2015 for Trainwreck Studios,
their "valueware" division. Included are four new screenshots.
The Veterans Clan has
released an IRC bot for TRIBES 2 that can broadcast action from a TRIBES 2 match
virtually live to an IRC network. In addition to providing all sorts of info and
statistics to participants in an IRC channel, it also serves as somewhat of
an administrative front-end, allowing server admins to kick or ban players and
send other commands to the server console from IRC.
The WTW Homepage has a new pre-final
version 2 of the WTW utility for Quake III Arena. WTW stands for 'Who's The
Winner,' which describes the essential question that can be answered by this log
file analysis program, which will parse logs from Q3A matches into meaningful
HTML output. The new version fixes bugs, and adds a bunch of new features in
what is described as the "last beta/experimental release."
Slain teacher's family launches suit aimed at media violence
(thanks Steve Masters) is a Denver Post.com article about an action stemming
from the Columbine school shooting a couple of years ago that says "Linda
Sanders, wife of slain teacher Dave Sanders, and two of his stepdaughters filed
a multibillion-dollar, class-action lawsuit Thursday against 25 media companies,
most of which manufacture or distribute video games." The article also
describes a letter sent to John Carmack by the lawyer for the family of a
student injured in the shooting asking he "prohibit the sale and
distribution of all video games rated for mature audiences to children under 17
- and to do it by April 30," going on to point out that the statute of
limitations on that family's right to sue won't expire until the victim turns 18
this June. Here's a bit more from the article on the lawsuit: The Sanders'
suit, filed hours before a two-year statute of limitations expired, claims that
if not for violent games and other media images - in particular, a school
massacre scene from the movie "The Basketball Diaries" - the rampage
by Harris and Klebold wouldn't have happened.
The suit asks for $5 billion in damages, plus damages of $5,000 to $10 million
for individual parties in the class action.
"But money may be the smallest part of the goal," said John DeCamp,
the Sanders' Nebraska-based attorney. "This is a class action that says
that, ultimately, money ain't gonna do it."
The suit contends that the $20-billion-a-year video game industry will not
effectively regulate itself, and that court intervention is necessary to keep
violent games out of the hands of minors.
In other notes, Nintendo of
America is the only company specifically named as a defendant in the suit, and
the lawyer for the family that wrote to John Carmack (which is unrelated to the
lawsuit) is Florida attorney Jack Thomson, who helped file the federal lawsuit
against dozens of entertainment companies following the 1997 school shooting in
Paducah, KY.
There's a Gathering 2001
recap on ModdingZone with a write-up of this monster event they estimate
attracted about 4500 attendees. Also, the Cyberathlete Professional League
has announced some details about their fourth anniversary tournament this
summer, including a date change that now has the event running from June 28-July
1, 2001.
There's a Black and White
Tweak Guide on Tweak3D.net that basically runs through all the various
options you can turn on and off in the game describing their impact on
performance.
The Unofficial Tribes 2 Coding FAQ is
now online. Also, a post up on Polycount
describes a situation where work of some folks from the community may have been
used without permission for a commercial Half-Life product released by a
European company called CDV. They
have posted some examples of things they believe were ganked, and urge those who
have created Half-Life levels, models, and utilities to check to see if they may
have been so victimized, as well. Finally, there's an
Adobe Atmosphere Beta report on Beta Bites that looks at this upcoming
program that will help create 3D worlds.
Happy Earth Day, though sadly, just like mom's have to work on Mother's Day, the
earth does not get today off either. Earth Day now caps off what has become a
full-blown Earth Week, though I don't think expanding the celebration has done
anything to gain the occasion more notice. In fact, Earth Day does not seem to
get the press of even, say, Secretary's Day (not to put down secretaries, but
c'mon, we're talking about mother earth here). I guess if Hallmark made cards
for trees instead of out of them, there would be more of a fuss about this, but
there's no way of knowing what the real root (hoho) of this publicity problem
is. Anyway, in celebration you might want to hug a tree today, and if you can't
make the drive out to the park, consider some alternative, though I don't know
if sending flowers would be appropriate.
Link of the Day: Yahoo! News Full Coverage-Earth Day.
With some genuine ways to honor mother nature, including
efforts to prevent folks from driving to work today (which will be fairly
successful, since it's Sunday).
Story of the Day: Earth Day Turns 31, Attacks on Bush Record Heighten.
"In advance of Sunday, some activists have already declared Bush the worst
steward of the environment in the history of the country, even though he has
been in charge less than 100 days." While "Christine Todd Whitman head
of the Environmental Protection Agency, has said the environmental community
should stop jumping to conclusions about the new administration. She noted Bush
approved a Clinton-era rule to tighten emission standards for diesel engines and
also backed new pesticide protections for children."
Media of the Day: TIE-Tanic.
Star Wars versus the Titanic. Thanks 3Y3.
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