Archived News:
PC.IGN has posted a new preview
of AquaNox, the upcoming aquatic action game from Massive Development and
Fishtank Interactive. While brief, the preview contains quotes from Massive's
Alexander Jorias as well as four new screenshots (and a familiar one).
More news on the Star Trek: Voyager - Elite Force Expansion Pack tonight, as GameSpot has posted a new gameplay movie captured from Raven's upcoming add-on. The 10 MB movie sports about a minute of footage from the Captain Proton campaign in those grayscale graphics you may recognize from some of the screenshots.
- Operation Flashpoint
GameSpot has posted three dozen Operation Flashpoint screenshots offering mostly new views into the world of the 3D soldier sim nearing completion at Bohemia Interactive.
- Lord of Destruction
There are seven more Diablo II: Lord of Destruction screenshots on DiabloII.net, showing off the isometric action RPG expansion in development at Blizzard.
- Fighting Legends
Likewise, five additional screenshots of Fighting Legends are up at XGR, sporting new scenes in the MMORPS in the works at Maximum Charisma.
Daily Radar has gotten their hands on a playable build of Anachronox, and so
they have written a
new hands-on preview of the game. Their reaction to the game is definitely
mixed, and while they have some good things to say about the general gameplay
they do say that the game's heavily modified Quake II engine looks "terribly
dated" and that their playable version "isn't terribly playable"
as it is missing the tutorials and other key gameplay features. The preview
also contains a dozen new screenshots.
The official Neverwinter Nights site brings a new project update by producer Trent Oster on the 3D role-playing game being crafted at BioWare. This update has word on their preparations for next month's E3 event, advancements in the programming, art and design departments and more, in particular the implementation of the 3rd Edition D&D rules system.
There is a brief interview with Kenn Hoekstra on the amusingly titled fansite Jolly Star Trek, quizzing the Raven project administrator about the upcoming Star Trek: Voyager - Elite Force Expansion Pack. Kenn talks about the pack's new features, the Virtual Voyager mode, their support for the mod community through an upcoming release of updated Elite Force tools, and more. Thanks John Warson for the tip.
A new preview
of Earth and Beyond, the upcoming massively multiplayer space-sim from Westwood
Studios is up at GameSpot this evening. The preview is based on what they were
shown during a recent trip to Westwood, and it contains some new gameplay details
along with some screenshots that have been previously available elsewhere.
- Red Faction
This Red Faction Tuesday brings a new PS2 screenshot of Volition's upcoming shooter of destructable enemies and environments, as well as a new weapon with which to accomplish such destruction, the Heavy Machine Gun.
- Elite Force Add-On
Belgian site SpelletjesGarnaal has posted a new Star Trek: Voyager - Elite Force Expansion Pack gallery with a whopping 44 screenshots of Raven's Trekkie shooter add-on, as well as a hands-on preview in Dutch (for which there is no Babel Fish translation). Thanks ShackNews.
- Renegade
There are five new Command & Conquer: Renegade screenshots (the first image on the page and the first four in the second row) on Russian site GameOver, along with previously released images of Westwood's upcoming first- and third-person action game.
- Diablo II Expansion
Another day, another pair of Diablo II: Lord of Destruction screenshots on Blizzard's official site for their upcoming isometric action RPG add-on.
- Fighting Legends
Maximum Charisma has released a new pair of Fighting Legends screenshots illustrating their massively multiplayer RPS that will enter beta testing soon.
- Echelon
Echelon HQ has added half a dozen new Echelon screenshots to the end of this gallery for the imminent futuristic combat flyer by Madia and Buka.
- Perimeter
Russian site Daily Telefrag has posted the first 21 screenshots of Perimeter, a recently unveiled 3D real-time strategy game by Russian developers KD-Labs (story).
Fan page Terra Arcanum has conducted an
interview with Chad Moore of Troika Games, talking with the lead designer
about their upcoming RPG Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura. This being
a fan page the questions are fairly in-depth, and deal with the world editor
that's shipping with the game as well as some questions about the balance between
technology and magic in the world of Arcanum and fantasy storytelling in general.
Terra Arcanum has also been posting a new screenshot every day for the last
few weeks, and all
of them can be found here.
There is a new preview of Gangsters 2: Vendetta at GamePower, looking ahead to the isometric management strategy game by Hothouse Creations who aim to make you an offer you can't refuse later this Spring. The article describes how this sequel differs from the first game, what the gameplay is like, and more, and comes with a handful of new screenshots. Additionally, as is their way, a brief Q&A with marketing manager Jason Stapleton is on offer.
Stomped has posted a
Q&A with John Williamson, the lead designer on Wanted: Dead or Alive
at Zombie Studios. John talks about Wanted: Dead or Alive, a new first person
action/RPG title they're working on that utilizes the LithTech engine. This
is the first we've heard of the game, and so everything here is new, including
all four screenshots. Note that Wanted: Dead or Alive is just a working title,
and as no publisher has been signed yet, it is likely to change (especially
since it's very easy to confuse it with Desperadoes: Wanted Dead or Alive).
A new preview
of Stronghold, the upcoming strategy game from FireFly Studios is up at
GameSpot UK this morning. The author was able to attend a demonstration of the
game, and so the preview consists of info on what was shown along with some
new screenshots.
Also new at GameSpot UK this morning are previews of two titles from Illusion
Softworks. Their Hidden
& Dangerous 2 preview contains some brief details about the game along
with six new images of the game's weapons (along with five previously released screenshots), while their Mafia:
The City of Lost Heaven preview has their impressions of a new build of
the game as well as new screenshots (two of which contain adult content). Most
of these new images from both Mafia
and Hidden & Dangerous
2 are also available at PC Gameplay where they have posted them in a slightly
higher resolution.
One of the worst kept secrets in the industry is that Sierra Online has quietly
been working on a massively multiplayer game set in J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of
the Rings universe (this story from March 2000 confirmed it),
however this
news story at Inside.com reports that the game might be in serious trouble.
Developer MM3D has filed suit against publisher Sierra On-Line, saying that
the company breached their contract when they attempted to force the developer
to accept "diminished terms and a 50 percent cut in revenue from the project."
As massively multiplayer games like EverQuest have proved to be enormous money
makers, MM3D is asking for $10 million in damages. What this means for the game
and its current status is unknown at this time, and the suit is apparently worded
so that it is impossible to tell at what stage of development the game is in.
Cyberlore Studios has released "The Balance of Twilight," a new free
downloadable quest for Majesty: The Northern Expansion. The quest is available
in the downloads section
of the game's official site, and
will not work with the original Majesty - you must have the Northern Expansion
add-on in order to play it.
Volume seven of the Master of Orion 3 Developer Diary
on GameSpy.com is online, basically not fulfilling its stated goal of
keeping us up to date on development of Master of Orion 3, but rather
sidetracking into a recap of the novel writing contest they recently held,
describing the process by which the winners were selected, and promising the
winning entries will begin appearing soon on the MOO3 website.
Barely rescued from falling between the cracks here is a Consolewar.com
interview with Tim Williams talking with the creative director at Planet
Moon Studios about Giants: Citizen Kabuto. The Q&A touches upon future
projects, and gives the latest on their current project, which is a GeForce
3-enhanced version of Giants.
There's a Combat
Mission 2: Barbarossa to Berlin interview on SimHQ.com talks with
Charles Moylan of Battlefront "about CM2, the success of the original
Combat Mission, and much more." While the original Combat Mission was a
tactical wargame set on the European western front in the days following D-Day,
the sequel will recreate the action on the war's brutal eastern front.
Voodoo Extreme's
Tropico Interview is online talking with Phil Steinmeyer
of PopTop Software about Tropico, PopTop's now-gold island dictator simulation.
Topics include the final days of Tropico production, some revelations of trouble
at Gathering of Developers prior to GoD's deal with Take 2 Interactive, and an
unanswered question about the game's resource usage. Also included is a batch of
screenshots from the game, which should be hitting stores today.
The Networkleague has
updated information about their Quake III Arena tournament, which has been
broken up into regions for greater fairness. This tourney offers $20,000 in
prizes, including rewards for goofy things like most suicidal player, most
inaccurate player, and most jumppad-ing player in addition to the prizes for the
winners. The Emperor Battle for Dune News Archive
has word that the folks from Westwood Studios will be in attendance at the
upcoming LAN WAR 10 offering attendees the
opportunity to play test Emperor, which will be the first time the public will
be allowed hands-on contact with the upcoming sand-drenched RTS game. Finally,
word from Recon 2000 is that this
upcoming event in Washington D.C. will not be accepting registrations at the
door, and that attendees must pre-register by June 8.
A report on Daily Radar
says that "Sega of Japan recently announced that it would no longer produce
and develop Dreamcast titles after March 2002." Classic
Gaming is reporting that Commander Keen for the GameBoy Color is gold, and
off to mass production. Acclaim
outlines E3 lineup on Gamespot outlines the five GameCube titles, seven PS2
and one Xbox game they will be showing off. LucasArts' New Bounty Hunter
on PS2.IGN.Com offers first details on an upcoming PS2 title set in the Star
Wars universe. NE
Online Interviews Bill Gates (thanks The MadMan's Cafe)
talking about the Xbox with the main man at Microsoft. Microsoft, Taco Bell announce promotional partnership
on GameSpot has word of some strange new bedfellows ("Yo quiero consola
de la siguiente generación"). There's an
Xbox Test Drive preview on xbox.ign.com. Finally, Enix, Namco, Square announce tie-up
on GameSpot says "The three Japanese publishers announce a financial
tie-up and hint at co-developed projects."
Serious Editing's Rain
tutorial is online, their latest Serious Sam tutorial offers tips on how to
play weatherman and add rain effects to your Serious Sam maps. Also, a newer
version 2.8.6 of the ChilliSkinner
Tool Set is out, fixing a problem in the last release.
Some off-beat anniversaries: It was about two years ago today that it was
announced that the first Quake III Arena test release would come on the Mac platform.
I wonder if there are folks with G3's on their desks to this day that they
bought as a result of that announcement? It was also three years ago that the
first Duke Nukem Forever screenshot was released on the Internet (remember the
old geezer that looks like he's flipping you the bird?), which came almost a
year to the day after first word of DNF was posted on PC Gamer ( i.e., DNF
was announced four years ago tomorrow). Three years ago today was also the day
Amen, Cavedog's ambitious, but ill-fated first-person shooter was announced.
Link of the Day: PeopleCards.
Thanks Dan Leadbetter.
Story of the Day: IBM's graffiti ads run afoul of city officials.
Thanks Chris Johnson.
Weird Science: UFO
Bureau Shuts as Aliens Shun Earth (Fox). Thanks theAntiELVIS.
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