Archived News:
Blizzard sends word that the Diablo II: Lord of Destruction Closed Beta has been kicked off, and players that are accepted into the beta test will receive a confirmation e-mail shortly, as well as a beta CD via Federal Express within the next few days. Further details can be found in the Beta FAQ.
Like other sites recently, RPG Vault attended the Microsoft Fanstock event this year and returned with a Dungeon Siege Report on what they saw of Gas Powered Games' upcoming 3D role-playing game, as well as brief mentions of the other games presented at the event. The report goes into some detail about the Dungeon Siege presentation by Chris Taylor and Jake McMahon and their own playtesting experiences. And in related news, Microsoft sends words that this Monday May 7, lead designer Chris Taylor will participate in a chat in the Zone Theater Chat Room, starting at 9:00 PM EDT (6:00 PM PDT).
- Project Eden
GameSpyDaily has posted a dozen new Project Eden screenshots, depicting more areas from the squad-based 3D action game by Core Design, while French site Gamedata offers another three dozen images (some new, most familiar) as well.
- Operation Flashpoint
There are ten new Operation Flashpoint screenshots on XLGaming, showing off Bohemia's tactical action game in a mission they created using the mission editor that came with their preview build, and GameSpot has similarly posted three dozen new screenshots too (along with this morning's movie clips - story).
- Bridge Commander
The official Star Trek: Bridge Commander site sports another new screenshot of the week from the capitol ship space combat sim in development at Totally Games.
- Dragonriders
Gamerush has posted seven new Dragonriders: Chronicles of Pern screenshots, showing off the third-person role-playing adventure that is nearing completion at Ubi Studios UK.
- Gangsters 2
Back on GameSpyDaily, they also have two dozen new Gangsters 2: Vendetta screenshots online, illustrating the isometric mobster management game nearing completion at Hothouse Creations.
- Lord of Destruction
Stepping up the pace a notch, Blizzard has now released three new Diablo II: Lord of Destruction screenshots from their upcoming isometric RPG expansion.
- HoMM 4
Freelancer has posted nine new Heroes of Might and Magic 4 images, sporting a set of "town views" in the turn-based strategy game coming from 3DO.
- Arcanum
Also on Freelancer are nine new Arcanum: Of Steamworks & Magick Obscura screenshots, offering more scenes in the isometric RPG in the works at Troika Games.
- IL-2 Sturmovik
As is their way, PC Arena has posted more IL-2 Sturmovik screenshots showing some air-to-ground attacks in the WWII flight sim by 1C Maddox Games.
GameSpot's near-daily preview covers Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor this evening, looking ahead to the isometric role-playing game being crafted at Stormfront Studios. The preview is based on a visit to the offices of publisher Ubi Soft to check out the latest build, and offers a detailed round-up of the game's current state, the implementation of the 3rd Edition D&D rules and lots more, along with eight new screenshots.
There is a version 2.0 Z: Steel Soldiers demo on GameSpot UK, which should be welcome to those having trouble getting the original version 1.2 UK demo of The Bitmap Brothers' 3D real-time strategy game to run ( story). This is now the same version as the US demo released last night ( story), but at 55.8 MB significantly smaller to download as it doesn't include DirectX 8.0a (which you probably have already anyway).
EgoSoft has released new patches for X-Tension, bringing all previous English and German editions of their space combat expansion pack to version 2.1 (thanks AVault). This version adds a lot of improvements, minor changes and bug fixes, all listed in detail on this page.
A new beta 3 release of the Classic Quake Arena mod for Quake III Arena is now available. CQA aims to bring the gameplay and features of QuakeWorld to the Quake III engine, and this new version offers point release 1.27 compatibility and "a few new features and maps," and takes 27.5 MB to download. Note that the eight months development time since beta 2 ( story) were apparently too short to incorporate a small patch, which you'll now need to download and install separately.
Well we've already seen Westwood's Emperor: Battle for Dune, and Widescreen
Games' upcoming action/adventure game set in Frank Herbert's Dune universe,
and now there's another Dune game we can add to the list: Dune Generations,
a massively multiplayer real-time strategy game from Cryonetworks. The official
site for the game is online, and it features some general information, a
couple of desktop images and a FAQ, and French gaming site Gamedata.com has
a
brief preview up which has the first nine screenshots. The text is in French, so to
translate consult Babel Fish.
Tonight at 8:00 CDT (9:00 EDT), ION Storm will be holding their monthly IRC
session with Tom Hall and members of the Anachronox design team. To join in
the fun, point your IRC client to www.ionstorm.com channel #ion, or use ION
Storm's web-based chat client.
There is a new Hidden & Dangerous 2 movie on Czech site BonusWeb, offering a glimpse of the full E3 trailer that will be shown at the upcoming trade event to promote the 3D tactical action sequel in the works at Illusion Softworks. This mini-trailer takes 12.2 MB to download in MPEG format and offers a round minute of in-game and cinematic footage in appropriately wide-screen 640x328 resolution.
Holistic Design and TalonSoft have released a playable demo of Merchant Prince II for download from their ftp server (40.9 MB). Merchant Prince II is a turn-based strategy game of economic, political and military conquest set in the age of the Renaissance, and the demo allows you to play 15 turns while a number of features from the full game have also been disabled.
Codemasters have updated their official Operation Flashpoint site with three new movie clips of the 3D tactical action game nearing completion at Bohemia Interactive. The clips take around 4 MB to download and each show 20 seconds of gameplay fragments in AVI format, highlighting the Choppers, Explosions and Infantry in the game.
Reaffirming their commitment to PC gaming, Microsoft has announced
today that
they have acquired Ensemble Studios, the creators of Age of Empires, and
along with them the
rights to publish the company's next product, the 3D RTS Age of Mythology.
All of the Age of Empires products to date have been published by Microsoft,
but because no publisher had been announced to date for Age of Mythology and Microsoft's
commitment to their Xbox console system, it was thought the game might wind up
at a different publisher. However this morning's announcement assures that a
another profile PC game will be released by Microsoft, joining the ranks of
Sigma, Dungeon Siege and Halo.
Stomped has conducted a
Q&A with Robert Holm, the former employee of Digital Anvil and the founder
of Arithmetic Studios. Robert talks in general terms about their unnamed first
person title, saying that the game will be created for the PC and Xbox and released
in 2003. He also says they haven't decided whether to license an existing 3D
engine, saying that if they can't find an engine that fits their vision of "living
breathing characters in an evolving world" they will create one in house.
MASA Group has released another movie of Conflict Zone intended to inject some humor into the serious matter of their imminent 3D real-time strategy game. The 25.2 MB MPEG movie is available for download from MGON and offers nearly two minutes of cinematic footage in the vein of a James Bond movie taking an unusual turn.
Fan page C&C World has posted a
Q&A with Louis Castle of Westwood Studios on their news page (thanks
GameSpy Daily). Louis talks about
the current state of Command & Conquer Renegade, and he says the game has
officially hit feature lock, and that they are currently considering whether
or not to create a collector's edition (like they did for Red Alert 2).
Funcom
has announced that Anarchy Online, their first-person, sci-fi themed massively
multiplayer RPG, will be released on June 27th. Specific details on the pricing
plans for the game aren't available yet, but the press release says that they
will be relaunching the official Anarchy Online site in the near future, which
will most likely contain this information.
Since it's being distributed online, it technically isn't "gold"
but nonetheless, according
to AVault, Tex Atomic's Big Bot Battles, the Monolith developed game of
robot fighting action, is complete. The game will be available from Real.com's
Real Arcade starting on the 14th. Half a dozen new screenshots show what the final game looks like.
Vivendi Universal Publishing (the parent company of Sierra Studios) has
announced that they have signed an eight year license agreement with Tolkien
Enterprises to create multiple games based on The Hobbit and The Lord of
the Rings (thanks GameSpy Daily).
The first game as part of this agreement will be The Fellowship of the Ring,
an action/adventure title by The Whole Experience (best known for their GeForce
2 demo The Isle of Morg) that will be published in 2002. No platforms have been
named for the game, although GSD speculates that it is most likely to appear
on PS2 and Xbox.
GameSpy.com Previews AquaNox,
the upcoming underwater epic in the works at Massive Development,
a German developer (not to be confused with Swedish developers Massive Entertainment,
makers of Ground Control). The article gives some background on the game, which
is a sequel to Archimedean Dynasty, a 1996 game, similarly set in the depths of
a world that's been submerged in some disaster in the vein of Waterworld
(in the plot sense, rather than the box-office sense). The preview also has
a link to an AquaNox
trailer which claims to be exclusive, though in reality the giant 145 MB
version is just a higher-resolution version of the previously released official
trailer ( story) that shows off some AquaNox gameplay and special
effects, while the 65 MB one is in the same resolution as the originally
released one, which was a mere 16 MB.
A story on PlanetBlackAndWhite
reproduces some information posted
to their forums by Lionhead's head of artificial intelligence Richard Evans
describing the timeframe as "Shouldn't be more than two weeks," and
describing some of what the patch will impact, including some problems with your
titan creature, such as "becoming constipated if punished too much..."
Tribalwar.com
has posted news that the TRIBES 2 patch, which had been planned for a release
today, is now expected sometime next week instead, speculating that it will
include what was expected in the next two patches in a single release.
There's an interview with Christian
"Disruptor" Antkow on Dear chiQ (thanks Stomped)
talking with the id Software level designer, who they chose to describe as
"delectable" in a Q&A they call "In Bed with Xian,"
which is only partly as icky as it sounds, as he apparently answered the
questions on his laptop from the comfort of bed. Topics include a mix of
work-related and personal questions with a leaning towards the latter, asking
about things like music, toys, hobbies, movies, and more, as well as touching on
aspects of level design and working in the game business.
Volume three of GameSpy.com's
Baldur's Gate II: Throne of Bhaal Diary is online, offering thoughts from artist
Tony de Waal about progress on the upcoming Baldur's Gate II expansion. Those
eager to get their hands on the add-on will be pleased that Tony did not take
too much time from its production to produce this entry, it is just a brief
outline describing work that has been done or is being done on the Throne of
Bhaal animations, and the opening and closing cinematics. Along the way Tony
describes the artistic efficiency they've developed in making the two prior BG2
games, as well as efforts to work around the NeverWinter Nights animation
schedule.
Computer Games Online's
first look at Soldier of Fortune 2 offers a brief outline of what to expect
from Raven Software's upcoming sequel to Soldier of Fortune, their first-person
shooter that puts you in the role of armed mercenary. The article gives the
settings of some of the scenarios to be included in the game, and makes mention
of the included generator that will create randomized missions with set goals,
and the four included screenshots are new.
A post on PlanetXbox has word
that anything you think you know about Ghost Recon is probably wrong, as most of
the info that's been published about this upcoming Xbox game "is either
totally inaccurate or outdated." Microsoft and Sobe promote the Xbox
reports GameSpot, since you'll need something to wash down the tacos. This
video report (thanks MSXbox) has word
that the chips for the Xbox are "gold" or whatever the chipset equivalent
may be. LucasArts has announced
plans for Starfighter II SE for Xbox. Capcom Discusses Future Game Plans
on PS2.IGN.Com has word that Capcom is making a cross-platform (PS2, Xbox,
GC) network game for release by year-end. IGN Xbox Interviews Arithmetic Studios' Robert Holm
talking about the new start-up with its founder, formerly of Digital Anvil,
among other places, in a conversation that spills some details on D.A.'s yet-unannounced
Xbox game.
The Croteam website mentions a pair of new
guides to Serious Sam, their fast-and-furious first-person shooter. One is called
Survivor- Serious Sam
Style, and the other Serious Sam- A Strategy Guide by Hurricane Gaming.
Also, the Action Half-Life Beta4 Manual v2
is online to help reduce support issues.
The HL web rcon tool
is a newly launched website that will allow half-Life server operators to access
their servers using the web, provided they have the Rcon password.
Ever have one of those days? My computer got stuck on a download this morning,
and ended up crashing through several subsequent reboots. Just when I was sure I
had some serious problem like a virus, all was good again. "F.M., no
static at all..."
Link of the Day: Dognose Heaven.
Thanks Packet Loss.
Bonus Link: Jamming a Pair of Scissors Repeatedly Into Your Crotch.
In case the above link isn't "edgy" enough for you. Thanks Chris
Johnson.
Weird Science: Canada Working To Officially Ban Human Cloning
(Winnipeg.GlobalTV.com).
Media of the Day: The life-size Gundam photos on Ain't It Cool News.
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