Archived News:
Fansite OpFlash.com has posted a brief preview of Operation Flashpoint, taking their beta build of Bohemia Interactive's soldier sim for a spin, and offering impressions of the single-player campaign, multiplayer, the mission editor, and more, while simultaneously capturing ten new screenshots from it. Elsewhere, neighboring fansite OperationFlashpoint.com offers up their illustrated "Island Review", and another eight new screenshots can be found on EuroGamer.
- GameSpot
GameSpot found another pair of previews after they unpacked their luggage upon return from E3, so their looks at Global Operations (with lots of new screenshots and concept images) and Shadowbane are now online.
- Intelligamer
Intelligamer's E3 report is online with brief looks at more than a dozen games, some photos, and their round-up of Best Cheesecake, Booth and Game (Neverwinter Nights).
- LANParty.com
Similarly, LANParty.com's E3 Coverage covers the Bungie fanfest, PC and console games, gadgets, booth babes, CliffyB and a Tazer.
- Maximum3D
Maximum3D kicks off their post-show coverage with a look at Real War, the realistic RTS by Rival Interactive, and plenty of photos.
- Miscellaneous
There is a Star Wars Jedi Outcast: Jedi Knight II preview on JediKnight.net, and PC.IGN.com dug up a left-over preview of Neverwinter Nights from the depths of their suitcases.
- Photos
More photos can be found at RPGDot, where they snapped their newly acquired library of RPG game brochures, while more booth babes can be seen at 3D Retreat and ipKonfig.
There is a brief MechCommander 2 preview on The Armchair Empire, where they have put a beta build of the 3D real-time strategy game by Microsoft through its paces and share their impressions from playing armchair general. Likewise, GameRush also examines the MechCommander 2 beta and offers not only their gameplay impressions but also eight new screenshots.
Fan page Fleet Operations has conducted a
Q&A with Doug Pearson, the producer of Star Trek: Armada II. Doug says
that each of the game's different races will have its own stylized interface,
and he also comments on the different ships that will be available and the role
planets play in the game. Also, PlanetSTArmada
has posted the second day of their E3 coverage, featuring separate video
and text
interviews with Armada II designer Micheal Ryan.
Sadly, fans hoping for a Tolkien Online game in the near future may have to wait
a little longer, as despite the report a few weeks back that developer MM3D had
dropped their lawsuit against Sierra On-Line over their massively multiplayer
J.R.R. Tolkien game ( story), it looks like things have fallen apart
again. Well-Rounded
Entertainment is reporting that MM3D has updated
their site with a brief notice saying that, "MM3D has re filed. Despite our
(MM3D's) best efforts, we were unable to resolve this matter." Note that this
is unrelated to Sierra's Fellowship of the Ring, a single-player game in development
at The Whole Experience for the Xbox that was shown behind closed doors at E3.
- GameSpot UK
GameSpot UK returned to good ol' Blighty with impressions of Max Payne, Medal of Honor: Allied Assault, and more, including plenty of reports relayed from their US counterpart.
- GamePen
GamePen's third and final E3 report is online with looks at all of LucasArts' offerings, including Jedi Outcast, Obi-Wan, Rogue Squadron II and others, as well as Richard Garriot's Destination Games, Freedom Force and more.
- Bridge Commander
Fansite The Bridge returned from the show with some Star Trek: Bridge Commander impressions, a bunch of FuzzyCam photos, and a collection of ShakyCam movies.
- ShakeyCam
Czech site BonusWeb has a video preview of Hidden & Dangerous 2 complete with commentary by likewise Czech developers Illusion Softworks (thanks Unofficial Hidden & Dangerous 2 Site), and there is a lengthy Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon video on Rogue Spear Retreat.
- Miscellaneous
Project Ego from Big Blue Box on GameSpy.com looks at this Lionhead spin-off company's Xbox project and talks to Peter Molyneux as does MSXbox' report, WarcraftIII.net continues getting into nitty gritty details in part 2 of their Warcraft III Q&A, Quarter to Three has their show impressions online, and there are some Unreal II impressions on VoodooExtreme.
GameZNet has posted their Anarchy Online preview after participating in the ongoing beta test of Funcom's futuristic MMORPG for some time. The article introduces the game's back story, offers their impressions from gameplay features like the quest system, combat and nanotechnology, transporation and more, and comes with a few new screenshots.
While at E3 (which admittedly I'm still recovering from) I was able to speak with someone from Digital Extremes, and I was told that despite their current focus on Unreal Championship for the Xbox ( story) they have not abandoned Dark Sector, their planned massively multiplayer FPS. I was told that they were offered the chance to create an original Unreal title for the Xbox and jumped at it, and the changes they have made to the Unreal engine for Unreal Championship will be used for Dark Sector. Unfortunately when work will resume on Dark Sector is unknown, as Epic and Digital Extremes don't plan to sign-off on UC until the Xbox is broadband-ready, and at this point just when that will be is up in the air (there was a lot of confusion at the show as to whether or not the console will ship with any Internet connectivity at all).
With the wait between the version 1.07 and 1.08 patches for StarCraft well over
five months, there probably weren't many who expected the subsequent patch to
come out within five days, but thanks to a bug that could cause the game to
crash, that's exactly what has happened. This
page on Blizzard's website (thanks Shlonglor) has a two new version 1.08b
Win32 patches, one for StarCraft and the other for Brood Wars that address that
crashing bug as well as a couple of other issues. Word on the Mac client is that
they will post a downloadable patch as soon as possible, but in the meantime,
Mac users can update their games by connecting to Battle.Net and letting the
auto-update do its magic.
A post on TTLG by Emil
Pagliarulo, while specifically avoiding topics like the PC version of Thief
3 and "WHY" they are making an Xbox game, features the Thief 3 designer
discussing the announcement that Thief 3 would be out for the Xbox first ( story),
and the subsequent reaction.
The Ęstats Page has a new version
4.68 of the Ęstats log parsing utility, updating its Half-Life support while
also adding support for the Front-Line Force Half-Life modification. There are
still plans on the boards to parse Action Half-Life logs in a future update, but
word on Tactical Ops for Unreal Tournament is that an analysis reveals that
unless something changes in the way it handles frag announcements, they will be
unable to ever support it in Ęstats.
In another log-parser release, beta 2 of the Storyteller
utility is now available, which describes itself as the "ultimate
Counter-Strike statistics tool." The new version, which offers support for
both version 1.0 and 1.1 Counter-Strike logs has been almost completely
rewritten, and consequently future log format changes should be easy to
implement.
A new beta version 2.7 of Gangstawars
for Half-Life is online, updating this modification that offers "a mix
between past Gangster warfare from the prohibition days and current day Gangsta
warfare." Word on the new release is that it has not been able to be tested
extensively on dedicated servers, and that there are plans for a Linux version
to follow this Win32-only release.
Well another season of the Sopranos is in the can, I felt this season was more
focused than last, and came closer to hitting on all cylinders consistently like
the first season did. On the other hand, the show also developed a bad habit of
opening up plotlines and then leaving the threads dangling. Considering the time
lag between seasons, a couple of things they started this season that haven't
been addressed may seem a bit odd when they got picked up again, but I guess if
next season is really the last, at least the bright side is it seems safe to
assume that by its conclusion we'll be left with more answers than questions.
Link of the Day: TyperA
(test your typing skills). I will not be breaking into the high scores list on
this one, myself. Thanks Kurt "Immortal" Shimada.
Story of the Day: Locking
Up for Love: Chastity Belts Return (Fox). Thanks theAntiELVIS
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