Archived News:
A reader with the family-hour friendly nickname of Dry-Hump sends along a word
of a movie he came across on the EA server from BattleTech
3025. Here is a
direct link to the movie, a refreshingly small 4.7 MB dealie, which is the
first movie showing off gameplay from this upcoming massively-multiplayer game, and second helping of new media from it that's been ferreted out in
a short span, after the recent batch of screenshots ( story).
When mentioning we would post word of mirrors of the Independence War 2 Demo
when it was released Thursday morning ( story), I never imagined
it would take this long for any to show up, but after what Frans describes as
"the most excruciatingly long download in the nearly five years that I'm
running this site," he has posted a mirror of Particle Systems' 198 MB demo
for Independence War 2: the Edge of Chaos on 3D Gamers. The site likely
(make that definitely) will offer better download speeds from the US than the
original download link on PC Zone,
and we have also now received word of a mirror in The Czech Republic on World Online
Games, another US mirror on 3DFiles, and an Australian mirror on AusGamers.
Hot on the heels of the previous release, a new version 1.01 of tribesserverstat
is now available. This is called a maintenance release that fixes problems
Windows users were having with version 1.0 of this package of Perl scripts that
generates webpages reporting the status of your TRIBES or TRIBES 2 server. Word
is that confidence is high that the bugs have been eradicated, as the "changes
have been tested under Windows 2000 with ActivePerl 5.6.1.626 and IIS5."
The second portion of PC.IGN's
Civilization III preview is online. This half of the preview looks
at "the relationship between trade and war" and contains a detailed
look at how these two things affect the gameplay, plus new information about
the different units, resource management and lots more.
Also new on PC.IGN is a
preview of Midgard, the second massively multiplayer title from Funcom,
the developers of Anarchy Online. The preview is based on a discussion they
had at E3 with the game's producer (as the game wasn't being shown in any form)
and contains a good amount of info about the planned gameplay.
- Shogun: Total War Warlord Edition
Nine
new shots from The Mongol Invasion, the add-on for Shogun: Total War that
will be released as part of the Warlord Edition re-release (and available
online and overseas as a separate product) are online at PC.IGN.
- Battlecruiser Millennium
The official
Battlecruiser Millennium site has been updated with a whopping 36 new
shots from the game.
- Diablo II: Lord of Destruction
For the last three days Blizzard
has been updating their site
with two new screenshots from the near-complete add-on for Diablo II.
E3 seems to have had little effect on Halo's development, as another weekly
Halo update is up at Rampancy.net. This
week's update contains details on the new multiplayer modes, graphical enhancements
and everything else the team has been working on this past week.
PlanetDiablo received a letter from
Blizzard Entertainment regarding the release date for Lord of Destruction, the
upcoming add-on for Diablo II (thanks Shacknews).
They were told that it's set for release at the end of June, but the letter
went on to hint at a major, surprise announcement at ECTS this September, which
will not be Starcraft 2, but an entirely different game. Here's all that was
said about this supersecret game: Our next big announcement is at ECTS
[European Computer Trade Show] this September. It's not Starcraft 2 (the people
who would be doing that are doing W3), but I can tell you without exaggeration
that this is a huge announcement and one that will dominate coverage of the
show. I can't say more about the game at this point, but the stuff you see rumored
on the Web is pretty far off the mark. This fall is going to be a very exciting
time!
Version 0.99u beta of the
OSP tourney mod for Quake III Arena has been released (thanks KiRiON). This
latest version contains a slew of bug fixes and tweaks, along with new alternate
grenade graphics, new skin coloring options, new voting options and lots more.
Raven Software's James Monroe updated
his .plan with the news that he
has released a new version of the SDK for Star Trek: Voyager - Elite Force.
This new release is said to be "two or three times faster" and also
fixes a lone bug and contains updated batch files. Full details on the various
changes are available in
his .plan update.
Business at Midnight, a mod
for Thief Gold (although it will work with the original Thief: The Dark Project
as long as you've installed the Gold patch) that is said to commemorate the
anniversary of the fall of Looking Glass Software, has been released. The mod
boasts improved AI, new voice acting, a brand new character, changing mission
objectives and lots more. Update: We're told there is a possibility you will encounter a problem
trying to download this that may not be resolved until this evening. The Thief
Gold mod's author sends along his apologies, along with his appreciation for the
interest folks have shown in the project.
German gaming site Krawall has posted a
preview of Commandos 2. The preview doesn't contain any new screenshots,
but it is based on what they saw during a recent visit to Eidos Interactive's
German office. The text is of course entirely in German, so to translate squish
a Babel Fish
in your ear.
A six
question Q&A with the Team Factor development team at 7fx is up at Xenofex.net.
The questions deal with the level of realism the developers are aiming for,
as well as how their sniper rifle functions and how the game differs from Counter-Strike.
CDV Software has released a playable demo of Mystery of the Druids, a Myst-style
adventure game. The demo clocks in at 45.8 MB, and is available for download
at GameSpot
and Games Domain.
GameSpot has posted a
guide to Serious Sam, which like all of their guides is available online
in HTML format, or as a downloadable PDF file ( Adobe Acrobat or compatible viewer
required). In FAQ news, the unofficial Hidden & Dangerous 2 site has posted
their H&D2 FAQ, an
updated FAQ for Tropico is up at GameFAQs and the official Star Wars Galaxies
site has updated
their FAQ as well.
Computer and Video Games has posted what
they call "the definitive E3 interview" with J. Allard, the general
manager of Microsoft's Xbox division. Gamers.com
has posted pictures of the PS2 hard drive, ethernet/dialup adapter, LCD
monitor, mouse and keyboard that Sony will be releasing this fall (all of which
make the console closely resemble a PC). Red Faction for the PS2 has shipped,
and so PS2.IGN has posted their
review, giving it their editor's choice award. Game Revolution has posted
their
impressions of Halo at this year's E3.
An interview
with Mike Wardwell of The CPL is up at eSports-America.com, talking with
him about their decision to switch their tournaments to Counter-Strike, their
upcoming tournaments and more. On a similar note, CPL head Angel Munoz is interviewed
on GamersClick.com.
Finally, HomeLAN will be giving away prizes to random people playing on their
servers this weekend. Details are available
on their site.
To prepare for the upcoming release of version 1.6 of the Strike Force mod
for Unreal Tournament, the
online manual is now available. Also, FragPipe.com's
Poke646 week continues with separate interviews with Steini
and Major
Clod, the programmer and modeler of this mod for Half-Life. Finally, stressing
that this is not the actual mod release, the
official Quake III Rally site has been updated with the Q3R SDK.
- Eurogamer is reporting
that Mucky Foot has sent a release candidate of Startopia off to Eidos, and
that the game should go gold soon...
Because I was the only person from Blue's News that attended this year's E3,
we won't be putting up a Best of Show type article. Instead, I thought I'd share
my personal favorites here (note that these are just my opinions, and not necessarily
that of anyone else here). The best overall game I saw at this year's E3 was
Medal of Honor: Allied Assault, which can only be described as "freaky
realistic." The other two games that really wowed me were Jedi Outcast:
Jedi Knight II and Unreal II, both of which are really looking fantastic, although
unfortunately both of them still have a long way to go before completion. As
for console stuff, I was very impressed with the GameCube, particularly Rogue
Leader and Wave Race: Blue Storm. I didn't see too much that impressed me on
the Xbox, although I did see some decent stuff from Halo that raised my expectations
of the game (which were seriously diminished after its lackluster showing at
Microsoft's GameStock). I'll definitely be getting a GameCube on launch day,
but I don't see myself picking up an Xbox until the new Panzer Dragoon title
comes out, since that's literally the only game announced so far that really
interests me enough to throw down $300 for a new console. Still, I think long-term
the Xbox will turn out to be a pretty good system. Microsoft can afford to lose
this year's Christmas to Sony and Nintendo, and they can keep throwing money
at it until it succeeds. Overall it was a very good show (it's just a shame
the best games were being shown by appointment-only).
Link of the Day: The
Pearl Harbor reviews page at Rotten Tomatoes. Not since Battlefield Earth
have critics gotten so creative when bashing a movie.
Story of the Day: Wild
Pitches (ESPN.com). Thanks Chris Johnson. The story of two baseball players
and their rivalry in EverQuest.
Weird Science: NASA
Releases New Mars Face Image (AP) and Unmasking
the Face on Mars (Science @ NASA). Thanks erik.
Somehow I think Richard Belzer is going to remain unconvinced.
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