Archived News:
After an apparent false start last month ( story), Team 17 has now released a Service Pack 1 patch for Worms World Party, their annelid-infested turn-based strategy game. There are two major versions of the pack for Europe and the US, both with a series of language-specific downloads, and the pack is required for Internet play, offering "updates for Mission Editor compatibility, server/client updates and fixes for minor compatibility issues."
Ensemble Studios has released their
14th random map script for Age of Empires II: The Conquerors. This latest
map is titled "Seasons" and is a multiplayer only map that randomly
chooses between the four seasons every time you play. Thanks GameSpot for the tip.
GameSpot has posted a
video interview with Louis Castle, the cofounder and general manager of
Westwood Studios. The video, which runs over 14 minutes long, has Louis talking
about Emperor: Battle for Dune, and in addition to that video GameSpot has also
posted five gameplay movies which are available for download (along with the
interview) in
their Emperor video archive.
Also new on GameSpot this evening is another video interview, this
time with Chris Mair of Barking Dog Studios. Chris talks about Global Operations
as he walks through a demo level, which while fully functional, doesn't contain
any enemies.
A new Q&A with Warren
Spector is up at Tolstiy's Place this afternoon. As Warren can't talk specifically
about either of ION Storm Austin's two big projects (Deus Ex 2 and Thief 3),
the questions deal with the pre-production process, with Warren explaining what
happens during this phase of a game's development.
The game hits stores in the very near future, and so the
official Emperor: Battle for Dune site has been updated with a host of goodies
in anticipation. There are two new screenshots from the game online, as well
as two WAV files featuring voice samples from some of the characters and a pair
of new short stories.
As promised earlier, we
are now taking pre-orders for Blue's News T-shirts! We're offering two shirts:
one in blue, and a second in retro black. These are being made by Game-Skins,
and are available in a wide range of sizes, from medium to super-extra large.
The shirts cost $18.95 a pop or $33 for the pair, and look great, so head
over to Game-Skins and check 'em out! You'll find them under the Web Tees
listing, along with shirts from Shacknews, Penny Arcade and Polycount.
Gone Gold reports that Startopia, the quirky 3D space station management game developed by Mucky Foot, has gone gold. The game is expected on store shelves in about two weeks.
- Sierra's Triple Dose
Another Monday comes around, and so do Sierra's screenshots of the week for Arcanum: Of Steamworks & Magick Obscura, Empire Earth, Throne of Darkness.
- Nexagon
Gamers Pulse has posted 18 new screenshots of Nexagon: the Pit, showing off the 3D tactical action game under construction at Strategy First.
- O.R.B.
Also on Gamers Pulse today are 21 new O.R.B. screenshots, offering more galactic scenes in the space-based RTS likewise by Strategy First.
- Wolfenstein
While the E3 trailer for Return to Castle Wolfenstein is not expected to be released, fansite Achtung Wolfenstein! offers the next best thing, twenty screenshots captured directly from this movie of Gray Matter's WWII shooter.
- LoMM
EuroGamer has captured ten new Legends of Might and Magic screenshots from a "review" copy of this fantasy team-based multiplayer action game by 3DO (that hasn't gone gold yet to our knowledge).
- Galleon
Half a dozen new Galleon screenshots are online at PC Zone UK, illustrating this third-person action game for PC and Xbox by Confounding Factor.
- Venom
Smidge.com offers up seven new Venom screenshots, featuring more scenes in the futuristic two-man squad shooter in development at GSC Game World.
- Freedom Force
There are four new screenshots of Freedom Force, the superhero-laden 3D tactical RPG by Irrational Australia, on VoodooExtreme.
- Hitchhiker's Guide
Computer and Video Games has posted a mix of new and familiar concept artwork of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, PAN Interactive's third-person adventure based on the works of the late Douglas Adams.
- IL-2 Sturmovik
More beta screenshots of IL-2 Sturmovik, the WWII flight sim in the works at 1C Maddox Games, can be found at PC Arena.
The first
and second
parts of Computer
Games Online's Neverwinter Nights preview are online today. The preview
is pretty lengthy, and contains an in-depth look at the gameplay, with quotes
galore from BioWare's development team along with plenty of new screenshots.
Inside Mac Games has posted an
interview with Mark Allender, the senior programmer at Volition on their
Mac OS port of Summoner. Mark talks about his work porting the game to the Mac
OS, and he also talks about gaming on Macs in general and the status of the
Mac port of Red Faction, which he says will share a lot of the same OS specific
code with Summoner.
GameSpot UK has conducted an
interview with members of the Startopia development team at Mucky Foot.
The questions deal with how they decided to make a space-station sim, the features
of their internally-developed 3D engine, the different sci-fi influences on
the various playable races and more.
Longbow Digital Arts has released an updated demo for Tread Marks, as well as patches to update all previous demo and retail versions, bringing their acclaimed tank racing game to version 1.6. The new demo now includes networking and weighs in at 40.3 MB, while the patches range from 0.7 MB all the way to 63.6 MB, but there are no details on any further changes they implement.
There is a interview on Max Payne at Max Payne Zone, which is an English translation of a Finnish interview on Peliplaneetta.net. No fewer than five Remedy Entertainment developers are grilled on their upcoming hard-boiled third-person action game, and they talk about the game's premise, the long development process and the changes their team went through during the course of it, the system requirements, the automatic difficulty level feature, and lots more.
There is a brief 3rd World diary on VoodooExtreme, in which XYZ Team lead programmer Vita Jevremovic talks about the upcoming closed beta test of their upcoming massively multiplayer space RPG. Half a dozen new screenshots are also included.
- NVIDIA nForce Previews
New previews of the nForce, NVIDIA's
new video-on-motherboard chipset are up at HardOCP,
SocketA.com
and Digit-Life,
- NVIDIA Interview
PCRave.com has conducted an
interview with Michael Hara, the vice president of investor relations
at NVIDIA, talking with him about the company's recent success.
A new release of ZDaemon is now available, updating this client/server port of the public DOOM source code to version 0.95. With nearly three months of work put into it, this version adds a lot of new features and bug fixes, including multi-wad support, full skin support, spectator modes, an updated launcher and more, all listed in detail in the change log.
Interview with Neil Manke: They Hunger trilogy on Planet Half-Life sits down with the lead designer of the acclaimed Half-Life single-player episodes (thanks Stomped). Also, there's a Q&A on the HK ITD mod for Rainbow Six: Rogue Spear on The Future of Gaming is Elited.
PlanetBaldursGate has posted a
walkthrough for Icewind Dale: The Heart of Winter. Also, fan page Anarchy
HQ has a FAQ for the rebels in Anarchy Online, and parts
one and two
of the TRIBES 2 strategy guide at Tribes2HQ are online.
Blue found himself unable to get online this morning, hence this scattershot
last minute morning update. Blue was going to talk about how we will begin taking
pre-orders for our T-shirts this afternoon, so I suppose I'll have to do that
now. Our shirts are being produced by GameSkins,
whose shirts I first noticed at last year's QuakeCon, and who also make the
shirts for Shacknews. Details on how to order will be up shortly. Hopefully
you'll all agree it was worth the wait. Oh, and birthday man Chris Morris sends
word that Ms. Lara Croft herself, Angelina Jolie, turns 26 today.
R.I.P.
Actor Anthony Quinn at 86 (thanks spank). And I just watched Lawrence of
Arabia, too...
Link of the Day: Assignment
2: Hack Quake 1. Thanks The Kidd.
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