Archived News:
Westlake Interactive has released a new Mac patch for Deux Ex, bringing that edition of ION Storm's acclaimed 3D action RPG in sync with the Windows version 1.112fm (thanks Scandalon for an early heads-up). The patch takes 34.5 MB to download and should install over all previous versions of the game. And in related news, there is an Q&A with Jay Franke on PC.IGN, quizzing the actor who voiced the lead character J.C. Denton in the game.
Impressions Games has announced that Zeus: Poseidon, the latest expansion pack in their ancient city-building strategy game series, has gone gold and "should be hitting North American store shelves shortly." To celebrate, they have released half a dozen new screenshots of the game.
The Emperor Week on PC.IGN.com rolls on, after yesterday's kick-off with a few familiar movies, today offering three sound tracks from Westwood's imminent 3D real-time strategy game for download (but as massive WAV files instead of the more efficient MP3 format). They also talk with composer Frank Klepacki about his work on the game's music, and the "three distinct styles of music" he created for each of the three Houses.
PC.IGN.com has posted a new preview of Return to Castle Wolfenstein after playing a recent build of the WWII first-person shooter in the works at Gray Matter Interactive. The preview offers their impressions of the various environments, the enemies, user interface and more, but there are no new screenshots.
The press beta of MechCommander 2, the 3D RTS nearing completion at Microsoft, is further permeating the land of gaming sites and found its way to Outer-Edge which posted a hands-on preview with eight new screenshots, to StrategyPlanet where they captured 16 screenshots from it, and to Belgian site SpelletjesGarnaal which also posted a brief hands-on preview with more screenshots, but the text is in Dutch for which Babel Fish offers no translation.
XGR has conducted a new interview on Project Entropia, quizzing MindArk's Patric Sundstrom and Fredrik Adnersson about their upcoming MMORPG that will be free to play, but incorporate an "economic system that allows players to exchange real money for PED (Project Entropia Dollars)." The pair talk about the game's origins and influences, said economic system, the characters and NPCs, and more. Five new screenshots are also on display.
There is a new preview of Jumpgate on Nightstrike.com this evening, looking ahead to the massively multiplayer space sim by NetDevil. The preview is based on the ongoing beta test and has their impressions of the game's universe and gameplay, along with a few new screenshots.
A few months after the European editions, Gone Gold reports that the US edition of Hostile Waters: Antaeus Rising has now gone gold as well, and Rage Software's 3D action RTS is expected in stores around June 15. And in somewhat related news, Gone Gold also has word that two games by publisher JoWood, The Sting ( Der Clou! 2 in its originating country Germany) and The Nations ( Die Völker II), are on their way to store shelves as well.
GameSpot has posted an
interview with Clint Worley, the producer on Sovereign at Verant Interactive. Clint talks
about the recent changes to this massively multiplayer RTS, and he says they
have been adding, and not removing features. Alongside the interview are two
new screenshots from the game.
Although it's currently only available via the game's auto-update system, Westwood
has released a
version 1.005 patch for Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2 (thanks BG:CNC).
A full list of changes is up at the official RA2 site, which says that this
patch adds firewall support and improved 4 player multiplayer.
The latest in GameSpot's series of video previews examines Stronghold, the castle building strategy game under construction at Firefly Studios. The video runs for six and a half minutes as a downloadable MPEG (80 MB) or various streaming formats, and features Firefly's Simon Bradbury talking about the game's premise and features, and showing plenty of gameplay footage.
The game arrived in stores today, and the first game patch for World War II Online, Cornered Rat's massively multiplayer 3D action/sim, has already been released. The official site is being hammered, but you can find some mirrors of the 67.3 MB patch and a brief description of the changes at 3DFiles. Thanks Tom Furmanczyk for the tip.
After a preliminary page that was opened three weeks ago ( story), the official Medal of Honor: Allied Assault site was just relaunched into an altogether more comprehensive affair. The site now features plenty of game information, three new screenshots, the previously available E3 trailer ( story) and, of course, more.
A new preview
of Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura is up at Desslock's RPG News
today. The preview is based on the author's impressions of a new beta build
of the game, and is pretty in-depth, with lots of info on the game's character
creation, combat, multiplayer and more. Thanks Dimensions of Arcanum for the tip.
Freelancer has conducted an
interview with Sergey Orlovsky of Nival Interactive, talking with him about
their upcoming strategy/RPG title Etherlords. Sergey talks about the game's
plotline and universe and he also explains how they are balancing turn-based
strategy with RPG elements.
NVIDIA has released new
version 12.41 Detonator drivers. Like the previous Detonator releases, these
drivers work on all cards with chipsets from NVIDIA's TNT, Quadro, Vanta and
GeForce lines, and this latest release adds new improvements for Quadro users
as well as support for Windows XP. Update: If the site is slow for you, try a mirror at Black & White Center (of all places).
While it was previously not slated for an online release, the E3 trailer for Return to Castle Wolfenstein is now available for download from FilePlanet after all. The trailer takes 44.0 MB to download and offers nearly two and half minutes of high-res QuickTime footage. Thanks Smidge.com for the tip. Update: The movie has been withdrawn at the request of publisher Activision as it was not authorized for distribution yet. An approved version of the movie is expected soon, and we'll have a copy available for download at that time.
Tonight at 7:00 EDT RPG Planet is holding a chat with members of the Freedom
Force team at Irrational Games. To join in the fun, download GameSpy
Arcade and head over to the RPG Planet chat lobby. Also elsewhere in the GameSpy universe they have posted two new screenshots from the game.
Codemasters has released a European patch for Severance: Blade of Darkness, updating the third-person melee-combat game by Rebel Act to version 1.001. A US version 1.001 patch for Blade of Darkness is now also available from them, but this one appears to be identical to the patch released directly by Rebel Act a month ago ( story). The patch improves game stability, save/load game problems, camera movement, networking, and lots more.
The latest edition
of GameSpin over at GameSpy.com talks with Don McFatridge, the president
of Strategy First. The interview is presented article style, and features Don
talking about the ten year history of the company, with details on how the small
publisher has managed to be successful in an industry dominated by a few large
companies.
Voodoo Extreme has conducted a
Q&A with Damien Hosen, the lead designer at Virgin Interactive on the
upcoming PC/PS2/Xbox game Maelstrom. Damien talks about the genesis of the project,
Epic's next-generation Unreal technology (which powers the game), the game's
plot and weapons and more.
Several members of the SimHQ.com staff were able to get a chance to play a
pre-release beta version of Operation Flashpoint, and so they have written a
new preview of the game. The preview contains their in-depth examination
of the game as well as plenty of screenshots.
Gamers Pulse has a
preview of O.R.B. online, taking a look at this upcoming RTS from Strategy
First. While brief, the preview does contain the author's hands-on impressions
along with some previously available screenshots.
Breathing New Life Into
Half-Life on GameSpy.com and Quake Is Reborn
on Shacknews are the pair of articles (I think each site thought they had
the exclusive on this one today) describing plans by Valve to release Deathmatch
Classic (or DMC), which will be the original Quake (still considered
unparalleled for deathmatch in the minds of many hardcore players) given a
graphical makeover to make it more acceptable to gamers spoiled by the current
generation of game graphics. According to GameSpy, this project is the first of
"three totally unique 'modifications' if you will, for Half-Life"
that Valve is working on. According to the reports, DMC will be almost identical
to Quake in feel and gameplay, and will take the homage a step further by
offering remakes of the most popular Quake maps: DM2, DM3(2), DM4, DM6, and
E1M2. DMC will include an SDK and feature full mod support, and word is "It's
looking just about complete and will be released 'very soon'," and
according to GameSpy, they will be making the mod available exclusively on
FilePlanet when the time comes (though if it's like most exclusive releases, that should
probably read "unavailable"). Each article includes screenshots, tha
Shack's has shots of almost all the weapons and levels, as well as quotes from
Valve's Gabe Newell discussing the reasoning behind the remake, here's one of
the quotes from Shacknews on that subject: "...Given our existing
license agreement with id, we were able to create DMC for our own entertainment.
It really reminded us of just how kick-ass the game was and thought it would be
a great reminder for everyone, and a tribute to id's accomplishments if we were
to finish it and release it. So, we asked John Carmack about it, and he gave us
the go-ahead to do this." - Gabe Newell
A post on the Infogrames, Inc. Forums
(thanks General Storm and A Talent For War) has the announcement that "Infogrames notified us
today that Edge Of Chaos English, French and German versions have been
authorised for replication and distribution in Europe! - Edge Of Chaos has gone
gold!" Also, according to Strategy
First World War II Online-Blitzkrieg, their massively multiplayer online
game of WWII combat is shipping to stores. Today is the anniversary of D-Day,
but the game's first release will be Western Europe in 1940 (Blitzkrieg).
Lionhead's
Black & White page (thanks Mohss) has another update on the B&W
patch that was originally promised for May 21 ( story) but remains
unreleased as QA continues to do whatever it is they do ( story).
Apparently undaunted by the previous commitment that backfired, the update says
an unsupported "developer patch" (that does not require sign-off from
QA, and thus may need a further update upon release of the "official"
patch) is in the works, and once again goes out on a limb with the following
assurance: "This patch will definitely be released by the end of
this week."
Version 1.7 of The ODD Bot for TeamFortress
and Front-Line Force is now available. The new release adds a Linux dedicated
server (beta), jump waypoints, ammo waypoints, and more. Also, a new version 2.0
of the Pod Bot for Counter-Strike
is now available.
A new version 1.1.8.0 of the bQuery free
game server browser software is now available. In the new release, the bQuery
server database format has changed, so you'll have to import your old database
into the new bQuery.
Polycount
has the source art for the models for version 1.0 of Counter-Strike. Word
accompanying the files is that they are "still 'copyright Valve 2000-2001
(all rights reserved)' and to add that it is free for non-commercial use only -
ie you and/or the mod makers can't charge for redistributing it." Also,
there is an interview with Scott
Bilas on The Siege Works discussing what will be involved in creating
modifications for Dungeon Siege, Gas powered Games' upcoming RPG.
CPL Europe has posted the first details
of the ELSA CPL European Championships, slated for August 3-5, 2001 in London.
I wonder if an AMD NDA expired today?
A reader named Steve Ellis points out that the Hobbit Name Generator
mentioned yesterday has a bit of a sense of humor. If you are interested in an
example, try a few names of famous folk to see, the current President of the
United States, for example, or his predecessor, or his predecessor's
wife--you get the idea.
Link of the Day: Internet Anagram Server
(thanks Andrew Arace). Blue's News=Web Lens Us.
Story of the Day: Student removed from class because of drawings
(St.Petersburg Times). Thanks RVF400RR. If you outlaw drawings of weapons, only
outlaw artists will be drawing them.
Weird Science: 'UFO video' goes to Hollywood
(BBC). Thanks Chris Jones. "And officials at NASA are said to have asked to
examine the tape, because they believe it shows the same type of craft once
spotted by the space agency's own cameras during a space shuttle mission."
Wild Science: Thinking 'drains the brain'
(BBC). Thanks [MP] Wolverine [MP].
Follow-up: Billy-Bob
Fake Teeth Suit Settled (Fox). Thanks theAntiELVIS. Heaven only knows how
long ago Billy-Bob teeth were a link of the day.
|
Twitter 
