Archived News:
There's a Blue
Shift interview on Planet Half-Life where Gearbox Software's Randy Pitchford
answers reader-submitted questions about Blue Shift, their just-released
follow-up to Half-Life that puts players in the role of a security guard at the
action-packed Black Mesa Research Facility. The Q&A has likely been sitting
around for a while as it talks about both the Dreamcast and PC versions of Blue
Shift as future releases, even though the PC version is already out ( story)
and the Dreamcast version of Half-Life, which was to include Blue Shift, has
been cancelled ( story). The interview does, nevertheless, offer
loads of detail about the PC version, and even a tidbit about a secret alien
mode in the upcoming PS2 version of Half-Life.
There's a Richard
Blenkinsop interview on thewoo.com talking with the producer of Operation
Flashpoint, CodeMasters' upcoming game that says no to Glasnost and puts the
chill back into the cold war. The conversation offers a mix of topics ranging
from personal stuff to detailed queries about the game, and is part of their
Op Flashpoint preview. If that isn't enough for you, there's also an A10 Airstrike
gallery on TacticalGames showing a sniper in Operation Flashpoint scoping
out a tank-buster, with this Dutch site also posting a new Nachtelijke gevechten
gallery showing off some night-time combat, as well as a couple of daytime
shots, even though Nachtelijke gevechten is Dutch for Nightly fights (yes, it
was Frans who told me that).
There's a Baldur's Gate II Throne of Bhaal Gold Gallery
on RPG Vault showing off some images from the now-gold (play Bhaal!) add-on
for Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn. The dozen new screenshots are all from the
Watcher's Keep area of the game.
The Lancers Reactor
interviews Phil Wattenbarger and Jörg Neumann talking with the project lead
and lead designer, respectively, on FreeLancer, Digital Anvil's upcoming space
epic. The conversation took place during a recent visit to DA's Austin, TX
offices, and covers a wide range of topics, with loads of detail to give a
feel for what playing the game will be like by offering gameplay scenarios as
examples. In addition, they have also posted a FreeLancer
gallery with nine new screenshots from the game.
The latest weekly
development update for Halo is up on haloplayers.com (thanks Halo.Bungie.Org),
authored by Bungie community liaison Matthew Soell. Today's update describes the
spiffifying of the game's rocket launcher, the now-working flame thrower, AI
updates, changes to how configuration files are handled, and more nitty-gritty
about the upcoming cross-platform shooter.
RPG Vault's Black Isle Studios TORN Designer Diary, Chapter 6
written by Dave Maldonado, lead designer on Black Isle Studios' upcoming
all-caps RPG. This latest installment discusses getting into
"specifics," meaning working through exactly how gameplay elements
will be integrated into the game. Also, the
latest Art Diary on the Black Isle Studios TORN site offers a bunch of
concept art and renders of characters from the game, making for a 9000-something
word essay, if you apply the old 'a picture is worth a thousand words' formula.
Updated (to sort out some confusion I was causing about the patches): The Official Imperium Galactica II. Homepage
has a new version 1.06 Imperium Galactica II patch, described as a "quick
patch" that requires the version 1.05 beta patch (released over
a year ago) be previously installed to work, with the promise of a full version 1.06
patch on Monday. The update also makes mention of the game winning a British
Academy of Film and Television Arts award for music, as well as plans for an
upcoming DVD version that will offer some special features. Finally, there is
also word that they are looking to start a new IRC support channel to replace
the official channel, which Infogrames apparently dropped without warning.
Celebrating the project's one-year anniversary, a new version 1.8 of the Vavoom
port of the Doom source code is now available. The new version features
"lightsourcing" to offer Quake-style lighting, including colored
lights, that even works in 8-bit software mode.
As noted on the 3D Realms Site,
the 3D Realms Pre-Orders Store is
accepting pre-orders for Max Payne, Remedy Entertainment's and 3D Realms'
upcoming gritty third-person action game. Of course, the game will not be
available until it's done, but in mentioning the pre-orders in
his .plan, 3DR's George Broussard offers the following Payne news: "When
it's done" is almost here. Prepare for Payne.
This story was a bit
buried at first, but I thought the news that Max Payne was almost done warranted
a little more attention.
PlanetAnachronox has posted
a jubilant e-mail from Tom Hall at ION Storm, letting the fan page know that
Anachronox has gone gold. The e-mail goes on to say that the team will be taking
a few days off before getting to work on "a demo, and a few cool improvements
we didn't have time to get in before the deadline" which he says will be
complete by the time the game arrives on store shelves later this month.
Although we haven't been able to verify it directly (you'll need the game to
do that), we're told that a version 1.11 patch for World
War II Online is now available. This latest update contains a revamped settings
file with three new options, a fix for a Win95 problem that caused the intro
movies not to play, a joystick error and more.
The first edition of the
Ask MacPlay column on Inside Mac Games is online today. Among the topics
covered in this installment are the steps they are taking to ensure better performance
with their games, when the next patch for the Mac version of SiN will be released
("as soon as it passes muster"), the chances of expansion packs being
released and more.
The first public beta release of the Night's
Edge mod for Unreal Tournament is now available. The cyberpunk mod contains
new weapons, gameplay types and other additions.
Version 1.03 of the BarrysWorld Admin
mod for TRIBES 2 has been released, and is available for download at its
official site (thanks Stomped). This latest
release contains bug fixes and tweaks, and the mod is now fully compatible with
TRIBES 2 version 23115.
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - Dominion Wars is in stores, and so Simon &
Schuster has posted a
support FAQ for the game. The Desperadoes:
Wanted Dead or Alive walkthrough at GameFAQs has been updated and is now
complete. Finally, the
official Star Wars Galaxies FAQ has been given its weekly update.
GameSpot has posted a
video interview with Harvey Smith and Bill Money, where the duo talk about
the Playstation 2 port of Deus Ex. Also, Bill
Money is also interviewed on FGN Online where he of course talks about the
PS2 Deus Ex again. Reuters
is reporting that Microsoft has settled their suit with XBOX Technologies
over the right to use the name "Xbox" for their upcoming console system
(thanks Gamers.com). Finally, speaking
of the Xbox, Xbox.IGN has posted a
trailer from New Legends, the upcoming Unreal-engine title from Justin Chin's
Infinite Machine.
Assuming nothing went horribly wrong at the last minute, our new news comment
system should be up and running. Our new system was written by Richard Smith,
and it uses a modified version of his Chatbear
system, much like the Blue Tracker is based on the Webdog
codebase. It's not 100% up and running just yet, but posting should be working
just fine, and all your old settings should be intact. Currently we don't have
the functionality in to change message board settings, but that should be online
at some point this weekend, as will the Popular Threads listing on the top of
this page (it already works on the comment pages). Those that posted on our
old system will notice a number of dramatic changes, and we are now supporting
anonymous posting, and through special tags (which are listed on the post a
message page), we're also supporting bold, italicized and colored text. It's
neat stuff. Like I said, we're still implementing this fully, but we should
have non-news message boards up and running early next week. Stay tuned, and
by all means, post and let us know what you think!
Link of the Day: The
Tomb Raider page on Rotten Tomatoes. There are lots of good quotes here,
including, "Highly anticipated, highly disappointing, and patently ridiculous."
Story of the Day: Japan
corners the market on square fruit (CNN.com). Thanks to everyone that sent
this in.
Bonus Story: Fart-fighting
underwear invented (Ananova). Thanks Chris Johnson.
Weird Science: Fish
in 'suspended animation' (BBC News). Thanks antonye.
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