Archived News:
Tom
Hall's crezzy .plan has been updated with the latest word on when to expect
the Anachronox demo, which, like the version 1.1 patch, didn't make it out last
night as was originally intended ( story): We're in da
middle of finishing demo stuff...
Likely Monday before Eidos can test and approve it... so it's a-comin'...
Once that's out, we'll take a well-earned vacation... then get back at it!
BTW, thanks for all the nice comments on the forums. Hope we've been helpful
with our answers! We love the Anachronox universe, so we want to help folks
anyway we can. :)
Update: In related news, a .plan update by ION Storm's Joey Liaw offers more troubleshooting tips for the game, pending the release of the first patch.
LucasArts has opened the virtual doors on the official Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds
Website, dedicated to their upcoming real-time strategy game that will put
players in command of their own forces taking part in a Galactic Civil War. In
addition to an overview of the game and some familiar screenshots and artwork,
they have also posted Designer Diary #1, a brief journal by Garry M. Gaber who
describes the passage of a couple of milestones in the project, along with a
description of some game balancing elements for those who feel the Gungans will
be an outmatched race.
The Day of Defeat website has a new
beta 1.3 of this Half-Life modification offering a load of new sounds, new
models, and what they describes as a "tighter, crisper feeling." Along
with a growing list of mirrors, there is also a note on the site in a story from
last night describing a small problem they discovered that impacts map rotation
on Linux servers, so if you plan on running a penguin-powered server, be sure to
check that out. Thanks Vinttech for the tip.
GameSpy.com has posted the second Etherlords diary in which Nival Interactive's Andrey Emelyanenko talks more about the design of their 3D turn-based strategy game. Andrey explains how they translated some of the ideas of collectible-card games to Etherlords, the design of the combat interface that meant giving up "compound spell-books," and more.
There's a Bloodline interview on Voodoo Extreme talking to several developers at Czech company Zima Software, who are currently working on this first-person horror action/adventure. Topics include the game's story and setting, how the game differs from other survival horror games, their in-house Death Tracer engine, and more. Most, if not all, of the included images have already appeared elsewhere before though.
German fansite ElixirStuff has conducted a brief interview on Republic: the Revolution, the 3D strategy game under construction at Elixir Studios. Head of R&D Tim Clarke is at hand to talk about how he got involved with Elixir, work currently being done on their in-house Totality Engine, how far along they are in the game's development, and a few related topics. The Q&A is available in your choice of English and the site's native German. Here is a quote on the engine's capabilities:
ES: Let's talk about the graphics and of course the 'Totality Engine'. Can you give us a small insight how the engine works? Not in detail, just a few basics.
Tim Clarke: Well, detail is the key :) It allows a full city to be drawn in real-time. Other level-of-detail techniques have restrictions on the number of objects that can be drawn at once, or what these objects can be. Totality removes these restrictions. Coming up soon are all the new materials effects, lighting and shadowing to make every polygon we drawn add even more to the visual quality.
Black Isle Studios: TORN Designer Diary, Chapter 7 is online at RPG Vault with the latest on the development of this 3D role-playing game. This time lead designer David Maldonado openly admits what seems to plague most of these diaries at one time or another, being "at a total loss for anything that could be construed as even mildly amusing to write." As a fall-back this installment therefore presents a detailed overview of the creation and maintenance of the Area Design Document, complete with all the acronyms that it entails.
As promised, part two of the Dungeon Siege interview with Neal Hallford, the writer for Gas Powered Games' 3D role-playing game, is now online at PlanetDungeonSiege. Neal talks about creating the game's backstory, the influences on and challenges in writing it, and other aspects of storytelling and his life as a freelance writer.
PC.IGN managed to get their hands on a full build of Conquest: Frontier Wars,
and so naturally they have posted a
preview of the game. The preview contains the author's impressions, along
with plenty of gameplay details and screenshots.
Also new on PC.IGN today is the
first in a series of looks at the characters in Freedom Force, the upcoming
action/adventure title from Irrational Games. For each of the characters in
this week's installment there is a fact sheet and concept image, and they have
also posted the "origin movie" from the ManBot character (in QuickTime format), which shows
his back story in a comic book style animation.
ION Storm has updated the
official Anachronox site with the news that while they had hoped to release
the version 1.1 patch for Anachronox last night, it was held up by Eidos Interactive's
QA department. There's no word as to when it will actually be released, but
chances are that it will be out within the next few days.
MSNBC has an article up that
attempts to shed some light on Mudpie, the mysterious (no pun intended)
game in the works at Cyan (thanks Darren). Very little is known about the game
beyond that it's a broadband-only, massively multiplayer game that utilizes
voice-over-IP technology, and unfortunately there isn't much more than that
in this article. What is in here that's interesting are the quotes from Cyan
cofounder Rand Miller, who says among other things, that there is still a great
deal of work to be done on the game (despite its already enormous development
time) and that Mudpie will be "the most expensive game ever" and he
hopes it will bring broadband to the masses the same way that the original Myst
popularized CD-ROM drives.
Macgamer.com is reporting
that the Mac OS ports of American McGee's Alice and Tomb Raider Chronicles are
gold (thanks Stomped). There's no specific
date listed, but expect to see these arriving on store shelves in the near future.
GameSpot has conducted a
Q&A with SquareSoft's Hironobu Sakaguchi, who confirms that their upcoming
massively multiplayer title Final Fantasy XI will be released initially for
the Playstation 2 and PC, but will later be released for other consoles as well.
He doesn't name any specifically, but it's almost certain that he's referring
to the Gamecube and Xbox (thanks Sur3aL). Speaking of the Gamecube, Cube.IGN
has interviewed Perrin Kaplan
of Nintendo of America, talking with her about their newfangled console
system, competing systems, and more. A rumors column on Xbox.IGN
is reporting that Microsoft's two Xbox games based on A.I. will be called "A.I.
Chaser" and "A.I. Gladiator."
eSports-America will
be posting their coverage of The CPL's 4th Year Anniversary Event this weekend.
In contest news, When It's Done is
a new contest from Old Man Murray where you can win a copy of Duke Nukem Forever...when
it's done.
A new article titled 2D
Programming in a 3D World is online at Gamasutra, which explains the process
of creating a 2D engine with DirectX 8. For those of you that really want to
get started early, the
Scripting Database at Neverwinter Vault has been updated with all the functions
shown during E3 demonstrations of Neverwinter Nights.
After a few delays, I received my GameBoy Advance last weekend. I haven't had
too much spare time to devote to it, but boy do I love this thing. Sure the
screen's dark, but if you can find just the right lighting it works great. I've
been playing the heck out of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2, as well as Castlevania,
Mario Advance, and Chu-Chu Rocket. I'm a big GameBoy Color fan, and the GBA
takes the whole thing to a new level. No fan of 16-bit games should be without
one, and I can't wait to see what DOOM looks like on here (even if it is going
to be near-impossible to control).
R.I.P.: Actor
Jack Lemmon, at 76 (thanks to everyone that sent this in).
R.I.P.: Jim Ellis,
creator of Usenet (thanks GamePen).
Link of the Day: International
Game Registry.
Bonus Link: Survivor:
Monster Island. "They say he's got to go, go, go Godzilla!"
Story of the Day: Judge
won't buy beer-need defense (HeraldNet).
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