Archived News:
An update at the Westlake Interactive site mentions that a playable demo of Tomb Raider: Chronicles is now available from Apple. It's a mere 13.7 MB download that requires MacOS 8.6 or higher (including OS X), while the full game recently went gold ( story) and should arrive in stores later this month.
A new interview
with Chris Taylor of Gas Powered Games is online over at GameSpot, talking
about their upcoming action RPG Dungeon Siege. Chris discusses how the game's
unique skill system allows you to create custom character classes (and how this
affects the gameplay), the importance of environmental effects in the game world
and other topics. He also talks briefly about the game's multiplayer modes,
which include a full run through the entire game, a specific multiplayer world
and a "short game" that is significantly shorter than the regular
campaign. Accompanying the interview are three new screenshots.
3D Realms' George Broussard updated this .plan with the latest on Max Payne, the hard-boiled third-person action game nearing completion at Remedy Entertainment. George says the game is close to feature freeze, that a demo will likely be available a few weeks after the game's release, press coverage is to be ramped up, and there are details on the game's packaging. Here's an excerpt from the full .plan update:
Some 4th of July Max Payne news bits for you all.
* The game is essentially done. It's close to a final release candidate and feature freeze
(hopefully later this week). From there it will be bug/compatability fixes only. We're signed off on
mouse pads, boxes and everything except the manual (which should be done Friday/Saturday). At that
point we just play test and wait on the gold CD.
One area of focus now is tweaking the harder skill levels that unlock after you beat the game,
including New York Minute. In NYM, you start with time on a clock and it counts down. Every time you
kill a guy you get more time. If the timer hits zero you die. It's a really, really fun way to play
the game after beating it the first time.
* Yes, there will be a demo. I'd imagine it will be out a couple of weeks after Max hits store
shelves.
* Gathering of Developers should announce a street date for Max soon. It's still "when it's done",
but as I said above, it's basically done except for bugs and that's the only thing that can hold it
back. We're fairly confident we'll hit very close to the street date due to how stable the game has
been for the last month.
The Electric Playground has posted an
interview with Tim Cain, the cofounder of Troika Games. The interview is
quite lengthy, and covers everything from Tim's specific duties on Arcanum:
Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura, to how its development differs from Fallout,
a game he worked on before starting the company. It needs to be pointed out
that this site is heavily Flash enhanced, and doesn't seem to like older browsers
much at all.
There is another Internal Pain movie at Czech site BonusWeb today, along with a mirror of the movie released this morning on the official site in case that download is a bit slow ( story). Both movies are in DivX AVI format, forgoing the need for yet-another-codec, and the new Video 1 offers some 25 seconds of in-game footage as a 2.0 MB download, while Video 2 is a 3.3 MB version of the earlier movie, which turns out to be pre-rendered.
Continuing the apparent theme of the day, Strategy First has opened their official Nexagon: The Pit site for business, presenting their upcoming 3D action tactics game. The site sports an overview of the game's story and features, as well as over a dozen screenshots and wallpapers to illustrate it.
Although the date on the page is way off, fan page Achtung Wolfenstein! has conducted a
Q&A with Greg Goodrich of Gray Matter. Greg provides a status update
on Return to Castle Wolfenstein, and he comments on how the game has evolved
to its current state, how they are utilizing id's new camera system (which was
originally developed for their new Doom game) and more. Here's an excerpt with
details on their use of the new Doom's camera technology: One of the most
recent additions to Wolfenstein has been the incorporation of the new camera
technology id is creating for the next installment of Doom. It's simply amazing.
It has allowed us to tell our story in the manner we always dreamed of telling
it. When we started, we knew we had a compelling story, rich with character
and full of depth. And throughout the development process it has continued to
grow. One of the biggest 'unknowns' in the production schedule was to figure
out how to actually tell the story. The new camera system is allowing us to
create the in-game cinematics quickly and effectively using assets from the
specific locations where the story unfolds. If you had a chance to view the
E3 trailer you saw some of this new technology in place. With the ability to
track, dolly, pull-focus, etc. it's like having our own director of photography
and camera crew on staff (without having to pay the exorbitant union fees!)
Computer
and Video Games is reporting that Necrocide, the upcoming FPS of undead
action from NovaLogic has been delayed until 2002. They confirmed this news
with a representative for NovaLogic, who informed them that the development
team on the game had been shifted over to Comanche 4, and work will resume on
Necrocide in October. Also in the news item is speculation that all of the screenshots
released to date were mockups, rather than in-game images.
Another site opening this morning, as the official Internal Pain site is now online, properly introducing this 3D sci-fi action game by Slovakian developers Fantasy Studio that was unveiled yesterday ( story). The site features hard-to-read texts about the game's premise and their in-house engine, as well as plenty of screenshots (most of which already appeared online yesterday) and concept images, and a movie trailer with close to a minute of in-engine sequences in a soundless AVI format that seems to require the AngelPotion codec (also available on the page).
Thanks Sector.sk for the tip.
Fever Pitch Studios sends word that the official Conquest: Frontier Wars site by publisher Ubi Soft is now online, showcasing their upcoming space-based RTS. The site offers game information, nine new screenshots and a new movie trailer that shows off the game in two minutes of cinematic and in-game footage in QuickTime format.
A new preview
of Shattered Galaxy, the massively multiplayer strategy/RPG from Nexon is
up at Computer Games Online this morning. The preview is based on the author's
impressions of the current beta, and it mentions that Nexon is planning to go
live in August. Another preview can
be found on German gaming site GameSurf, which of course is in the site's
native language. Consult Babel Fish
to translate.
More previews of PlanetSide are online this morning. Both Action
Vault and GameSpy
had representatives attend Sony Online's recent PlanetSide event, and so GameSpy
has a writeup of what was shown, along with the same batch of screenshots that
has already appeared multiple times elsewhere, while Action Vault has an interview
with producer Kevin McCann, who fields miscellaneous questions about the game.
As noted on TribalWar, a new official patch for TRIBES 2 is now available via the in-game updater (thanks Slint). This release is said to bring the game to version 22669, oddly lower than the previous official version 23115, but that turns out to be a typo and should read 23669, and it requires beta testers to first reverse their game to that previous release before upgrading. Downloadable patches are not yet available, but the full list of changes can also be found on TribalWar.
There is a brief preview of MechCommander 2 on Neoseeker, looking ahead to Microsoft's imminent 3D real-time strategy game. The article has an overview of the game's premise, brief impressions from playing the ubiquitous press build, and half a dozen new screenshots. Additionally, there are three new screenshots on GameSpot as well.
German site ZOCKS has conducted a brief interview on Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor, the isometric role-playing game being crafted at Stormfront Studios. The Q&A is only available in German, so jam that Babel Fish in your ear, and the unnamed producer addresses topics like the game's backstory, its use of the D&D 3rd Edition rules, how it differs from the Baldur's Gate series, and more. A brief ShakyCam video is also available as a 1.2 MB download in AVI format.
Unfortunately our technical difficulties (described below) prevented this bit of
news being posted when it came in last night, though exactly what the real story
here is open to a bit of interpretation anyway, but it seems to be the
announcement that there will be an announcement of new id Software games at this
year's QuakeCon. Here's the very short press release sent along by
Bohle: NEW GAMES FROM ID SOFTWARE.
QUAKECON 2001
AUG. 9 - 12 -- MESQUITE, TEXAS
There it is in AOL-friendly all-caps. In a
related note, in reporting this news, GameSpot
also mentions that id will be showing off some of its upcoming Doom game at this
year's QuakeCon as well.
There's a Post Launch Newsletter
on the Anarchy Online site with more on the game's release woes, including
bits on personal CD keys, registration difficulties, customer support, and lag
and crashes. Also, the
second of their daily updates went up yesterday, talking about bugs that
remain after they patched the server code. Finally, they have also posted word
that the next client patch will have fixes for ATI and Voodoo 3 accelerators.
As noted in
Jason Hall's .plan, the LithTech
media page now has a downloadable version of the movie showing off version
4.0 of the LithTech Development System that's being sent to developers on a DVD (the movie, not the development system).
The video, available in a few different sizes and formats, runs 20 minutes, and
"features high level profiles of LithTech's tools and technologies,
including the newly enhanced networking module, DEdit, ModelEdit, FX Editor and
the RenderStyles Editor, as well as the company's dedicated support services.
Exclusive demo footage of various LithTech games (some released, some still in
production) is also included for some sneak-peak action."
Dreamcast.IGN.com's Solider Of Fortune Marches On
reports that the DC SoF port is gold, and off to manufacturing, while GameSpot Dreamcast Reviews Soldier of Fortune
and gives it a 7.3. According to Microsoft Pays for GCN Software
on Cube.IGN.com, "Nintendo's Peter Main says Microsoft has unwittingly
courted more developers to GameCube – and paid." Finally, Underground Dreamcast Development
on Core Magazine has word on a hacked together DC hard drive.
A new build 230 of the Tricon 2
utility is now available, updating this TRIBES 2 Server administration tool. In
the new release admin functions are now available in game, there's an included practice
mode plug-in, new console admin menu and functions, optimized network code, optimized
admin feedback, and more.
The Quake III Rally website now has the
soundtrack for this Quake III Arena racing modification. The four minute file is
a 5 MB download, and the Q3R SFX pack is expected to follow in a week or two.
My ISP had some scheduled maintenance between 1:00 AM and 5:00 AM this morning,
clearly meant to not conflict with normal schedules, which means it has
completely disrupted mine. To make matters worse, the "brief interruptions
and/or suboptimal performance in your DSL service" they promised has been a
complete 100% outage all night, and speaking to tech support an hour after
things were supposed to come back online I learned that they were still
waiting on some local telco, and I had no ETA for service. Whee! Turns out the
problems started earlier than expected last night, and knocked loony offline as
well... fun!
Happy Independence Day! This is my first Fourth of July in several years as a
pet owner, my last cat was not a huge fan of fireworks, but I don't think they
would bother the doggie so much (she doesn't mind thunder and lightning). I
don't really think it will be an issue anyway, since it's pretty quiet around
where we live now, and the rain, which has been falling all night, is expected
to continue throughout the day.
I'll stop now -- 6+ hours of downtime to work on an OotB could provoke a record ramble here, so
I'll just cease and desist, and go back to hitting refresh to see when my
connection comes back (if you are reading these words, then it obviously did at
some point-if you are not reading these words... well, I just won't ponder
that).
Story of the Day: 'Sopranos' actor arrested on robbery charge
(CNN). Life imitating art. Thanks Chris Morris.
Bonus Story: Brazil is running out of breast implants (Ananova).
Weird Science: Men called Paul 'likely to be ugly' (Ananova).
Wild Science: Moon-sized body spotted beyond Neptune (Ananova). Thanks Andrew Arace for all three of those.
Follow-up: Car rental GPS speeding fines illegal.
Following up this story. Thanks Aarkwilde.
|
Twitter 
