Archived News:
There is a new interview on Conquest: Frontier Wars at PC.IGN.com this evening, talking to Fever Pitch Studios founder Eric Peterson about this upcoming space-based real-time strategy game. Eric recalls the game's somewhat turmoiled development history, talks about features like the AI, the command points, supplies, and more, and addresses the inevitable comparison with Homeworld. Ten new screenshots are also included.
A brief announcement on the official World War II Online site gives word that the Macintosh version of the massively multiplayer war simulation by Cornered Rat has not shipped today as planned, and will be delayed pending the implementation of some of the major improvements and fixes outlined in their earlier Development Roadmap. A new shipping date is not available but will be posted as soon as possible. Thanks Jim McQuillan for the tip.
As is their way, XGR will be broadcasting an interview with Warren Spector tonight, grilling the legendary game designer "about the current state of gaming, his thoughts on Deus Ex multiplayer, story and design over technology," and a bit of Deus Ex 2 and Thief 3. As always, the show kicks off at 9:00 PM EDT and you're need WinAmp or a compatible player to tune in.
The Opera website now offers a version 1a patch for this Half-Life mod that was released yesterday ( story). This quick follow-up is described as an emergency patch and addresses a crash bug, several major issues like infinite round/match draws, and more. The patch comes as a 574 KB download, and the update also has more information on their anti-cheating measures. Thanks GameSpyDaily.
There's a quick interview with Rick Johnson on GameSpyDaily, quizzing the Raven Software programmer about the just released patch for Soldier of Fortune Gold and the multiplayer and other changes it implemented. Rick also talks about Soldier of Fortune II: Double Helix, the current development stage of the game, its new Ghoul2 engine, and the FPS genre.
Computer
and Video Games has posted that they have it "on sound authority"
that Quake 4 is not only in the works, but has been in development for the past
six months (thanks Stomped). They also
say that this game is not actually being made by id, but rather is in development
at a third party company, and they speculate (without any real evidence) that
it may be an Xbox title. Keep in mind that there is no official word as to what
id will be announcing at QuakeCon.
GameSpot UK has conducted an
interview with Mark Skaggs of Westwood Studios, talking with him about Yuri's
Revenge, the upcoming add-on for Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2. Mark provides
details on the various new units in the add-on and he also comments on the various
other additions to the game.
A new preview
of Perimeter, an upcoming strategy game from K-D Lab company is up at Daily
Telefrag this afternoon. The preview is based on the author's hands-on impressions
of a pre-alpha prototype of the game, and features quotes from one of the developers
along with some new screenshots.
MGON has a new Age
of Mythology interview online, talking with Bruce Shelley of Ensemble Studios
about this upcoming RTS that marks the company's first foray into 3D. Bruce
discusses this milestone, and he also comments on several unrelated topics,
such as whether or not the RTS genre will ever be successful on consoles, whether
or not online titles will eclipse single player strategy games and more.
Computer Games Online has posted a
preview of Heroes of Might and Magic IV, the latest installment in this
venerable series of fantasy-themed strategy games. The preview features information
on how this game improves on the gameplay of its predecessors, and it also contains
five new screenshots from the game along with quotes from the developers.
A month after the oft-delayed beta patch ( story), the official, QA-approved version 1.100 patch for Black & White is now available from the official site. It's a 9.0 MB download and word is that "There were several minor fixes made to the beta patch. Those people who installed the beta patch will be able to upgrade to the official patch and it is recommended that they do this." Additionally, the Black & White Music Interface Add-On has also been released.
Thanks PC Pointer for the tip.
PC
Zone's Renegade Update talks with Westwood Studios' Dan Cermak about their
upcoming title Command & Conquer Renegade. Dan explains how the game utilizes
both a first and third person perspective, what C&C vehicles will be available,
the different classes and levels of the various units and more.
Blizzard has announced
that a federal judge has granted a preliminary injunction against New Line
Cinema, preventing the company from releasing a movie under the name "Diablo."
The order also prohibits New Line from using the word "Diablo" in
any way, including in combination with other words. This case first was announced
back in February, when Blizzard said that they were planning on making a Diablo
movie of their own, and this would violate their existing trademark ( story).
FGN Online has conducted a
Q&A with members of the Evil Twin: Cyprien's Chronicles development team
at In Utero (thanks GameSpyDaily for the reminder). The questions deal with the various influences on the game's design,
their thoughts on the demise of the Dreamcast, what makes their game stand out
from other platform titles and more.
Voodoo
Extreme interviews Andy Roberts, a designer at Brat Designs on their upcoming
title Breed. Andy comments on the weapons, enemies and vehicles in the game
as well as the planned multiplayer modes and the features of their internally-developed
Mercury engine.
There's an interview
with Mark Skaggs on PC GamePlay talking with the vice president of Westwood
Pacific about Yuri's Revenge, the upcoming Red Alert 2 expansion pack. The
conversation focuses on what the pack will add as far as new units and gameplay,
though there is also discussion of the future of the franchise, as well as the
RTS genre, as the following Q&A demonstrates: PCG: There's been a
lot of innovation in the RTS genre recently, but so far Westwood has stuck
pretty much to the same basic template forged by the original C&C. Are there
any plans to move away from that and be more radical in future RTSs?
MS: Westwood's primary goal with all the games we put out is to make them as
fun as possible, and I think we succeeded 10 times over with Red Alert 2. It was
just a great gaming experience and tons of fun to play. We still have thousands
of people playing it over Westwood Online every day. We definitely wanted to add
to that with Yuri's Revenge, and with all the new units, missions and multiplay
I really think we accomplished that.
Horizons A Fan Site
interviews Matt Festa catching up with Artifact-Entertainment's "lead world
developer" with a general Q&A to flesh out some of the tidbits found in
his online biography, but in addition to the questions about himself, Matt also
discusses HORIZONS, giving some details about gameplay in Artifact's upcoming
MMORPG.
GameSpy.com interviews Mark Tepper of eGenesis
talking about progress on A Tale in the Desert, their upcoming online-only RPG.
The article offers a brief preview of the game in addition to the conversation,
which covers topics like the game's lack of actual combat, what the goals of a
combat-free game will be, along with some details about the gameplay elements
the game will offer, including its seven disciplines, other tests, player
classes, cross platform support, and more. Also, there is an
interview with Mark Adams on Standing Stones talking with the president of Westlake Interactive
concentrating primarily on their work on the upcoming Mac port of Clive Barker's
Undying.
There's a Rune Viking Warlord update
on GameSpot with hands-on impressions of the upcoming PlayStation2 game set
in the Viking world of Human Head's RUNE, saying "If Take-Two doesn't give
the team time to polish up the game, it would be a real shame." Fatherdale in development for the Xbox,
also on GameSpot, has word that Snowball Interactive plans to release
Fatherdale, their upcoming adventure-RPG, for the Xbox. Thanks MSXbox.
There are some
new Drakan 2 screenshots on GameSpot showing off the upcoming dragon-riding
sequel for the PS2. Finally, the folks at HowStuffWorks
have posted a spate of articles delving into the workings of console systems: How Sony's PlayStation Works,
How Nintendo 64 Works, How Nintendo's GameCube Will Work,
How Microsoft's Xbox Will Work,
and How Nintendo's Game Boy Advance Works.
The Urban Terror website now has a new
version 2.1 beta of the Urban Terror modification for Quake III Arena.
Originally intended to also include new maps for the mod, the update now only
patches gameplay, addressing what are described as "quite a few annoying
bugs that have been causing all sorts of issues since the release of Beta 2 on
June 1." Among the problems addressed is the "ARIES issue,"
errors in the anti-lag code, the ability to shoot through walls, and more.
The PlanetAnachronox
Anachronox Walkthrough has several new additions and updates. In addition to
hints to help you past the sticky points in ION Storm's just-released RPG, the
guide also offers tips on how to find some interesting things off the beaten
path for the exploring type. Also, several new entries have been made to the StarTopia
technical troubleshooting FAQ on the Mucky Foot website. Finally, the Independence War
website has posted a new Starmap Reference Guide for Edge Of Chaos that
shows all the locations in the game to aid in navigation, all in an executable
self-extracting archive.
There's an Interview With Jaakko Keränen
on NewDoom.com talking with the man behind jDoom about his port of the id
Software Doom source code.
The Croteam website now offers part one of
their 'Serious Tools Class Help' that has descriptions and properties for the
classes in Serious Sam, Croteam's first-person shooter, available for download
in RTF format. There's also a
new StarTopia Modding FAQ on the StarTopia website with answers to questions
like how to write you own missions for Mucky Foot Productions' space station
construction game, whether you can skin your own aliens ("yup"),
whether you can add new aliens ("Nope not easily"), and word that
adding sounds to the game will probably require waiting for the release of their
standalone WAV to TFA converter. Finally, GameSurge
interviews T. Elliot Cannon talking with Mysha the sled dog in the latest in
their series of level designer interviews.
Folks started telling us last week that they were receiving word from GameSkins that the Blue's News
t-shirts pre-orders were starting to ship, and might be arriving as early as
the beginning of this week. Now we've started receiving the follow-up mails
letting us know that folks have started receiving them, and the feedback so far
agrees with our enthusiasm for their high quality. There has been a minor glitch
though, as there was a printing error on some of the medium and large retro tees, so
some of you that ordered them will receive the shirts with the error, but a fixed
replacement will follow as well, within a week or 10 days. So if you ordered a
medium or large retro tee, you may also end up possessor of a collector's item (the
rare "Fray" Blue's News tees now sell on eBay for approximately
nothing!).
Link of the Day: Signs,
signs, everywhere signs. Some of these are familiar, but I don't think I've seen
a bunch of them before. Thanks Greg Shepherd.
Story of the Day: William
Shatner Voicing PIMP Toon (Cinescape).
Bonus Story: Woman finds more than £250,000 stashed in house after storm
(Ananova). Thanks Andrew Arace.
Bonus Story II: Workers find $10,000 in ceiling
(Ananova). On a related note... Thanks again Andrew Arace.
Media of the Day: Doctor
Fun, examining one of the great messageboard mysteries. Thanks Ant.
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