Archived News:
It's time for another Halo update, this week over at Rampancy.net. As usual, Bungie's Matt Soell offers a round-up of recent happenings in the development of their upcoming PC, Mac and Xbox action title, and this update covers vehicle physics, grenades, AI improvements, multiplayer balancing, and lots of other snippets.
- Soldier of Fortune II
Both GameSpot and PC.IGN.com have posted three new Soldier of Fortune II: Double Helix screenshots each, showing off the mercenary shooter sequel in the works at Raven Software.
- Iron Strategy
There are seven new Parkan: Iron Strategy screenshots on Adrenaline Vault and three more on DutchGaming.net, all offering more scenes in the 3D action strategy game by Russian developers Nikita.
- Morrowind
The official Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind site has been updated with three new screenshots and a new wallpaper of the first-person RPG being crafted at Bethesda Softworks.
- Gothic
EuroGamer has captured eight new Gothic screenshots from the English press build of this third-person action RPG by Piranha Bytes that is already out in German-speaking countries.
- Paradise Cracked
Four new Paradise Cracked screenshots are online at Freelancer, depicting new areas in the role-playing tactical combat game in development at MiST land and Buka.
- Etherlords
Also on Freelancer today are four more Etherlords creature images, illustrating the 3D turn-based strategy game by Nival Interactive.
- Galactic Civilizations
A few new Galactic Civilizations screenshots are up at GameScreenshots, showing off the 4X space strategy game under construction at Stardock Systems.
- Trade Empires
GameSpyDaily has posted five new screenshots of Trade Empires, the isometric trading strategy game by Frog City.
GameSpot has posted a
new preview of Jumpgate, the massively multiplayer space-sim from Net Devil
which recently went live in Europe ( story). The preview contains
gameplay details and four
new screenshots, as well as a
video interview with Brian Clayton of 3DO (the game's North American publisher).
Sirtech Canada, the company behind the Jagged Alliance and Wizardry titles,
has
announced that they are laying off members of their two development teams.
The press release blames difficulties in finding a publisher for either title,
and while it doesn't say anything about future products, it does say that they
have made arrangements to create a patch for Wizardry 8 should it be necessary.
Unfortunately there isn't any certainty as to when Wizardry 8 will ever be
released, but they do say that the game is complete, has undergone "an
extensive beta-testing process" and that they hope to release it by year's
end.
EuroGamer has posted an
interview with members of the Commandos 2 team at Pyro Studios. The article-style
interview covers a lot of ground in a fairly short space, and touches on the
company's past, present and future, including word that they have two other
titles in development (although it's not mentioned specifically presumably one
of these is the already-announced Praetorians), and are also considering working
on a GameBoy Advance title.
GameSquad and Cryo Interactive send along word that the UK version of From Dusk Till Dawn has been completed, and this third-person action game based on the 1996 horror road movie will be in stores in that country (and possibly elsewhere in Europe) by September 7 as promised ( story). No date is known yet for the US release through DreamCatcher Interactive other than a generic "late Fall."
StrategyPlanet Interviews Myth II: Green Berets is a brief chat about this squad-based tactical combat game nearing completion at TalonSoft. Producer Tim Beggs is at hand to talk about the game's premise, missions, controls, and a few other topics.
GameSpot UK has posted a new Commandos 2: Men of Courage movie, showing off the squad-based tactical combat game that is nearing completion at Pyro Studios. The movie is a 13.4 MB download in MPEG format and sports a minute of cinematic and in-game footage.
HomeLan Fed has conducted a new Nexagon: the Pit interview, talking to Strategy First producer Paul Thibault about their upcoming 3D action tactics game. Paul discusses the game's concept, storyline, single- and multiplayer features, and more, while mentioning that a playable demo is planned before the game's release early next year.
There is a hands-on preview of Conquest: Frontier Wars on German site Krawall, putting a beta build of the space-based RTS by Fever Pitch Studios through its paces. The article naturally features their impressions of the gameplay but it is only available in German, so stick a Babel Fish in your ear, or just look at a dozen new screenshots.
PC Gameplay UK has conducted an interview on Iron Storm, the just-unveiled first- and third-person action adventure by 4X Studio and Wanadoo ( story). Since this is the first time any information on the game is revealed, just about everything in the interview is new, including details on the game's genre, premise, engine, multiplayer features, and more. Here is an excerpt:
PC Gameplay: Can you tell us about the basic premise behind Iron Storm?
Edouard Lussan: We wanted to plunge the player into an original and easy-to-handle universe.
With Iron Storm, we wanted to make a shooter, but what kind of universe could
we use that would be different to Quake, Rogue Spear or Medal Of Honor? We
had to invent something different and we finally used the principle of an alternate
history.
Everybody knows that the First World War began in 1914. But in our game the
year is 1964 and the war is not over yet, having lasted for the last 50 years.
Immediately the public can understand that the world we are proposing to them
is a kind of mix between the First and the Second World War, or a kind of
Vietnam War in Europe.
You can expect to see modern weapons, devices and materials in the game that
allow for very accurate gameplay, but you won't find any aliens, lizards, monsters
or spacecraft in Iron Storm. Realism of war was our main concern.
Also on PC Gameplay UK this morning is a brief preview of Aliens Vs. Predator 2, looking ahead to the second game in the three-class first-person shooter series that is currently in development at Monolith. The article features a few quotes from lead designer Will Westwater and producer David Stalker, who comment on how this game improves on the original, and ten new screenshots are included as well.
3DO has released a patch for Legends of Might and Magic, updating their fantasy multiplayer action game to version 1.1. The 3.6 MB update can be download manually or applied via the in-game updater, and it adds a number of dedicated server improvements and bug fixes as well as several other enhancements.
This page on FilePlanet
has version 2.09 of Battlecruiser 3000AD for download, the latest version of
the space epic now available as freeware, much in the same way version 1.0 was
released on the Internet for free in early 1998 by developer Derek Smart to
restore faith in the project after a failed commercial release that he blamed on
the game being pushed out the door prematurely. The new release is 134 MB and
contains the original BC3K v2.08 retail game patched with the BC3K v2.09 final
patch, the map pak add-on, the BC3K Game Development System, all BC3K v2.0x game
cheats, and the original script sources for all scenarios included in BC3K v2.0x.
More details on this are in the
accompanying developers update, and further word in the announcement we
received about this is to expect the game's source code in a forthcoming book
from Dr. Smart.
GameSpy.com Previews Half-Life PS2,
offering quotes from Randy Pitchford, president of Gearbox software, about
progress on this upcoming console port of Half-Life.
There's a Neverwinter
Nights Adventure Creation Guide: Part III (Creating Gaming Environments) on GameSpy.com,
that, combined with the ongoing Neverwinter Vault Scripting Course,
which is now up to lesson 6, might give the impression that the game is out
already, but since it isn't, you may want to bookmark those resources for when
it is.
It's probably not as significant as Code Red (mentioned above), but on a
semi-related note, if I get another spam that says "I send you this file in
order to have your advice" I'm going to start thinking it's the new 'all
your base...' Actually I assume this is a virus, since the attachment is always
a .pif or a .bat intended to look like a .txt file. Anyway, I also assume that
at least some of you know what I'm describing here, since I have received about
30 of them myself over the course of a few days, including the international
version, "Te mando este archivo para que me des tu punto de vista," so
I can't imagine I'm the only one receiving them. I even just got what I've been
finding lately to be the most obnoxious spam trick, which is to send it using my
own name as the sender (presumably to foil filtering), though knowing these
things often work by replicating a copy to send to your whole address list,
maybe I'm actually infected too, and actually did send that to myself? Nah.
That's not the weird event of the overnight for me... my nutty coffee maker
has gone off the deep end, making any previous nuttiness seem insignificant by
comparison. I made a first pot that came out like weak tea. I was sure I put in
enough beans (this coffee maker grids them for you), but there were hardly any
grounds in the basket either, so I assumed I under-dosed there. I made another
pot, and the same thing happened, only for the second one, I made doubly sure
the right number of beans were present ("Back when I was picking beans
in Guatemala, we used to make fresh coffee, right off the trees I mean.").
This had the same result, maybe a tablespoon of grounds, and light tan coffee.
So where did the beans go? That's the nutty thing... I have no idea at all,
there's no trace of them anywhere to be found! Certainly having no coffee
doesn't help one work mysteries like this out especially quickly, either (though
I did steal off to Dunkin Donuts for a thermos as soon as I knew they'd be
open).
Story of the Day: Man itching to relive close encounter of stinging kind.
Now that's a bad day. Thanks Shane Waldron.
Bonus Story: Norwegian reels in drowning Dane
(CNN). Thanks Matt Dimmic.
Bonus Story II: Embarrassment,
Bitterness After Alderman Expresses Herself in Novel Way (Fox). Thanks
theAntiELVIS. I think this scene was filmed in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,
but didn't make the final cut.
Wild Science: Mysterious
Medium-Sized Black Hole Could Be Nearby (Reuters). Thanks [MP] Wolverine
[MP].
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