Archived News:
Take-Two talks Duke Nukem on GameSpot is a report on the upcoming console ports of Duke Nukem Forever, stating that "As expected, Duke Nukem Forever, the long-anticipated first-person shooter from 3D Realms, will not ship in Q4 of this year and is currently on a vague 2002 release schedule." There is no word on how, if at all, the PC version is affected, but word is the game will appear on the PlayStation 2, Xbox and, possibly, the GameCube. The story also describes the involvement of N-Space, and their upcoming PS2 game Duke Nukem: D-Day. Thanks Shacknews for the tip.
There is a new Unreal II interview on Unreal Center, talking to Legend Entertainment's Mike Verdu and Mark Poesch about their upcoming first-person shooter sequel. The questions were compiled from fan submissions so the topics are all over the map, and include possible plans for voice-over-net support, support for custom models and skins, various engine features, multiplayer cheat prevention, the absence of vehicles, and more.
The daily Anarchy Online update brings news of a new patch for Funcom's futuristic MMORPG that takes the game to version 12.5. As usual, it's available via the auto-updater or as a manual 3.8 MB download, and it addresses some server crash problems. The update also includes word on performance problems that will be addressed in the next two patches, and comments on how the recent announcement of Midgard ( story) affects their support for Anarchy Online. Update: It turns out we reported the auto-update patch release last Thursday ( story) but the manual download only became available today.
The official EVE site has received a new update for this massively multiplayer space RPG being developed at Crowd Control Productions. On offer are the first in-game character screenshots, two new soundtrack clips in MP3 format as well as a new wallpaper, a background article and a new Peek of the Week entry. Thanks [fCo]Pancho for the tip.
Darkfall Interview on RPG Vault is a conversation on this recently announced MMORPG by Norwegian company Razorwax ( story). All five members of the development team are at hand to introduce the company and their game, explain why they chose to create an online persistent world with a small development team, discuss the game's backstory, playable races, and all sorts of game features, plus, of course, the inevitable more.
GameSpot's preview for the evening takes a look at Beam Breakers, the high-flying hovercar racing game in the works at Similis. The preview describes the game's setting in a futuristic New York reminiscent of The Fifth Element, their impressions of the user interface, gameplay, camera modes, graphics engine and more, and comes with a dozen new screenshots.
Infogrames sends word that Totally Unreal is now appearing on store shelves.
Totally Unreal combines the Unreal Tournament Game of the Year Edition and
Unreal Gold, offering the original 30 single player missions of the original
Unreal, 17 levels from the Return to Na Pali mission pack, along with Rocket
Arena UT and Chaos UT, as well as "an exclusive FIRST LOOK at the upcoming
Unreal Championship for the Microsoft Xbox video game console AND at the next
epic installment of the Unreal universe-Unreal II!" The MSRP of the whole
shebang is $19.99.
- Far Gate
Super X Studios sends along three new Far Gate wallpapers illustrating their imminent space-based RTS, each being available in resolutions of 1024x768, 1280x1024 and 1600x1200. - Red Faction
XGR has posted some 30 new screenshots of Red Faction, captured from a press build of Volition's first-person shooter of destructible enemies and environments.
- Cossacks Expansion
Russian site 3DGameR offers up the first fifteen Cossacks: The Art of War screenshots, showing off the just-announced expansion to GSC Game World's real-time strategy game (story).
- EverQuest
EverQuest Sees New Zone reports FGN Online, and they have five high-res screenshots to show what it looks like.
- Patrician II Add-On
The game itself isn't even out yet (as far as we know) but German site Gamigo already has a preview of a Patrician II Add-On which you may like to read via Babel Fish, or you can just look at the new screenshots.
There is a new (bold and red) Red
Faction interview on Red Faction Gold with the answers about the upcoming
GeoMod-engine shooter apparently a group effort from Volition's Adam Pletcher,
Jeff Farris, Brian Keron, and Matt Boynton. The Q&A discusses the bugs that
the pair of demos for the game helped identify, the editor, mod support, the
role of the game's "geometry cache," plans for an "official"
demo, and more.
The snow-bound folks at Blizzard Entertainment
sent along a little pre-announcement tease confirming the rumor that they
will be announcing their next game early this Sunday morning (Pacific
time) at ECTS. The news should appear on their
website at that time, and they hint that we "also might see something
new on Blizzard.com before then."
The Adrenaline Vault
has word on the distribution of 55,000 copies of beta 3 of Fighting Legends, Maximum
Charisma's upcoming massively-multiplayer role-playing/strategy game. Word is:
"Gamers can pick up the free Beta 3 copies from September 14th through
October 5th, 2001 at Best Buy, CompUSA, Fry's Electronics, Electronics Boutique,
Electronics Boutique Canada, Future Shop (Canada), Gamestop, Chips & Bits,
Compucenter, CompuSmart and Media Play."
It seems you cannot stop this story, you can only hope to contain it. Legend
Entertainment's Chris Hargrove has made a
follow-up post to Infogrames Forums with what is hopefully the final update
(for the moment, at least) to the story on whether or not the Flak Cannon and
ASMD Shock Rifle will be included in Unreal II ( story and story),
saying: "I talked with Mike Verdu and he said (unbenownst to me at the time
of my post) that at some point recently we did finally agree with Epic to put
these two weapons in, so apparently that decision was finally made." He
goes on to point out that it "hasn't necessarily been completely decided
yet is the form the weapons will take in terms of gameplay, i.e. whether they'll
be in the singleplayer game or only multiplayer, and other potential gameplay
tweaks to help out balancing issues, etc... that kind of stuff still hasn't been
worked out entirely yet. But apparently having the weapons in some form is now
part of our baseline, so Mr. Frary wasn't entirely incorrect."
'Doom' Game Distributors Fight Suit
(thanks FGN) is
an AP story that says "The distributors of the video game 'Doom' have asked
a federal court to dismiss a lawsuit that claims the product influenced the
Columbine High School gunmen. In documents filed Monday, Midway Home
Entertainment said the lawsuit filed on behalf of the family of slain teacher
Dave Sanders and other Columbine victims is identical to one thrown out in
Kentucky."
Sierra sends along a
press release announcing that they are releasing another one of their
"game of the year" editions, as SWAT 3 Tactical Game of the Year
Edition will be showing up on store shelves next month. "This special
two-CD edition includes new missions, 10-person multiplayer capabilities, and an
Advanced Tactics CD containing instructional SWAT training videos, a Q&A
tactics section, and much more--all provided by actual SWAT officers."
Here's a bit more from the release that gives word that owners of either of the
other SWAT 3 games will be able to download most of the added content, rather
than needing to buy the new game: SWAT 3: Tactical Game of the Year
delivers one totally new mission, five missions previously available only on the
Web, and the original 21 missions. New weapons, skins, and MODs are also
contained on the CD. The 27 missions feature hostage rescues, high risk
warrants, and barricaded suspects set in familiar Los Angeles locations,
including Chang's Theater, the L.A. subway, Whitman Airport, Hollywood Hills,
the City of Angels Hospital. As well, this edition includes all of the community
building tools needed to create one's own version of SWAT, including the newly
enhanced Scenario Editor with career editing functionality, and the Worldcraft
Level Editor.
In addition, Sierra will be releasing a SWAT 3 version 2.0 update that will give
owners of Close Quarters Battle and Elite Edition all of the features of the new
Tactical Game of the Year Edition (except for the materials contained on the
Advanced Tactics CD). The 2.0 update includes 10-man multiplayer game play,
enhanced AI, the option to play as an element leader or be commanded by an AI
element leader, and the newly enhanced Scenario Editor. Version 2.0 will also be
available in late September.
Retards pour O.R.B. et Disciples II
on HardGamers is a story en français that a quick run through Babel Fish
tells us that they've learned from Strategy First that Disciples II will be
delayed until first quarter 2002, and release of O.R.B. will be delayed until
some unspecified date in 2002. Reasons for the delays are given as the fact that
they are recruiting several new artists and that the company is already
releasing several titles this autumn. Update: Strategy First sends along a press release confirming the delays, and specifying a Spring 2002 release for O.R.B.
Geek Girl's Guide 2 Games'
Ballerium Interview talks with Majorem about Ballerium, an upcoming
massively-multiplayer online RTS where "either individual players or clans
try to build a gate, which will provide an escape from the declining world. What
Ballerium offers, as a game, is an ever-living universe in which every player
can affect many of its interlaced layers." The interview discusses the team
behind the game ("Some of the people, who work in Majorem came from
relevant positions in the Israeli defense forces, so expect the A.I. (artificial
intelligence) to be very challenging. :-)"), what an online RTS is all
about, including how the persistent game world will operate, how experience will
be handled, races, units, tech trees, and all manner of other RTS-type stuff.
Ubi
Soft Licenses Rogue Spear Game Engine to Train U.S. Soldiers is a press
release announcing that "Ubi Soft Entertainment has agreed to allow
LB&B Associates Inc. to adopt the game engine used in the best-selling Red
Storm game Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six™ Rogue Spear™, to help train U.S.
soldiers." Here's a bit more from the press release: "We've looked at all of the first person
shooters on the market, and no game engine comes close to the realism of Tom
Clancy's Rogue Spear," said Michael S. Bradshaw, Systems Division Manager
of LB&B Associates Inc. "We need to train the elements of the
small-unit on how to prepare for a mission, how to work as a team during mission
execution, and how to conduct after action debriefs, and this engine will let us
do that and more."
There's a
Hubert Chardot interview on The Gamers Press in a freewheeling Q&A with
the Alone in the Dark designer about From Dusk Till Dawn, Codemasters' upcoming
horror game, discussing "the game, the characters, and...cooking." The
questions and answers about the upcoming horror game cover peripheral support in
console ports, Emeril Lagasse's garlic consumption (no, really), the laser scope
and other weapons, whether any characters from the movie will be included other
than protagonist Seth Gecko, why the undead always seem to want all the
never-dead to become dead, and more.
GameSpy.com Previews Darkened Skye
with a look at this upcoming game that's based on Skittles candy of all things
(the preview uses so many other good potential candy games to joke about that
I'll leave that alone). The article, while expressing a healthy skepticism about
licensed games (and ones about candy in particular), describes the third-person
action game in fairly encouraging terms, saying "The Gargoyle levels were
particularly impressive, and a bit reminiscent of those found in EA's Undying,"
and "We were very surprised at Darkened Skye's potential." They
even offer tentative agreement with senior producer Elizabeth Braswell, who
says: "I think it would hold its own even without the Skittles." The
preview offers five new screenshots, and gives a tentative release date for the
game of November 5, 2001.
As the beta test is getting into full swing, Games Domain has posted a new Empire Earth preview based on this version of Stainless Steel Studios' 3D real-time strategy game. After a quick introduction of the game's premise, the article offers their impressions of the 3D graphics engine and unit animations, the gameplay in the Renaissance through Atomic War-WWI epochs that are included and, of course, their multiplayer experiences. Over twenty new screenshots round out the proceedings.
There's a New World Order Interview
on HomeLan talking with Jim Malmros of Swedish developer Termite Games about
progress on New World Order, the multiplayer first-person shooter project they
started up in the wake of the cancellation of Decay ( story),
their previous planned FPS. Topics include how they will attempt to differentiate
themselves in a crowded genre; the game's basic premise; why they chose to
create an in-house engine with so many licensed ones available; what kinds of
weapons, levels, and setting to expect; and more.
There's a World War III Black Gold preview on
PC.IGN.com with a look ahead at Reality Pump's upcoming 3D RTS set in a
theoretical third world war. The preview looks at the storyline that leads to
the game's namesake conflagration, which is based on a conflict over oil (hence
the Black Gold, a reference that is apparent to any Beverly Hillbillies fan),
and features hands-on impressions of gameplay, offering comparisons to how
things in other RTS games are handled.
PC.IGN.com's Asheron's Call Dark Majesty Interview
talks with Chris Foster, creative director on Microsoft's and Turbine's upcoming
MMORPG expansion. Topics include changes to the engine since the original
Asheron's Call, changes and additions to the monsters in the game, how the
original and expansion will co-exist, changes to the quest system, and much
more.
There's an Interview with
Marek Spanel on Miss Match's Site talking with the producer and lead
designer on Bohemia Interactive's Operation Flashpoint on the occasion of the
release of the North American version of the game ( story). On the
table for discussion are what's different between the new release and the
European version, the feedback they've gotten about the game, their plans for an
add-on, the improved network code, and more.
The Armchair Empire
interviews Todd Howard on the subject of Morrowind (taking the 'morrow part
literally, as it has tomorrow's date), Bethedsa's upcoming first-person Elder Scrolls
RPG. Among the subjects covered are how many man-hours have gone into
development so far, other titles they considered, how it fits into the series,
why they opted to skip the increasingly popular online RPG route, and more.
After skipping a scheduled update, a new update is up on the Charr The Grimm Fate
website offering news of their newly-opened forums,
a new Gameplay
and Graphics section (Classes
of Charr), a new Class
description and art (Monks),
new Bestiary art (Grimm
Bone Stripper), new Bestiary
art (Minotaur Sentry), and a new Church
description (Church of the Damned).
GameSpy.com's
latest GameSpin column takes 3D Realms' Scott Miller to task over the
soft-boiled dialogue in Max Payne, their hard-boiled action game. The article is
a Q&A with the 3D Realms president that put him to the screws over some
"awful" dialogue in the game, seemingly not sympathetic to the fact
that the person who originally wrote it is from Finland, and going so far as to
damn it by comparisons to Raymond Chandler, arguably the finest writer of
"hard-boiled" dialogue in history.
The Wargamer's Convention Coverage
of QuakeCon 2001 is online, likely just barely soon enough to avoid
overlapping some QuakeCon 2002 previews.
There is some
new Final Fantasy X media on GameSpot which are screenshots showing off
cutscenes and gameplay from the upcoming PS2 game (that's already available in
Japan) and there is a Final Fantasy X preview on ps2.ign.com
also laden with screenshots. There's an Oddworld Munch's Oddyssey update
on GameSpot looking at Abe and Munch's upcoming Xbox debut. Galleon stays the course
on GameSpot has a status report on the Xbox and GameCube versions of this
game that will later make its way to the PC. FGN Xbox Summer Conference Wrap-Up,
Xbox.IGN.com's The Xbox Japanese Release List,
and GameSpot's
Xbox Conference 2001 article all feature more details on the Japanese Xbox
launch, while Xbox.IGN.com
also details the differences between the controllers on the US and Japanese
version of the system. GameSpot
's Xbox Conference 2001 media update (thanks Shacknews)
has a bunch of new Xbox game screenshots. While last but not least, FGN's Massive Xbox Movies
offer a download of "a massive 100 Meg promo movie of the complete Japanese
Xbox launch list."
GameSpot UK's Alone in the Dark The New Nightmare Game Guide
is online, we usually catch these when they go up on their US site, but must have
missed this one, so remember to put on a British accent (should you not already
speak that way) when you read it. Also, the 3D Realms Site
has link up to order the Max Payne strategy guide through Amazon.
IGDA Fostering the Game Development Community
on Gametopia is a Q&A with Jason Della Rocca, program director for the
International Game Developers Association discussing their efforts to support
small independent developers. The Gaming Developers Connection is
online, a new site that's planning to be a helpful resource for those who create
games, models, skins, maps, and all that good stuff. Finally, the third
edition of the Neverwinter Vault
Modeling Course for Neverwinter Nights is online.
Max Payne Center
interviews Addzi about progress on The Crow, an upcoming modification for
Max Payne. There is a snippet of email from Gooseman on Planet Counter-Strike
offering a smidgen of information about Counter-Strike 2.
Since I got that satellite TV service, out of the some 374,000 (give or take)
channels available to me, one of the most perplexing has always been the Game
Show Channel. For those unfamiliar, this has nothing to do with the popularity
of present-day "reality TV" stuff like Who Wants to be a
Thousandaire ("sorry Rege, I'm gonna quit now") and Who Won't
Eat the Gross Thingee, but rather on the polyester-clad, Farrah-haired shows
of my bygone youth, like Match Game and $10,000 Pyramid. I finally
got it last night though, as in flipping through the channels I got caught up in
a bit of their Let's Make a Deal marathon. This show was pretty damn
brilliant in its day, between selecting their contestants from a throng of folks
in wild home-made costumes, to host Monte Hall, who was positively brilliant in his
role as MC/con-man, this show defined cheese, and turns out to hold up to this
day as quite entertaining. It is hard to play along at home, however, because
like The Price is Right, which, like its host Bob Barker, inexplicably keeps
rolling on in the present day, many of their challenges involve guessing the
prices of things, so watching nowadays requires either a memory worthy of an
elephant, or an inflation calculator. My favorite example from the portions I
caught last night was the prize one woman received of 1,000 gallons of gas. The
cash value of her prize? $350. Wow!
Link of the Day: Ink Syndicate.
Home of the instant rock critic. Thanks EvilToast.
Bonus Link: AIRTOONS. Thanks Joe
Siegler. Reminds me of Tyler Durden's first meeting with "Jack."
Story of the Day: I can't believe how many sent this in, but it's too
painful to even link to (much less think about), so if you want to find why I'm
cringing, use your favorite search engine for "testicles." Thanks (I
guess) to all million of you who sent his in.
Weird Science: Study Radio Waves May Kill Mussels.
Thanks again EvilToast.
Wild Science: Brain cells linked to silicon chips
(MSNBC). Thanks Siege. Or maybe this is the weird one, and the one above is the
wild one?
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