Archived News:
PC.IGN.com Previews Magic & Mayhem: The Art of Magic is a new look ahead to this fantasy 3D real-time strategy game that started development at the now-defunct Charybdis and is nearing completion at Climax Entertainment. The article describes the game's premise, the main character ("a young Neutral wizard named Aurax"), their impressions of the gameplay, the role-playing elements, and more. Nearly twenty new screenshots are also available.
- Codename: Outbreak
More Codename: Outbreak news today, as Swiss site Gameplex has posted two dozen new screenshots fresh from ECTS, showing off the tactical shooter nearing completion at GSC GameWorld.
- Creature Isles
GameSpyDaily offers up three new Black & White: Creature Isles screenshots, illustrating the upcoming add-on to Lionhead's acclaimed 3D god-playing game.
- Republic
Elixir Studios has released a new composite screenshot of Republic: the Revolution, demonstrating a day and night cycle in their manipulative 3D strategy game.
- Bridge Commander
As is their way, the official Star Trek: Bridge Commander site delivers with two new screenshots of the capitol ship space sim currently docking at Totally Games.
- Etherlords
BonusWeb brought back a dozen new Etherlords screenshots from ECTS, offering new scenes in the 3D turn-based strategy game in the works at Nival Interactive.
- DuelField
More turn-based strategy this evening, as there is a new DuelField screenshot on GameSpot, revealing the interface in Sismoplay's upcoming title.
- Heli Heroes
Back on GameSpyDaily, there are also eight new screenshots of Heli Heroes, the arcade helicopter action game in development at Reality Pump.
- EverQuest
everquest casters realms has posted a batch of new EverQuest screenshots showing off the new horses that will be making their way into Verant's MMORPG, and GameSpyDaily offers up the same set with three additional concept images.
- Patrician II
There are half a dozen new Patrician II screenshots on The Wargamer, depicting new scenes in this isometric trading strategy game by German developers Ascaron Software.
- NY Race
Seven new NY Race screenshots and five concept images are online at PC Zone UK, illustrating this futuristic hover-car racing game being developed at Kalisto Entertainment.
- The Prison
Spanish site JuegaEnRed.com has posted some new screenshots of La Prision, an online game by Spanish company Dinamic which according to their frontpage news story (try Babel Fish) will become available elsewhere in Europe as well as in North America through a deal with Cryo-Networks.
As noted in this Battle.net status update, Blizzard has released a new patch for Diablo II, updating their isometric action RPG to version 1.09B. The patch addresses a connection problem that resulted in an erroneous downloading patch dialog, and is available via the auto-updater while downloadable patches are expected soon.
In a day with plenty of colorful news, Volition sends word that Red Faction has gone gold, and their Geo-Mod powered first-person shooter is expected on store shelves around September 20.
There's a
Gray Matter chat log on Achtung Wolfenstein taken from today's chat session
with Greg Goodrich (executive producer), Michael "Maxx" Kaufman (art director),
Corky Lehmkuhl (character artist), Claire Praderie Markham (texture artist)
discussing the art in Return to Castle Wolfenstein, the upcoming Quake
III-engine remake of Wolfenstein 3-D. The almost instantaneous turnaround
between the conclusion of the session and the posting of this log make it
obvious that there was no time to edit it, but it's still in a pretty orderly
format, since the session was moderated.
There's a From Dusk Till Dawn Preview
on GameSpot (I can't help but feel the author's name on this one is
familiar) with some hands-on impressions of the upcoming vampire/horror game in
the works at Codemasters based on checking out the version that's already
available in Europe. The preview goes into some detail on the game's storyline
and how it relates to the movie upon which it is loosely based, and discusses
gameplay, including comments on the camera system, level design, and enemy AI.
16 new screenshots are included.
Swiss site Gameplex has posted the first details and screenshots of Oblivion Lost, the working title of a new game by Ukraine-based developers GSC Game World (creators of Codename: Outbreak and Cossacks). The report has the first details on the game as well as an overview of its features, which are listed in German so stick that Babel Fish in your ear, and they also have over three dozen screenshots online to show what it looks like. Gameplex conveniently included this excerpt from the English press release in their mail that describes the game's premise in more detail:
GSC Game World announces its new development – a team 3D action, based on X-Ray engine. The events of the game bring player into
future, the time of galactic empires, with thousands of populated worlds and sapient races, powerful corporations and unbelievable
technologies. The plot of the game opens out at the moment when inter-planet traveling by transporting through special portals – gateways was
discovered. The new technology reveals immense possibilities, but at the same time conceals mortal danger for pioneers. A player with his
squad is a part of advance guard playing the role of pathfinders to discover planets, be the first to encounter new, unknown worlds and find the
second part of the gateway. Entering a gateway each time, players find themselves in a new unknown world, which not infrequently bears
mortal danger inside.
Disciples II Dark Prophecy Designer Diary #10
on GameSpot is a team effort, offering the points of view of Eva Bunodière
and Emanuel Protopapas, each of whom is a scenario designer on Strategy First's
turn-based strategy sequel. The entry describes the type of detailed planning
that goes into making a good quest, offers a glimpse at what working with the
scenario editor is like (including what's changed from the editor in the
original Disciples), and describes the various inspirations that go into a
scenario (besides the obvious one mentioned of Styx music). The diary is
accompanied by six new screenshots.
This Starship Unlimited II
website is online, a subsection of the Matrix Games
site as it has been announced that they will be publishing the sequel to
this acclaimed 4X space game. Included is a
Starship Unlimited II features list that describes the game's
"real-time pacing with turn-based control," the universe players will
explore, the ships and weapons they will do combat with, and what other
activities will take place in the game. Thanks Zdim.
The Team Evolve website
has word that a new version 2.8 of the PainKeep arena modification for Quake III
Arena is now available. The new version updates PKA5, "re-fixed" the
infinite ammo bug while using the Dragon deploy that version 2.7 attempted to
address, allows bots to attack enemy Beartraps and enemy Autosentries, and more.
The patch to update to the new version is 10 MB. Thanks GameSpyDaily.
Lemon Interactive has released an interactive unit demo for Starmageddon, their upcoming space-based real-time strategy title. It's a tiny 486 KB download that shows off the V-Lab Perdix unit, and the application allows you to view it from all sides.
Games Domain got a hold of more movies that were distributed at the ECTS trade show in London, all showing off games from publisher Fishtank Interactive. The Archangel movie offers nearly half a minute of in-game action in high-res (800x600) MPEG format, demonstrating this third-person action adventure by Metropolis Software (also available from BonusWeb in smaller DivX formats). The Call of Cthulhu movies each sport around ten seconds of soundless footage in AVI format from the first-person horror action adventure by Headfirst Productions. The Etherlords movie brings half a minute of in-game footage (in 640x480 AVI format) of this 3D turn-based strategy game by Nival Interactive, albeit at the price of a staggering 75.6 MB download, but BonusWeb has again converted the same movie into more practical DivX-ed sizes. And finally, the Chaser movie offers a high-res (640x480) AVI version of the technology trailer of Cauldron's first-person shooter that already appeared elsewhere yesterday ( story).
There's a
Medal Of Honor: Allied Assault preview on PC Zone based on a foray to the EA
Play get-together in the UK to get first-hand impressions of this upcoming Quake
III-engine World War II first-person shooter. The article offers several quotes
about the game from 2015's Vince Zampella, discussing several aspects
of gameplay, the lack of a realistic damage system to provide a balance between
realism and fun, and the enhancements they've made to the engine. On those
engine enhancements, they quote Vince as saying:
"We've gone with the Quake III engine and made some modifications to it.
There's a new terrain system, a new detail system and a new animation system…
we've got expansive outdoor areas that we use to 'recreate' and keep the
atmosphere authentic."
Gone Gold has posted a triple-play of gold
game announcements: First, is word
that Zax: The Alien Hunter is gold, supporting the news in a press release
from this morning called Addictive PC Action and Fierce Aliens Combine in JoWooD's Zax the Alien Hunter,
which says the isometric action game "is scheduled to be in stores on
September 24, 2001." Also, they have a confirmation of the tentative
story from yesterday, as they have the
announcement that Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor is gold, the 3rd
edition D&D-based sequel to the original Pool of Radiance "will begin
shipping to retail on September 25, 2001." Finally, while on the topic of
goldness, they also have news that Jekyll and Hyde
is gold, this is a value-priced game, obviously enough based on the Robert
Louis Stevenson classic The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
There is a Ghost Recon trailer on Pie's Tactics (also available on Rainbow SIX and Ghost Recon Universe) showing off the tactical shooter in the works at Red Storm Entertainment. The movie was released on the cover disk of German magazine PC Games and offers a minute and a half of pre-rendered footage in soundless and somewhat grainy, but nonetheless high-res DivX AVI format. There is also a new preview of the game on EuroGamer based on checking it out at ECTS.
While it had already been announced that the game will be beaming onto store shelves by September 11 ( story), Gone Gold now reports that the US edition of Far Gate has indeed gone gold (so it won't accidentally end up in a parallel universe or something). They also report that the adventure game Road to India has gone gold, on which topic publisher Microids sent along this direct download link (29.4 MB) to a two minute, high-res movie trailer of the game.
Interplay has released a European patch for Baldur's Gate II: Throne of Bhaal, updating the German, French, Italian, and Spanish editions of BioWare's isometric RPG expansion to version 26498 like the US and UK English editions before it. The comprehensive list of changes is available from BioWare.
This
press release just rolled in our virtual door, offering the announcement
that Fishtank Interactive has signed the worldwide publishing rights for Chaser,
the upcoming first-person shooter being developed by Cauldron Limited. This was
actually announced quite some time ago ( story), but the release
does offer a nicely organized look at what to expect from the game when it
ships, including:
- A variety of scenarios with incredibly photo-realistic textures and
effects created in a full 32 bit-rendering environment.
- Advanced AI with role-playing control levels.
- Unusual, fully functioning weapons and devices.
- Well-balanced, realistic combat.
- Advanced sound system with echoes, frequency filters and support for 3D
positional audio such as EAX and A3D
- Single player mode with context driven events and an engrossing story.
- Several multiplayer modes with voice chat.
- Robust, proprietary game and a graphics engine that allows creation of
highly dynamic worlds.
As promised, 3D Realms has now released the playable demo of Max Payne, offering you an opportunity to try out the gritty third-person action game by Remedy Entertainment on the off-chance that you haven't played the full game yet. We have a local copy with mirrors of the 130.8 MB download, which includes a tutorial, the story introduction, and two levels from the full game.
A story on PC
Gameplay based on a conversation with Mike Montgomery of Bitmap Brothers indicates
that they have been experimenting with putting World War II vehicles into the Z:
Steel Soldiers game engine, inspired by the popularity of games like Sudden
Strike and Operation Flashpoint. They point out that it's not certain the
untitled game will get past the concept stage, but they express significant
enthusiasm for what they've seen, saying "it'd be a crime if it
didn't."
Divine Divinity Preview, part 1 on RPGDot is a hands-on look at the isometric role-playing game nearing completion at Larian Studios, based on checking out the game at their offices. The article describes the game's character creation process, the four paths available to you, the game world you'll be exploring, and more. A handful of previously released images accompany the proceedings. Part two of the article is promised soon.
HomeLan's Gore Interview
talks with Joel Huenink, ruler of 4D Rulers, discussing progress on Gore, their upcoming
first-person shooter, a topic that has been fairly quiet since the release of
the test demo version in March ( story). The conversation
discusses the reaction to the demo, the semi-stealth mode they've been operating
under since the demo release, plans for a second test demo next month,
improvements they have made to the graphics in the game's Slam engine, new
weapon effects, plans for the game's different character classes, and an update
on their search for a publisher including word that they've been showing a
publisher's demo, and their intention of distributing the game via the web
themselves should they not secure a publishing deal (or possibly even if they
do, as this is unclear).
Computer Gaming World has posted seven new World of Warcraft screenshots along with two familiar images from Blizzard's just-announced massively multiplayer online RPG. Four new WarCraft III: Reign of Chaos screenshots are also included for good measure. Thanks War3.com for the tip.
Swedish developer MindArk sends along word that earlier today 500 participants
gained access to Phase II of the beta testing for Project Entropia, ten times
the number of participants in Phase I. Project Entropia is described as "a
pioneering new form of Internet-based interactive entertainment that will be
made available to millions of Internet users around the world at no initial cost
and with no subscription fees." Gameplay is described like so: "In the
roles of human colonists on the virtual planet Calypso, they will be able to
meet and socialize, adventure into wilderness areas where they will face
challenges from wild indigenous creatures and invading robots, take part in
building a virtual society, and perhaps even acquire real-world wealth."
Applications for further phases of the Project Entropia beta test are still
being accepted on
this page.
Mimesis Online
Developer Diary, part 9 on RPGDot is a continuation of one of the pair of
journals being kept for this upcoming RPG from Polish Developer Tannhauser Gate.
"In this diary Derek Handley looks at conflict handling, both in the game
and in the office." The office conflicts described include fighting like
cats and dogs on the subject of cats versus dogs, what music is played at work,
and what gets included in the game. The in-game conflict resolution is a
description of how disagreements will be handled differently in the year 5692,
the setting of Mimesis Online, where the advanced culture will involve
no-holds-barred gladiatorial combat in an arena to settle disputes, ranging from
beating the crap out of each other to fights to the death (now that's 3000 years
worth of social progress for you).
Throne of Darkness
Haven Interviews Leif Jensen of Click Entertainment talking about progress
on Throne of Darkness, Click's upcoming RPG that owes its roots to Japanese
mythology. Topics include the reasons the development cycle has stretched to
longer than they originally expected, why it's not "just another Diablo
clone," ToD's strengths, and more about the game, as well as questions
about his personal opinions on a few topics.
This page on FilePlanet (registration required) has downloads of the demo for Codename: Outbreak, the first-person shooter
formerly known as Venom. The demo was originally available on cover-mounted CDs
on some European magazines, and at 92 MB, is fully 16 MB larger than the
previously-released Venom Demo. Update: We now have a local copy with mirrors of the demo.
GameSpy.com
Previews Creature Isles with another look ahead at Creature Isles based on
the presentation of the upcoming Black & White expansion at ECTS. The
preview covers the various new aspects of gameplay that this will add to B&W
including mini-games, sex, the tyke, the new crocodile creature, and even
touches on Black & White 2.
Lineage: The Blood Pledge update
on GameSpot with the latest on plans to import Korea's most popular MMORPG
to western shores, saying: "NCsoft's North American version of the popular
online role-playing game will feature a new interface, a new player area...and
Lord British?" Yes, part of Richard Garriott's contribution to the game
will be the introduction of his Lord British Ultima character to the game. I
wonder if he'll get assassinated during testing of this game like he was in UO?
GameSpyArcade's chat with the
artists from Gray Matter Studios has been rescheduled for today at 6:00 PM EDT.
The topic at hand will be Return to Castle Wolfenstein, and all the pixels and
polys they are manipulating to make its visuals.
GameSpy.com interviews Tom
"ParadoX" Mustaine, subjecting the Ritual Entertainment designer
to one of their occasional "20 questions not about your game"
dealies. They do better than usual of following that formula and avoiding the
topic of what he's currently working on, since we don't even know the title or
subject, the game only being referred to as "Big Ass Secret Game."
Topics include what he was impressed with at this year's E3 while not showing
off the secret game, life in his developer-heavy dorm-like apartment, taking his
laptop to IHOP, his rock star brother, the odd mix at Ritual, and more.
Molyneux Reveals
More on GameSpot UK has the head of the pride at Lionhead revealing more
about plans for Project Ego at this year's ECTS. Cube.IGN.com's Die Hard in Europe
and a similar report on The Adrenaline Vault
has word on the European distribution deal for the upcoming John McClane console
FPS. Computer and Video Games
reports DC Commandos 2 canned, the latest casualty among games that had been
in the works for the now-defunct Dreamcast. Speaking of which, GameSpot Presents The Final Days of the Dreamcast,
one of those tales, like the Titanic, that you know how the ending turns out,
but you may want to read anyway. There are some new Unreal Championship
screenshots on GameSpot. There are also the First Conflict Zone PS2
screenshots on GameSpot. There's a description of some Plot changes for Munch's Oddysee
on GameSpot. GameCube Marketing Begins
reports Cube.IGN.com and on a related note, GameCube Launch: Ready Your Budget
on Cube.IGN.Com describes Nintendo's planned impact on your piggy bank.
HomeLAN Cracks Down On Cheaters
is a story describing new measures being pursued by HomeLan to help curtail
cheating on their game servers. They claim to be able to discern which players
are cheating on their servers (through means they are not willing to divulge)
and are adding them to a system-wide banlist that now contains nearly 1000
players they have determined are cheating. Also, this just in from Cyberathlete Professional League:
"CPL and iGames announce the largest combined CPL Qualifying Tournament to
be hosted by 11 Game Centers across North America on September 29 & 30.
Tournament winners will receive an Autoberth to the CPL $150,000 World
Championships." Those championships are scheduled for this December in
Dallas.
The Freedom Force
downloads page has a new character skinning tool to help create your
superhero in advance of the release of its related superhero game. As noted on
this news article,
"Now it is easier to use alpha channels to create effects like ragged
capes, wings on the head, spikes on the forearms, and more!" Also, Modeling a Character in 3DS Max,
a book on the subject by Paul Steed, is now available. Finally, here's word on
the fast-approaching deadline for submissions for the Half-Life mod expo:
Submissions for the Third Annual Half-Life MOD Expo are due this week. If
you would like to have your MOD showcased at this year's event in San Francisco,
please send information (which can include screenshots, movies, and/or URL) to modexpo@valvesoftware.com.
This year's event will be held at an all-ages facility, and will be open to the
public after 9 pm.
- Heads up true old-schoolers and historians: There's a history of computer
games on Ars Technica
that goes back to the dawn of the computer age...
- Shrapnel Games sends word that
RuneSword II, an RPG construction kit game, is now gold and available for
online ordering. In other release-related news, a report
on Gone Gold reaffirms that "The scheduled release date for
Neverwinter Nights is Winter/Spring 2002," but as they say themselves,
this has been known already, but apparently they keep getting questions
about it...
- The World of Warcraft website
has a new desktop wallpaper for download from the just-announce MMORPG...
- The bizarre press blackout at Arithmetic
Studios may actually begin one of these days, but in the meantime, they
sent along a press release to inform everyone that they've secured private
funding...
'Tis a sad day: Howard Stern's Hank the Dwarf Dies.
Thanks Vigilance. R.I.P. Hank.
Link of the Day: SoulXchange.
Thanks Frottage.
Story of the Day: Explorer
Rolls Over On Ford Property (BlueOvalNews.com). Thanks Ed.
Wild Science: Mobile
phone users 'at greater risk of brain tumour' (Independent News). Thanks
Snappy2Stroke.
Follow-up: Landmark status dumped for Superfund landfill
(CNN). Thanks Brian Woods and nakedfrog. Turns out yesterday's proud story
needed updating.
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