Archived News:
Of course this is not game related (we do not expect to be doing any further
game coverage today), but with the legit news sites being almost impossible to
access at times today, we've been getting loads of requests for more information
about what's been going on. Here is the latest as of about 9:00 PM EDT:
- President Bush addressed the nation 8:30 PM EDT. Here's a wire report:
WASHINGTON (AP)
- A grim-faced President Bush condemned ghastly attacks in Washington and
New York on Tuesday and vowed to "find those responsible and bring them
to justice." In the second Oval Office address of his presidency, Bush
said the United States would retaliate against ``those behind these evil
acts,'' and any country that harbors them.
To recap:
- In two separate attacks, hijacked planes struck both main towers of the
World Trade Center in Manhattan this morning, and both of the "twin
towers" subsequently collapsed.
- A hijacked plane struck the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. and part of it
has collapsed as well.
- A hijacked plane crashed in western Pennsylvania, near Pittsburgh. Reports
indicate the hijackers planned to crash this plane into Camp David in
Maryland.
- 47 Story WTC building seven, one of the five (relatively) smaller
buildings in the World Trade Center also later collapsed from ancillary
damage.
- The White House, the Pentagon, and the Capitol Building were all
evacuated, all domestic flights in the US have been grounded through at
least noon tomorrow.
- Other closings include most federal offices, the stock markets, the Disney
theme parks, and the cancellation of today's Major League Baseball schedule.
The President's speech announced that all federal agencies will be open for
business tomorrow.
- Broadcasts out of Afghanistan showed evidence of missile attacks and
antiaircraft fire, but what connection this has to today's apparent
terrorist attacks in the US is not clear at this point. The US has denied
involvement in these attacks.
- In the first hints of any sort at the scope of casualties, the New York
City Fire Department has estimated that as many as half of the 400
firefighters dispatched to the scene are missing. CNN has said that 78
Police officers are missing. Also, the death toll from those on the four
hijacked planes has been placed at 266. The number of dead and injured at
the Pentagon has been widely reported as about 100. No estimates of the
number of victims from the World Trade Center have been made.
- People throughout the United States have are being urged to donate blood
to help offset significant shortages in New York and Washington. The American Red Cross in Greater New York
or the American Red Cross are places
to contact about donating blood or money, or both.
- Some news sites seem to be back online. Here are some links that have been
more reliable: CNN.com; CNET.com;
Yahoo;
The New York Times; washingtonpost.com;
usnews.com;
ABCNEWS.com; FOXNews.com;
MSNBC;
and BBC News Online.
All of our thoughts go out to the victims of these attacks and their families
and friends in what must be an incredibly difficult time.
The Red Faction week on PC Game Central continues with an interview with James Tsai, the producer on Volition's first-person shooter. James discusses the similarities in the single-player game between the previous PS2 version and the imminent PC edition, its anticipated release overseas, its Geo-Mod engine, possible plans for an expansion or sequel, and more.
The Adrenaline Vault Previews Command & Conquer Renegade
with a look at the upcoming shooter spin-off of Westwood's classic Command &
Conquer series of RTS games. The preview is based on a visit to the offices of
Westwood Studios amid the dunes (heh) of the desert to check out the game
first-hand. The article offers hands-on impressions of gameplay, as well as
quotes from several of the game's creators, including producer Dan Cermak and lead
artist Elie Arabian. Here is a bit from the preview talking about the shooter's
fidelity to the original C&C games: Westwood has taken great pains to
match the look and feel of the original C&C in practically every
aspect of gameplay. One of the first things players will notice is that, just
like in C&C, all units under your crosshair display a box with
information about them, including a green-to-red bar displaying the unit's
health. Other nuances include the familiar "unit destroyed" female
voice whenever a building bites the dust, and sharp players will notice that all
killed units scream just like they did in their pixilated DOS days. The
environments themselves maintain the same color palette from the RTS releases,
reflected most clearly in the building interiors. Nod buildings keep the angular
black and red technology motif, while GDI interiors have a metallic sheen to
them, accentuated with bright greens and dull browns. Commenting on the
transition from a top-down RTS to a three-dimensional FPS, lead Engine
Programmer Greg Hjelstrom noted that incorporating elements from numerous games
presented a dilemma. "The biggest challenge was trying to find generic
solutions that let us do all those things in one game and support the C&C
environment across the board. It's not really patterned after any of those other
FPS engines out there." Hjelstrom further remarked that designing the
non-traditional C&C mode for Renegade was an even bigger challenge,
seeing that the original C&C just doesn't naturally translate into a
3D action game.
Neverwinter Nights Stratics' House of Commons Follow-Up Interview with BioWare
features BioWare's Trent Oster answering several questions about Neverwinter
Nights, the upcoming 3rd edition D&D game. These are questions that were
intended for a recent IRC session with BioWare until technical difficulties got
in the way.
The official Dark Space Website
has word of an update available via the in-game auto-updater for Dark Space, the
space combat game currently in open beta. There is also word there that they are
working on a full patch for the game, which will be 32 MB, and there's a further
note about one of the side-effects of the update: "Planets Damaged and
Friendly Fire have been reset to zero for everyone, this might affect your
badges so don't panic." Update: The version 1.1 client is now available for manual download.
Private
Meeting with Earth and Beyond Team on Earth N Beyond is a preview of E&B
happenings based on attending that recent soiree at Westwood Studios in Las
Vegas. Also, A
Day in the Life of the Jenquai Explorer on the Earth and Beyond website
offers a narrative describing "a few things the average Jenquai Explorer
might encounter in Earth and Beyond." This continues the series that began
last week with A Day in the Life of a Terran Trader
and promises "A Day in the Life of a Progen Warrior" as next week's
installment.
The Digital Extremes
website ( Flash required) has another Xbox Championship developer's update
and Rust
interviews Scott 'Goose' McGregor talking with this Digital Extremes level designer
about the game. GameSpot's
Updated PlayStation2 Half-Life Preview is online. There are 10
new Star Wars Starfighter: Special Edition screenshots on the LucasArts site
showing off the upcoming Xbox version, which is likewise profiled in the Star Wars Starfighter Special Edition preview on
Xbox.IGN.com. Computer and Video Games
reports: GBA-Gamecube connectivity stuns World (experts stunned at how
easily stunned the world turns out to be). Curse comes to the PS2 and the Xbox
on GameSpot with word on ports of this horror game. GameCube Importing Made Easy
on Cube.IGN.Com has advice on getting a 'cube from Japan without even having
to resort to smuggling. PS2.IGN.com's Rockstar's Sam Houser Mouths Off:
"Rockstar's articulate, opinionated and gung-ho prez speaks with IGN about
games, guns and glory." The ECTS wrap-up
on PS2.IGN.com is online, saying "To say that this years European
Computer Trade Show (ECTS) was on life-support is an understatement."
Raven Software's James Monroe updated his .plan to point the way to the .map source files for Star Trek: Voyager - Elite Force, available for download from 3DDownloads.
The sad news on 3DFiles.Com is that they
are the latest victims of the dot bomb era, or as they put it "Another One
Bites The Dust." For those who saw their initial announcement, there is now
a subsequent update clarifying that ZDNet/C|Net is not at fault for their
situation. Anyway, we wish Ben & Tim best of luck in their future
endeavors... they leave just the slightest glimmer of hope that they will
return, saying "If we find a way to manage a comeback we'll do our
hardest." So where there's life, there's hope.
This startling news just in as I prepared to post today's first update: A
pair of planes just crashed into the World Trade Center in Manhattan. I can't
even get to a web-based report on this, as it seems that any site with the story
up has already been hosed.
Link of the Day: Declassified
Documents on Paranormal investigation?. Calling Mulder. Thanks Sean Harrison.
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