Archived News:
There are six new Enigma: Rising Tide screenshots on GameSpot along with an update on the upcoming beta test of this naval combat MMOG by Tesseraction Games. There are another eight screenshots on Subsim (thanks HomeLan Fed) and six more images on GameSpyDaily. Finally, there's a new diary with yet more shots on Action Vault.
Blizzard sends word that, on the eve of the game's official release, a patch for WarCraft III is available through the Battle.net auto-updater and as a 1.7 MB download from their ftp server. This version 1.01 patch addresses four minor game issues and adds another batch of balance changes.
- Dragon Empires
RPG Vault's Dragon Empires Q&A #3
chats with Mark Zechiel and Peter Tyson of Codemasters about their upcoming
fantasy-themed MMORPG. Topics are an outline of the broader gameplay
concepts they are striving for in designing the game.
- Face of Mankind
There's a Face
of Mankind Q&A on RPGDot talking with Duplex System's Marko
Dieckmann, producer and lead programmer on Face of Mankind, the upcoming
MMORPG in the works at this German developer. They cover the game in detail
in a fairly extensive conversation.
- Republic: The Revolution
There's
a Republic: The Revolution
Q&A on Ferrago.co.uk asking a few questions of Ben Gonshaw of Elixir
Studios about their upcoming strategy game.
- Brad McQuaid
Guru3D's
Brad McQuaid Q&A talks with the EverQuest co-creator, though he's
not yet at liberty to divulge much of what Sigil Games Online, his new
company, is up to.
GameSpot Previews America's Army: Operations
with a look at the first-person shooter portion of the America's Army game. The
article details the difference between this and the separate adventure portion
of the game called Soldiers, and describes this portion's use of the Unreal
engine before going into the game's Counter-Strike-style multiplayer action.
They describe the process of starting a character, training at boot camp (which
includes things like qualifying for Sniper School with exceptional
marksmanship), the detailed operation of the game's weapons, MOUT (Military
Operations in Urban Training), impressions of the maps, and more. Included are
15 new screenshots, and XGR serves up another seven new images. There is also a movie trailer for America's Army available for download from Gigex (try the direct download link if the Gigex client doesn't work for you). The movie requires a 9.5 MB download and offers some two minutes of cinematic and gameplay footage in a self-running proprietary format.
There's an
Icewind Dale II Q&A on Computer and Video Games talking with Black Isle
Studios' Doug Avery, producer on the upcoming RPG sequel. Topics include
the game's plotline, reappearing characters, classes, the game engine, the new
character generation system, an example of a new item, reactions to the Heart of
Fury mode introduced with the Heart of Winter expansion, and more.
As noted on the official Neocron site, an English offline tutorial demo of this upcoming futuristic MMORPG by Reakktor Media is now available as a 96.4 MB download from FilePlanet (registration required). Previously, the German edition of the demo already became available online after having been uploaded from the cover disk of Gamestar magazine, and there are several download links for the 90.7 MB file on Neocron Network. A 5.5 MB fix for this German demo is also available from the (slow-loading) official site, and lastly, an English version of the official trailer is also available there, but that features the same footage as last week's German trailer ( story).
Westwood has released a new patch for Command & Conquer Renegade for download from its ftp server, upgrading their 3D action game to version 1.031. This 18.3 MB download adds a "edit_vehicle" console command for physics tweaking, fixes the "superweapon->quit exploit," and makes a few other changes as listed in this post on the official forum.
An emotional story
on Computer and Video Games offers word that Counter-Strike: Condition Zero
will not make its intended release date this summer. The story, based on an
updated release schedule from Sierra, has been clarified to say the game is set
for an autumn release (for a while it said both autumn and winter).
Action Vault's
Kreed Q&A talks with Vladimir Nikolaev of Russian developer Burut about
Kreed, their upcoming first-person shooter. Topics include their goals for the
game and its gameplay, the game world where Kreed will be set, the backstory,
the player character, weapons, enemies, missions, NPCs, items, their graphics
engine, multiplayer support, where development currently stands, and more. Some
of the included screenshots are new.
- Raven Shield
Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Raven Shield
Q&A talks with Carol Bertrand, art director on the upcoming Rainbow
Six game, discussing how he joined the project, the game's realistic look,
the tools he uses, and more.
- Postal 2
TVG Features Postal 2
Q&A Part 1 of 2 talking with the outrageous folks at Running With
Scissors about Postal 2, the upcoming outrageous sequel to Postal, their
original outrageous game.
- Intrinsic Graphics
HomeLan Fed's Intrinsic Graphics
Q&A talks with the folks behind the Intrinsic Alchemy game
development platform that is being used by Tesseraction Games for Enigma:
Rising Tide and by Raven Software for an as-yet unannounced title.
- Ricochet Xtreme
Gaming Horizon's Ricochet Xtreme
Q&A talks with James Smith of Reflexive Entertainment
about Ricochet Xtreme, and their efforts at creating "intense,
addictive, old-style gameplay with modern graphics, sound, and a brand new
look to the classic 'break-out' genre."
- Tony Tough
There's a Tony Tough
Q&A on Gamer's Hell discussing plans to create an adventure puzzle
game with the flavor of LucasArts' classic Monkey Island series.
GameSpy.com's David
Allen Q&A talks with the CEO of Pharaoh Productions about progress on
Dominion, their upcoming RPG, as well as some of the intrigues that preceded his
departure from Artifact Entertainment. Topics include their current search for
funding, the leeriness publishers feel towards start-ups, the role of game
agents, what the project needs to be completed, why funding is so hard to come
by lately, and a lengthy discussion of the impact that rumors had on his exodus
from Artifact. Included are some new screenshots.
There's a Sudden Strike
II Preview on PC.IGN.Com with a look at FireGlow Games' upcoming RTS sequel.
Based on play with a preview build of the game, the article jumps in describing
getting underway with the German campaign, moving on to the Russian
counter-offensive, the British missions, the American campaign, and the Japanese
missions discussing the varying difficulty levels each carries with it, the
addition of new units, controllable aircraft, transporting troops with various
vehicles, the games visuals, and more. Included are 14 new screenshots.
New Xbox in the works?
on GameSpot relates the following: " The Wall
Street Journal is reporting that Microsoft is currently working on a new
version of the Xbox hardware named 'Freon.' Apparently, the new model will have
abilities similar to those found in set-top devices that are capable of
recording and pausing live TV." There's a bit more speculation on this on Team Xbox.
Also, there are new Summoner 2 screenshots on Computer and Video Games.
Console Reviews
There's a Name That Planet
Contest on Lancers Reactor offering the opportunity to get to name a planet
in Freelancer (open to US residents only).
The Plug-ins section on Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon
Website has an update to the RSE level building plug-ins released on the
Ghost Recon: Desert Siege retail CD. Installing the updated plug-in requires you
have the original plug-in.
Jb's Trip to the UT Mod Summit
on PC-Gamers.net offers another account of having attended the gathering
where mod authors got a look at what's in store for them in the upcoming Unreal
Tournament 2003 (thanks Joe Viviano).
- The Morrowind Website
now offers downloads of a new LeFemm Armor official plug-in adding some
female armor types to the Elder Scrolls RPG, as well as a link to NVIDIA's
Photoshop Texture Compression plugin that allows the .dds texture files
used by Morrowind to be opened and saved. Thanks Zdim...
- The latest Earth
& Beyond Glimpse Inside shows off some before-and-after images
demonstrating how they have upgraded the space station artwork over the
development of this upcoming MMORPG...
Hudson story haters... check out the new
link of the day format!
It's nothing extreme (yet) but Hudson the wonder dog has started
demonstrating a tendency to do a bit of backyard digging, something inherent in
a terrier's nature, even if being an Airedale makes her much too large to create
a hole large enough to burrow into like her smaller cousins. When recently
seeing her engaged in this I joked to MrsBlue that she's trying to escape the
yard, but I didn't think this was so funny when she ended up outside yesterday.
No, she hadn't actually burrowed her way out, but it demonstrated once again
that our backyard fencing is not up to the task of keeping her in, and that I
have a little Tim Allen-style project in my future to upgrade our fences (the
previous residents here had a Scotty, so for them the same fences qualified as
overkill). Getting back to the digging, the question I now have to consider is
whether the fence upgrade should also involve underground fencing to inhibit
future tunneling. On the other hand, if I'm smart, I may just have to skip right
to a moat.
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