Archived News:
Mayhem Studios announces they have been at work on Shadow Vault, a
time-traveling turn-based strategy game they say they have been quietly at work
on for the past two years. Accompanying the announcement is the
first batch of screenshots from the game, as well as this introduction to
what they have planned: The sky is blackened by dark clouds and planet
Earth is nearing its sad end. Human, a creature so inventive, has already tried
all the possibilities to avoid his doom. Unsuccessfully. Only one way still
remains - a time tunnel leading back to the year 1958. Contingent, the new
world's government, didn't hesitate and jumps into the tunnel with a great army
to fight against their own ancestors. Gain the planet at any cost. The primacy
of the contingent's modern units is extensive but the situation changes rapidly
and the red sun rises above the planet. Nuclear war is in the air, a war that
no-one expected. There is no way back and both sides are forced to continue
fighting.
Game features:
- Turn based strategy that gives the player the possibility to use and
improve various special abilities of his units.
- Stylish, "nuclear war in progress" environment.
- Epic story and dynamic storyline that accompanies the player throughout
the entire game
- High level Artificial Intelligence
- Intuitive game rules placing emphasis on the strategic experience
- 20 game levels
- 30 units and characters
- 40 different actions that can used during the game
- 36 abilities and character improvements
HomeLan Fed's Half-Life 2
Q&A is online, talking with Valve's Gabe Newell about what can de
revealed about plans for their shooter sequel. Along the way, they cover a good
deal of ground, confirm that they still expect to make their September 30
release date, and more. Here's a bit on the reasons behind setting the game in
the fictional European location of City 17: Within the story, there are
reasons why you are in City 17. Outside of what is happening in the story, two
factors influenced our inclusion of City 17 - the first was that Viktor Antonov
grew up in Romania and without really intending to he got a bunch of the artists
excited about an art direction that drew heavily on eastern European source
material, and the second was that thematically present day eastern Europe exists
at a really interesting crossroad between the past and the future which
resonates with what goes on in Half-Life 2.
Majorem sends along news that beta testing for Ballerium, their MMO strategy
game is about to expand: Majorem Ltd., developers of Ballerium - the
Massive multiplayer strategy game, announce today the opening of the third and
last round of Beta-0, that will take place in the next few days.
This round will be shorter than the previous ones, and will include only a
couple of takes during this week.
About 10 to 15 additional testers will be selected to participate in this round
which will be followed by a server update, and a new beta Phase, Beta-1.
The next phase will require many more testers and therefore those who wish to
participate are hereby invited to register at www.Ballerium.com.
The Crimsonland official
website offers downloads of a demo of Crimsonland, a top-down shooter
developed by 10tons Entertainment, described as having "all the
characteristics of classic shooter games with the hardware-accelerated graphics
of today." Thanks Ant and FiringSquad.
Also, The Origi-3d Website offers
downloads of a demo version of their "Majic Carpet" engine, showing
off features like real-time cloth, refraction, reflections, morphing, "real
time optimized vertex displacement, with smart tessalation" (as opposed to
bump mapping) and more.
The Chaser
Preview on Computer and Video Games (thanks Frans) offers a look at the
upcoming shooter in the works at Cauldron. Along the way they offer fist-hand
impressions of the graphical goodness offered by the CloakNT engine: What
this means to us gamers is that some of the pictures Chaser paints are damn
sweet. Lighting is utterly convincing, down to the tell-tale shadows it casts.
You can practically reach out and touch the different materials of the objects
you encounter, from polished mirrors to rough concrete walls. Blood splatters
walls and floors after fire-fights, and oil paintings adorn walls. Exquisite
Japanese prints only reveal their full detail when you spend the time to examine
them - from the grim slums of 2044 Earth, to the functional metallics of the
orbital facilities, to the eerie sepia vistas of Mars, each location is imbued
with impressive character and detail.
The Soldier
of Fortune II: Double Helix Preview on GameSpy.com offers a look at
the Xbox version of Raven's mercenary shooter sequel.
There's a QuakeCon
2003 Q&A on Cached.net talking with Brian 'Tapper' Davis about plans for
the next installment in the long-running LAN extravaganza. Among other things,
they discuss plans for broadcasting the festivities: "We've had to sit down
and re-think our plans on shoutcasting. Our original plans fell through, and so
we're busily trying to re-group and develop a new approach to shoutcasting at
the event. We feel it's become an essential element, so we've dedicated staff to
working on this issue, and time is short , expect announcements about this
pretty soon. But no, no particular tourney will be featured , I think we're
looking for a good mix of coverage."
Neverwinter
Vault's Tseramed Q&A talks with the developer of the innovative
Foreboding in Sylvani module for Neverwinter Nights, discussing the gameplay the
module offers, how it was created, and how his background as a professional
game programmer (Ultima VII, Wing Commander I, BioForge, NetStorm) aided the
process.
- The Caeron 3000: Race for
Andraeus Website is online, dedicated to "the first in a series of
single-player computer games set in the Caeron 3000 universe and is a
pre-cursor to the Caeron 3000 MMORPG."...
- This
forum post is where to post questions you would like to see answered
during an upcoming interview with Tri Synergy about UFO: Aftermath, their
upcoming strategy game that follows in the footsteps of the X-COM series...
Had a fine old time at Pops' yesterday, including my first really successful
session of holding my baby niece for an while without a problem... she seemed to
be very interested in my glasses and my beard, so I guess it helps to have
built-in baby toys. She's become quite the happy little thing, constantly
finding delight in the things that go on around her. Very neat.
It may have been an insanely harsh winter in the Northeast, but that hasn't
diminished the deer population at this point, over the course of the day I
managed to see more deer than I have in any other five days in my life put
together, including a group of five or six that Hudson chased for a mile or so
through the woods.
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