Archived News:
A new video from Unreal Tournament 2004 can now be downloaded from the Unreal
Ops Website (thanks Tiscali Games). The ShakyCam™ clip shows off the Hellbender
vehicle, including audio of a developer's introduction to how its weaponry will
operate (including hand gestures for special effects). There are two versions of
the clip, a larger DivX edition and a smaller Windows Media Player clip.
The Jedi
Knight: Jedi Academy Media on GameSpot (registration required) has a new Jedi Academy
movie in which: "Luke Skywalker greets his Jedi students to prepare them
for the trials ahead where they must use their mind, force powers, and
lightsabers to defeat their enemies." Also, a new Rainbow Six 3: Athena
Sword trailer is now available on FilePlanet
(registration required) and Worthplaying
as a modest 6.7 MB download.
Ubi Soft Entertainment and Cyan Worlds announce the expansion of the beta
testing for Uru: Ages Beyond Myst for the PC, the upcoming spin-off of the
best-selling Myst/Riven series. Here's the word: "As we enter the
final stage of the game's development, we are excited to invite interested fans
to assist us in improving and shaping the evolving world of Uru." said Rand
Miller, founder and CEO Cyan Worlds, Inc.
Play testers are invited to become among the first to experience the deepest,
and most compelling Myst storyline to date as they participate in a modern day
exploration and restoration of the ancient D'ni civilization. Uru (pronounced
Oo-roo) includes a compelling single-player offline adventure in addition to an
expansive persistent online experience, Uru Live.
Play testers will experience both the single player game and Uru Live.
Candidates will need a PC with a broadband internet connection (see specs for
minimum requirements below) and must visit www.urulive.com
to sign up.
Battle
Engine Aquila coming to the PC on GameSpot has word that "Encore has
announced that it will publish a PC version of Battle Engine Aquila later this
year," giving PC gamers the opportunity to play this mech game that's
already available for the PS2 and Xbox. The release is expected for the holiday
season.
A new ENIGMA Rising Tide Website is
online, dedicated to Tesseraction's naval combat game. The plan is to launch a
Flash mini game there tomorrow that will offer the chance at winning a free
copy of the game, and tomorrow will also see the release of yet another demo
from the game.
RPG Vault's City of
Heroes Diary, Volume 2 is written by Cryptic's Jack Emmert, who goes into
the change in plan that has lead them to create archetypes (akin to character
classes) in their upcoming superhero MMORPG, and the departure this represents
from their original intention to allow players to create any type of character
they desired from the available characteristics.
The full Max Payne 2: The Fall
of Max Payne Website is now live, replacing the teaser site that was holding
that bit of virtual space. The site offers info and screenshots (a few of which
look like they may be new) from Remedy's shooter sequel, along with doodads
like screensavers and wallpapers. There is also a mailing list to sign up for.
Thanks MAX
PAYNE ZONE.
The promised Command & Conquer: Generals demo is now available, offering a
chance to try out the latest installment in the C&C series of RTS games. The
404 MB (though it says 414) download comes courtesy of NVIDIA's Flash-happy nZone,
and mirrors are now also available on 3D
Gamers, Computer
Games Online, Ferrago,
FileFront,
Gamer's Hell,
and Worthplaying.
Lionheart: Legacy of
the Crusader Ships to Retail (thanks Frans) is the press release with word
that this SPECIAL-system alternate-reality RPG from Reflexive and Black Isle is
shipping to stores. Here's a bit: In the game, players can control the
entire party themselves or join forces with up to four gamers for mission-based
cooperative multi-play. As they progress through the realm of Lionheart: Legacy
of the Crusader, players will be able to arm themselves with hundreds of melee
weapons and 60 devastating spell attacks as they attempt to turn the tide
against a savage onslaught of otherworldly creatures. Lionheart: Legacy of the
Crusader also features the SPECIAL RPG system for character advancement
previously found in the Fallout® series of PC games.
- Tron 2.0
HomeLAN
Fed's Tron 2.0 Writer Q&A chats with Steve Englehart (who wrote tons
of the comics I read in my youth) about his contribution to Tron 2.0 as the
writer on Monolith's shooter that serves as a sequel to the Tron
movie.
- Zero Hour
The Harvard
Bonin Q&A on CNC UNLEASHED asks a couple of quick questions about
the upcoming Zero Hour expansion for Command & Conquer Generals.
- Freedom Fighters on HomeLAN
Fed. Based on the Xbox version.
- Once Upon a Knight on GameSpy.
- The Simpsons Hit And Run on HomeLAN
Fed. Based on the Xbox version.
Yahoo!
News - Nokia to Buy Sega Network Gaming Unit (thanks Peter Binazeski)
reports: "Finland's Nokia said the deal related to assets of Sega.com Inc.,
including Sega's Network Application Package, or SNAP, a computer server
technology which is designed to form the core of networked game play."
The organizers of the Cyber X Games
send word that in addition to all the rewards being offered in the official
tourneys at the upcoming Dallas regional qualifier, $10,000 in prizes are being
awarded in the various tournaments in the BYOC area.
Ritual designer Reid "BrushBaron" Kimball is offering two competitions
to the Elite Force 2 community following the recent release of mod tools for the
Trekkie shooter sequel. Here's the deal: "I am running this on my own, this
is NOT Ritual Entertainment sponsored. However, I do have friends at Ritual that
are willing to participate. The winning prize in each competition is to get
valuable feedback from someone that works at Ritual on the winning submission.
The two categories are a multiplayer level and a new texture set. You can find
more details about these competitions within the zip files listed below.
Questions can be e-mailed to me at brushbaron@rbkdesign.com.
Due date for the MP level and Texture Set is 11:59pm on September 15, 2003. Design
Your Own Multiplayer Level Instructions. Example
submission for the MP level competition. Design
Your Own Texture Set Instructions."
This Blizzard
Entertainment Employment Opportunities Page has word of an opening they are
looking to fill for a tech support rep to lend a hand with customers via phone,
chat, and Battle.net.
It's been with great interest that I've been gauging the reaction to the
takeover ads that are appearing here. I guess this will be a talking point here
for a few days, so I won't try to cover the whole thing in one mouthful (though
this update is so long it looks like I did). First, just to be clear, there is
another new intrusive ad unit that will appear as of today -- this will
represent the completion of this process, so while its appearance is probably
no more welcome, that will be the end of this (I don't want anyone to
think that a new ad unit is going to be added every day).
As was discussed in the forums yesterday, the deal with the takeover ad is that
the most any one user should be able to encounter it is once per 24 hour period.
This works via a cookie, and as far as I've been able to tell, this has worked
as promised. I've had one report from someone with a technical difficulty,
please let me know if you are having one yourself (if you do, please include as
much pertinent system info as you can). The deal with these other ads, which
will be of the pop-up variety, is that no one should receive more than a single
one per visit, and none of them will do any of that annoying open a new window
when you try to close it dealie.
As I alluded to yesterday, these are not moves that have been made lightly, they
are meant to ensure the survival of this site, which if I may be brutally frank
has been losing money for over two years now (since the dot-bomb). I resisted
pop-up type ads as being greedy when they were worth a king's ransom back
when the site was in the black. I resisted them during the dark days of the past
couple of years as not worth bothering everyone with if they still weren't
allowing the bills to be paid. Now that a middle ground is achievable here, it
seemed like it was the way to go. I fought hard to lay down parameters that will
keep the frequency of these reasonable, and made everyone involved crazy by
standing my ground to not allow for the possibility that these frequencies could
increase for the foreseeable future. I can only hope that the end effect is
indeed reasonable for most of you, and that, as I said yesterday, you find these
trade-offs acceptable.
Finally, at the risk of the longest OotB EVAR (and I didn't even get to the new
e-mail worm), I have seen the hue and cry for a system that allows users to pay
for a site with no such ads... I will do a little investigating and report to
you what the near-term possibilities are in this regard. There's also been more
stirring from supporters of the idea of a PayPal donation link. Breaking my
(eerie to some) silence on this topic, I guess the time to consider that will be
after the dust settles from all this (it wouldn't seem fair to do that first and then
hit you with the new ads).
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