Archived News:
The
Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King Designer Diary #4 on GameSpot
features designer Chris Tremmel talking about his work "with the combat and
control (C&C) group on The Lord of the Rings, The Return of the King. We're
responsible for everything in the game that a player interacts with, from
hitting an orc to climbing a ladder to collapsing a siege tower."
This Strategy
First Patch Page has a small patch for WWII Frontline Command that probably
impacts a small group: those playing the game under Win2K SP4. Thanks Frans.
Encore
signs Ascaron games on GameSpot continues the flurry of announcements of
Encore's dealings, revealing plans for Encore to publish both Ascaron
Entertainment's Patrician III and Pirate Hunter in the U.S. Both games are
expected to be available by this year's holiday season.
A new version 6.00 of the QuakeIT
Quake III Arena game launcher is now available. The update has newly optimized
code, full PunkBuster support, full Team Arena support, new cvars on the cvars
list, and more.
An English demo for Silent Storm is now available, providing a sample of Nival
Interactive's upcoming 3D WWII tactical RPG. The 200 MB demo can be found on 3D
Gamers, Computer
Games Online, FileFront,
FilePlanet
(registration required), FileShack (registration required), Gamer's
Hell, and Worthplaying.
Word is the demo contains a tutorial and two full levels.
As promised, the Rolling Demo of X² - The Threat, is now available on EgoSoft's
Website (thanks Frans), offering a non-interactive look at the game (much
like a trailer, but using the game engine). The rolling demo of the upcoming
space combat game includes a benchmark function, and users are encouraged to
share their results in this
forum. The download is mirrored on 3D
Gamers, Computer
Games Online, FileFront,
Gamer's
Hell, Jucaushii.ro,
and Worthplaying.
A
post to the Lock On: Modern Air Combat Forums from Eagle Dynamics' Carl C.
Norman (thanks Brad Vaughan) has word that the demo for this jet combat game
will be released next week, though it's warned that this is not carved in stone
if anything pops up in the meantime. The post also describes how certain aspects
of the demo that will be fixed in the final version of the game will not be
addressed in the demo in order to get it out the door. Meanwhile, there are
other posts in that forum that refer to the game being delayed until Winter
2003, which also is mentioned second-hand in a
forum post (thanks Dave), though that forum is down at the moment, but this
does not seem to be officially confirmed anywhere.
A new S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Oblivion Lost movie is now available, showing off gameplay
from GSC Game World's upcoming shooter. This is the first of a two part release,
which is made at the German Games Convention, while the follow-up will appear
next week in conjunction with ECTS. The clip comes in a few different sizes,
mirrored on 3D Gamers,
IGN, and Worthplaying.
EA sends word that the official Command
& Conquer Generals Website has had one of those suddenly trendy relaunches,
and now offers new skinny about the upcoming Zero Hour expansion for the RTS
game.
A demo version of Freedom Fighters is now available, offering a chance to try
out this game of squad-based combat in the works at IO Interactive. The demo
features the game's Post Office level, seven weapons, and three Freedom Fighters
to recruit. The 75 MB download can be found on the Freedom
Fighters Website, and mirrors are available on 3D
Gamers, Computer
Games Online, Filerush
(torrent), FileShack
(registration required), Gamer's
Hell, GameSpot
(registration required), Happy
Puppy (registration required), IGN,
and Worthplaying.
The VEGA$: Make it Big Official Website
is now online (thanks Frans), dedicated to the upcoming sin city simulator. The site offers new shots and a new movie trailer. Also, Medal of Honor UK is online, offering
a localized home base for the MoH franchise, providing the latest info and
related resources.
The Magic
Online Website (thanks GameSpot)
has their
announcement that, in an unusual move, the game is reverting to beta testing
to iron out problems introduced with the recent version 2.0 patch for Wizards of
the Coast's virtual card strategy game.
The Unreal Technology Page now
features the list of finalists in the tools category in the $1,000,000
"Make Something Unreal" contest. They also make mention of the
honorable mention honorees, a replacement finalist for the mods category, and a
nod to a tools team that's ineligible for the competition since they are working
as contractors on UT2004.
EverQuest II
moved to 2004 on GamePro.com has word that the MMOG sequel will not be
released until 2004, saying: "As I've said before, when Bill Trost said 'winter
of 2004,' he meant the early months, not the late ones. As in, the winter that
starts in 2003 and ends in 2004." Also, THQ
Updates Product Release Schedule and Earnings Guidance for Second Fiscal Quarter
has word of more delays, saying: this about Sphinx and Warhammer 40,000:
Firewarrior: "The PC versions are also now scheduled to ship in North
America and Europe during the third fiscal quarter." Thanks HomeLAN
Fed.
As promised, another new demo for Enigma: Rising Tide is now available, offering
an unprecedented ninth(!!) opportunity to check out Tesseraction's naval combat
game. The new release is updated to version 2.1.4 of the game engine, and offers
a pair of U.S. missions. The demo can be downloaded from 3D
Gamers, FileFront,
Gamer's
Hell, Happy
Puppy (registration required), and Worthplaying.
- Secret Weapons Over Normandy
HomeLAN
Fed's Secret Weapons Over Normandy Q&A catches up with Totally
Games' Morgan Gray to discuss the upcoming flight sim that picks up where
LucasArts' Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe left off all those years ago.
- PlanetSide
HomeLAN
Fed's PlanetSide Update Q&A talks with Dallas Dickinson of Sony
Online Entertainment talking about upcoming plans for their MMOFPS covering
the Core combat expansion, as well as what's happening prior to its release.
- XIII
GamePro.com's
XIII Q&A talks with Ubi Soft's Julien Bares (thanks HomeLAN
Fed) about their upcoming cel-shaded Unreal-engine first-person shooter.
- Warhammer Online
There's a
Robin Dews Q&A on Warcry talking with the general manager of
Warhammer Online about the work going into the upcoming MMOG based on the
Warhammer table-top games.
- XGameStation
Boomtown's
XGameStation Q&A talks with Andre LaMothe about plans for their
PC-based XGameStation console system.
The Quakecon 2003
Interview on Telefragged talks with Brian "Tapper" Davis,
executive director of QuakeCon, talking about the event, picking up factoids
like how the event used over 15 miles of Cat5 cable and generators creating
enough power to supply the town I'm in many times over. Also, more Gravity Games
auditions are being held, though as has been noted, playing skills are the last
of the three attributes they seem to be looking for. Here's the deal: "The
GLOBAL GAMING LEAGUE ( www.GGLeague.com ),
America's professional competitive video gaming organization, invites
Cleveland-area video gamers to audition to be a pro gamer this Saturday, for a
chance to compete for cash and prizes at the Gravity Games in Cleveland. Those
with the look, attitude and skills are invited to attend an open casting call on
August 23rd for a chance to compete live on stage at the 2003 Gravity Games
September 10-14." Finally, the EA
SPORTS Website has details on the 32 regional tournaments that will comprise
the 2003 Madden Challenge (bam!).
Dedit and Processor
Settings for Purge on PurgeWorld is an article to get folks started with the editing tools for
Purge, Freeform Interactive's online FPS/RPG. Also, a New setup of MultiEx Commander 3.8 is now available.
- Dutch publisher Project Three Interactive sends word that "its
development studio Termite Games has changed its name to Project Three
Interactive Studios AB and is now fully integrated in the Project Three
Group."...
- Thumbs
up to gamers (really!)...
First off thanks for all the feedback, both positive and negative, about
advertising. I appreciate those willing to communicate about this in spite of
their unhappiness, and cannot express enough gratitude to all of you expressing
support for what's going on here.
To change tracks, I mentioned wanting to comment on the Sobig virus that's
running around the internet at the moment. As some of the
reports about this point out, this is a particularly persistent worm,
sending out such a flood of mail that at its peak, they were probably rolling
in the door here at a rate of 10 per minute. This is all part of the game, but
the thing that's making me crazier by the minute is the flood of rejection
messages from mail servers and user's anti-virus software warning that I have
sent them a virus. Obviously (to me at least) I did not actually send the
offending mail... that's one of the aspects of these worms is how they spoof
their originating e-mail address, so users and ISPs who try to help are actually
causing as big a problem as the original mails to which they are responding. In
fact, for someone like me, whose ISP is filtering these mails out at the server
level (but they know better than to bounce back these notifications), I'm getting
none of the worm mails, and hundreds (literally) of bounce messages. Yeesh.
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