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Archived News:
A Dungeon Siege II movie is now available, featuring gameplay footage from Gas
Powered Games' RPG sequel, and a narration by designer Chris Taylor. The movie
can be found on
GameInformer,
GameSpot,
IGN, and
Worthplaying.
Also, there's a Restricted
Area movie on MGW showing off Master Creating's upcoming action/RPG in a
clip that originally appeared on the cover disk of a gaming magazine. Meanwhile,
there are two
Knights of Honor movies on the official website, a pair of short in-game
sequences they call "living pictures." Finally, there's
a Juiced
video on Gamebiz with their ShakyCam footage of the racing game's
presentation at E3.
Another
new Dungeon Siege II Diary is up, this time level designer Matt "You Da"
Mahon discusses what he's been up to lately, as he wrestles with quests (thanks
Frans). The diary is accompanied by
five new screenshots. Also, a new
Medal of Honor Pacific Assault Diary is written by Ed Moore, multiplayer
design lead on the upcoming World War II shooter, who describes his background
in game design. Also,
RPG Vault's Beyond
Divinity Wrap Report is a postmortem on how Larian Studios' RPG sequel
turned out written by project leader Swen Vincke. Also,
Action
Vault's Cold War Developer Diary, Vol. 1 gives a day by day account of the
unveiling of Mindware Studios' tactical action game at E3 written by executive
producer Tomas Pluharik. Finally, the latest bi-monthly update on the
Croteam Website discusses updates to the
menu system in Serious Sam 2, describing how the flexible menu system can be
edited on the fly. Thanks Seriously!.
Russian developer MiST land
announces they are taking up the reigns of a couple of franchises on behalf of
publisher Strategy First with development of
Jagged Alliance 3D,
Disciples III, and
Jagged Alliance 3. Word is: "More information and details about these
projects will be released in the coming weeks." For now all there is on these
projects are some quotes: "MiST Land South have already proven themselves
to us with COPS 2170: The Power of Law and ALFA: Antiterror, two of their titles
that we will publish here in North America," says Don McFatridge, President and
CEO of Strategy First Inc. "We are confident that together we will bring the
Disciples and Jagged Alliance franchises to a whole new audience."
Strategy First will be the worldwide publisher of all three games, while Game
Factory Interactive will publish them in Russia and Eastern European markets.
"Together with Game Factory Interactive, we have already had good cooperation
with Strategy First as they are bringing two of our titles to the North American
market. We're happy to have an opportunity to work with these celebrated and
successful franchises," says Vitaly Shutov, Head of MiST Land South. "We will
work hand-in-hand with Strategy First to create high quality, modern, and
fascinating games that keep the legendary soul and atmosphere of these popular
franchises."
Worthplaying has
details on Lawman, a wild west-themed first-person shooter currently in
development at Polish developer Techland. There is no release date for the
Chrome-engine project, but they do have some screenshots, which are available
with no watermarks on
3D Gamers.
Here's the description: "The player takes role of a gunfighter who travels
around the Western part of the North American continent. He faces the most
dangerous scum of the Western frontier in furious duels. With fast shooting and
smart moves he has to be better than his enemies. To do so, he has to master
pistols, guns, shotguns and become the fastest of all."
Spider-Man
Demo Not Kosher on IGN is a story summarizing the buzz surrounding the
recent PC demo for Spider-Man 2. In a rare twist, apparently the PC version is
the dumbed-down edition of the game: "On PC, Spider-Man 2 features brighter
graphics more reminiscent of a cartoon than the movie. And, though it also
features a familiar storyline with familiar characters, it boasts a kid
friendly, intentionally simplified control scheme that's not for the hardcore
amongst us." There's even more new info on all this on
GameSpot, where they have figured out where it actually came from, which was
apparently not the Russian soft drink company as we believed: However,
the demo's origin is much closer to home--Battle Creek, Michigan, to be exact.
The Midwestern town is the headquarters of Kellogg's, the food multinational and
maker of Cheez-Its. As it turns out, the Spider-Man 2 PC demo is being
released
exclusively as a Cheez-It promotion; send in two UPCs from boxes
of the deliciously caloric crackers and you'll get a demo disc of the game.
While the promotion's exclusivity would explain why many sites yanked the demo
yesterday, it doesn't explain why its splash screen listed the game's developer
as Fizz Factor (The Hobbit) instead of Treyarch. That's because Spider-Man 2 for
the PC will be a totally different game than its PlayStation 2, Xbox, and
GameCube siblings. According to reports, Spider-Man 2 for the PC will be a
child-oriented, mass-market game along the lines of Finding Nemo, instead of the
open-ended, Grand Theft Auto-style console game.
Interplay
offices closed by state officials on GameSpot (thanks jonaac) has more on
the fate of the troubled publisher, confirming widespread reports that employees
were not being paid: Less than a day after CEO Herve Caen said Interplay
was "still here," the publisher has apparently been shut down by the State of
California. The Orange County Register's Tamara Chuang reported late Friday that
California's Department of Industrial Relations, Division of Labor Standards
Enforcement forced the Irvine, CA-based developer-publisher of Fallout to
suspend operations.
The closure followed a snap inspection of Interplay's offices by investigators,
who found the company was without workers’ compensation insurance and had not
paid employees. According to officials, there were 14 staffers on-site Friday
during the inspection, and 79 still on Interplay's payroll--down nearly 40 since
their mid-April financial statements.
HomeLAN Fed has story
contradicting reports that Universal has picked up rights to the DOOM movie
( story), quoting id CEO Todd Hollenshead as saying that the
rights have actually reverted to id: "The movie rights have reverted to id, as
Warner's option period expired. However, we remain a 'free agent' at this time
and multiple studios are interested in the project." Todd does, however confirm
the participation of the parties mentioned in the story: "The team of John Wells
(ER, et. al.) and Lorenzo DiBonaventura (The Matrix, et. al.) that has been
working on the project for over a year will remain affiliated with the DOOM
movie."
The official Worms: Forts
Under Siege Product Page is now live. It offers info on the
game, and sports four new screenshots. Also, the
Get Mashed Website is now online, dedicated to this top-down cross-platform racing game. Thanks Frans.
A pair of business stories (thanks Mike Martinez for both), each involving an
old boss of mine, Sumner Redstone:
Viacom Rules Out EA as Takeover Target has word that: "Viacom Inc. Chairman
and Chief Executive Sumner Redstone on Thursday shot down speculation that his
company might seek to acquire Electronic Arts Inc., the world's largest video
game publisher, saying it would be too expensive. But industry observers said
that aside from the barrier of price -- potentially $20 billion or more -- EA
could be a good fit for Viacom or another media conglomerate." Also,
Midway Games Chairman Nicastro to Resign reports: "Midway Games Inc., a
developer and publisher of entertainment software, on Friday said Chairman Neil
Nicastro intends to resign from the board immediately after the June 10 annual
meeting. In a statement, Nicastro cited personal and professional reasons for
his departure exit from Midway, best known for its 'Mortal Kombat' franchise.
Sumner Redstone, who with National Amusements Inc. owns 68 percent of Midway
shares, said Midway will announce a successor shortly following the annual
meeting."
The Official SÖLDNER: Secret Wars Website
now offers downloads of the first edition of the manual for the editor for Wings
Simulations' first-person shooter. Thanks Frans.
This Blizzard
Entertainment Employment Opportunities Page has word that: "Blizzard
Entertainment is looking for a talented and hard-working Tools Programmer who
has some experience working in the Gaming Industry. This position is in the Core
Technology department, creating tools and libraries for internal use, including
but not limited to audio and video processing and playback."
Hey! It's 06/05/04 today, at least in typical American notation... What say we
all wait until exactly 3:21:00 and all simultaneously shout "blastoff!" Oh well,
maybe not... especially since that would have been more appropriate at 3:21 a.m.
Well, appropriate is probably the wrong word to use there either... Hmmm,
nevermind.
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