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Archived News:
Missed here when first revealed over a week ago,
Game Factory
Interactive has first details on a pair of new projects they have embarked
upon with developer Burut, Sparta an upcoming RTS game, and East Front, a World
War II shooter (that this
East Front Q&A on Gameguru Mania reveals uses a modified version of the
Kreed engine). Here's a bit on each game: East Front (developer: Burut
CT)
East Front ( working title) is a first person 3D shooter, that takes place in
the world of the alternative World War II. The main character, who was involved
in the experiments carried out by Nazis to create a Perfect Soldier, happens to
be in the German Resistance and fights against his creators. Novelty and
originality of the game process are provided by the features like unique Liv
Kristin “emotion engine”, possibility of main hero to create a “temporary
shield”, nonlinear level running (based on decisions scenes) and original
multiplayer mode. The graphical part of the game represents cinematographic
values of the visual images and game process.
Sparta (developer: Burut CT)
Sparta is a historical real-time 3D strategy. The game actions occurs during the
period of confrontation between freedom-loving Greek tribes and merciless
Persian Empire. This confrontation is known in history as Persian Wars. Besides
high-detailed, almost photo quality graphics, Sparta presents to us unique
gameplay experience - unprecedented level of interaction with gameworld and
possibility of creating player’s own units. Some of the main features of this
game are “Unit Designer” technology which allows to create a new kind of forces
during the game, possibility of capturing enemy weapons from battle-field and
equipping your army with them and, for sure, high historical
authenticity.
The
EverQuest II Website (thanks Frans) offers an "important message" about the
bout of downtime that's plagued the MMORPG this weekend: An Important
Message from John Smedley
Hello Everyone, We sincerely apologize for the downtime this weekend. We had
some hardware issues that caused us to have to tread very carefully in bringing
the game back up. We wanted to triple check everything to make sure there
wouldn't be any major problems, and it's taken a while to both fix the problem
(we had to fly out engineers from one of our hardware vendors) and to bring each
of the servers back online because of the careful validation process we need to
go through. We have to do this very carefully and we hope you can understand our
desire to do this right. We're trying to balance that with getting the game back
up as quickly as possible. So far most servers are back up and the rest should
be up in the next 4-6 hours.. hopefully less. I realize that ETA's that come and
go can frustrate people.. so we do our best to give you the most realistic
estimates possible. Out of respect for our players, we're doing the following:
1) Every player will receive 3 free days. 2) Early this week (Monday or Tuesday)
we will have a 24 hour period where we will have accelerated XP gain. Details
are still being worked out and we'll communicate this to you as we firm up the
plans. We are committed to providing you with excellent service. Our team has
been here for over 40 hours straight, and I can tell you our dedication to doing
right by our players is the thing that's foremost on everyone's mind here at
SOE. Thank You, John Smedley President, Sony Online Entertainment
There's a
Developers Chat Log on board.oblivion-lost.com recapping the chat with GSC
Game World about S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Oblivion Lost, organized into an orderly Q&A
format. As described in the intro: "The main topics on discussion were gameplay,
AI, beta trials, modding tools."
There's
a new State of the Game on the Star Wars Galaxies website (thanks
Frans), with some closing thoughts for the year on the sci-fi MMORPG, discussing
how this year has gone and discussing plans for the coming year. Also, The
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Oblivion Lost
Diary # 4 on
board.oblivion-lost.com translates a Russian diary from GSC Game World about
their upcoming first-person shooter, discussing models and animation, physics,
and more. Also, The Witcher
Peek #8 on RPG
Vault is online, as "CD Projekt invites you to pour another ale, pull your
chair near the hearth, and learn about the origins of magic" in their upcoming
RPG.
- Sudden Strike 3
The
Sudden
Strike 3: Arms to Victory Q&A on Experience Gaming talks with FireGlow
licensing director Ludmila Ludvig about the upcoming continuation of their
World War II RTS series: "It’s not a secret that all of the previous games
of the series were based on scripts. Sudden Strike 3: Arms for Victory has
more than one level of AI. Following certain rules, these levels control
either a unit or group. These scripts secure the interactions between the AI
as well. This makes the AI actions to be almost immediate. That in its turn
increases the player’s interest when engaging the AI."
- Going Postal
Experience
Gaming's Postal 2: Share The Pain Q&A talks with the CEO of Running with
Scissors, Vince Desi: "Running With Scissors is a club more than a company,
we’re totally independent and have no one to answer to but ourselves. The
fact is POSTAL has been blacklisted in the USA from the very beginning; we
actually serve the industry well by being the scapegoat for politicians and
other groups. Big publishers spend big money on advertising and retail
support, they pretty much ignore all the negative critics, bottom line is
distribution and last I checked it wasn’t too hard to buy a copy of San
Andreas, anywhere. As for the media anything controversial gets attention
and as they usually do they cover the story the way they want, everyone who
sees or actually plays POSTAL knows its about laughter, but all they report
is the violence. I learned a long time ago to trust our fans, that’s why we
do this, and that’s ok with me."
- Guild Wars
The
latest Guild Wars
Fansite Friday is on France Guild Wars (thanks
Rage321's Fansite) chats briefly (in
English) with ArenaNet's Gaile Gray about their upcoming MMORPG: "The armor
for various professions is getting more and more stylized in both appearance
and function. For instance, the armor at one point simply added defense.
Now, it adds pluses to specific elemental damage, or pluses to hex defense,
or a variety of different defenses in addition to the straight “this will
protect you by ‘X’ amount” sorts of armor defense."
- Blitzkrieg: Rolling Thunder
The
Blitzkrieg: Rolling Thunder Q&A on FileFront talks with CDV's Mario Kroll
about the upcoming stand-alone expansion for Blitzkrieg, their World War II
RTS game: "In Rolling Thunder, you’ll fight your way through an 18-mission
campaign spanning battles throughout Northern Africa and Europe. The
missions will include lightning raids on enemy camps, rescue missions (where
Patton organized an attempt to free his son-in-law from a German POW camp),
amphibian operations, frozen winter tank battles in the Ardennes, and many
others. Additionally there are eight new single missions that take the
player into such areas as the Spanish Civil War, New Guinea and to the
unforgiving frozen battleground of Siberia."
- NASCAR SimRacing
There's
an in-house producer interview (thanks Frans and
Blackhole Motorsports) along
with a bunch of screenshots on the recently opened
NASCAR
SimRacing Website, talking with senior producer James Hawkins: "NASCAR
SimRacing will be the only NASCAR game for the PC with the latest rule
changes, including the somewhat controversial points system, known as the
'Chase for the Cup,' that is new to 2004. Other rule changes reflected in
the game include: no racing back to the start/finish line; green, white, and
checkered overtime finishes; and the 'Lucky Dog' rule where a lapped driver
may get a lap back."
In addition to the new
NASCAR
SimRacing Website mentioned above, a new
Origin
of the Species Product Page is online with the first four screenshots from
Nu-Generation Games' "Hardcore action meets RPG." Also from publisher
Tri-Synergy is a new
Will of
Steel Product Page for Gameyus Interactive's upcoming real-time strategy
game. Thanks Frans.
Thanks Mike Martinez and Ant.
Half-Life 2 Pilotable
Strider Mod V0.2 on Half-Life 2 Files offers the chance to operate the
striders in Half-Life 2. Included is the accompanying useful ability to spawn
striders in any Half-Life 2 map.
New version 1.1 server patches for the Windows and Linux editions of the
BrainBread modification for Half-Life
are now available. The new release addresses a few bugs without iterating the
version number.
Had a fine old time with the fam yesterday... no feats of strength, though of
course a couple of grievances always manage to get aired in such moments. It did
cause me to actually miss the early Christmas present of a quality effort by the
Giants versus the formidable Steelers, but I'll gladly take it nonetheless.
Anyway, if I had the right amount of faith I'd have TiVoed it.
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