Archived News:

Monday, Dec 27, 2004

Silent Hill IV: The Room Demo

A demo version of Silent Hill 4: The Room is now available, allowing the chance to sample the PC edition of the latest installment in Konami's horror/survival series. The demo, which debuted on the cover mounted disk on PC Gamer UK, is a 500 MB download, available on 3D Gamers, FileFront, Filerush (torrent), Fragland.net, Gameguru Mania, GamersHell.com, JustGamers, and Worthplaying.

Far Cry Map Pack

The Far Cry Website (thanks Frans) has word on the release of an unofficial tournament Far Cry map pack on the Crytek modding portal created by a few of the folks from the Crytek team in their spare time. The pack includes a dozen multiplayer maps, eight Assault and four TDM/FFA.

Quake IV Screenshots

The first officially released Quake IV screenshots can be found in an article called Looking Ahead to 2005 on Yahoo! Games Domain (thanks DemoNews.de) where they show off a couple of images from the upcoming DOOM 3-engine project along with a summary of how the plot picks up after the conclusion of Quake II courtesy of Raven's Eric Biessman:
After destroying the Strogg's collective brain and leader -- the Makron -- the Strogg have quickly regrouped under a new and more powerful Makron. However, with the Strogg's planetary defenses still destroyed, Earth's forces can deliver a full and final assault. This time you're not alone. An army of soldiers are fighting with you and an arsenal of weapons and vehicles are at your disposal. Quake IV delivers you deeper into the heart of Stroggos

Hearts of Iron II Q&A

There's a Hearts of Iron II Q&A on HappyPuppy talks with Fredrik Lindgren of Paradox Entertainment about their World War II RTS sequel: "We wanted to make the combat system more realistic and better reflect the grand strategy scale of combat. By introducing the 'movement-is-attack' system, combat is started as soon as troops move into a province, making it hard for the enemy to foresee a planned attack. The mission-system for units makes it possible to give detailed orders and decide the level of unit control."

Evening Preview

Evening Screenshots

Gold: Empire Deluxe Enhanced Edition

Killer Bee Software sends word that Empire Deluxe Enhanced Edition is gold:
Killer Bee Software has announced that their latest strategy game, Empire Deluxe Enhanced Edition, has gone gold. It will be available for online purchase Tuesday, December 28th, 2004.

“Two years ago today, it was announced that Killer Bee had acquired the rights to Empire Deluxe.” said Mark Kinkead, owner of Killer Bee Software. "We now enter a new era of the Empire Series.”

A demo is available at Killer Bee’s Website, and all orders before midnight Central time, December 27th will receive a 10% discount on the retail price.

Empire Deluxe Enhanced Edition features the 4-X strategic challenges found in other games of the Empire Series which were recognized by Gamespy as part of the best 50 “All Time” computer games. The Enhanced Edition has new units and rules, as well as other features revolutionary for a turn-based strategy game, such as a fully exposed Computer Player programming API, customizable units and terrain, and virtually unlimited maps and game sizes, all within the Empire engine.

For more information, please visit http://killerbeesoftware.com

Pacific Fighter Patches, Servers

The Pacific Fighters Website now features new version 3.03 patches for Pacific Fighters to update either the stand-alone version of 1C Maddox Games' World War II Flight simulator, or a merged install of the game along with Forgotten Battles and the Ace Expansion Pack. The updated dedicated server packages are now also available.

Gothic III Q&A

There's a Gothic III Q&A on World of Gothic looking down the road to the third installment in Piranha Bytes' RPG series (thanks Doupě.cz) talking with "KaiRo" about the game: "In the past, we always read each and every feedback from community and integrated it into the successor. We also followed this path for Gothic III. Of course, we have a very clear idea about what we want to achieve but in many points your suggestions are an important decision guidance. Anyway, there is a little problem. At some point, the design phase is completed and we are busy arousing the created vision. During that phase, it is no longer possible to make huge changes to the gameplay because we cannot break up the coherent overall concept afterwards. It happened frequently that we get emails of the kind 'Please implement a multiplayer mode' three months before the release of the game. Of course, we are not able to consider these suggestions. But be assured that every of your suggestions is coining the world of Gothic in some way. Even if an idea seems to be absurd, it is still able to provoke interesting thoughts."

Site Seeing

A new The Sims 2 University Product Page is online, dedicated to the upcoming expansion for the virtual life game. Additionally, there is a new About The Sims 2 University Section on the game's official website, which, among other things, offers some new screenshots along with some previously released images from the project. Thanks Frans.

Year-end Q&As

HomeLAN Fed's year-end Q&A marathon heads toward the finish line by discussing the year that was with Chad Walker of Walker Boys, Mike Jaret of Running with Scissors, Fredrik Lindgren of Paradox Interactive, Gabriel Law of Netamin, Dan Jevons of Union Entertainment, Jan Beuck of master creating [*intermission*] Tom Ohle of BioWare, Mike Legg of Petroglyph, Donald Case of Arush, Tony Barnes of the Collective, and journalist Steven Kent.

Afternoon Previews

The Mod Squads

The Dark Mod Forums now offer downloads of a new teaser trailer for this upcoming stealth-oriented DOOM 3 modification.

Monday Game Reviews

Monday Hardware Reviews

Out of the Blue

Well, if you are reading this, then I guess our efforts to get the site back online have been successful. It seems our present on Christmas Day was a catastrophic hardware failure.

Apologies for the downtime. And a HUGE thanks to Jon, Chris, Vaughn and the other folks at UGO for helping out in our time of crisis.

Links of the Day: 3D2TOY Project.
Science!: Just How Old Can He Go (registration required)?
Images of the Day: UserFriendly.
Media of the Day: Nextel Viral Video.
Thanks Mike Martinez and Ant.
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