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Archived News:
DreamCatcher Games announces the completion of development on the North
American edition of Domination, Wargaming.Net's stand-alone Massive Assault
expansion also known as Phantom Renaissance:
DreamCatcher Games’ Domination Goes Gold for North
America
Massive Replication for Strategy Game
Toronto, Canada – February 21, 2005 - DreamCatcher Games today announced its
strategy game, Domination, has gone gold for Windows® in North America.
Domination features a renewed global conflict between the Free Nations Union
and the Phantom League on distant planets, including sci-fi land, sea and
air warfare at a grand-strategy level. The game inherits all of the
remarkable features of the original game and deepens the Massive Assault
player experience through increased gameplay options and new strategic
challenges.
Domination features:
• An innovative ‘Secret Allies’ concept
• 2 huge campaigns wrapped in absorbing storylines
• 20 non-linear scenarios, 10 planets for a World War mode
• Brand new Assault and Career modes
• All unit movement, firing and explosions are vividly animated using
3D graphics and sound
• 36 highly detailed units, including unique ones for each faction
• State of the art A.I. with flexible difficulty settings
• Instantaneous visual recreations of spectacular moments using unique
camera modes
• Flexible random political map generation settings
• A.I., Hot Seat, LAN & Internet play modes
• More than 150 hours of gameplay
Developed by Wargaming.net, Domination has an ESRB rating of ‘T’ for Teen
in North America. DreamCatcher Europe will release this title with an
anticipated “12+ PEGI” rating in Europe in April, 2005.
Telltale Games announces
plans for a game
based on the comic series Bone:
SAN RAFAEL, CA, February 21, 2005 – Cartoon Books
and Telltale, today announced that Jeff Smith's comic masterpiece Bone is
coming to a computer near you. Long a popular independent comic, the award
winning Bone was described by Publishers Weekly as “Charming, character
driven fantasy with an elegant design and masterful storytelling.” And now
Telltale, a company that takes you to the worlds where characters like Bone
play and invites you to play with them, will be creating new episodes for PC
gaming.
"Detailed rich characters and incredibly immersive story telling are
everything to us," said Telltale's CEO Dan Connors. "We are proud that Jeff
Smith and Cartoon Books have decided that we are the best partners to bring
Bone to life in a series of PC games. The Bone world has so much texture and
depth and combines a unique blend of superb adventure, mystery and humor –
it is a great first license for Telltale."
"We are very impressed with the work the Telltale team has done in the past.
We’re confident they can bring the fun and adventure of the Bone story to
life. Bone has been a big hit with comic book lovers everywhere and reaching
the PC market will allow even more people to boldly go where no Bone has
gone before." commented Cartoon Books' publisher, Vijaya Iyer.
Bone is also the flagship title for Scholastic's new graphic novel imprint
Graphix, which launched in February. "We are thrilled to launch our exciting
new imprint with this adventurous, funny and unforgettable series" added
Jean Feiwel, Scholastic's publisher and editor in chief, "Scholastic's
unique distribution network of bookstores, school book clubs and book fairs
will send Bone out to a vast, new multi-generational audience." Telltale
Games will compliment this with their first Bone PC episode.
In the current climate of highly successful comic book franchises, Telltale,
Scholastic and Cartoon Books expect to work closely together over the coming
months to make 2005 Bone's most successful year.
In spite of the demise of Pharaoh Productions, this
DEMISE: Rise of the Ku'tan Page, apparently posted last November, outlines
plans for an expansion for DEMISE called Ascension. Here's how this is
described: "Built by a small select team of veteran DEMISE players who are
working directly with the Pharaoh staff, the goal of 'Ascension' is to expand
the existing foundation of DEMISE by adding exciting new content and enhancing
existing content." A
new fact sheet for the project is now online, offering an overview of
planned features for the expansion. The fact sheet updates the release date from
the Q1 205 mentioned in the first announcement to June "Assuming the beta goes
well." Thanks
Frans and
GameGossip.
- DOOM 3: Resurrection of Evil
The Resurrection of
Evil Q&A on Computer Games Magazine is an article-format Q&A with id's
Marty Stratton and Matt Hooper about the upcoming DOOM 3 expansion. The
article includes a few quotes from the pair, along with a spoiler for the
expansion's story covered by a warning that comes too late, so considerer
yourself really warned.
- Battlefield 2
The
Battlefield 2 Q&A on Experience Gaming chats up Ben Smith, associate and
community producer on DICE's upcoming military shooter sequel: "We are using
the Stats and Tracking system to help players understand where they fit
amongst the most skilled players in the game, in lots of different
categories. The cream will rise to the top, and everyone will be able to see
how they match up against the best players in the world."
- Freedom Force vs. The Third Reich
The Freedom Force
vs. The Third Reich Q&A on GamersInfo talks with Ken Levine of
Irrational Games about their upcoming World War II-themed superhero
follow-up: "It was primarily because we felt we couldn't pass up the
opportunity to take Freedom Force back to the Golden Age. It meant that we
could take the black and white nature of the era and make bold new heroes
and put them in situations that you don't see in video games. Even if you've
played every WWII based game on the market, you're going to love FFv3R."
- Lineage II
The Lineage
II Q&A on GameDAILY talks with Aaron Rigby about Lineage II NCsoft's
MMORPG sequel: "In the U.S., we should be looking toward late April for
another Chronicle update. There is no charge for this updated. It will
automatically be downloaded. We will be revamping the user-interface. It
will be a really modern UI. There will be another revamp of the PvP system,
this time with more focus on U.S. players. The main story arc will begin
with the next Chronicle, and it is a three or four chronicle story arc."
- Auto Assault
The
Auto Assault Q&A on Killer Betties talks with NetDevil's Scott Brown
about their upcoming MMORPG: "The idea of an online car game has been
something we have been kicking around for a long time. Once we finished our
last game, Jumpgate, we took some of the ideas we had learned from that and
put it together in a pitch to NCsoft, who, being a leader in publishing
games that are both really fun and totally new, really liked the idea and
the rest is history. We had some very specific design goals that the team
now runs with and is fleshing out, truly amazing maps and missions. The art
team creates their own concepts and brings them to life, bringing the game
from our initial ideas to reality."
- Face of Mankind
The Face of Mankind on
Sector talks with Duplex Systems about their upcoming MMORPG: "The
mission system is based on Agendas, Campaigns and Missions. Agendas define a
faction's basic path and will be changed by faction leaders only. Players of
rank 6 or higher can create campaigns linked to an agenda. A campaign is a
collection of missions based on a certain campaign type and strategy. Now,
each campaign type has a predefined set of missions to complete and only if
all of these missions are completed, the campaign can be successful. To go
more into the details would really take too much time for this interview,
it’s an extremely advanced system!"
- Domination
The Domination Q&A on
Computer Games Magazine discusses Wargaming.Net's upcoming strategy
expansion with Yann Tisseyre: "We were very impressed by the qualities of
Massive Assault, which were acknowledged by the press and the customers as
the reviews were pretty high everywhere. The sequel project submitted by
Wargaming.net showed us that they really conducted a deep analysis of the
strengths and weaknesses of the first game, and had done a really good job
on implementing player requested improvements and features. The game play
was really richer and deeper. We believe it will appeal to a larger audience
than on the first one, as it is successfully making the game easier and
funnier to play, while still challenging on high difficulty level for
hardcore gamers. We changed the name because we wanted to make it more
appealing to a large audience, thus simpler and clearer, and directly
challenging the gamers on their strategy skills."
- Tin Soldiers: Julius Caesar
The
Tin Soldiers: Julius Caesar Q&A on Strategy Informer talks with Koios
Works about their upcoming game of strategic historical combat: "As
mentioned in an earlier response, one of the new features in Caesar is the
addition of unit formation. Each legion consists of three stands (six units
each) of swordsmen and one attached cavalry regiment. Legions also get the
limited ability to use their pilum as missile fire weapons. During the
campaign, the player decides which legions to mobilize for the upcoming
battles. Also, it is much harder to replace dead stands in Caesar (in Roman
times, the legions tended to dwindle until a new re-enlistment). So, players
must now think in terms of rotating forces between battles."
A new Worms 4: Mayhem Website
is online (thanks
Frans), as a
Flash home to the next installment in
Team17's upcoming installment in their invertebrate strategy series.
The debut release of the
Invasion: Gotland modification for Battlefield Vietnam is now available. The
mod is based on an alternate history where the Cold War results in an invasion
of Sweden in 1977 by the then-Soviet Union. Thanks
FZ.
We're a month off from the Vernal Equinox, and as if to remind us that
some of the weather we've been getting lately was unseasonably warm, we've been
dumped with several inches of snow around these parts. Gunnar the super pup has
just been cleared by the vet to go socialize with other doggies, but I don't
know if I'll be able to get him and Hudson to the trail for a walk this
morning... getting the Durango out of the driveway involved stepping on the gas,
but the buried Accord is going to require some serious shoveling. Oh well, into
each life a little rain must fall. And sometimes it's frozen.
R.I.P.:
Hunter S. Thompson dead at 67 (thanks Brian) and
Actress Sandra Dee dies (thanks Mike Martinez).
Yakety Yak.
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