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Archived News:
This Press Release announces that Trash has entered the open beta testing
phase, and the Trash
Downloads page has the 20 MB beta of this RTS game from indie developer
Inhuman Games. The plan is to run the beta for less than a month. Here is a bit
on the game: Trash is a real-time strategy game that takes place in a
post-apocalyptic world, where two distinct races battle for domination. Players
choose to be either humans or mutants, and they gather wasteland resources, such
as trash and toxic waste to build combat units. The design of Trash focuses on
multiplayer on-line play, where games can consist of up to 24 players
simultaneously.
The MiniOne Racing Website announces the
completion of development on this PC and Mac racing game (thanks Frans). Word
is: MiniOne Racing's developpement is officially finished! We already have
an publisher for the PC version in the US and for the Mac version (worldwide).
We're currently looking for europeans publishers.
The Crime Life: Gang Wars E3 movie is now available, offering a look at Hothouse
Creations' urban action game. The clip is available in one or both of two
resolutions on 3D Gamers,
FileFront, and
Worthplaying. Also, the E3 movie from Warfare is now available, showing off
MIST land's modern combat RTS game. The clip is available on 3D Gamers,
FileFront, and
Worthplaying.
- Epic
Epic's
Engine on Computer and Video Games is an interview with Epic's Mark Rein
at E3 discussing their Unreal 3 Engine plans for consoles, though they do
also touch on the PC: "You know, it used to be id, and Epic, and a few
others aimed at all those high-level games, but now because everybody's
doing PS3 and Xbox 360, they're all gonna be doing high-level games. So when
they do bring them to the PC, they're gonna be great. And we actually
adjusted our pricing structure on Unreal Engine 3 basically to say 'you're
paying for all three whether you're using it or not, so you may as well do
PC!' We're evangelising to all our customers, we want them to do PC, because
we make royalties, so the more they do...[laughs]"
- Stargate SG-1: The Alliance
There's a Stargate SG-1: The
Alliance Q&A on
Game
Chronicles talking with Radek Majder about their sci-fi TV show tie-in:
"The player will be able to play through the story mode in single player and
the AI will assume control of the other 3 characters. In co-op, you will be
able to go back and play through the story mode with 3 friends, each one
assuming the role of a member of SG-1. With each character having unique
abilities and taking different paths through some of the game, there is
excellent replay value in co-op where players will be able to see parts of
the game that they didn’t in single player."
- The Godfather
The
Godfather Q&A on TotalVideoGames.com is a sit-down with Hunter Smith
about EA's upcoming Godfather game: "But that’s only the half of it. As our
story weaves through the Living World, slicing into the GF movie story at
all the key points, it also simultaneously tells the player’s story – all
the key events that happen to the player that are not necessarily reflected
in the movie narrative. These player events are inspired by, amongst other
things, the movie outtakes, Puzo’s book, and a lot of it is brand new
original fiction inspired by the movie and its characters. We are telling
the player’s story, not simply a copy of the movie."
- Shot Online
MMORPG.COM's
Shot Online Q&A talks with Sean Hong about OnNet's multiplayer golf
game: "There has been much debate over this topic. We currenly [sic] just
don't know. We are leaning towards having a system in which you would need
to pay just for purchase of special items such as a platnium [sic] club
(Which does not exist, just an example), and the rest of the game is free,
and purchase of these items are not nescessary [sic] but will enhance your
gaming experience. Yet again, we still haven't made our final decsision
[sic], but this is the direction that we are leaning in at this moment."
Steam News
announces the release of an update to the Source engine SDK for mod and map
authors (thanks Frans). The new version includes source code for alternative
player physics, new DM player animations additional MultiMapper support, bug
fixes, and more.
Mindscape announces a delay to the U.K. release of Dungeon Lords, even though an
English version of Heuristic Park's combat RPG is currently available in North
America. Here's word on the delay, as European editions of the game were slated
to ship in May: Mindscape has today taken the decision to delay the
release of Dungeon Lords by three weeks, to allow the award-winning development
team additional time to address and polish some aspects of the gameplay.
Mindscape apologises for this delay, however, as a distributor and publisher of
quality leisure and games software, Mindscape feels honour bound to offering
only the best titles, produced to the highest of standards, to its loyal fan and
customer base.
Mindscape apologises for any inconvenience caused and its sales and marketing
team are available for any further enquiries.
Dungeon Lords will now be available for PC on 1st July 2005.
The
Electronic Arts Australia Messageboards (thanks
Battlefield Nation and Frans) has word on
plans to release an official Battlefield 2 demo in over a week: Official
Battlefield 2 Demo
Although final dates for the Battlefield 2 demo have not been locked down we
understand we will be allowed to make it available in little over a week.
Once again these features are not 100% final but the demo will contain:
One map
16-player single player
16 and 32-player multiplayer
Time limit per round
The Trainz Railroad
Simulator Website (thanks Frans) announces plans for Trainz Railroad
Simulator 2006, the next installment in the railroading sim: Trainz
Railroad Simulator 2006 (TRS2006) is the next in the series of award winning
railroad simulators developed by Auran.
Previously known as Engineers Edition, TRS2006 is being released as a full
product later this year and sets new standards of realism and immersion in
operating a virtual railroad.
TRS2006 ships with fully realized routes that include a wide range of activities
users can immediately enjoy. Run long haul freight services, high-speed
passenger runs or challenging yard operations as you service a huge variety of
interactive stations and industries.
TRS2006 significantly enhances the driving experience with improvements to the
physics engine, adding to the challenge of keeping your train performing
efficiently.
TRS2006 includes a new asset management utility, making it easier for users to
access and organize their content, download new content from the Download
Station, and even edit existing content.
The Trainz tools and rules systems have also been greatly improved to give you
more flexibility than ever before in creating your own railroad experience.
Over the coming weeks more and more information will be shared with the
community via the
Trainz
Discussion Forms.
TRS2006 is the most complete railroad simulator ever developed!
The Rise & Fall:
Civilizations at War Website has launched for Stainless Steel Studios'
upcoming RTS game (thanks Frans), offering
some new
screenshots from the game. Also, the
Bad Day LA Website is online, offering a Flash-heavy home to Enlight's
upcoming game in which a homeless hero is guardian angel to the city of angels.
Finally, the Battlecards Cybots Official
Website is online, offering multilanguage support for the online collectible
card game. There are separate sections for
English, French, and
German readers. Finally, following the
teaser site, a
Conflict: Global Terror Product Page is now online.
A new Cold War movie is online, offering a look at Mindware's upcoming tactical
action game, the movie is available in one or both of two resolutions on
3D Gamers and
FileFront. Also, a new Blitzkrieg II E3 movie is now available, showing off
the upcoming World War II strategy sequel. The 17 MB clip is available on
3D Gamers and
FileFront.
- Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
The
Grand
Theft Auto: San Andreas Q&A on GameSpot talks with Rockstar North about
the upcoming PC edition of the life-of-crime game: "A completely new level
of detail system was implemented whereby a number of models (buildings) can
share a single low-detail model. This way, the low-detail models could be
loaded as the player moves around the map as opposed to in one go as the
player moves between islands, like in Vice City."
- Codename Panzers: Phase Two
Codename
Panzers: Phase Two Rolls Into Action on Computer and Video Games is a
Q&A with Stormregion about their upcoming World War II strategy game sequel:
"With Phase Two, we aim to improve the Panzers' experience significantly.
The new design focuses on hard-hitting action, offers large scale tank
battles and exotic locations. We took the opportunity to fix a number of
balancing issues as well: anti-aircraft units will be more lethal,
consequently more useful in all game modes, while infantry units will use
their optional equipment against enemy armor with increased efficiency. The
lineup of new vehicles and features include the German Bison II artillery,
the Italian Basotto tank hunter, two authentic locomotives, new aircraft
with 40 distinctive (Desert and Mediterranean) colour patterns for all
models, a German railway gun, an Italian warship, a desert fortress, a
active environment with sands shifting, caravans passing and vultures
circling above... and so on."
Roma Victor®
gets the VERM in (thanks Frans) is the press release announcing the launch
of the commercial test of Roma Victor, RedBedlam's upcoming historical MMORPG.
Word is: "As a major component of this phase, the company has deployed the VERM
(Virtual Economic Revenue Model) virtual economy system in the latest game
client versions." The Roma Victor
Website actually seems to indicate this has been going on for a while, as it
mentions the test launching as of May 5th.
The Meridian 59
Official Website (thanks Frans) is offering a month-long free trial for the
new Meridian 59: Evolution expansion for Near Death Studios' MMORPG. The free
trial will run through the end of June, and word is "During this time, you will
have unlimited play time to explore and enjoy the world of Meridian 59."
This post from
John Carmack (thanks Frans) offers a comment from the id Software technical
director on patenting technologies used in video games. The post responds to
this
Slashdot thread about the legal beagles who have launched
The Patent Arcade attempting to
encourage more game technology patents (since that would be an opportunity to
drink from an untapped revenue stream). Here's Mr. Carmack's take: I'm
proud that there is "a relative dearth of patent applications for the video game
industry, especially considering how technology-dependent the video game
industry is, and given its size in terms of annual sales."
Before issuing a condemnation, I try hard to think about it from their point of
view -- the laws of the land set the rules of the game, and lawyers are deeply
confused at why some of us aren't using all the tools that the game gives us.
Patents are usually discussed in the context of someone "stealing" an idea from
the long suffering lone inventor that devoted his life to creating this one
brilliant idea, blah blah blah.
But in the majority of cases in software, patents effect independent invention.
Get a dozen sharp programmers together, give them all a hard problem to work on,
and a bunch of them will come up with solutions that would probably be
patentable, and be similar enough that the first programmer to file the patent
could sue the others for patent infringement.
Why should society reward that? What benefit does it bring? It doesn't help
bring more, better, or cheaper products to market. Those all come from
competition, not arbitrary monopolies. The programmer that filed the patent
didn't work any harder because a patent might be available, solving the problem
was his job and he had to do it anyway. Getting a patent is uncorrelated to any
positive attributes, and just serves to allow either money or wasted effort to
be extorted from generally unsuspecting and innocent people or companies.
Yes, it is a legal tool that may help you against your competitors, but I'll
have no part of it. Its basically mugging someone.
I could waste hours going on about this. I really need to just write a position
paper some day that I can cut and paste when this topic comes up.
The German Earth 2160
Website now offers a new version 1.1 patch for the German adaptation of the
Earth 2160 Gold edition (thanks
The Patches Scrolls). It looks like this is a bit of advance planning, as
Amazon.de indicates that the German version of Reality Pump's RTS sequel
will not be released until tomorrow.
The Warcraft III Website (thanks
Frans) has word that Blizzard has busted out the banning stick once more and has
banned a whole bunch of accounts due to online cheating: A number of
additional accounts and CD keys have been tied to the use of a hack or cheat
program while playing Warcraft III on Battle.net. In keeping with our aggressive
stance against cheating, we have permanently closed 53,928 Warcraft III
accounts. 8,168 of the Warcraft III CD keys used with the now-closed accounts
have been banned from ladder play for one month, and 3,331 more have been banned
from ladder play permanently. Repeat offenders risk having their CD keys
disabled, which will result in the permanent removal of their copies of Warcraft
III from Battle.net.
We will continue to monitor Battle.net for cheating and take action as needed.
If you would like to report additional instances of hacking or cheating, please
notify us at hacks@blizzard.com. A false
report filed by one player against another will not result in the actions
described above.
As always, thank you for your continued support; with your help we have been
able to keep Battle.net a fun and safe place to play Blizzard games.
- The ETF Website now offers a new
version 1.4 of the ETF class-based teamplay modification
for Enemy Territory.
- The CarBall Website
now offers version 2.5 of the CarBall modification for Unreal Tournament
2004. The update includes several bug-fixes along with a few new features.
- JonoF's Games Site features
an updated version of
JFBuild, the modified Build engine, along with corresponding new
versions of JFShadowWarrior
and JFDuke3D.
-
Map-Depot.com has word this Urban Terror community site may be shutting
down. Thanks ASLayerAODsk.
Tomorrow is Doughnut Day according to the doughnut nuts at
Krispy Kreme, who plan on distributing
free doughnuts throughout the day from participating retailers. I point this out
in advance in case the time between now and tomorrow can be put to proper use
plotting a route around various stores and planning disguises to maximize the
payoff from the promotion. Normally, I don't go for attempts to take advantage
of such situations, but hey, we're talking Krispy Kremes!
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