Archived News:
A report yesterday on Corpnews
speculates that a deal is in the works to sell The Matrix Online to Sony Online
Entertainment. There is no source listed for these rumors other than "unnamed
sources." Today, however,
Monolith to Bow Out of MMO Business on IGN offers a similar report, but
after stating they received a "no comment" from Sony on this, they go on to say
they believe this rumor to be true, saying "it seems pretty likely we'll be
seeing the official announcement very soon."
A new Heroes of the Pacific movie is now online, with a look at more of the
airborne action in IR Gurus' upcoming World War II aerial combat game. The 3 MB
clip is available on 3D
Gamers and
Worthplaying. Also,
Excalibur Publishing
now offers downloads of a new Space Rangers 2: Dominators movie (thanks
Frans), showing off Elemental Games' upcoming space RPG.
- Auto Assault
The
Auto
Assault Q&A on MMOG Info is an in-house Q&A with Netdevil's Scott Brown
distributed by NCsoft to shed further light on the upcoming MMO road rage of
Auto Assault, and there's also
another Q&A with Scott on GameSpot: "You have four attributes that you
adjust by spending points as you level up. Combat affects your chance to
hit. Tech is what determines your ability to maximize the armor on a
vehicle. The more tech, the more hit points a vehicle will have. Theory is
the efficiency at which you use your skills. The more theory you have, the
more juice you can squeeze out of your vehicle's powerplant. Perception is
the ability to detect weaknesses in targets, improving the chance for a
critical hit. Perception is also the ability to drive in such a way as to
conceal the weaker parts of the car from enemies, making a vehicle harder to
hit."
- Age of Pirates
Ahoy there!
RPG Vault's Age
of Pirates Q&A, Part 1 talks with Akella's Renat Nezametdinov about
their upcoming pirate sim: "When speaking about the game, we commonly use
the term 'pirate sim'. This means a game that models all aspects of a pirate
living in the Caribbean during the 17th century'. But using more ordinary
words, I'd define Age of Pirates as an epic RPG with many additional
gameplay aspects. The game offers the player a hard but glorious life of
sailing ship captain in a dynamic, living world of pirate adventures."
- PhysX
The
AGEIA Q&A on Gaming
Nexus discusses the PhysX hardware-based game physics solution with Andy
Keane of AGEIA: "As the market for physics in games develops and expands, we
anticipate the standardization that will take place for a physics API. Our
business model is designed to follow those standards since our goal is
compelling content. We are working closely with partners and standards
organizations to try and prevent the same issues with physics. Also, NovodeX
is highly compatible with other physics middleware, therefore game
development headaches should be avoided."
- Meridian 59
MMORPG.COM's
Meridian 59 Resurrection Progress Report is an article based on an
interview with Brian Green of Near Death Studios about their venerable
MMORPG. There is also
a preview of Meridian59's free trial on WarCry Network.
A new
Sudden Strike III Movie is now available (thanks Frans) with a look at the
next installment in Fireglow's World War II series. Also, the Drive'N'Kill E3 movie
is online, showing off some of the driving and killing in Psycho Craft Studio's
upcoming action game. The clip is on
3D Gamers and
Worthplaying.
Finally, the XIII Century: Death or Glory E3 movie is also online, showing off
Unicorn Games' RTS game formerly known as XIII Century: Sword & Honor. The
movie is available on 3D
Gamers,
FileFront, and
Worthplaying.
- Evil Dead: Regeneration
Gamecloud's
Evil Dead: Regeneration Q&A talks with Andy Beaudoin of Cranky Pants
Games about their upcoming Evil Dead game: "There are a couple of reasons we
took the approach we did to the story of Evil Dead: Regeneration. As huge
fans of the films, the CPG team knew that followers of Evil Dead are eager
to experience a new chapter in the story of Ash and the Necronomicon. So our
first goal was to give the players a new and unique story - something that
would not only drive the events of the game, but also something would build
on and add to the Ash’s epic struggle against the Book of the Dead. Ash’s
character really drives the films, so our story had to build on and develop
that character."
- Yohoho! Puzzle Pirates
GamersInfo's
Yohoho! Puzzle Pirates Q&A discusses this unusual MMORPG with a couple
of the developers from Three Ring: "The origin of Puzzle Pirates the game...
I've been making MUDs and MMOs for a long time but I wanted to make a pirate
game because I was bored to tears particularly after trying for about 7
years to make Lord of the Rings Online in various incarnations. I wanted to
do something different - not men in tights whacking goblins with swords. I
looked around at the various genres that were out there and it became
immediately obvious that this is something that would be fun. The outfits
would be cool, which is tremendously important, I believe. It has a fairly
gender neutral appeal, men and women like them - it's not solely the segment
of "nerdy gamers" who think pirates are interesting. And the vocabulary is
great - everyone knows how to talk like a pirate."
Mission: Impossible - New Dawn is
now available, a Max Payne 2 modification based on the TV show-inspired movie.
NVIDIA Melody 1.2
Released (thanks Mike Martinez): "NVIDIA Melody creates high quality normal maps that
make a low-poly model look like a high-poly model. The normal map generator can
also create texture coordinates from a high-poly reference model using a
projection technique. This new release adds support for large models." Also,
Annosoft releases Lipsync SDK 3.0.
The Iron Lore Jobs Page now
lists several openings they are looking to fill on the Titan Quest team in their
Maynard, MA offices (15 miles west of Boston).
Wow, was Batman Begins great. Huge hats off to the powers-that-be for
boldly resetting the franchise. I just read that at one point Batman 5
was in the works with Joel Schumacher at the helm again, so it's not like they
hadn't flirted with further disaster. Anyway, this is right up there with recent
super-cinema efforts like the Spider-Man and X-Men movies, at least as good in
story, action, and character development, and not even a moment of the evident
blue screen shots and CGI moments that occasionally distract from those Marvel
masterpieces.
Though it was certainly a bit odd seeing Mark Boone Junior with the exact same
appearance as he had in Memento.
Today is a celebration here at the Blue Tower, as it is MrsBlue's birthday, so
here's to my better half!
R.I.P.:
LOIS AND CLARK'S Lane Smith Dies.
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