|
|
 |
Archived News:
A playable demo for PRISM: Guard Shield is now available, offering a sample
of this first-person shooter from Rebellion that's the free public edition of
PRISM: Threat Level Red, a project they are developing for the U.S. National
Guard.
The demo has co-premiered on
FilePlanet (registration required) and
3D Gamers, where word is: "This demo contains one mission where you play a
security guard at the New York Harbor docks." The demo is mirrored on
FileFront, Gamer's Hell,
and Worthplaying.
As part of their E3 offerings, LucasArts announces Star Wars Empire at War:
Forces of Corruption, an expansion for Petroglyph's Star Wars RTS game, though
details like a developer or release date are not included: Star Wars®
Empire at War™: Forces of Corruption™
Following the success of Star Wars: Empire at War, the best-selling PC game of
Q1 2006, LucasArts announces an expansion pack titled Star Wars Empire at War:
Forces of Corruption. A widely appealing strategy game, Empire at War let gamers
play the light side or the dark side in an epic Galactic Civil War. Now, for the
first time ever, Star Wars Empire at War: Forces of Corruption introduces a
unique point of view – the corrupt side.
The Rebels have just destroyed the Death Star, and the galaxy is in turmoil. As
an aspiring Underworld figure named Tyber Zann, spread corruption throughout the
galaxy using new strategic gameplay elements to influence other factions, steal
their funds, slow their production, spy on them and more, all en route to
becoming the most notorious criminal leader since Jabba the Hutt. Exciting new
land-tactical options like customizable, upgradeable bases and guerilla warfare
allow for innovative battlefield tactics. Take command of and confront new
fighting units for all factions (Rebel B-wings, Imperial TIE interceptors, Darth
Vader’s Executor Super Star Destroyer and more), and take down anyone who stands
in your way of ruling the Underworld, be they new battlefield heroes like Luke
Skywalker and Yoda or the forces of your most bitter rival – Jabba. Destroy
capital ships with the awesome firepower of the second Death Star, and satiate
Tyber’s drive for the deadliest capital ship in the galaxy, a devastatingly
powerful Super Star Destroyer known as the Eclipse.
3D Gamers
and FilePlanet
announce they will be premiering the demo for Titan Quest on May 10. The only
specific about the upcoming sample of Iron Lore's action/RPG is to expect it
Wednesday morning.
GameTap announces that later this
year they will revive Uru Live, the online Myst world created by Cyan that
ceased operation over two years ago ( story). Word is: LOS
ANGELES – E3 – (May 9, 2006) – “Uru Live” lives! GameTap, the broadband
entertainment network from Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. (TBS, Inc.), is
reviving the online foray of “Myst,” one of the most popular adventure series
ever created. As part of GameTap’s bold new initiative, the “Uru Live” game and
community will be available to GameTap subscribers later this year as part of
their monthly subscription.
“Uru Live” is the online multiplayer version of “Uru: Ages Beyond Myst,” which
was developed by Cyan Worlds. Extensively beta-tested in 2003, “Uru Live”
spawned an avid community of players, many of whom have kept unofficial sites up
and running ever since. With the advent of broadband gaming, there is a whole
new medium and a ready audience for this revered title. Unlike its predecessors,
the new worlds of “Uru Live” are dynamic and alive, making use of real-time 3D
rather than still images to bring players together online to explore incredible
new worlds. To keep “Uru Live” even more fresh and challenging, GameTap and Cyan
will update the game with new episodic content on a regular basis.
Thanks Frans.
- Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway
The
Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway
Website has launched as home to the next installment in Gearbox
Software's World War II shooter series. The site includes information and
screenshots, including
one new one.
- Panzer Elite Action: Dunes of War
Panzer
Elite Action: Dunes of War Product Section is up as JoWooD Productions'
home to the upcoming World War II armored combat sequel, offering
a screenshot gallery that includes four new shots.
- Ugo Volt
The Ugo Volt
Website is live as Flash home to Move Interactive's "Orwellian tale of
destruction and revenge." The site includes a bit on the game, and the E3
trailer showing off high definition prototype/pre-alpha footage from the
upcoming first-person shooter/adventure game.
- SiN: Episodes
The SiN Episodes E3 movie is online,
offering the look at Ritual's upcoming shooter sequel from the expo. The
clip "contains B-roll footage the SiN girls, Bianca Beauchamp and Cindy
Synnett at the SiN photoshoot, and showcases the new Arena mode being used
at E3 for the Vigorgaming 'Force Recon' PC giveaway!" The download is
available on the
SiN
Episodes Website and mirrored on
3D Gamers,
FileFront, Gamer's
Hell, and
Worthplaying.
- Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway
A new Brothers in Arms:
Hell's Highway movie shows off the highway to hell traveled by the coming
installment in Gearbox's series of WW2 shooters. The clip is available on
3D Downloads, 3D
Gamers, Gamer's Hell,
GameSpot,
Strategy Informer, and
Worthplaying.
- The Ship
The Ship E3 movie is now online, offering a high
resolution of the upcoming seafaring murder mystery in the works at
Outerlight. The clip is available on
3D Downloads, 3D
Gamers,
FileFront, Gamer's
Hell, and
Worthplaying.
- Dungeon Runners
A couple of minutes of gameplay footage
are on display in a new Dungeon Runners movie taken from NCsoft's upcoming fantasy-themed MMORPG. The E3 Dungeon Runners trailer can be found
on 3D Gamers,
FileFront, Gamer's
Hell, and
Worthplaying.
The GalCiv II May
Roadmap has details on plans for upcoming version 1.11 and 1.2 patches for
Stardock's space strategy sequel (thanks Frans). The first patch will solve some
memory issues and add AI improvements, while the version 1.2 will offer improved
mod support and changes to the combat system.
Silicon Garage
Arts has updated the release date for Shadow of Aten, their upcoming
action/adventure (that has also had the "3D" removed from its description). The
game was formerly due in Q4 2007 but is now listed as a Q2 2008 release. Thanks
Frans.
- Sudden Strike III
Computer
Games Online's Sudden Strike III Q&A discusses Sudden Strike III. Arms
for Victory, the next installment in Fireglow's World War II tactics series:
"During any military operation in the game, a player needs to take
intelligence operations (either ground or air reconnaissance). Especially it
is important during landings to islands. Next phase of operation is
continuous strikes of enemy's strong points with ship batteries, and also
air strike. A player needs to use air carriers for this. All these actions
would help in reaching a success in the operation. If something goes wrong
and the player's recon fails, it doesn't automatically mean that he lost
completely. With assistance of the air reconnaissance and ship batteries,
player would be able to achieve almost every goal."
- Sparta: Ancient Wars
RPG
Vault's Sparta: Ancient Wars Update Q&A talks with Torsten Hess and Ingo
Horn for an update on World Forge's real-time strategy game: "At this time,
the engine is nearly completed, the story is close to be finished, and the
team is concentrating on finalizing the missions, tweaking units and
fine-tuning the interface. We will soon start balancing all the missions. We
are currently looking forward for a release in Q4 this year. This date is
still the same as we announced last year, so we are on schedule. Our first
emphasis was to finish the graphic engine so the team wouldn't have to be
adding to it in the final phases. From our point of view, creating great
graphics is one of the basics for a great game, and now, we must work hard
on the balancing, so it will play as excellently as it looks!"
- New Dawn
CRPG.RU's
New Dawn Q&A talks with Slawomir Szynkowski of Polish developer Undead
Society about New Dawn, their
upcoming post-apocalyptic RPG: "New Dawn is a cRPG game which is set in the
future. The world is recovering after a comet hit the Earth in 2029. As the
plot is set a couple of hundred years after the disaster, the world has
already had the chance to diversify significantly. In the game you can see
elements from both post-apocalyptic and fantasy games. Along with new
civilizations and ideologies a new history is being born and you won't find
any old world's cities. All the settlements were started after the cataclysm
when people started to set up new societies."
The guys came and put blacktop over the hole they created in front of our
driveway. They also covered the gas main that this was all supposedly to provide
for, so I think this now officially qualifies as a circus.
Steam News
has word that Shadowgrounds is now available via Steam, along with word that
their 20% discount on purchase of Frozenbyte's science fiction action game has
been extended through this Friday.
BioWare's Official Jade Empire Site now
announces plans for a PC edition of BioWare's marital arts-themed RPG, at
long last confirming speculation that such a port would eventually arrive
( story), though no release date is set at this time. A
Jade Empire PC
General Discussion Forum is live, and
this page offers the first PC shots as well as details on some PC
enhancements:
• Customizable, intuitive controls including support for game-pads and keyboard/mouse.
• Increased graphics resolutions and new visual effects.
• New monsters and enemies.
• New fighting styles.
• Improved combat AI and difficulty levels.
• New world map interface.
id programmer
Timothee Besset's .plan file announces that they are at E3 showing off Enemy
Territory: Quake Wars, the Mac Quake 4 patch mentioned earlier, and gives word
on patches to close exploits in Quake 3 Arena, Return To Castle Wolfenstein, and
Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory, as well as a new Linux installer for RTCW: Updates
to Quake III Arena, Return To Castle Wolfenstein, and Wolfenstein: Enemy
Territory:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
We are releasing updates to all three games to fix some security issues
discovered following our release of the Quake III Arena source code under GPL.
5e55095e654732063621a2ffa95a2da3 quake3-1.32c.zip [1]
2626b20fc545caa72676677809221d73 Wolf-1.41b.zip [2]
fb83b8732fc7373c277180b663debf57 ET-2.60b.zip [3]
The zips hold binaries for all the operating systems we support. You need to
upgrade to the latest through the usual installers first, and replace the engine
binaries with the newer ones.
The issues fixed are CVE-2006-2082 ( information leak ), and a buffer overflow
exploitable by malicious servers ( CVE-2006-2236 ). More details are in the
README.txt in each zip.
[1]:
ftp://ftp.idsoftware.com/idstuff/quake3/quake3-1.32c.zip
[2]:
ftp://ftp.idsoftware.com/idstuff/wolf/Wolf-1.41b.zip
[3]:
ftp://ftp.idsoftware.com/idstuff/et/ET-2.60b.zip
Updated GNU/Linux Return To Castle Wolfenstein 1.41b installer:
---------------------------------------------------------------
While working on the above I realized the latest GNU/Linux installer for RTCW
was quite broken, so I repackaged it into a full setup.
2aa37968aff19d665ed6c001773b2de3 wolf-linux-1.41b.x86.run
ftp://ftp.idsoftware.com/idstuff/wolf/linux/wolf-linux-1.41b.x86.run
Tulga Games announces Dark World
Online, an upcoming "modern-horror" MMORPG. The
Dark World Online FAQ has
some details on the game, confirming it has no set release date at this point.
Here's the announcement: MESA, Arizona - May 8, 2006 - Tulga Games, LLC,
developers of the award-winning Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game
(MMORPG), Horizons: Empire of Istaria, today announced the development of Dark
World Online, a new modern-horror MMORPG. In Dark World Online, players choose
between playing one of the three fantasy factions fighting for control in a
modern-world setting.
In development by Tulga Games, LLC, Dark World Online is an MMORPG set in a
stylized modern urban environment inhabited by three rival factions, all
fighting for control of the world. In the game, players can take on the personas
of Humans, Vampires or Werewolves, each replete with special skills and
abilities, and biases towards the other factions. Each faction also features
customized weaponry, appearances, tools and dwellings to immerse the player in
the fantasy world. Featuring support for both Player-vs.-Player (PvP) and
Player-vs.-Environment (PvE) gameplay, Dark World Online will offer an
outstanding gameplay experience for all types of gamers. For more information
regarding Dark World Online, please visit
www.DarkWorldOnline.com.
Tulga Games announces plans for Horizons: The Settlements, an upcoming expansion
for Horizons: Empire of Istaria, their MMORPG: MESA, Arizona - May 8,
2006 - Tulga Games, LLC, developers of the award-winning Massively Multiplayer
Online Role-Playing Game (MMORPG), Horizons: Empire of Istaria, today announced
the development of a new Horizons expansion, tentatively titled Horizons: The
Settlements. The new expansion will contain all of the content from the original
game, as well as environmental, creature and gameplay updates.
Horizons: The Settlements will feature both player-crafted and
developer-designed content including new furniture, racially-themed structures,
gardens, monsters, treasures and quests. Players will now have the option of
building new racial structures, such as Dryad trees and Dwarven tunnels, making
for a more customized player environment, while new companion animals can
function as beasts-of-burden, familiars and guardians. Vicious new monsters,
including Harpies, will now inhabit Istaria, providing new battle opportunities
and new types of treasure to capture. Horizons: The Settlements will be free to
current subscribers, while being priced at a suggested U.S. retail of $19.99 for
new players (available in stores and via digital download).
A new patch for the Mac edition of Quake 4 is now available, updating the think
different edition of Raven's shooter sequel to version 1.2 (Universal). The
update addresses a couple of bugs and adds Intel dual core CPU support. The
patch is available on
the Aspyr FTP Server
(direct link) and mirrored on
Mac Game Files.
FiringSquad word from E3 where they are stalking about in preparation for
the show that they've spotted the name of Shadowrun on a Games for Windows
exhibit, a seeming confirmation that the pen-and-paper RPG is coming to PCs.
There has been talk of a next-generation console Shadowrun game, and it sounds
like this will be one of the announcements to come out of the expo.
The T-BAR 3/4 Q&A on RPG
Codex talks with Michael McCarthy, formerly of now-defunct Troika Studios,
discussing T-BAR 3/4, which is the working title for an upcoming action/RPG in
the works at newly formed Laid Back Gaming that will be distributed over
Steam: The game is set in the year 2109 and takes place entirely around
the moons of Saturn. Most of solar system is colonized and space travel is
common, but still very dangerous. You are the commander of a powerful Dropship
that houses a 4 man team You are charged with the responsibility of system
security. You are like an extreme military enforced S.W.A.T. team in space. You
are concealed in the control room of your Dropship and issue commands to your
units in the field.
Slitherine Software's New Projects on FiringSquad reflects a pre-E3
conversation with JD and Iain McNeil from Slitherine Software where they learned
of two previously unannounced projects. Slitherine is at work on a hex-based
World War II strategy game called Commander: Europe at War that's due for
release via digital distribution this September. They also got first word on
another upcoming game called Arena Warriors, a fantasy RTS/RPG hybrid that's
currently slated for a spring 2007 release.
The AGEIA Website
(thanks Frans) offers downloads of a tech demo for Cellfactor, saying "This demo
is multiplayer-enabled and playable offline with customizable bots." There are
two prerequisites, however, as downloading the demo requires registration, and
running it will require the AGEIA PhysX accelerator.
- Battlefield 2142
A new Battlefield 2142 movie shows off
the new "Titan Mode" upcoming futuristic installment in DICE's military
shooter series, The clip is available on
BF2142.se and mirrored on
3D Gamers,
FileFront, Gameguru Mania,
Strategy Informer, and
Worthplaying.
- The Lord of the Rings Online
A new The Lord of the Rings
Online: Shadows of Angmar movie is now available, offering another look at
Turbine's upcoming LoTR MMORPG. The clip is available on
3D Downloads, 3D
Gamers,
GameSpot,
Strategy Informer, and
Worthplaying.
A new Eragon Website is online for
the upcoming game to tie-in with the upcoming animated motion picture. The
Flash teaser site offers some game info and newsletter sign-ups.
- UT2007
IGN's
Pre-E3 2006 Unreal Tournament 2007 Q&A talks with Mark Rein and Jeff
Morris of Epic Games about the next installment in the shooter series: "That
really depends on time frame. As you know, we don't have a launch schedule
yet for either skew at this point in time. A lot of that is going to depend
on whether we decide to bring them out at the same time or not… but there'll
probably be some custom content on PS3. I can say with pretty good
confidence that we'll do some things on the PS3 that we won't do on the PC
version. But there's not reason we can't then take those and port them back
to the PC side either. We definitely want to make sure that the console
player gets a wake-up for Unreal Tournament. It's been a long time since
it's been on a console and that time it was a straight port to PS2 so this
time we want to make sure we have something special."
- BioShock
The
BioShock Q&A on FiringSquad and
IGN's Pre-E3 2006
BioShock Q&A each talk with Ken Levine of Irrational Games about
BioShock their upcoming "spiritual successor" to the System Shock series of
first-person action/RPGs: "Most shooters move on rail tracks. If you think
about a (great) game like Half Life 2, it's basically one extended corridor
that you progress through. You know, you walk down a hall, hit a trigger and
monster pops up. You kill it, then you move onto the next room. BioShock has
a real, breathing ecology. You may clear an area out and come back to find
that something's come back in. It makes you feel like it's a real world. It
also makes you feel uncomfortable and exposed. Another important fact is
that in this game, you're not the daddy. You're hungry and desperate. Most
FPSs make you feel like some kind of superhero. In BioShock you're a
desperate guy trying to stay alive. System Shock II had that vibe and so
will BioShock."
- Enemy Territory: Quake Wars
The
Enemy Territory: Quake
Wars Q&A on Beyond3D talks with Splash Damage technical director Arnout
van Meer about the upcoming shooter: "The low level ETQW rendering engine
has moved on a fair bit since Doom 3. The fixed function pipeline has been
dropped, resulting in a pure shader-based renderer. The MegaTexture shaders
are a set of special case version of our normal ones which deal with ambient
lighting, normal light interaction and the other stages in our pipeline.
They are some of the more expensive ones in the game, and fairly heavy on
texture reads. Depending on the target hardware, some of the texture lookups
get replaced by ALU instructions to improve performance."
Happy birthday to my brother, as WalterEgo turns *cough* today. Many happy
returns bro!
|
Twitter 
