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Archived News:
New deal will bring competitive gaming to TV reports
Major League Gaming has enlisted media
development and production company Flame Ventures, a new ally in their efforts
at furthering their media reach. Word is: "While details have not yet been
released, gaming fans can expect to see some of Major League Gaming's most
prominent 2007 events, like the Boost Mobile-sponsored Pro Circuit tour, on
television stations as well as through mobile distribution."
Third Wire Productions
now offers downloads of a new patch for First Eagles: The Great Air War 1918.
The Readme offers
details on the update to the aerial combat game, including the warning: "The
patch will delete any saved campaign in progress." Thanks The Patches Scrolls.
- id Software
The
Steven Nix
interview on GamesIndustry.biz is an article-format summary of a D.I.C.E.
Summit conversation with id Software's director of business development, who
has previously served as Ritual CEO, lead singer of Fleetwood Mac, and
Superman's pal Jimmy Olsen (okay, one out of three ain't bad). Steve drops an intriguing reference to "interesting
new things that we’re going to be pursuing that we’re not even close to
ready to talk about," and also offers his take on the current issues with
episodic gaming: "The problem with episodic is how do you make something
really compelling gameplay-wise or technology-wise in that short of a
window? I don’t know how you do it - it’s just really challenging. I think
at the end of the day, gamers care more about those things than story."
- Crysis
Crysis-Online's
Q&A with the Crysis Art Team is online (thanks
Shacknews) talking
with the art team on the coming shooter: "We use both dynamically breakable
objects and pre-broken objects. You can, for example, destroy the North
Korean watchtowers piece by piece if you like. It's possible to take it's
legs off and make it fall. Glass windows and wooden fences also break
dynamically. Other props can be broken and the resulting pieces are
physicalized [sic] realistically, but you can't break them piece by piece.
Things generally have real world buoyancy, so wooden objects, plastic
bottles and such float while metallic objects sink."
- Inhabited Island: Battlefield
RPG
Vault's Inhabited Island: Battlefield Q&A - Part 2 breaks from their RPG
leanings in continuing to discuss Wargaming.Net's upcoming strategy game
with Nick Katselapov: "The enemy AI is able to use all the same strategies
available to human players. An AI unit doesn't operate independently; it
acts as part of a specific group - so it's clear, a group can consist of a
single unit. The unit's goal is defined by the goal of the whole group,
while the targets of the unit are determined by its abilities -
transportation, entrenching, recon, retreat for repairing and reinforcing
damaged units, psycho-assault and so on."
- Auto Assault
The
Auto Assault Q&A on WarCry
talks with Chris Sherland and Andrew Wagner about NetDevil's automotive
MMORPG, starting off by asking if the game's relatively low number of
participants has them considering a change in business model: "NetDevil and
NCSoft are committed to Auto Assault. Both teams take a lot of pride in
keeping Auto Assault both fun to play, and relevant to the current market.
As with any product we are continually assessing the game itself as well as
its success in the market. There are currently no plans to change the
existing model on Auto Assault."
- Auran
The
Auran Q&A on GameSpot chats with Tony Hilliam about their deal with
Gamecock, and more: "We were introduced to the guys from Gamecock late last
year. We really liked what they were about, their whole concept of allowing
developers to maintain ownership of their IP, and just their whole attitude
toward promoting games. They're gamers themselves, they're a small
organisation, and so they had a lot of appeal to us because we were dealing
with the principals rather than someone down the food chain."
- The Divine
There's a
The
Divine Q&A on Killer Betties talking with David Rodriguez about this
upcoming space combat game: "We've stripped the controls to a bare minimum
to make The Divine as easy to play as possible. Move the mouse to rotate the
ship, left click for primary weapon, right click for secondary weapon, click
another button to move the ship, and click yet another button for turbo
boost. Is that so hard? We're still refining the physics of the game so
hopefully gamers will like the final product."
- Lord of the Rings Online
The
Lord of the Rings Online Q&A on MMORPG.COM is an article-format chat
with Jeff Anderson about the monsters in Turbine's upcoming MMORPG.
- Sam & Max Episode 4
The
Sam & Max Episode 4:
Abe Lincoln Must Die Q&A on 1Up talks with Dave Grossman about the next
installment in Telltale's episodic series: "We've wound up doing more work
than we initially planned for, but the overall level of madness is about
what I expected. It was clear going in that this was a slightly insane thing
to do, but so long as the insanity remains slight we're fine. I'm happy to
report that we remain on track for monthly releases for the rest of the
season, and we intend to keep making games this way for the foreseeable
future."
Gearbox Software sends along a help wanted, saying: "Gearbox Software is hiring
Artists, Programmers, a Director of Animation and an Associate Producer. Anyone
that is interested can submit their resume and demo reel to
gamejobs@gearboxsoftware.com."
NVIDIA now offers new version 100.65 ForceWare reference drivers for
Windows Vista
32-bit and
Windows Vista 64-bit. Word is: "NVIDIA® Corporation (Nasdaq: NVDA) today
released the world’s first WHQL-certified drivers for Microsoft DirectX 10,
coinciding with the release of the first DirectX 10 test kit from Microsoft,
which allows other hardware vendors to test their graphics processors using the
DirectX 10 WHQL tests" Though the drivers are only on the 8800-series specific
pages, word is: "The new ForceWare 100.65 drivers support GeForce 6-, 7-, and
8-series NVIDIA GPUs."
THQ Takes Strategic Battlefield to New Heights with Release of Supreme Commander
is the press release announcing the U.S. release of Supreme Commander, the new
futuristic RTS game from Chris Taylor (Total Annihilation) and Gas Powered
Games. A playable demo for the game is available ( story), and
here's word: AGOURA HILLS, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--THQ Inc. (NASDAQ:THQI) today
announced that critically acclaimed Real-Time Strategy (RTS) game Supreme
Commander has shipped for Windows PC. Developed by veteran RTS designer Chris
Taylor and Gas Powered Games, Supreme Commander redefines strategic scope and
scale with a full Theatre Of War zoom function, giving gamers command over
hundreds of land, sea and air units on massive battlefields. Hailed as “a truly
epic strategy game” by PC Gamer, Supreme Commander is now available at retail
outlets nationwide and for digital download at www.direct2drive.com for the
suggested price of $49.99.
“Supreme Commander’s unrivalled multiplayer battles and intense single-player
campaigns makes this one of the must-have titles of 2007,” said Bob Aniello,
senior vice president of worldwide marketing, THQ. “We’ve advanced the RTS genre
yet again, further establishing THQ as a premier PC publisher.”
“Supreme Commander is enormous in every sense of the word – from its
unprecedented scope and scale to its superior command and control functions –
this is RTS gaming on a whole new scale,” said Chris Taylor, creative director
and CEO, Gas Powered Games. "Our goal to create a game that takes strategy to a
whole new level has been reached, and we are very excited to release it to the
world."
This D2D Downloads Page
finally offers the latest Neverend patch for the UK Dusk2Dawn edition of the
fantasy-themed RPG. The patch is also mirrored on
3D
Downloads,
3D Gamers,
FileFront, Gamer's Hell,
The Patches Scrolls, and
Strategy
Informer.
- City of Heroes/Villains
The
City of Heroes Q&A on Strategy Informer chats up Matt Miller about
what's going on in Cryptic's MMORPG: "Since the “City of” games never had a
crafting system or hard “loot” of any kind, we are kind of easing our
playerbase into the concept. What you won’t find is a hard core crafting
system that you must min-max numbers in for weeks to make the best
“product”. What you will find is a fun new way to gain Enhancements, and
Enhancements you actually desire. In addition, you can collect various
“sets” of Enhancements which slot into specific powers. When you collect
multiple pieces of the same set and slot them into the same power, you start
to unlock new bonuses for your character that they didn’t have previously.
This includes stuff like overall Damage bonuses or Defense bonuses versus
specific attacks. Number crunchers will love the challenge of stacking these
set bonuses, whereas more casual players will simply be happier that their
character gets more powerful with each set they collect."
- Battle for Atlantis
The
Battle for Atlantis Q&A on The Armchair Empire discusses the upcoming
underwater RTS game with Roman Volkov: "As in all strategy games, a player
can create bases and perform researches. Besides that, the player can
command the special units – giant robotic platforms or titanic underwater
motherships. Their rank depends on experience. The higher the rank is, the
more abilities the commander will have. Eventually it will be possible to
control a very big number of units and install new modules – weapons,
defensive fields, additional engines etc."
- G.A.N.G.
The
'Definitive' Tommy Tallarico Interview on Music 4 Games one-ups any
prior less-than-perfect conversations with the gang leader at
G.A.N.G. about game music: "It’s
funny you should ask that because my very first memory ever was
music-related. I must have been around 3 years old at the time and my
parents had a piano in the house. I can remember climbing up on the bench
and being eye level with the keys. I remember looking all the way down the
keys to the left, then the right. It seemed like they went on forever. But
the thing I remember most is hitting the keys and feeling so frustrated
because I didn’t know how to play it. I remember feeling a great
determination to figure out how to make this thing work no matter what. I
still have that same feeling mostly every day in my life."
- Battlefield 2142: Northern Strike on
Pro-G.
- Dreamlords on
Gamer's Hell.
- The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar on
IGN.AU.
The debut release of the
Jailbreak modification for Half-Life 2 is now available. In Jailbreak,
players aren't killed by enemy weapons, they are placed in jail, either to be
freed by a heroic teammate, or to complain bitterly to anyone who will listen
that they were framed. The team that can capture all their opponents wins.
Thanks Ant and
Planet
Half-Life.
The Dystopia Website now offers a
release date for this cyberpunk modification for Half-Life 2. More than three
years after the project was announced, and well over a year after the release of
a pair of demos, Dystopia is now expected this Friday, February 23, at 7:00 p.m.
EST. To celebrate the news, they have posted a teaser trailer for download.
Thanks Ant and
Planet
Half-Life.
Happy Fat Tuesday! Hey, ladies… I've got beads!
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