Archived News:
Computer
and Video Games has the latest word on the long-rumored MMOG based on
Knights of the Old Republic, the Star Wars RPG. They have word from UK
newspaper The Daily Star, where on Saturday a reporter wrote BioWare is working
on "a MMO of Knights of the Old Republic" and he was heading off to San
Francisco to "file an exclusive report on the game."
VideoGamer.com
has an except from a conversation with Peter Molyneux where the Lionhead
designer offers a frank, but negative, assessment of the state of PC gaming: "If
you look at the gamer market on PC, I'll be quite honest with you, it's in
tatters. There aren't that many releases on PC. There are some high points like
Crysis and what Blizzard is doing, but other than that you are restricted to The
Sims and World of Warcraft, they seem to be dominating the PC side." He also
expresses his own personal distaste for copy protection, though he also
understands the publisher's side of that, saying: "Anything that may give them
more confidence on the PC means that ultimately we as gamers will come out
better off because they will invest more in the game."
Gamasutra
reports that Take-Two has decided to remain independent, after indicating they
would actively pursue dome sort of merger or acquisition deal after negotiations
with Electronic Arts fell through ( story). They quote a statement
from Take-Two Board chairman Strauss Zelnick, though this does not directly
address the decision to stay independent, but a follow-up quote from Take-Two
CEO Ben Fede describing the strength of their position: "Our strong cash
position – with no debt and an undrawn $140 million credit facility – gives us
the financial flexibility to continue to do what we do best: innovate and create
the great games that our customers have come to expect."
The Crymod Modding
Portal offers a temporary solution for problems with the automatic map
downloads in Crysis Wars, as users are being kicked from servers by the
Crytek Anti Cheat solution. The problem is how the maps are being stored on the
user end, and they have posted a workaround for server administrators running
custom maps that prevents these unintended kicks. Thanks Ant.
The beta of InstantAction for the
Macintosh is now online. Currently the Mac beta of the online gaming portal
offers four titles, Marble Blast Online (platformer/puzzle action),
Fallen Empire: Legions (FPS action), Rokkitball (futuristic sports),
and ThinkTanks (tank combat). The neat thing is that Mac and PC gamers
will be able to play together: "InstantAction will also allow cross platform
compatibility between Mac and PC users. Players from either operating system can
join the same game and battle each other. InstantAction makes challenging
friends as simple as instant messaging a link, taking all the complicated
matchmaking out of the process. The site offers an entirely new way to “hang
out” with friends by allowing you to take your party from game to game."
The
Warhammer Forums have a post from Mythic's Mark Jacobs soliciting feedback
on how to improve the chat system in Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning,
saying: "Obviously one of the things that players want us to improve is our chat
system. We are currently in the process of doing a revision on it but before we
go too far, I'm interested in hearing what you want to see in it." Thanks Mick.
A second trailer from Neverwinter Nights 2: Storm of Zehir shows off more
of the upcoming D&D RPG expansion in the works at Obsidian Entertainment. The
clip can be found on
ActionTrip,
AtomicGamer, and
Gamer's Hell.
- Atlantica Online on
RPG Vault.
- Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 on
IGN.
- Tom Clancy's EndWar on
1Up.
We had a brief outage today and when things returned, things were a little
broken for a while, but everything seems cleared up now. Sorry about that.
The Sacred 2 Updates Page now offers
new version 2.10 patches for several of the localized editions of Sacred 2:
Fallen Angel, Ascaron Entertainment's action/RPG sequel. There are updates
for the French, German, Italian, and UK editions, all of which are mirrored on
AtomicGamer,
FileFront, and Gamer's
Hell. There's also a new character trailer from the game on
ActionTrip,
AtomicGamer,
FileFront,
Gamer's Hell, and The
Patches Scrolls.
There's a thread on the
Silent Hill:
Homecoming Forums as well as
GameSpot Forums and
GameFAQs (and presumably elsewhere) about the lack of a inverted control
option for your camera view (there is apparently an option to invert your aim,
but not the general camera view). The 360 is mentioned in those threads, and a
post on
IGN indicates this is a problem for the PS3 as well (thanks Bob). Also, in
spite of the fact that Konami announced the survival/horror sequel was available
on Steam on Tuesday when the console editions shipped ( story),
the game has not yet appeared there, and now a post on the
Steam Users' Forums from Valve's Mike Dunkle saying: "Silent Hill Homecoming
for PC will not become available until later this month. Please stay tuned for
more information."
GameTap announces the latest addition to
their roster of free games is
Sacred Gold,
ASCARON Entertainment's action/RPG. For the unfamiliar, here's their description
of the game: "In a fantasy world crawling with monsters, unlikely heroes emerge.
Whether they quest for treasure, fame or power, these individuals brave many
terrors and face down thousands of foes both above the ground and below...and
unlock the secrets of a deadly conspiracy to overrun the land of Ancaria with
evil. For those with the strength, untold riches await, but the fight will be
long and dangerous."
A new trailer from Empire: Total War shows off land battles in Creative
Assembly's next installment in their epic historical real-time strategy series
that's due in February, 2009. The clip is available on
AtomicGamer,
FileFront, and
Gamer's Hell.
The Associated Press reports insurance company Allstate is investigating the
possibility that video games could help drivers get into fewer accidents as they
pass from the 50-60 year-old range that is one of the safest driver demographics
into their mid-60s when accident rates begin to climb. They are running a pilot
program in Pennsylvania where they want 100,000 older drivers to play the brain
training game InSight
to see if it helps make them safer on the road. If successful, this could lead
to a program that offers discounts on auto insurance for players of such games.
The RF Online Website has bad news for players of the North American and
European edition of RF Online, CCR's Korean MMORPG. Codemasters says
their efforts at negotiating an extension of their license for the game have
been unsuccessful, and the game's last full day of service will be November 9,
and they will be taking the North American and European servers offline on the
morning (UK time) of November 10. Thanks Chris.
Ripten follows up on a recent story from
Total Video Games that quoted Epic's Cliff Bleszinski saying piracy concerns
factored into their decision to not create a PC edition of Gears of War 2
( story). They contacted Mark Rein, who speaks of piracy in the
context of the newly formed PC Gaming Alliance: "This issue is something we’re
looking at as a group …" But in describing their reasons for eschewing the PC
for the shooter sequel, he makes no mention of piracy: "The reason we decided
not to develop Gears 2 for PC was so that we could focus our resources on making
Gears 2 the best possible Xbox 360 game it could be rather than splitting them
across multiple platforms like we did with the first one. I think Gears 2 will
be a better game for it and that this was the right decision." Thanks
N4G.
Warhammer Online Website has details on a new version 1.01 of Warhammer
Online: Age of Reckoning that's now live in the MMORPG. The first major
update for the game includes fixes from previous smaller patches, and adds a few
new features like auto-looting, pathing improvements, more reliable
tab-targeting, and more. Thanks
Massively.
The first patch for The Sims 2: Apartment Life updates the eighth
expansion for the lifestyle simulation sequel to version 1.16.0.187. The patch
is available on
TheSims2.com along with the complete patch notes, and downloads of the patch
are also available from
FileFront, Gamer's
Hell, and The Patches
Scrolls.
Update on the test
patch-new melee system on the Savage 2- A Tortured Soul Forum is a post
about the coming patch for Savage 2 that may come out as soon as Friday, but
will probably come out next week. In the meantime, S2 Games offers a detailed
changelist for the melee combat system in their action/strategy sequel,
including a couple of experimental features that may be tweaked or culled if
they don't work out properly. There is also a follow-up post about plans for a
Community & Clan Panel, described as being a feature-rich "super buddy list."
The Diablo 3 Interview
on AusGamers is a lengthy conversation from GC 2008 in Leipzig with Jay
Wilson discussing Blizzard's upcoming action/RPG sequel. They talk about how the
RPG genre has changed since way back when Diablo II was released, Diablo II
features being retained for the new game, glorious loot, combating cheaters,
class struggles, and still more.
The
Dead Space Q&A on Gameplanet talks with Rich Briggs about EA's sci-fi
survival/horror shooter, discussing the game's lack of a HUD, environmental
interactivity, their "realistic" multi-limbed enemies (we don't want to meet who
the interviewer's been hanging out with), physics in outer space, PC mouse and
keyboard support (and the inherent superiority thereof), and more.
Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning Interview on Kikizo talks with Josh
Drescher about Mythic's just-launch MMORPG. Topics include the Warhammer IP, the
MMORPG genre, their server infrastructure, an introduction to gameplay, and, of
course, Orc sex (sort of).
- One of the members of the
GSC Game World Forums is gauging interest in a S.T.A.L.K.E.R.
commemorative coin…
Okay, so thanks to Frans' efforts we now have a share link for each story that
brings up a single-story view with options to email the story or send it to your
choice of link aggregators, and the
Articles section now
has page breaks, which is obviously essential to being able to continue to make
use of it over the long haul.
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