Archived News:
Stardock's Brad Wardell sent a follow-up to our earlier post
about Stardock possibly boycotting UPS. He clarifies the originations of this
story and his true feelings about the topic in the following statement:
The article in question is a recap of a recap of a private comment on
Facebook. It had nothing to do with Glenn Beck. I don’t watch his show. Don’t
care about his show. I was annoyed to see UPS playing politics with its ad
dollars by boycotting entire networks and told the shipping guys to pick the
FedEx box instead of the UPS box. Bam. Whole story. :)
There's a Tactical
Intervention Preview on IGN revealing the next project from Minh "Gooseman"
Le, co-creator of the original Counter-Strike. The article fills us in on
Gooseman's recent history, including his time with Valve working on
Counter-Strike 2, which ultimately did not work out, him living in his parent's
basement for a while to reduce overhead as he worked on his next game, and the
South Korean investor who helped push the project into high gear. They also
profile Tactical Intervention, his new game, describing a shooter that
shares some gameplay elements (and a graphics engine) with the original
Counter-Strike, as well as the elements that address some of the problems with
CS, specifically described as "snipers, camping, and waiting." As for Minh, he
says: "It's very much a what have you done for me lately attitude now," he says.
"And I haven't done anything for a while." This will change soon, as Tactical
Intervention will soon enter beta, and is said to be "likely to be released by
the end of this year." Update: It's been pointed out that while the
article says "On the surface the new game very much resembles Counter-Strike in
appearance; both games run off the same engine so the graphics haven't
progressed much," the screenshots look like they use the Source engine, which is
the engine for Counter-Strike: Source, not the original Counter-Strike.
A new trailer is now available for Lucidity, LucasArts'
recently unveiled PC and XBLA puzzle/platformer. The clip offers
a look at gameplay and offers indications that the game takes place within a
dream, not unlike Newhart. Meanwhile, a new post on the
Lucas Workshop sets the price point for the game, saying the PC download
will be $9.99 via Steam and Direct2Drive, while the Xbox 360 edition will be 800
MS points, which translates to $10.00 USD.
Stardock boss Brad Wardell has updated his
Facebook page with his objection to UPS pulling its advertising from FOX in
objection to some of the comments by conservative host Glenn Beck (calling
President Obama a "racist" in particular). Apparently Wardell is a fairly
staunch conservative as well, which prompts him to say that Stardock does "a
non-trivial amount of shipping with UPS" and that if they did not reverse their
position on this, he would take this business to FedEx. Boycotts are somewhat
common, but this is the first time we can recall the treat of a company being
boycotted over their own boycott. Thanks
GamePolitics via
The Angry Bear. Update: Brad Wardell sent a statement
about this story clarifying his position.
A new trailer from Dragon Age: Origins introduces the music from
BioWare's upcoming RPG, getting thoughts on the topic from Simon Pressey, audio
director on the project, and Inon Zur, composer of its soundtrack. They discuss
the epic nature of the music and the game, the vast amount of material composed
for the project, and the participation of the Seattle Northwest Symphonia
performing the score. They also get thoughts from vocalist Aubrey Ashburn, who
gets high praise from Inon for her collaborative efforts at making his work even
better. The clip can be found on
ActionTrip,
FileFront,
GameTrailers, and
GameVideos.
Direct2Drive's 5 Year
Anniversary page lists other games still on sale, and has details on their
anniversary giveaway. Also, once again,
SalesCircular (thanks Ant) has newspaper sales circulars from the 48
contiguous US states.
THQ now offers a trailer for
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II - Chaos Rising, the recently
announced expansion for Relic's futuristic RTS sequel. The clip is a
cinematic teaser to the events in the expansion, with no real gameplay on
display. Thanks Hellburger.
Two new teaser trailers from Risen are available, setting the stage for
this Friday's launch of Piranha Bytes' fantasy-themed RPG.
There's an intro teaser on
FileFront, GameVideos,
GameTrailers, and
IncGamers and there's also a cinematic teaser on
FileFront and
GameTrailers. The clips are accompanied by a new blurb about the game, so
here's something to read while the movies load: "This epic role playing game is
set in a medieval world on a volcanic Mediterranean island, The "Risen" story
unfolds over four chapters and will offer multiple ways to develop the story by
his own actions and decisions. An innovative and intuitive user control
interface will support both casual and hardcore gamers. With full world
streaming support, the player will have a seamless experience while playing in a
fully simulated game world with authentic characters."
Futuremark Games Studio announces a last chance to get in on the beta testing of
Shattered Horizon, the upcoming zero-G first-person shooter that is their
debut game. Word is qualified applicants who sign up over the coming week will
participate in the final week of beta testing: HELSINKI, FINLAND –
SEPTEMBER 28, 2009 – Futuremark® Games Studio today announced that they are
giving gamers one last chance to join the closed beta for Shattered Horizon™,
their multiplayer first-person shooter played in zero gravity. PC gamers who
register before Monday 5th October will be invited to play in the final week of
beta. Sign up now at the official website.
http://www.shatteredhorizon.com
Shattered Horizon sees players fight in the aftermath of a catastrophic Moon
mining accident that throws billions of tons of rocky debris into near-Earth
space. In zero gravity players have complete freedom of movement and can use new
combat tactics that cannot be found in other games.
The beta is open to PC gamers from North America and Europe aged 18 and over.
The minimum hardware requirements are Windows Vista or Windows 7, DirectX 10
graphics card, dual core processor, Steam account and a broadband Internet
connection.
Quel Solaar now offers downloads of an
alpha client for Love, the upcoming artsy-fartsy MMOG being created by a
one-man development team (thanks
Massively). This is not to actually login and play the game, but rather to
iron out compatibility issues with the graphics extensions the game utilizes,
and there are subsequent updates outlining the hardware that's proving
troublesome to save you some time if that applies to you. Word is: My
silence should not be mistaken for inaction, in fact the opposite is true. Today
I start the first stage of the open Alpha for Love. At this stage you wont be
able to log in and play but you will be able to see the engine run on your
machine, giving you an idea of how well your machine will handle the game. This
will let me work out any compatibility issues. The client will contact my master
server and send the name of your graphics card and if its supports the three
OpenGL extensions I use (FBO, VBOs and GLSL), no other user data, ip addresses,
or anything else is collected. This data will also let me count you in order to
estimate how many servers I will need.
A new version of World of Warcraft is now available, updating the
recently version 3.2.2 to version 3.2.2a, heading off a possible
future number shortage by going the letter route. The
WoW Patch Notes outline
the changes in what Blizzard describes as a "minor" patch that addresses a
handful of bugs in the MMORPG. The US/Aus patch is mirrored on
AtomicGamer,
FileFront, and The
Patches Scrolls; and various other localized patches are mirrored on
AtomicGamer,
FileFront, and The
Patches Scrolls.
This Direct2Drive
Tweet may vex folks hoping that Planescape: Torment will be
re-released in the current reissue-happy environment where older classics get
new life via digital distributions. Word is: "@Daggity hah, would love to
re-release Plancescape [sic]...if we could find someone who actually owns the
rights! Sad." This highly regarded role-playing game was released in 1999, and
developer Black Isle Studios closed in 2003, but publisher
Interplay is still in operation, albeit tenuously, fighting to maintain control
of rights to a Fallout MMOG. Presumably Interplay would have
control of these rights, or would know where they currently reside, but one
would also assume that Interplay would have been the first place the D2D folks
would have inquired about this.
EA and Ultima Online
Announce “Return to Britannia” Campaign in Honor of 12th Anniversary Celebration,
as Ultima Online first launched on September 25, 1997.
They celebrate the first dozen years of operation by the fantasy-themed MMORPG
by offering former players the chance to play the game in its current form for
free between now and October 16. For everyone else, there's also a
14-Day Free Trial for the game.
Here's word on Return to Britannia: Closed accounts in good standing have
been re-activated, and former players can log back into the game using their
original user name and passwords.
New content available to returning players through the Return to Britannia
Campaign includes Mondain’s Legacy, the 7th UO expansion which introduced the
playable Elven race and dangerous, new dungeons to explore. Mondain’s Legacy was
made available at no charge in August 2009 to existing subscribers and to new
players as part of the Ultima Online 14-day free trial.
“We’re hoping that, as part of the Return to Britannia Campaign, former players
will once again rediscover the joys of Ultima Online,” said Jeff Hickman,
Executive Producer for Mythic Entertainment. “UO was the first love of many
MMORPG players, and it still holds a special place in their hearts after 12
glorious years. I think returning players will be pleasantly surprised to find a
thriving and vibrant community from around the world ready to welcome back their
former compatriots and include them in their ongoing adventures.”
Gearbox's Mikey Neumann
tweets: "Today is OFFICIAL BORDERLANDS PRE ORDER DAY. Twitter me a screen of
you buying the game and I'll play BLs with you and give you loot." This was
posted by
Kotaku, at which point it seems they, as they put it, may have
called a bluff, but
he subsequently tweeted
that he seems to be following through on this, saying: "To everyone flooding in
from Kotaku. I'm writing down XBL's PSN's and whatnot for when the game comes
out." Finally, he
also tweets about an "official Steam announcement," which is actually an
unofficial
Destructoid article saying the game will be released via Steam, also
getting word from Gearbox's Steve Gibson that the PC edition of Borderlands
will include the ability to export jpgs of your weapons, will have full mouse
support for menus, and the best graphics out of the game's target systems.
GameStop and
Amazon.ca now list a June 2010 release date for Alpha Protocol,
indicating a delay to SEGA's upcoming espionage-themed RPG. This was reported
Friday by
Kotaku, and we thought an official statement would follow soon enough, but
it has not, so there you have it, unconfirmed suggestions that Alpha Protocol
will not hit its previously planned release date, which is only
eight days hence.
The Battle Grounds Website has the release
of a new version 1.5a of the Battlegrounds 2 modification for the
Source engine. The new version celebrates the eight anniversary of the
release of the first Battlegrounds modification for the original Half-Life.
The new version adds iron sights, a CTF mode, King of the Hill settings, and
more. Thanks Ant via
Half-Life Fallout.
Offworld - The Far Reaches of Edutainment. Thanks
Slashdot.
But I don't suppose that was the only reason. Games don't necessarily
have to be fun to be engaging. Indeed "fun" seems like a trite expression in
the face of some contemporary projects: games can provoke more than simple
enjoyment. Look at the terrifying crypts of Stalker, or the strange sadness
of Shadow of the Colossus. To realise that games ride on more than fun only
takes a quick glance at the bigger picture.
Today is Yom Kippur, but my understanding is this the highest holiday on the
Jewish calendar, but also a very solemn one, so wishing a happy one is
inappropriate, so here's to an appropriately somber Yom Kippur to those who are
observing the day.
R.I.P.: US columnist
William Safire dies.
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