German site
GameStar.de reports that Akella is no longer developing
Jagged Alliance 3, not very long before the projected Q1 2010 release date for the turn-based strategy/RPG sequel (thanks
WorthPlaying). The reason for the change is not clear, but they report publisher Strategy First retains the rights to the franchise. The Jagged Alliance series has bounced around quite a bit over the years since the
demise of SirTech, MiST land
was once developing Jagged Alliance 3 and at one point there were three "Alliance" titles
in development: Jagged Alliance 3,
Jagged Alliance 3D, and
African Alliance, though that last game
was cancelled just months after
it was revealed. A deal for Game Factory Interactive to develop the series
was dissolved a few years ago, shortly before Akella
was announced as the new developer for the series, which now seems to be back to square one, or square three as it were.
A new version 1.03 of
Privateer Gemini Gold is now available for Windows, Linux, and MacOS, offering an update for this tribute to
Privateer, the highly regarded
Wing Commander spin-off. This
change list has details on the new version. In short: "The new release brings speech support for the additional Righteous Fire campaign, more original Privateer like features, a few new rendered fully animated interiors and a handful of bugfixes."
A new version 3.0 beta of the
TeamSpeak gaming voice-communication package is now available. The site is in lockdown mode to help cope with the demand, but the
TeamSpeak Community Forums are still online. Thanks
Fileplay, where they have the downloads mirrored to help with the hammered website.
Dark Sky Entertainment announces new updates are now available for
Star Alliances and
Beyond Protocol, their two science fiction MMORTS games. The
Beyond Protocol patch notes
are here, but we can't find an online version of the
Star Alliances patch notes.
There's a
Narbacular Drop Interview on Eurogamer talking with Airtight Games' Kim Swift about
Narbacular Drop, the game that eventually lead to
Portal. They discuss the genesis and evolution of the project, and the events that lead up to it being acquired by Valve.
We got hit with our first real snowstorm of the season last night, though it was not as dramatic as the weatherman suggested. Actually, we made the mistake of dropping by the supermarket yesterday where the crowds were stripping the shelves of everything in sight, and you would have thought that the weather was calling for three weeks of snow or perhaps a volcano eruption. We had no need to fight a mob for no reason, and just departed. Seemed odd for northeasterners who should be used to the snow.
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