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Friday, Jan 21, 2000

  

Klingon Academy Movie

Interplay has released another new movie of Star Trek: Klingon Academy, this time far larger than previous releases at 23 MB, and consequently showing off over a minute and a half of in-game combat footage from their upcoming space-based RTS.

Rainbow Six Postmortem

A new postmortem is available at Gamasutra, dissecting Red Storm's tactical squad-action game Rainbow Six. The article, written by designer Brain Upton, relates the creation from concept to release, and examines the successes and shortcomings of the game's development process.

Soldier of Fortune Developer Profile

EuroGamer has posted a developer profile of Marcus Whitlock, talking to the Raven programmer about his start in the industry in the UK, making the jump across the Atlantic, and of course his current work on Soldier of Fortune, of which a new CTF screenshot is included.

O.R.B. Screenshots

There are eight new screenshots of O.R.B. on incitegames, offering more visuals of this space-based RTS in development by Strategy First.

Neverwinter Nights Interview

3DNews.net has an interview on Neverwinter Nights online, grilling BioWare producer Trent Oster in fifteen questions for which the corresponding answers shed more light on this upcoming online RPG.

Nox Movies

Another movie of Nox is now online at Westwood's official Nox site, showing off more gameplay from their upcoming 3D action RPG. And if you'd like to have a look into the future, next week's movies are already available from their ftp server.

SWAT 3: Close Quarters Battle Patch

Sierra Studios has released a version 1.1 patch for SWAT 3: Close Quarters Battle for download (1.8 MB), fixing several mission ending problems as well as a number of AI problems, and adding a FAQ page (thanks 3DFiles).

GORE Update

The official 4DRulers page has been updated with word that the upcoming GORE deathmatch demo is now 90% complete, as well as a brand new screenshot from this first person shooter.

Armada Beta Sign-ups

There's a multiplayer beta sign-up for Star Trek Armada page on WONnet where 1,000 testers will be selected to put Activision's 3D RTS set in the Star Trek: The Next Generation universe through its paces. Testers will be selected based on a variety of criteria, and they will be including International (non-North American) testers. On this subject, ElWappo of Klingon Academy.com sends word of an updated Star Trek Armada Preview on PC.IGN.Com, and some Star Trek Armada screenshots on GameFan.

New Q3Post

A new version of Q3Post, a script for mIRC that posts the server's IP address and description when you jump into a Quake III Arena game has been released. This new version adds a few new features, including the ability to set automatic answers via keywords to questions asked of you in IRC.

New Servarena

A new version of Servarena, a config program for Quake III Arena has been released and is available for download at its official site (thanks Michael Arnold). This new version fixes "one last bug" as well as adding the ability to double click to select/deselect maps and a new text box for the CD-ROM selector.

KISS Interview(s)

PsychoNews has posted three, five question interviews with members of Third Law's KISS: Psycho Circus team, talking about the maps, art, and AI in this LithTech Engine game. A new piece of concept art is available too, illustrating the BallBuster character.

Voyager Interview

HazardTeam.de, a German Star Trek: Voyager fansite has posted an interview with Jeff Dischler, a programmer on Raven's Quake III Arena engine Voyager game (thanks Voodoo Extreme). The interview is available in your choice of English or German. There are two in-game shots and one concept piece posted as well, although the shots look old to me (or at least similar to others previously released).

John Romero Q&A

IcarusWeb has posted a brief interview with ION Storm's John Romero, talking to him about one of his favorite subjects, the original Doom (thanks to ION's Daily Informant for the tip). John talks about the various Doom source projects, as well as his pick for a star in the theoretical Doom movie (and no, it ain't Bruce Campbell).

JHexen Network Test2

Jaakko Keränen has released second network test version of JHexen, his OpenGL port of Raven's Hexen, fixing the networking bugs that plagued the first release, and adding a few more features like choosing the player color.

UT Resources Updated

Epic's Stephen Polge made a post to the Unreal Technology Page with word that he's updated the Unreal resources on the site, including a new version of the guide to running a server, and a new performance tweaks guide.

Space RTSing

Daily Radar has posted a preview of Star Trek: Armada, looking at the upcoming real-time strategy game that puts the Federation, Klingons, Romulans and the Borg in a space that's too small for all four of them. Featuring quotes from producer Marc Turndorf, the article also offers eight new screenshots. In similar vein, there is a preview of O.R.B online at PC.IGN.com, describing a hands-on look at an early build of Strategy First's space-based RTS that goes by the full name of Off-world Resource Base.

Dave Taylor Interview

Crusoe Chip's Rocky Origins is an interview on Wired with Dave Taylor, formerly of id Software and Crack dot Com, who now toils for Transmeta, who, of course, just unveiled their highly-anticipated Crusoe multi-OS CPU. Thanks Andy. The interview discusses Crusoe and life at Transmeta prior to the announcement, touching on the contrast between the (up-until-now) secretive nature of his work at Transmeta after working at id, "that divulged everything to anyone who cared." There are also Crusoe previews based on all the newly revealed information on Ars Technica and HardwareCentral, and S3 comes to Crusoe's rescue is a ZDNet article that says "OEM partner answers some of the lingering questions about the profitability of Transmeta's new chip."

Thief 2 Preview

Thresh's FiringSquad previews Thief 2 looking at Looking Glass Studios' efforts at following-up on the success of their skulky single-player shooter, Thief: The Dark Project.

Screenshots

Deus Ex Update

There's a Deus Ex update on Unreal Universe where ION Storm's Bob White gives the latest developments in the development of Deus Ex, ION's upcoming Unreal-engine science fiction RPG. The update mentions "as a project approaches its final days" relating to Warren Spector's freneticism, suggesting work on the game is rounding into the home stretch.

Tech Bits

Counter-Strike Stuff

A new version 0.3 of the Counter-Strike Alias Binder is available fixing some bugs in this utility that makes it easy to knock out a proper config for this popular Half-Life modification. Also, this NOTH1NG Interview talks with Justin "NOTH1NG" DeJong about his work as a map author on the Counter-Strike project.

New Hand of Quad

A new version 1.6 of the Hand of Quad, "the click 'n' go Quake launcher" is now available. Hand of Quad allows you to join a Quake III Arena, Quake II, or Half-Life server simply by clicking a link on a webpage. The small update addresses a few bug including "the elusive 'shutdown' bug."

Q3A Requiem

Version 0.3 of Requiem for Quake III Arena is now available, with both Win32 and Linux versions of this Q3A update of the popular QuakeWorld/Quake II mod. Requiem offers a bunch of features, including an off-hand grappling hook, and supports single player, FFA, team DM, or CTF.

FragLan Q3A Mod

A version 0.2 of the FragLan CTF mod for Quake III Arena is now available. The mod is not very full-formed at this point, but does offer the ever-popular off-hand grappling hook (grapple without switching away from your weapon), which they point out "is too much fun not to give to all..."

Q3A Log Parser

The Q3Logger Homepage has the beta 4 version 1.1 release of the Q3Logger log parser that offers several forms of HTML output to help analyze the results of games played on a Quake III Arena server. One of Q3Logger's most noteworthy features is its support of Doom-like "killer/killee" tables.

Massive Multiplayer!

Gamasutra's Cyberspace in the 21st Century is on "Mapping the Future of Massive Multiplayer Games," with a look at one of online gaming's most popular buzz phrases, Massive Multiplayer RPGs.

Competitions

The OzUT site has word that their "Who is Da Man" contest for Unreal Tournament will now be offering the opportunity to talk to the folks at Epic Games live on the telephone to pump them for strategy tips and such (without CliffyB's usual dollar a minute sexphone charges). Also, 20 Weeks Wars is now recruiting clans for this TeamFortress Classic league.

Reviews

etc.

  • CheckOut Games interviews Dukes of Hazzard Producer Steve Wartofsky, where they learn that John Schneider and Catherine Bach's voices will not be in the game because "They had other commitments and weren't able to participate."...
  • The Call of Cthulhu First Look on Gamers Central looks at this upcoming Lovecraftian horror game...
  • Nomination Fun and Games at the Grammys points out "For this year's Grammy Awards on February 23, the academy has updated both its movie or television song and its instrumental composition categories to include music composed for other visual media, such as video games or the Internet. The funny thing is, all the nods in those two categories have gone to music from films. There's not a video game score or song in the bunch." Thanks Toughguy...

Out of the Blue

Thanks for all the kind words about the Yahoo Internet Life dealie yesterday, you all are awfully nice... we'll try not to let it go to our heads (more than it has already). It wasn't a Blue moon, or anything, but last night was a lunar eclipse here in the US. Moon Moves Toward Total Eclipse is an AP article with a shot of the event (which apparently made for the even-rarer than blue red moon) for those outside the affected area (or if looking skyward last night just resulted in an eyeful of snow, which was the case where I am).

Link of the Day: The Beer Witch Project. Thanks Manx.
Bonus Link: How to Overclock your SoundBlaster Live! Thanks KaiBosh and Randy Perry.
Story of the Day: IBM offers ThinkPads for -- $1. Woops! However, unlike some of these e-commerce glitch stories, they aren't honoring the price. Thanks Ant.
Bonus Story: Hacker Wants To Go to College. That's right, today's the day Kevin Mitnick will be released from jail. Thanks Andrew Cruse.



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