Archived News:
Ok, it's a heli-sim, but it's free :-) Though not yet listed on the official site, GT Interactive has released a playable demo of KA-52 Team Alligator for download (86.9 MB), a simulation of the Russian assault helicopter developed by Simis. The demo contains several combat missions from the full game, and requires DirectX 7.0.
Raven's official Soldier of Fortune support FAQ has been restructured into a new format to put related information snugly into chapters, and it has also been updated with more tips and tricks for the recently released demo, as well as some general info on the game.
Sega to Publish Quake 3 for Dreamcast
on dreamcast.ign.com is a report that quotes Sega PR as confirming plans to
do a port of Quake III Arena for the Dreamcast. Thanks Jeremy Morgan. Here's a
little of what's known and a bit of speculation from the report: Additionally,
we're told that you can count on Q3A to feature Online multi-player as
one of the Dreamcast Network's flagship gaming titles. No information was
available as to who will be developing the game, but rumor has it it will be
handled by id themselves.
The Tectonic page has a new version
0.7 of the TecArena front-end for Quake III Arena offering a
new map cycle feature, and "enable cheats" option, an "enable
bots" option, as well as smaller changes and bug-fixes. In addition to the
new TecArena, a new version 0.8 of the BotPlugin for TecArena is also now
available.
There are some new The Rift screenshots on Gamer's Alliance Strategy
showing off gameplay from ThrushWave's upcoming 3D space RTS, accompanied by a
development update giving a few details about progress on the game.
On the occasion of today's fourth birthday of Duke Nukem 3D ( story), newly opened PlanetDuke has posted an interview with George Broussard, top-Duke at 3D Realms. George recalls his memories of the shareware release and how things took off from there, and looks ahead at the fourth installment in the series, Duke Nukem Forever. Here is a quote on the latter topic:
There are a ton of folks that are worried that Duke won't be Duke because you went to an engine that had no embedded ability to play with stuff. Give us some hints about interactivity -- can we play games within games? Pick stuff up? Move stuff around??
We spent most of our early programming efforts modifying and extending Unreal so it can handle an interactive game like Duke Forever. I can say with relative certainty that Duke Forever will be the most interactive FPS to date. Bar none. If something exists in the world you will be able to do something with it in some way. The game will reward the player for using items and exploring. Without going into too much specific detail, let's just say that the stuff you mentioned above could be the tip of the iceberg.
There is a brief interview with Blizzard on Computer Games Online, talking to some of the people behind the Warcraft and Diablo series. Topics discussed are their design philosophy, technology versus gameplay, and similar general issues.
Gamers Central has posted a hands-on preview of The Rift, a space-combat RTS currently being scaffolded at ThrushWave Technology. In similar mold, but set in the Star Trek: The Next Generation universe, is Star Trek: Armada of which Gamecenter has posted a bunch of new screenshots and design sketches.
The official version of the Final Fantasy VIII demo has been released in the downloads section of the Final Fantasy VIII site ( Flash required). Thanks Shadowdane. The demo comes in two formats, a 27.5 MB standard version and a 68.6 MB full version with FMV sequences.
GameFan has posted a
new, hands-on preview of BioWare's MDK 2, which is based on a full build
of the game. Along with the preview are 27 new screenshots in case you need
some visual aids. MDK, as everyone knows, stands for Mysterious Dog Kidnappings.
GameSpot News has posted 9
new screenshots from Looking Glass Studios' upcoming game of sneaking, snooping
and skullduggery, Thief 2: The Metal Age.
PC.IGN has updated their Baldur's
Gate II Journal with part five of this ongoing look at the development of
the game. In this installment, Douglas Aver, the assistant producer explains
just what he does, including planning their QA phase, working on the buglist,
and all his other exciting duties. There's also some new screenshots if you
just want the visuals.
Also new at PC.IGN this morning is a
preview of Codename: Eagle, a new historical FPS title from Refraction Games
and TalonSoft, which aims to expand the genre by allowing you to commandeer
different vehicles, including tanks, motorcycles, and even biplanes.
The first beta release of Equilibrium,
a new point-based mod for Quake III Arena has been released, and is available
for download on
its official site, and features the first two gameplay modes, team deathmatch
and CTF, with two more to come in future releases.
Gamecenter has posted a
preview of Microsoft's massively multiplayer space opera Allegiance, which
is just chock full of new screenshots, as well as quotes from the game's developers.
Game-Interviews has posted an
interview with Jamie McNeely, the producer of O.R.B. at Strategy First,
featuring some new shots from the game as well. O.R.B. is an upcoming 3D real
time strategy game in the vein of Homeworld.
As reflected in Joe
Siegler's .plan update, today marks the fourth anniversary of the Duke
Nukem 3D shareware. Boy, is that strange to me. It feels like just yesterday
that my whole dorm floor went nuts over the game back in college. For the next few weeks you
could always hear "come get some" or any number of "Dukeisms"
coming out of somebody's room. Duke 3D was one of the last games of its type
that had a full shareware episode, and boy did we play the heck out of it. It
was a bit of a large download back then, but man did you get a lot from it.
It's a miracle I managed to graduate at all.
To celebrate Duke's anniversary, here are some Duke-related links of the day.
Enjoy!
Link of the Day: LameDuke.
A real piece of history here, the version of Duke that never was (originally
released on the first anniversary of the shareware release).
Bonus Link: The
Duke Nukem (PSX) Outtakes. A personal favorite from way back when.
Bonus Link 2: Duke
Nukem: Time to Grill. Hail to the chef, baby.
|
Twitter 
