Archived News:
GameSpot has posted a new installment of the Soldier of Fortune diary, and this time Raven's Brian Raffel discusses the help they received from consultant John Mullins in developing the weapons, enemies, and more.
Also on GameSpot tonight is a Vampire Character feature, where they examine one character each week from Nihilistic's upcoming role-playing game, in text, sounds and images. Today's episode looks at Christof, the main protagonist.
Cinematix has released a version 1.2e patch for Revenant, available in both US and Korean editions (thanks AVault). There is no information available on what changes the patch brings to this isometric role-playing game.
A fresh installment of the Summoner diary is online at PC.IGN.com, and this time composer and sound designer Wally Shaw gives a number of guidelines he employs during the creation of sound and music for Volition's upcoming 3D role-playing game.
There are a bunch of Hired Guns screenshots on CombatWorld, along with some concept art and other images that appear in the game. Hired Guns is the tactical action game that's being developed by VR-1 and Psygnosis using the Unreal engine.
Gamecenter has announced that
they will be premiering the Unreal Tournament Bonus Pack (a free add-on for
UT that adds 11 new multiplayer levels, the new Relics feature, and 3 new
meshes) at an unspecified time tomorrow. Rest assured, we'll let you know when
it's released.
Activision has released the official version 1.1 patch for Battlezone II: Combat Commander to enable worldwide multiplayer gaming, and to fix issues with single-player missions, a range of multiplayer problems, and a couple of joystick problems.
id Software's John Carmack updated his
.plan again today with some harsh words for the people responsible for taking
down the QuakeLives site in retaliation for the author's decision not to abide
by the GPL license ( story). Here's what he had to say: Some people took
it upon themselves to remotely wreck Slade's development system. That is no
more defensible than breaking into Id and smashing something.
The idea isn't to punish anyone, it is to have them comply with the license
and continue to contribute. QuakeLives has quite a few happy users, and it is
in everyone's best interest to have development continue. It just has to be
by the rules.
Matrox has released
Windows 2000 drivers for their G400, G200 and G100 based cards (except for
the Marvel and MMS lines).
A
new MPEG movie featuring game footage from Soldier of Fortune has been posted
at incitegames, featuring that trademark violence it's so well known for, and
unlike the movie they posted yesterday, features stuff you can't find in the
demo. Update: a second, shorter movie is also available.
Also new on incitegames is another batch of their Black & White screenshots. This last batch of
shots are particularly pretty, showing different landscapes from the game world
in a variety of times of day.
AVault
is reporting that Eidos and Looking Glass Studios are aiming for a March
22nd release date for Thief II: The Metal Age. They quote Michael McHale, the
game's producer as saying, "most members of the team are working on bug
fixes and polishing," and that the game has reached "feature freeze."
There are also five new screenshots from the game, including one shot of the
main character looking at himself via the "scouting orb."
GameSpy has posted an
interview with Nels Bruckner, the former programmer at Dynamix on Starsiege:
TRIBES 2. Nels talks about the reasons for his departure, and says that Pipeworks,
the company he left to join, is working on a "top secret" project,
which will become somewhat less secret at this year's Game Developer's Conference.
Sierra Studios has released international version 1.2 patches for SWAT 3: Close Quarters Battle, their tactical squad-action game. They fix gameplay and AI issues as with the US patch released last week ( story), and come in UK, French, German, Italian, and Spanish versions.
German developers Soft Enterprises have released an updated demo of their first-person shooter Skout. Besides containing a lot of fixes and improvements, this demo now also comes in English (except for a couple of German voice-overs), which should be a welcome change for those who were put off by the previous demo in the developers' native language ( story). A USA-based mirror of the demo is available at 3D Action Gamers.
PlanetDaiktana has posted the
last of their daily screenshots from Daikatana. Today's image shows "Stavros
the Sorcerer" a mini-boss in the game.
A new, somewhat odd, interview
with Volition character designer Matt Kresge is up on Summoner Homeland.
Matt answers all the questions (which are a bit strange in and of themselves)
in the third person, making this a little more bizarre than your average interview.
Computer Games Online has posted the second and final part of their Terminus preview, providing more details and new screenshots on this upcoming role-playing space-combat title by Vicarious Visions. The game aims to bring back experiences from the venerable Elite, as space combat takes equal turns with trading, resource management, and interaction with other players, human or AI.
GameSpot UK has posted one of their notorious screenshot galleries, this one displaying 30 images of Evolva, the colorful first/third-person action game by Computer Artworks. There is a shorter concept art gallery as well.
There is a preview of 10Six online at PC.IGN.com, looking at SegaSoft's action/strategy game where you play with and against 999,999 of your closest friends (sorry, the rest of them will have to wait for their turn). There are some more screenshots from the open beta, which will end on February 28 when the game will be released.
Also on GameSpot UK are two brief image galleries of Project IGI, showing off some new scenes and concept art from Innerloop's upcoming first-person action game, which is billed as a "thinker shooter."
Third time's a charm, as there are also a couple of new Anachronox screenshots on GameSpot UK, showing off ION Storm's 3D role-playing game that is being built on the Quake II-engine.
Spec
Ops M.O.U.T. Details on The Adrenaline Vault gives more skinny on this
upcoming follow-up from Zombie to Spec Ops, their tactics-oriented first-person
shooter. Here's a quote from the story talking about gameplay in Spec
Ops M.O.U.T. (BTW, M.O.U.T. stands for Military Operations in Urban Terrain):
Spec Ops: M.O.U.T. will feature a strong single-player adventure, though
Long told us the team will be developing just as much multiplayer content, which
he calls a combination of Team Fortress' fast action and the careful strategy of
Spec Ops. Imagine a futuristic battle in which two groups go head-to-head in a
tight urban setting with the sort of death appliances described above. Long said
such online battles will be an important part of the game: “We want all the
fiction, such as the missions, the equipment, the weapons, and the tactics, to
be as realistic as possible, but also be based on what we believe armies will be
doing in the future."
3DNews.Net's
Team Fortress 2 interview is an 11 question Q&A with an unnamed member of
Valve Software about Team Fortress 2, going into some detail about some of
aspects of gameplay for the upcoming commercial installment in the TeamFortress
series. Also, TF Tribune's
TF2 Q&A is an even shorter piece that presumably talks with Sarah Walker
(who is thanked at the end of the interview) asking specific questions about the
game's netcode, as well as about a planned conversion of the Canalzone map.
Careful to begin with the following disclaimer: "Warning, These are really
gross, so don't click unless you've got a strong stomach. Seriously." 53 New Soldier of Fortune Shots
on PC.IGN.Com offer a deck of cards' (plus a joker) worth of
stomach-turning shots from Raven Software's upcoming Quake II-engine mercenary
shooter (they should have posted 144 and called it a gross of gross shots).
Also, there's a new Soldier of
Fortune preview on Alloygaming.com, that in addition to offering a look
ahead at Soldier of Fortune, offers
three more new high resolutions screenshots showing off gameplay.
There are some Sheep
Simulator screenshots on GA-Strategy (yes this is for real, if I imagined
something like this, I wouldn't admit it publicly). Also, some new GA-Source Exclusive Side-Scene Screenshots
show off this 3D thriller action/adventure game, from Swedish developers The Other Guys
(not to be confused with these guys). Finally, the Majesty-Dragon
site has been updated with "four brand new never before seen Majesty
BETA screen captures."
Quake and QuakeWorld for Amiga
have several downloads for both Quake version 1.09 and QuakeWorld version 2.40
for cult-favorite Amiga systems, including versions for the WarpOS, PowerUp, and
AmigaOS/68k.
Version Usk822300 of the Usk8 mod for Unreal
Tournament is now available. If your 'l33t-to-English translator fails you,
Usk8 is "you skate," which is a skateboarding mod, originally coded
for Unreal, but now converted to work with UT as well. Word is: "We are
looking to make a Realistic game/experience for skateboarding enthusiasts and
spectators alike. With a planned hundreds of trick and various terrain to choose
from, this add-on will bring a new meaning to the phrase TC."
The debut release of MouseBall for
Unreal Tournament is now available (brought to us by none other than Joey
"FrogStomper" Fortuna, for old QuakeCast fans). The page doesn't offer
much info, so I beat a description of the mod out of FrogStomper, so here goes:
"Team play game. Pits mouse against mouse. Several goals scattered
throughout the field and several balls. Kick the balls into the goals that correspond
to your color. Prevent other mice from scoring by pushing them. Cheese powerups
add speed to your mouse, wings to your balls, and punch to your pushes.
MouseFans throughout the stadium cheer you on and jeer at your competitors
(depending on how you interpret their Shopping-Mall-Elf-Robot movements)."
A new version 1.01 patch for Assimilation 2
is now available, updating this teamplay mod for Quake III Arena. Assimilation 2
supports up to seven teams (except in CTF, which is still only two teams), the
mod features a unique scoring system, and what they modestly describe as "the
best looking grappling hook to date."
The first release of the Quake III Bot Designer
is now available. As can be surmised from the name, this is a program designed
to assist modelers in the addition of bot support to their models for Quake III
Arena. The program allows you to give a bot weapon preferences and other skills,
without having to crack open the Q3A source code.
Fragstomp has released the
source code for Reload
Be Gone! and Bloodlust,
their Quake III Arena modifications. All that's asked in return for adopting
their code is a credit (and not to break id's EULA, obviously), and while
there's no guarantee of support, they point out they are "pretty nice guys
and will at least attempt to answer any questions..."
Cold Storage Online
has the version 1.0 release of the K-Stats "Gaming and LAN party Tournament
/ League Organiser Thingy," adding generation of League Tables and Player
Lists on the main form and a new "Export to HTML" option for the
league stats among other things. Also ]R[eactive Software
has released beta 2 of the Reactive Q3A Competition Mod, which adds stats, Clan
Arena, and customizable command listings. Word is the next beta will add
"rail only," weapon/powerup banning, and a full GUI.
The CyberNexusCafe has announced
they are holding a Florida qualifier on March 11, 2000 for the $100,000 Razer
CPL tournament. Also, word is that S3’s DMM Underground
has signed on as a sponsor of the upcoming PlanetStarsiege TRIBES
World Championship, and now the winning team will be taking home over $7,000
in prizes. Finally, there's a Quake
III Song Contest on Quake3World looking to reward the best Q3A-related song
parody.
A post yesterday referred to Stars! Supernova as a real-time strategy offering
until Myrddin Emrys pointed out this is an error: Stars! Supernova is actually
turn-based (suited to play-by-mail). Thanks Myrddin. On the subject, there's new
a Stars! Supernova Q&A with screenshots on Gamer's Alliance Strategy.
Also, I wrote Picasso again the other day when referring to Picassio. Thanks
Mike for the correction. I'll probably confuse the art-theft game's name with
the artist's name at least once more before it sneaks past the alarm systems and
on to retailer's shelves.
Thanks a lot to Mindspring for
making us their Site o' the Day yesterday (and thanks to zombiestomper for the
heads-up about it). If any of you are reading this because they followed that
link, please make yourself at home. Today is the fourth anniversary of the
release of Qtest (thanks BC-]Victimizer[), the first test release of Quake, an event that spurred the
posting of a Quake deathmatch screenshot and the contents of the Qtest read me
as the second traces of Quake news on this site (after something like:
"Quake is coming, please don't email id Software asking about it"),
and basically launching the Quake section ("Rag") here, at the time a subsection
of "blue's 3D
House of 3D Carnage."
Link of the Day: Japanese Engrish,
a collection English phrases found in advertisements and such in Japan. Not as
politically incorrect as it seems at first, but terribly funny, featuring ad
slogans like: "Bull Coffee, a canned coffee drink that gives you both
creaminess and dry coffee taste." Thanks Kyle.
.plan of the Day: Brandon Reinhart
(again). First no blow guns, and now this. How can he stand it?
Image of the Day: The
VIA-GRA (Viagra) Motherboard. Thanks SlacKerCT.
|
Twitter 
