Mailbag
November 11th -- Previous Mailbag

Letters are edited for spelling errors only (occasionally), and may contain profanity. Commentary by Jason "loonyboi" Bergman.

Smells odd?

From: Lloyd C Cogliandro
Subject: TR4

Blue Crew:

The story from "The Register" smells a bit odd, so to speak. First of all, I think that Eidos would have figured out whether or not Americans can handle their puzzles quite a bit earlier than now. We only play for ten minutes before going to watch TV? If that were true, then NO ONE in the US would have finished FF VII. As for the Japanese not wanting characters dying, that's a load of crap. When the first virtual pets were brought to the US by visitors to Japan, WE complained about the fact that the little characters would actually starve to death if not fed. And don't even get me started on all of the Japanese martial arts games that are on the market. All in all, it sounds like the source for this "story" is a bit of a xenophobe.

Lloyd Cogliandro (aka Boondoggle)

In defense of Wolf2K.

From: Jacek Fedorynski
Subject: Wolfenstein 2000

OK, so it won't be sold in Germany.

OK, so it won't have good press.

BUT WHO CARES?

I don't want to read good reviews of the game - I want to play it. I want to look at the game and remember the days of the original Wolfenstein 3D (sorry, I'm not hardcore enough to remember the Apple II 2D Castle Wolfenstein :). I want B.J. Blazkowicz to come back in Q3A-level graphics glory. I want to kill some Nazis. I want to deathmatch in Wolfenstein. I want to hear Hans with his "Guten Tag" again.

Don't take all this away from me because some smart-ass journalist figures out this is a story for him.

I'm sure Xatrix will do a good job. Don't discourage them now, guys.

Afterall, Wolf3D is where it all started.

Jacek Fedoryñski

In the end, it will just come down to what all games do - the gameplay. Everything else is just fodder for the mainstream press. Oh, and for the record, yes, I do remember the Apple ][ Castle Wolfenstein (and of course, Beyond Castle Wolfenstein as well).

Damn hemispheres.

From: Allan.Mills
Subject: More than one hemisphere

It really annoys me that so many of the game companies seem to forget the world is composed of two hemispheres when they print their expected release dates. I just watched the Half-Life - opposing force trailer and it said it would be released fall 1999. Guess what? That was 6 months ago as far as I'm concerned.

We in the southern hemisphere are on the top half of the world. It's a scientific fact, gravity is a force and it pulls things downwards. Magnetism is also a force and the planets magnetic pull is to the northern pole. Therefore the north pole is the bottom of the world.

Allan

Okay, I'll admit it. I'm usually very good about remembering that our audience is truly global (we have readers in just about every country you can think of) but the definition of "Fall '99" never once occurred to me.


R.I.P. PlanetCrap?

From: Therac-25
Subject: Planetcrap....

Where did Planetcrap disappear to? It just seemed to vanish one day...

Also, you should advertise the mailbag@bluesnews.com address *on* the mailbag page, perhaps? :-)

--
Therac-25

To the best of my knowledge, PlanetCrap disappeared when they ran into server problems. Maybe it'll return someday...maybe not.

As for the e-mail address, that would be way too easy, wouldn't it? Don't you feel like you've discovered the Holy Grail when you found that?


Um...no.

From: ****@aol.com
Subject: do you

do you have any quake 3 models
if not do u know where i can get some


Wolf 2K Clarification.

From: Jack Scagnetti
Subject: Wolfenstein 2k

Maybe I'm missing something here but when I read the story I understood it to mean that they were going to update Escape from Castle Wolfenstein which was an old game I used to play on my Commodore 64 (still boots!) and involved escaping a nazi prison camp. It was a top-down type game that played like the old arcade game Berserk (showing my age now). So is this game a an update to Wolf3d by iD or Castle Wolfenstein of old?

It is, in fact, an update to the id Software classic, Wolfenstein 3D. I'm not sure who owns the rights to the original Wolfenstein, but someone really should resurrect that (even if it's just a reissue). It was a great game, and one of the first games I ever actually completed.

Getting that perfect gift.

From: Kendra D.
Subject: Christmas Help

I know this isn't probably the regular email you get here but I'm desperate for help! I would like to get my husband something he is excited about .... and as far as material things go that narrows down the field to about QUAKE!

He already makes levels for several games including Quake, Quake II and Chaos,... along with more. He has even had levels published in PCGamer, and his Choas pack was featured in an "article" on Blue's News. (He is Weasy!)

Anyway,... I wanted to get him something Quake oriented that he doesn't have and I'm not sure if there is such a thing. He has the figurines and the ID Quake Jersey. Is there anything out there that he would like that would be good for Christmas ?

Where do I look? Please help, I would be so appreciative!!

Thank you ,
Kendrakdd

PS He has already preordered (or at least tried to) for the QuakeIII tin. Is there anything out there?

Don't worry, Kendra, there are a million things you can find for even the most die-hard Quake fan. Obviously, your first bet are related games, such as Half-Life and mission packs. But of course, if he's really hard core, chances are he's got those (and pre-ordered any new ones).

Worry not - there's always something he doesn't have. Start with the Holy Grail of Quake fans - the id Anthology. Mmmm...you get a shirt, dog tags, a book, and best of all, every game id's ever made. It even has a pewter Cyberdemon.

If he's got that, or you can't find it (it is fairly scarce these days) remember the one thing every die-hard gamer needs - hardware. And lots of it. If he's got a video card, get him a new one. There's always a new one. Same with sound cards. Heck, get him a mouse and an EverGlide mouse pad. :)

And hey...nothing says, "I love you" like an Unreal Tournament p1mp chain. Oh yeah.

The Republic.

From: Ryan Feltrin
Subject: Republic?

Hey Blue,

I just thought it worthy of note, that the first time Blue's News has contained an entry with the heading "Republic" comes on the day when all Australians go to the polls to determine whether or not Australia is to become a Republic.

Coincidence?

Ryan Feltrin

No. In fact it was our way of influencing the vote. Obviously, it failed. That's the last time we try subliminal messages.

or maybe not


Today is Veterans Day.

From: Sgt Hulka
Subject: Happy Veterans Day!

What is a Vet?

- Unattributed

Some veterans bear visible signs of their service: a missing limb, a jagged scar, a certain look in the eye.

Others may carry the evidence inside them: a pin holding a bone together, a piece of shrapnel in the leg - or perhaps another sort of inner steel: the soul's ally forged in the refinery of adversity.

Except in parades, however, the men and women who have kept America safe wear no badge or emblem. You can't tell a vet just by looking.

What is a vet?

He is the cop on the beat who spent six months in Saudi Arabia sweating two gallons a day making sure the armored personnel carriers didn't run out of fuel.

He is the barroom loudmouth, dumber than five wooden planks, whose overgrown frat-boy behavior is outweighed a hundred times in the cosmic scales by four hours of exquisite bravery near the 38th parallel.

She - or he - is the nurse who fought against futility and went to sleep sobbing every night for two solid years in Da Nang.

He is the POW who went away one person and came back another -or- didn't come back AT ALL.

He is the Quantico drill instructor that has never seen combat - but has saved countless lives by turning slouchy, no-account rednecks and gang members into Marines, and teaching them to watch each other's backs.

He is the parade - riding Legionnaire who pins on his ribbons and medals with a prosthetic hand.

He is the career quartermaster who watches the ribbons and medals pass him by.

He is the three anonymous heroes in The Tomb Of The Unknowns, whose presence at the Arlington National Cemetery must forever preserve the memory of all the anonymous heroes whose valor dies unrecognized with them on the battlefield or in the ocean's sunless deep.

He is the old guy bagging groceries at the supermarket -palsied now and aggravatingly slow - who helped liberate a Nazi death camp and who wishes all day long that his wife were still alive to hold him when the nightmares come.

He is an ordinary and yet an extraordinary human being, a person who offered some of his life's most vital years in the service of his country, and who sacrificed his ambitions so others would not have to sacrifice theirs.

He is a soldier and a savior and a sword against the darkness, and he is nothing more than the finest, greatest testimony on behalf of the finest, greatest nation ever known.

So remember, each time you see someone who has served our country, just lean over and say Thank You. That's all most people need, and in most cases it will mean more than any medals they could have been awarded or were awarded.

Two little words that mean a lot, "THANK YOU".

Remember, November 11th is Veterans Day.

One fine man probably summarized it best...

"It is the soldier, not the reporter, Who has given us freedom of the press. It is the soldier, not the poet, Who has given us freedom of speech. It is the soldier, not the campus organizer, Who has given us the freedom to demonstrate. It is the soldier, Who salutes the flag, Who serves beneath the flag, and whose coffin is draped by the flag, Who allows the protester to burn the flag."

Thank You!

Again with the Tiny Print™.

From: Topher
Subject: Mailbag

Wait a minute...something smells fishy here.

Ack! That's it! There's no Tiny Print in the mailbag!

Noooooo!!!!!........(sounds of feet running off into the distance with various crashing sounds)

Topher


Thank you! Take my site, please!

From: Bigmell Fragsrus
Subject: Man Arrested After Hiding In A Hole For 12 Years

He was probably playing everquest.

G'night everybody!

A high-ping mod?

From: Matt McGlone
Subject: quake idea... can you run with it?

This isn't news as such, but it's a nifty idea...

It would be cool to have simulated ping rates in Q3A. Say, you wanna practice railing with a ping rate of 300, then you'd go to the console and type it in.

This would be great to provide a "level playing field" for two players who want to see who is better...which is hard to do when someone has a lower ping rate ... which is always an advantage?

What do you think? I think it'd be a cool idea. Can you pass it on to carmack?

Bye, Matt

Seems like an easily made mod...any takers?

There's one born every minute.

From: Singleton, Richard
Subject: Q3 arena on ebay

I found this very strange....not only is a game that has not even been released up for sale on ebay, but ppl are bidding on it!!

Aint dat a blip??

peep it : http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=197055328

Later,
Shug

Amazing, ain't it?