Starting in 1996, Alexa Internet has been donating their crawl data to the Internet Archive. Flowing in every day, these data are added to the Wayback Machine after an embargo period.
In many ways, Act of War feels like a better, and more serious, version of EA's Command & Conquer series, whose real-time strategy games featured extensive live-action cutscenes. However, where Command & Conquer always went for camp with scenery-chewing performances and over-the-top plots, Act of War goes for gritty realism. The geopolitical nature of the plot lends the game an "It could happen tomorrow" feel. Meanwhile, the handheld camera shots along with the quick edits give the cutscenes the feel of an action movie, while the amount of technical jargon flying about will certainly impress military fans. Of course, that's probably expected, since Eugen Systems, the game's developer, worked with the New York Times best-selling author Dale Brown on the game's plot.
The Stronghold series has something a bit different going for it than other RTS games. It's another turtle game that encourages players to build up strong defenses and then move out into the world and start dealing damage to players. Though... if playing the first bits of both the military and economic portions of the game is any indication, it's not going to be so simple this time around. In the kingmaker mode and single player military campaign, players will be forced to make decisions. The single player portion in particular will challenge players to complete goals much quicker than they might have intended to in a normal game of Stronghold.
Lineage II: The Chaotic Chronicle Team Q&A; #3
We ask about particularly pleasant surprises and fun moments in the North American version of NCsoft's endeavor. - Includes eight exclusive screenshots
Dungeon Lords Media #5
Outside and inside Heuristic Park's Temple of the Moors, we face a Wild Wolf, a Goblin Mage and lots of Nagas. - Eight exclusive screenshots
Computer Games - One of the big attactions of the first Stronghold games were the castle siege features. First, what kinds of new defenses will the player have for his castle to protect him or her from invading armies?
Simon Bradbury - There are many new ways to burn, perforate, flatten, slice and shatter those that would hurl themselves against your walls. We've got pitch ditches as before(which can be set aflame to torch your enemies), boiling oil, spike pits, and lots more.. But its our new burning logs system that gets us excited, these heavy logs are mounted on the side of castle walls, to be released by the player to cause physics mayhem on the poor approaching enemies.
That Physics PPU will really add a lot of spice to games like these.
Then came the following bombshell, "This [delay] will enable further development work to be undertaken on these titles (including additional versions of Lara Croft Tomb Raider for the next generation PSP and Xbox 2 platforms) and allow the Company to take advantage of more favorable release windows."
Unfortunately, that's all the earnings report said regarding the PSP and Xbox 2 versions of the seventh Tomb Raider game, which are the only platforms for which it has been officially confirmed. The game is set for release in Eidos' next fiscal year, which begins July 1, which would be the earliest possible launch date for the PSP version. But with industry expectations pointing toward a Q4 2005 launch for Microsoft's next-gen console, a holiday release looks more likely if all versions of Tomb Raider VII ship simultaneously.
Call of Duty 2 Nuggets12:46 pm
- Robert 'Apache' Howarth
- Games: Action(14 comments)
Infinity Ward's Call of Duty 2 is featured in this month's PC Gamer Magazine (April 2005) and has the first details about the sequel to the best WW2 game released to date (Brothers in Arms isn't out for the PC yet, so I don't include that). Without spoiling the game, here are a few tasty info nuggets from the article:
Call of Duty 2 uses a new proprietary graphics engine featuring normal-mapping, specular-mapping, bump-spec, real-time lighting and shadows and donut bumping (okay I made the last one up).
Is less scripted and linear than the original letting players jump from any of the campaigns (American, English, Russian) in whatever order they want. Not to the point of being Grand Theft Auto: WW2, but the gameplay is a lot more open ended.
Hints at a possible playable German campaign.
Missions set in Normandy, Stalingrad and North Africa.
Huge maps on "a scale of miles".
Better story telling, more emotional than the original.
D-Day landing mission is supposed to be pretty good.
Improved squad based companions.
Overall, a great article and well worth picking up. On a totally unrelated note, they slapped Star Wars Republic Commando with a 62% score.
Total Overdose Revealed; Nudies09:44 am
- Andrew Burnes
- Games: Action(12 comments)
Although vaguely announced back in January, SCi and Deadline Games today took the wraps off Total Overdose, a third-person action shooter in similar vein to Grand Theft Auto and the thousand other clones coming outta the woodwork of late:
The year is 1989 and deep in the sweltering heat of the Mayan jungle, camouflaged among the Inca ruins, Ernesto Cruz catches his breath for a few moments and admires his handiwork, bodies strewn across the temple ruins, as he makes a last gasp effort to board a DEA plane to take him to safety. He never made it home, the tragic victim of an alleged 'OVERDOSE'.
Two weeks ago Ernesto's son, Ramiro Cruz is hauled out of jail by the DEA to be told his twin brother, Tommy, works for them as an undercover agent and has some new information about their father's death. But, Tommy has had an accident with a hand grenade and now Ramiro must take his brother's place in an undercover operation closing in on the ruthless drug cartel overlord Papa Muerte.
Through stylized Mexican neighbourhoods and jungle hide-outs to the swanky Californian coast; TOTAL OVERDOSE is an over-the-top, adrenalin-fuelled, free-style action, 3rd person cinematic adventure with a strong whiff of tequila.
Crash cars, steal hats, shoot bad guys with style, jump bikes, fight in the street, meet girls, shoot more bad guys, find your fathers killer, hot-wire tractors, eat Burritos, catch planes, drink tequila; the Mexican heat can make people do the strangest things.
(Click to Enlarge!)
Total Overdose will be released on the Playstation 2, PC, and Xbox this summer.
AND 1, the performance basketball footwear and apparel company is best known for its Mix Tape Tour property and its more than 100 endorsers in the NBA.
Every summer AND 1 hosts the AND 1 Mix Tape Tour, which raises the bar for the brashest and most innovative playground moves ever invented. This summer-long roadshow pits the best players each city has to offer against the AND 1 playground legends such as The Professor, Spyda, Half Man-Half Amazing, AO, Sik wit It, Main Event and others. Held in more than 50 cities around the world each year, the AND 1 streetball events are featured on the ESPN television network series: "Street Ball: The AND 1 Mix Tape Tour presented by Mountain Dew."
The first hook up was with golfer Vijay Singh, FYI.
PSX Back Again; Adds PSP Compatibility09:36 am
- Andrew Burnes
- Consoles: PS2(2 comments)
Thought Sony's multimedia PS2 was dead in the water after production ceased? Well apparently not, as Sony today revealed models that can save video recorded on the device to Memory Sticks, which can in turn be watched on the PSP.
Among the new weapons to be found in Resurrection is the grabber gun. Reminiscent of a certain weapon in Half-Life 2, the grabber allows players to swipe objects and projectile weapons, and fling them around the room. You can even grab small demons and toss them back at their friends, killing two birds with one stone. Using the grabber well requires timing, but once mastered, it is a powerful weapon. For example, grabbing an Imp's fireball and flinging back at the hapless demon will result in its instant demise. The grabber can also be used to reach out-of-the-way weapons and health packs.
SCEA has engaged in a long series of legal manoeuvres to outlaw the chips since 2002 when it took legal action against backyard mod chip supplier, Eddy Stevens, in the Federal Court.
Sony asked the court to interpret parts of the Copyright Act outlawing the devices that circumvent copy protection mechanisms to include mod chips that Mr Stevens was selling.
However, Justice Ronald Sackville ruled in favour of Mr Stevens after the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission intervened in the case.
A new job position for a Level Designer was announced by Swingin Ape Studios, who is leading the development of Starcraft: Ghost with supervision of Blizzard's Rob Pardo & Chris Metzen. The job position highlights Multiplayer level design a plus. Seeing as all Blizzard games have multiplayer features, it is no surprise that Blizzard could be considering multiplayer in Starcraft: Ghost for console gamers.
After the sudden leave of Nihilistic from the project, Blizzard assigned Swingin Ape Studios to follow up development of Starcraft: Ghost few months ago(July 7, 2004). Although Blizzard has not officially confirmed Multiplayer features for Starcraft: Ghost, the job opening may suggest that Blizzard and Swinging Ape Studios are studying the possibility of adding Multiplayer capabilities to the Console game.
GGMania: How will the enemy AI function? Can you give us an example?
Reinhard D�pfer: The ParaWorld AI acts as a virtual player through a special user interface. Its actions and basic behavioural patterns are exactly the same as a human player would see. This is accomplished by deriving AI behaviour from the normal gameplay functionality. To make the AI as flexible as possible, it constantly evaluates its current techtree status and finds the most valuable upgrades. In parallel, unit management competes for resources. All resource needs are weighted against each other and the higher priorities finally become AI activities. Our AI is prepared to use co-operative strategies, especially for Multiplayer games. This includes distributed resource management, co-ordinated outposts and also in-game chat messages. To address the varying game characteristics for the available tribes, the AI code uses hand-tuned short-term strategies in both combat and economy.
"It's been deferred. We were originally hoping for an end of fiscal year (March 31) launch, but now that's not going to be the case," a Sony spokesman told Reuters Tuesday. "It is likely to be a matter of a few months rather than a few weeks -- it's a matter of allocation." "When it launches in the U.S., they will have 1 million units at launch and continuity of supply thereafter," he added.
Meanwhile, Buena Vista Home Entertainment has announced that five of their titles will make the transition to UMD format for viewing on the slinky device:
BVHE will release National Treasure, Pirates Of The Caribbean: The Curse Of The Black Pear, Reign Of Fire, Kill Bill Vol. 1 and Hero in the United States and Canada. Other titles to be made available will be announced throughout the year.
"Buena Vista Home Entertainment is excited to move forward with our movies on this format. With its crisp picture, ease of use and quick response mechanisms, the PSP is poised to revolutionize portable entertainment systems throughout the world," said Chapek. "We are confident that the five titles we announced today appeal to the new PSP consumer."
BeyondUnreal: A huge part of the success of Unreal Tournament 2004 was the addition of vehicles and the Onslaught gametype. Looking back, what about Unreal Tournament 2004 do you think _didn't_ work? What would you like to have changed?
Steve Polge: With Assault, it's the problem that in many maps, the game play tends to get bogged down in spam fests around certain chokepoints. We spent a lot of time trying to improve this issue, but it is difficult to prevent this and keep assault from becoming too complicated for casual players.
With Onslaught, the problem is that once one team has a significant advantage, it's often difficult for the other team to mount a comeback. This is particularly the case on node layouts with only a single node connection to the powercore (which is a good layout for small player counts, but not for larger player counts). We tried to address this by providing multiple node layouts, but unfortunately people tend to play with the default layout.
We're working on some new game play mechanics to address this issue for the next Unreal Tournament.
'Grats Epic.
Enemy In Sight Revealed02:42 am
- Andrew Burnes
- Games: Action(1 comment)
Although we've yet to receive the official press release, we can today reveal that Mafia developer Illusion Softworks is presently beavering away on Enemy In Sight, a near-future first-person shooter depicting an epic conflict between Russia and The United States of America.
Featuring a predilection for vehicular combat, Enemy In Sight is to be published by Atari, and released later this year.
In Other News...02:31 am
- Andrew Burnes
- In-House: In Other News...(21 comments)
I've had trouble accessing our content management system the past few days, but thankfully all seems well now.
I think I only spoke to Billy once or twice, but without him, I would never have been on this site today, so thanks Billy, may you rest in peace.
What is your fondest Billy phrase/saying/quote/story/anecdote?
Your game has often been described as having a 'survival horror' aspect, do you think this is relevant and fair?
Kevin Stephens: No not really. In survival horror you usually get six bullets and you've got to conserve them and there's puzzle elements, at least that's what I understand and F.E.A.R. is not like that at all. It's a first-person-shooter first and foremost. It's action and we give you lots of bullets, guns and things to blow up. And you're going to have fun. It's the story and how you tell the story where the horror elements creep in and you start to feel that things don't seem right.
Duke Nukem Forever Nuggets01:11 pm
- Robert 'Apache' Howarth
- Games: Action(30 comments)
In classic message board hooker style, here are the latest posts on the 3D Realms boards about by Big Daddy George Broussard about Duke Nukem Forever development:
Has DNF Missed the Boat? I still think the game will get canned. What we see on the outside is a developement cycle that has been too messy to turn out well. Somehow I can't shake off the feeling George will one day come out and say feature creep caught up with them and they took too much time.
George Broussard: I really don't think that will happen. Things have been pretty solidly on track for the last 2 years.
DNF sounds too ambitious to get released.
George Broussard: Ambitiuos from who? We certainly don't talk about it. We are probably still attempting too much with too few people but we continue to cut back to reasonable limits all the time as we move forward and re-evalaute things all the time.
All talk (then no talk at all) and always a no show
George Broussard: When's the last time we talked? Oh yeah, pretty much not in several years. We've been working.
Classic Duke multiplayer levels?
George Broussard: It's been talked about many times internally and it's something we'd like to do, but we're not working on final DM levels at the moment as single player is the focus. I can tell you that Hollywood Holocaust has existed as a DM level in the past (on older versions of the game/engine).
Motion Sickness Inc?
George Broussard: Our default fov is 90 and will likely stay that way.
More Boats, More Misses I'd really like to hear George on this subject, just to see what the last update was that they had from Epic.
George Broussard: I don't remember, but it was a long long time ago, like early 2002 or even before that. We pretty much cut off before Unreal 2 and just started writing our own rendering and gameplay systems on top of whatever version of Unreal we had at the time.
With Prey, the technology was the bottleneck, currenly with DNF it is content, that is why 3D Realms is on a hiring spree currently.
George Broussard: Those are both true. With Prey, and evern early DNF we lacked the technical abilities to get the engine frameworks finished to useable states. We've solved that. We are in deed in pure content creation now on DNF.
So, you say that DNF's developing time takes so long because of thier graphics, not the insane amount of interactivity..?!
George Broussard: In a nutshell...yes. Also we're a pretty small team by today's standards, at about 28 people. We're still hiring people and ramping up some more.
3D Realms outsources model work to Liquid Development (not Entertainment, sorry my bad) I'm wondering why 3DR had to outsource their models. Are their artists not competent enough to create their own high quality models?
George Broussard: Because it takes a long time to model 500k-1m poly models and we have a lot of them to do. Take a look at the list of clients Liquid has and you'll see that outsourcing art is a pretty common thing to do.
Any Geomod type destruction?
George Broussard: Sorry guys, not going to happen, in this game. I agree that GeoMod is a cool idea and I'm surprise that nobody ran with it after Red Faction. There is so much you can do with it.
In the old days, George would send Billy a nasty email about me posting this sort of stuff, then Billy would forward it to me laughing, and tell me to find more. It really sucks he won't be able to play it now. :(
Pariah feels good. The modified Unreal engine gives developers several tools they've used well. The texture work is detailed, and in some places its Normal mapped (backgrounds, mostly). The color palette of the world is richly colored, with deep greens, browns, and blues, and in the outside areas, the sunlight, filtering and shadow work is excellent.
Dan Conners of Telltale Games talks to Computer Games Magazine about Bone, their upcoming PC adventure game based on the acclaimed independent comic
book from Jeff Smith.
Also, Ben Simpson of Nicely Crafted Entertainment talks to Computer Games Magazine about Republic Dawn, the recently announced space based MMO "sequel" to Elixir Studios' Republic The Revolution.
Submarine fans love to immerse themselves in the historical and compelling world of authentic WWII U-boat battles via books, movies and television programs. Silent Hunter III will blow this passive submarine experience out of the water with its all-new 3D engine, Dynamic Campaign system, detailed U-boat models and immersive battles thrusting players into the depths of intense stealth action.
"We're really excited to finally let players man the torpedoes and completely immerse themselves in Silent Hunter III," said Florin Boitor, producer, Ubisoft's Romanian studio. "The team is very proud of the early feedback within the community and the press. We feel we have succeeded in creating an all-new U-boat experience that combines movie-like graphics and a realistic atmosphere, while making it challenging to both series fans and players new to naval simulations.
After a false start last Friday, Ubi Soft has now released the first official patches for Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30 to upgrade the English, German, French, Italian and Spanish editions of the new World War II tactical shooter by Gearbox Software to version 1.02. Word is: "This patch focuses mainly on improving the online matchmaking and LAN mulitplayer features."
Nadeo has released a new playable demo for TrackMania Sunrise, now allowing everyone to take their track building and racing game sequel for a spin as it no longer requires a Trackmania CD-ROM. This demo contains two race tracks playable in single- and multiplayer, a pair of platform levels (one of which unfortunately incomplete), and two track-building challenges.
Act of War: Direct Action(TM) is a graphically stunning and frighteningly plausible tale of suspense, international intrigue and geopolitical military conflict. Through a techno-thriller story constructed by military expert and author Dale Brown, this real-time strategy experience puts players squarely in control of counterterrorist forces to defend cities of the world. As commander of a newly formed anti-terror military unit known as the Talon Task Force, players will need to recruit combat units, develop technologies, manage finite resources, and deploy their forces against a cunning and ruthless terror network.
Developed by Eugen Systems with a storyline and game universe created in cooperation with Dale Brown, New York Times best-selling author and expert on US military, global conflict and future military technology, Act of War: Direct Action(TM) is available now for personal computer at retailers nationwide at a suggested retail price $49.99.
PC.IGN has the first review giving it a solid 8.5/10.
In Other News...08:22 am
- Robert 'Apache' Howarth
- In-House: In Other News...(50 comments)
I remember when I got my first 3dfx card (Monster 3D) and hit up the 3dfx website to download some tech demos (anyone remember the dolphin one?). After I grabbed all they had, I checked out the related links page, and one of the sites listed was Voodoo Extreme. I was an avid newsgroup and forum reader and started sending in stuff that was 3D related and eventually made friends with Billy, which is when I got a job working for the then Planet Quake Network on Plant Unreal and later Planet Half Life (and a few other now forgettable planets) and landed my first 'real' full-time on-site job in the biz at GameFan Magazine out in LA. He not only inspired me, he inspired an entire generation of gamers.
Throughout that time I helped on and off at VE and got to know Billy as good as anyone did. Then the dot bomb struck and destroyed the site as we knew it. No longer was having massive traffic a good thing, it was just a bigger hosting bill because the ads weren't paying off and the thimble dick owners weren't paying us our salary. Long story short, Billy lost everything and quit to do other things. He was too proud to ask readers for money and we were all cool with that. He was without a doubt at the top of the gaming news field in his prime and helped not only this niche market take off, but gave starts to many, many game developers who later wouldn't give him the time of day when he started his new site, Gaming Groove (Tim Sweeney would be the exception).
Billy was a rockstar. He lived fast and died young. He will be missed by millions.
Update: If you want to send your well wishes to Billy's family, the email is remember_billy@novasio.com.
