The Incredibles Update 07.24.2004
If only I had stretching powers...

First Look: LEGO Star Wars 07.24.2004
Initial impressions of Traveller's Tales unlikely licensed actioner.

• English
• German
• French

Tribes: Vengeance Updated Beta Preview 03:03 pm - Apache - games: action (0 comments)
PC.IGN slapped up a updated preview of the on-going beta test for Tribes: Vengeance:

The most notable difference is the number of people playing. While the early beta was limited to only a few dozen testers, the flood gates have opened with hundreds of beta testers thrown into the mix now, and I've played several 16 vs. 16 games since the new beta code was deployed last Friday. The game is a dramatically different experience with a full set of players in some of the maps, especially the smaller ones where the action is much harrier and frantic than before. Unfortunately, with more players on the maps, we have noticed some decreased performance and choppier gameplay. It's not horrible and it's still completely playable, but there are noticeable lag and framerate issues now. On a positive note, Irrational has some time to work on the network code before the game is released later this year, and since we're still playing on unoptimized code, we're not too concerned at this point.

Rome: Total War Diary 02:49 pm - Apache - games: real-time strategy (0 comments)
Gamespot is sporting a new designer diary for Creative Assembly's Rome: Total War which was written by writer/ designer Mike Brunton. The topic is The Roman Empire in 3D:

There are side benefits in the change to the 3D system created for Rome: Total War beyond the strategic aspects. For a start, the world looks handsome. Terrain looks like what you'd expect, and we even have a couple of volcanoes smoking away at Vesuvius and Etna. (Important hint: Do not stand near these during an eruption.) We can change the terrain over time so that roads and farmlands appear as they are developed around settlements (roads help your legions' mobility, of course). The settlements also change as fate is cruel or kind: Growth, conquest, and even enslavement are all reflected in the look of a settlement on the map. We've also made resources visible on the campaign map. You can see provinces and settlements with rich pickings before you invade. We can also show the passage of time by changing the gameworld according to the season: In winter, Germania looks a whole lot less inviting (particularly for troops who don't believe in warm underwear), covered as it is in a thick layer of snow. It's easy to see why, until quite recently, armies sensibly waited until the better weather came before going to war.

Sid Meier's Pirates! Website 01:59 pm - Apache - games: action / adventure (0 comments)
Ahoy, ya scurvvy bastards! Firaxis announced it has launched the new website for Sid Meier's Pirates!:

Adventurous visitors will discover an exclusive behind-the-scenes designer diary written by gaming legend and lead designer, Sid Meier. Visit frequently to gain insight into new features and gameplay enhancements through the "Developer Updates" written by various members of the Pirates! development team.

An all-new video featuring gameplay from the upcoming game and brief details about the original game is available for download now.

The new Pirates! carries on with the great gameplay and design simplicity tradition of the award-winning original while adding more challenging and exciting battle options, and a deeper and more varied role-playing experience, including multiple paths to a wealthy, happy retirement. This and many other features and additions make this gaming classic one of the most highly anticipated releases of this century!

NVIDIA Chips Proclaimed Best for Doom 3 01:44 pm - Apache - games: action (16 comments)
NVIDIA sent out a press release proclaiming that its 6800 line is the best brand to get for DOOM 3:

NVIDIA Corporation (Nasdaq: NVDA - News), the worldwide leader in visual processing solutions, today announced that independent third-party testing confirms that the NVIDIA® GeForce(TM) 6800 Ultra and the GeForce 6800 GT graphics processing units (GPUs) deliver faster performance than comparable competitive offerings in Doom 3(TM), regarded as one of the most highly-anticipated PC games in history. The testing reveals that the NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Ultra GPU offers the best performance in the upcoming Doom 3 title, with GeForce 6800 GT running a close second, outperforming the high-end graphics chip offered from the leading competitor that costs approximately $100 more. In the testing, the NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Ultra beat the comparable competitive offering by up to 40%. The GeForce 6800 GT performed up to 70% better than the competitor's comparable offering(i).

"From the simple data here we see that the GeForce 6800 Ultra and GeForce 6800 GT are in a class of their own, putting some very good distance between themselves and the competition's flagship," stated Kyle Bennett editor in chief for HardOCP in the article. "If I had to make a list of high end video cards to purchase to play Doom 3, the GeForce 6800 Ultra and GeForce 6800 GT would easily take the number one and number two spots..."

The official benchmarks were released by the creator of Doom 3, id Software(TM), with the help of HardOCP.com (www.hardocp.com), a leading hardware enthusiast's Web site. The NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Ultra and GeForce 6800 GT took the top two spots in every PCI Express test. The GeForce 6800 Ultra and GeForce 6800 GT GPUs also finished at the top of their respective categories in every AGP test, missing another sweep of the top two spots by a mere one tenth of a second.

"All that considered, for those of you that are in the high end video card market, the GeForce 6800 GT looks to very much be the sweet spot when it comes to playing Doom 3 with all the eye candy turned on at high resolutions. Obviously the 6800 Ultra is even faster for those of you that need the best no matter the cost," the article states.

Rome: Total War Website 01:34 pm - Apache - games: real-time strategy (0 comments)
Activision recently re-launched the official Rome: Total War website with game information aplenty, plus posted some new movies as well of its upcoming real-time strategy game. Check out all that goodness here.

Robert Duffy (id) .plan Update 01:18 pm - Apache - games: action (1 comment)
id programmer Robert Duffy updated his .plan about "I thought I would clarify a few of the reasons and also take the time to mention some of the hardware and software we found incredibly useful during the development of DOOM 3." The update is rather long, but here's a nice chunk of it:

To put things in perspective, most production levels in DOOM 3 contain more media assets than all of Quake 3: Arena. When we started working on the memory foot print, our goal was a 256MB system. In most cases loading up an area of the game on a 256MB system works fine, the problems arise when you start to transition from one area to the next ( successive map loads ). Memory fragmentation starts to really work against us and it ultimately made it just not feasible for a reasonable play experience to support 256MB.

Two basic options make up the quality levels, sound diversity and image fidelity.

Sound diversity is effectively how many sounds we support per sound shader for a given "sound". There may be for instance, 7 different "bullet striking the wall" sounds for a given bullet. In low quality, we only use one sound for this vs randomly choosing between one of the seven available. When we started on memory optimization, most levels used between 80 and 100 megabytes of sound data. We made the choice to move to .OGG for quite a few sounds which effectively removed the problem for us.

Pacific Assault Q&A; 12:06 pm - Jeff Tom - games: action (0 comments)
Eurogamer have slapped up an interview on Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault. Here's a snippet:

Eurogamer: Tell us how the multiplayer will work in Pacific Assault.

Matt Powers: Multiplayer is one of my primary focuses. When we started Pacific Assault I saw it as one the areas that we could improve upon the most out of anything. A lot of games, they do it as a single-player focused product, and multiplayer kind of comes as an afterthought. It's still really good, but I really wanted for Pacific Assault, the multiplayer as much of a focus as possible as the single player game.

Creative & id Work on 3D Audio 12:05 pm - Apache - games: action (1 comment)
Creative and id announced that it is working to develop EAX Advanced HD 3D audio to licensees of the DOOM 3 engine:

"The DOOM 3 engine ushers in a new rendering paradigm that allows id and our licensees to bring cinema quality visuals to game players in real time," said Todd Hollenshead, CEO of id Software. "We look forward to further enhancing players' audio experience by working with Creative to leverage their EAX ADVANCED HD audio technology in the DOOM 3 engine."

"Working together with id Software, an industry icon, provides Creative with an exciting opportunity to enhance one of the hottest game engines around," said Hock Leow, CTO of Creative Technology. "We look forward to the challenge of implementing EAX ADVANCED HD Multi-Environment technology within the Doom 3 engine, and subsequently working with id to make these enhancements available to their licensees. We are also pleased with the agreement relating to Creative's patented shadowing technique and id's cutting-edge 3D graphics DOOM 3 engine."

A future version of the DOOM 3 engine featuring Creative EAX ADVANCED HD audio technology is expected to be available to id Software licensees later this year.

EverQuest 2 Q&A; 11:29 am - Jeff Tom - games: mmog (0 comments)
Computer&VideoGames; have posted up an interview with SOE on their MMORPG. Here's a cut:

How much are you expecting the overall game to change from your initial designs once the beta test runs its course?

Sites: Based on what we as a company have seen in the past, we're expecting it to change significantly. There are a lot of the systems and areas, such as the tutorial and the introductory part of the game on the Isle Of Refuge, that we feel we've now refined to a point where it's not likely to change a whole lot. But the big areas that probably will change are things like the encounter systems, the population sizes of the dungeons.

The Matrix Online Report 12:46 am - Apache - games: mmog (0 comments)
Our buddy Jonric from the RPG Vault went down to Monolith last week to check out its upcoming massively mutliplayer game - The Matrix Online. While he couldn't really disclose everything he saw (they made em sign an NDA) he does share a lot of good information on the game. Snip:

Another topic we discussed was maintaining the inherent feeling of the Matrix property. In this respect, we can expect an atmosphere in which situations won't always be as they initially seem, and things that appear minor or even trivial at first either gain substantial significance later on or turn out to have been important all along. Although understandably reluctant to reveal any spoilers, Toby did refer to the large statues that may be seen in certain places; an example may be seen beside a church in one of the accompanying screenshots. Adding to the sense of mystery, there will be a political layer involving the divergent interests of three major factions, Zion, the Merovingians and the Machines, all of which can offer missions. As you might well guess, there will be hidden agendas at work, with the possibility of rewards for those who can unravel them.

X-Men Legends Preview 12:35 am - Apache - games: action / roleplaying (0 comments)
Gamespy slapped up a three page preview of X-Men Legends, Raven Software's latest project:

Although the game purports to be an action-RPG, I found it much heavier on the action than on the RPG elements. The basic gameplay is beat-'em-up style along the lines of a modern-day Gauntlet, but instead of playing as an elf, warrior, or sorcerer you have a large cast of characters with messed up genes to choose from. The game's enemies have various resistances (energy resistance, physical resistance, etc.) that encourage you to try out different characters. Hopefully this prevents all the Wolverine fans out there from playing the entire game as the popular hirsute mutie.

Axis & Allies Preview 12:32 am - Apache - games: real-time strategy (0 comments)
The chaps at Gamesdomain took a look at TimeGate Studios' forthcoming real-time strategy game - Axis & Allies:

One of the most promising aspects of the game's real-time strategy bulk is its nation-specific experiences. Instead of offering cookie-cutter factions, Axis & Allies has armies with their own unique units and historically relevant generals. Generals give players access to special abilities and super-attacks; for example, on the U.S. side, special abilities include paradrops, air bombing-runs, and even the atomic bomb.

Iron Phoenix Developer Diary 12:28 am - Apache - games: action / strategy (0 comments)
Gamesdomain kicked up the first of its developer's diaries for Sammy Studios' Iron Phoenix:

After many design meetings, and long sessions of watching martial arts movies and playing first-person shooters (sometimes until sunrise), they finally formulated their idea into a solid concept for a game. They would take the mechanics of a strategic multiplayer FPS like Counter Strike, which was a big hit in China and Taiwan at that time, and combine it with the fast-paced action of Unreal. Additionally, it's gameplay and premise would be based on weapons-based martial arts like those found in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

Grimoire Article 12:25 am - Apache - games: role-playing (4 comments)
RPG Dot kicked up an interview with Cleve Blakemore about his upcoming role playing game - Grimoire:

When I asked him about the future of his (and my) favourite genre he said we need to take a leaf from the Golden Age of RPG's. "They were very popular then and would still be as popular today if we didn't keep dumbing them down trying to appeal to people who can't rise above the intellectual level needed to play console games." His hope for the future is to see more games like Fallout or Planescape-Torment, two of his personal favourites. "Games shouldn't take themselves too seriously," he said. "They need to be more light-hearted with tongue in cheek humour." This love of humour in games was a theme he mentioned several times. You'll find it in Grimoire as well.

100 Bullets Preview 12:21 am - Apache - games: action (0 comments)
Gamespy shot off a quick preview of 100 Bullets, Acclaim's comic inspired third person shooter:

If you don't know the story behind 100 Bullets, you're in for a treat. It basically boils down to this: a shadowy man approaches you, and tells you that someone out there, who you may or may not even know, has ruined your life in some way, and you can get your revenge without repercussions. In the briefcase he hands you, you find all of the information you need, 100 bullets, and a clean gun. It's up to you how and when things go down, which is where the beauty of the comic comes from. It's a gritty, slighty twisted view of a shadowy set of circumstances, and Brian Azzarello's characters never have it easy.

HomeLan Interviews 12:16 am - Apache - games: general news (0 comments)
Three Q&A;'s from HomeLan today:

• Star Wolves Interview - A chat with Alexey Kozyrev of Xbow Software about its upcoming space combat game.
• Nexus: The Jupiter Incident Interview - A little Q&A; with Andras Sindelyes of Mithis about its space strategy game.
• Iron Lore Interview - An interview with Iron Lore founder Brian Sullivan about their new publishing deal with THQ.

WorthPlaying Features 12:16 am - Apache - games: general news (0 comments)
Some early goodness from WorthPlaying:

• Kult: Heretic Kingdoms - Developer Diary Part 3
• Ratchet & Clank 3 (PS2) - Developer Q&A;
• Jak 3 (PS2) - Developer Q&A;

Game Reviews 12:15 am - Apache - games: general news (0 comments)
Since Joe is moving over to IGN for his new job next week, I guess I should start posting these... I haven't had to round up reviews for awhile, so forgive me if I should miss anything. As usual, send those review links to the @news box. Including the score in your submission is also a plus.

PC

• Blitzkrieg: Burning Horizon - Boomtown - 7/10
• Lure of the Temptress - Adventure Gamer - 2/5
• Painkiller - GamingNexus - 8.6
• Thief: Deadly Shadows - Game Chronicles - Editor's Choice Award

GameCube

• Pokemon Box: Ruby & Sapphire - IGN - 5.0/10
• Tom Clancy's Splinter Pandora Tomorrow - IGN - 8.0/10
• Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Pandora Tomorrow - Gamespot - 6.1/10

In Other News... 12:00 am - Apache - in-house: in other news... (29 comments)
That new series on HBO "Entourage" is pretty decent. My biggest complaint is that it's just 30 minutes long instead of their usual hour for Sunday night series, so it ends as soon as it warms up. It's no Sopranos or Deadwood, but it's worth checking out after Enterprise (on UPN) is over if you're bored on a Sunday night.

Today's question is Do you think that strong DOOM III performance will be enough to bring NVIDIA back into the forefront of the minds of gamers when it comes to graphic card performance?

News is pretty slow and there's a major thunderstorm rolling across my area, but lets see what we can dig up...

So in 2002, Majesco began launching its own games. One of the first was BloodRayne, an action adventure game featuring a sexy, gun-toting vampire. Sutton sank $6 million of the family's money into producing, marketing, and distributing the game. Adding to the risk was the nearly simultaneous release of Blade II, a similarly themed vampire game from Activision. "It's definitely riskier, but having [original content] of this caliber is key to our company's growth," says Jesse, 34.

That bet paid off, and BloodRayne not only beat expectations, selling more than 600,000 units and bringing in $30 million so far, but also became Majesco's first blockbuster franchise, resulting in both a feature film (about to start production) and a game sequel, expected to be released in October. (BloodRayne also outperformed Blade II, which sold only 194,000 copies.)

Counter-Strike Updated 01:19 pm - Apache - games: action (8 comments)
There's a small patch for Counter-Strike available on Steam today, here's wtf it does:

An update for Counter-Strike has just been released. Steam will update itself automatically when you restart. Here is the change:

COUNTER-STRIKE

• Improved shell ejection behavior causing errors

The Week Ahead 01:10 pm - Jeff Tom - in-house: in other news... (0 comments)
Things aren't only slow in the news department lately, as game releases have sputtered out this summer. Of course, I don't think I have to tell anyone reading this Doom 3 is a little more than a week away but friends and family might want to know. :) Anyway, enjoy:

PC EverQuest: Platinum, Medieval Conquest.

PS2 None.

XBox Pure Pinball.

GameCube None.

Gameboy Advance Hamtaro: Ham-Ham Games.

Movies The Village, The Manchurian Candidate, Thunderbirds, Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle.

DVD Adventures of Jim Bowie, Blue Spring, Breaking the Habit, Conquest, Contraband, Devil's Backbone, Garfield and Friends 1, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, Hellboy, High Art, Living Hell, Ned Kelly, Nero Wolfe Season 1, New Avengers Season 2, Pennies from Heaven, Rocked with Gina Gershon, Showgirls VIP Edition, V: Complete Series, Whole Ten Yeards, You Bet Your Life - The Best Episodes, Zombie.

LEGO Star Wars First Look 12:35 pm - Apache - games: action (0 comments)
PC.IGN has a first look at LEGO Star Wars which was shown at the San Diego Comic-Con:

To be more specific, LEGO Star Wars recounts the events of the first three episodes in the Star Wars trilogy -- The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, and of course, Revenge of the Sith. Unlike most of the other Star Wars titles out there, however, LEGO incorporates an all-new team-based mechanic.

This new mechanic is what's being referred to as "drop-in/drop-out" gameplay, and even at this early stage, it works pretty well. What it is essentially is a two-player co-op effort that encourages players to choose from various characters on the fly so that they may use their specific abilities when needed. In the demo we sampled, for instance, the experience began at the start of Episode One; With Qui-Gon Jin and Obi-Wan Kenobi talking in the waiting room of the Trade Federation's mothership. Once the intro cut scene was over, however, we were immediately thrust into the duo's familiar lightsaber fight with the Federation's legion of Battle Droids while performing all sorts of neat Jedi-inspired maneuvers.

Operation: Matriarchy Interview 12:31 pm - Apache - games: action (0 comments)
The Junkyard tossed up an interview with MADia about Operation: Matriarchy:

tJY: The FPS genre is already crowded with great deal of games as it is. What do you think will set Operation: Matriarchy apart from the rest of the games out there?

MADia: In fact, almost in every feature it is a shooter except for some little differences. For example, take power armor suits. States within the suit or without it will be equal and complementary. We mainly aimed at creation of psychological contrast between stealth gameplay (without power armor suit) and fights with strong enemy, from which you have to cover (within the suit). In accordance with the type of suit you can choose any line of equipment, up to the most monstrous and destructive. But with big gun and heavy armor you will lose your mobility. You can't go everywhere, enemies can hear and see you better, but besides powerful weapons the player gets powerful defense, his strength also increases greatly, he can throw heavy objects and break the doors with one punch, and that would remain only a dream without power armor suit.

Tribes: Vengeance Preview 12:30 pm - Apache - games: action (1 comment)
The guys at PC Gameworld shot up a hands-on preview of Irrational's Unreal engined Tribes: Vengeance which includes some nice high-res screen shots as well.

The Incredibles Update 12:30 pm - Apache - games: action / adventure (0 comments)
Also shown off at the San Diego Comic-Con was The Incredibles:

Perhaps the most important thing to note about The Incredibles is that it's not like previous Pixar games Monsters, Inc. or Finding Nemo. Much in the way that the movie is a step in a slightly different direction for Pixar, the video game translation isn't being designed just for kids. In fact, from everything I've seen, The Incredibles looks in line with most action games of today and while it will certainly appeal to a younger audience, it's not going to feel like playing a game of Hooked on Phonics for the older crowd.

Liquid's D&D; RTS Gets Title 12:26 pm - Apache - games: real-time strategy (0 comments)
At the San Diego Comic-Con PC.IGN has learned that Liquid Entertainment's previously unnamed Dungeons & Dragons real-time strategy game has been dubbed Dragonshard Wars:

In case the suspense has been killing you, the official title for the fantasy strat is Dragonshard Wars, and like its Forgotten Realms console brother, Demon Stone, seems to have lost its inspirational D&D; branding to help popularize it with the mainstream crowd. Of course, the title is definitely subject to change and the Dungeons & Dragons influence is still very much in place -- this is just a matter of trying to reach as big an audience as possible.

In Other News 12:20 pm - Jeff Tom - in-house: in other news... (22 comments)
Hey guys, quite a busy weekend for me but it's extremely dry as far as news goes. I'm going out for my sister's birthday today but I'll be back with the week ahead. Hope everyone has had a good weekend so far.

What were the highlights of your weekend?