Saturday January 6th, 2001 - Got some news? Send it here!

Jumpgate Beta - Posted by Ckaoz

Avault has secured 1000 beta slots for the test version of Jumpgate, which appears to be an online version of the extremely popular and old school game Privateer. Obviously with different storyline and background, this game looks to be a winner! Hopefully the spots aren't full yet! Here's a bit about the game itself:

Jumpgate is a massively multiplayer game that combines elements of space combat as well as trading and resource management in a truly persistent gaming universe. Players choose one of five factions and then sell their services--conducting business with orbital trading posts and reaping the spoils of war through combat to gain experience. Numerous weapons and ship upgrades are available: Jumpgate contains over 100 resource types as well as a wide range of equipment and space ships.

Planetside Preview - Posted by Ckaoz

The spunk monkeys at Planet Radar shot out a preview of the upcoming MMOFPS (thats Massive Multiplayer Online First Person Shooter, whew) Planetside. This is one of the first of this kind of game, and seems like quite a treat for the shooter fans out there looking for a persistant world!

Blade Interview - Posted by Ckaoz

The guys at PC.IGN have posted an interesting interview with Jaun Diaz-Bustamente of Rebel Act Studio's on there soon to be released game Blade of Darknesss. Here is a niblet of the interview:

IGNPC: As long as we are kind of on the subject, what will Blade of Darkness players have to look forward to in multiplayer? Juan Diaz-Bustamente: Well it will be one against one games in arenas. It's a deathmatch game, but all of the people that are waiting for a match can be around looking. Blade of Darkness is very much a strategic game in terms of fighting one against another. It's very good to have your opponent in front of you so you can think about what strategy you will follow not only in terms of combos, weapons and movements you are going to use, but also the arenas are very interactive. There will be earthquakes, lava shooting up and down, so you not only have to be aware of your opponent, but also your environment.

P:IGI 2 Hoax - Posted by Ckaoz

Looks as though someone pulled off quite the elaborate hoax for a day, as one of the previous posts yesterday was about Interloop already in discussions with Eidos aout Project:IGI 2 was a complete and utter hoax. Here is what was sent to ProjectIGI.com in a letter from Interloop:

The posting seemingly made by an Eidos-representative is indeed a hoax. We have not made any decisions within our company as to what kind of product we will go on to do. We have a long history with Eidos, and are continuing to discuss further business with them as well as our other business partners. So far, this has not included discussing a potential sequel to Project IGI.

Friday January 5th, 2001

Blade is Finished - Posted by Ckaoz

FGN Online has stated that Rebel Act's honey lovin' limb hacking action/rpg Blade of Darkness is 99.9 percent finished and should be Gold soon. They are looking for a release date of February 23rd of this year.

nVidia Delivers - Posted by Ckaoz

3DGPU has whipped up an awesome interview with Dwight Diercks of nVidia's PR department to dish out some great nVidia info on a lot of topics from if they are going to support glide in future nVidia driver's to if their drivers are intentionally leaked! Here is a bite:

Question 5: There's been some news on the net, specifically on www.stereovision.net, that Stereovision 3D Glasses support will be in the next Detonator 7.xx driver release. Can you confirm if this is true or not? Dwight Diercks: I can't comment on new features we have not yet announced. We have seen the rumors and have played a bit with Stereo3D in the past. If we would implement this feature in the future, it would be important for us to do this in a high caliber way. Today, most implementations we see are either lacking in broad games compatibility and/or stellar fluid performance that we think power users would demand.

GOD Loves You Anyway - Posted by Ckaoz

Gathering Of Developers has just announced a huge breakthrough in terms of how they can release demos to all the fans out there to try out new games. Here is a bit from there announcement for you to better understand what I mean:

Developer-driven computer and video game publisher Gathering of Developers today announced the launch of Club Gathering, the company's free membership program featuring gaming news and give-a-ways. Gamers become members by simply signing up at www.godgames.com. Memberships* include "Gathering of Goodness" compact discs, free jam-packed demo CDs with exclusive sneak preview content on upcoming games, as well as direct email updates on Gathering's games. Gamers who sign-up in January will also receive a free 2001 Gathering of Goodness calendar which highlights facts and figures of upcoming games and Gathering's beautiful "schoolgirls."

Counter-Strike Goodies - Posted by Ckaoz

Looks like a good download so I decided to put this up. There is a map pack available fo download for the somewhat popular Counter-Strike mod. Here is a blurb from the man Sebastian himself on what maps are included.

CS_Futurcom, CS_Middleage (first time release), DE_Chinatown (first time release), DE_Deep6, DE_Heat, DE_Lazy, DE_Luxor, DE_Village.

It can also be played on our Gaming Server which has a full T1 to an OC12, so everybody should ping pretty well.

Server info.: http://www.planethalflife.com/counter-strike/server.shtml

Rune Goodness - Posted by Ckaoz

Available for download is a new Rune map entitled DM-DeepUnder from Dave Halsted. And since Human Head is still in the Christmas spirit they have also decided to announce a little bit about an upcoming expansion for Rune. Here is what they had to say:

The really big news however, is that we have finally gotten approval from Gathering of Developers on a Rune Add-On pack,. I can't release a lot of details at the moment, but the Add-On pack will be multiplayer focused only, and will include some new modes and maps for the Rune community that we have created ourselves, as well as a couple of new multiplayer characters (including, finally, a really good female character or two). The pack will be out in spring of 2001,, and we hope to release details soon. It will be a commercial add-on, but at a reasonable price available in all outlets.

Thursday January 4th, 2001

Sudden Strike Goes Gold - Posted by Ckaoz

The word from Gone Gold is that the upcoming WWII era real time strategy game Sudden Strike has gone gold. It usually takes a few weeks for these puppys to get shipped so expect it late this month!

Motor City Preview - Posted by Ckaoz

The guys over at Avault spanked up a preview of the upcoming online racing game motor city online. Slated for release this spring it looks to be a very interesting game. Here's a nibble from the preview:

Enter Electronic Arts and their game about the golden age of the American hot rod. The release will be all about classic cars and pure horsepower racing fueled at the hand of a persistent online metropolis in which users can purchase and sell cars and authentic auto parts, customize their rides and meet other motor hounds.

Project IGI Multiplay - Posted by Ckaoz

Actually this news is somewhat upsetting, as a thread on the P:IGI board states that there will be no multiplay patch for the game, but multiplayer options will be added to Project:IGI 2 coming out later this year. It makes me think how much can they enhance and add on in less than a year to justify me buying the game. Especially since the first one doesn't even come with a save game feature, but you'll get to read about that in teh review which should be out in the next week or so!

Wednesday January 3rd, 2001

Beyond Up - Posted by Ckaoz

Thanks goes out to Kevin K. over at beyondup.com for giving word that their site is back up with some new goodies added to it. They will be posting up some news goodness on a host of platforms from PC's to the upcoming X-Box from Microsoft!

Diablo II Demo - Posted by Ckaoz

Well, this seems kind of late for a demo since the game has been out for six months, but Blizzard has released a little demo to get your juices flowing for their classic hack 'n slash series Diablo games. You can download this 125 MB monster here.

Hits of the New Year

The wonderboys over at Eurogamer have pooped up an article on what the hits of this year will probably be. Personally I'm on the lookout for Duke Nukem Forever and Team Fortress 2,(both are included in the article) so head over there and check out some of the newest hits on the horizon.

Tuesday January 2nd, 2001

VE Hodown - Posted by Ckaoz

The P. Daddies over at Voodoo Extreme have posted a great interview with Dave "Moby" Perry from Shiny on the future and present state of Video Cards. Perry is thinking exactly what I think the rest of the community sort of feels right now in terms of video card prices, here's a blurb:

I have to say now regarding video cards, I really do believe that ultimately the graphics cards 'could' be the straw that breaks the camels back.

Right now we are talking over $500 (including sales tax) for a leading edge card. (Yes, we all want the latest, coolest one for our games.)

I really have to be incredibly boring and say, "I don't want any more features right now, just find a way to get them back to $99 so we can have a real spike in the PC games business." (To be clear, thats $99 for a 'new' card that does not feel like you are buying something from the bargin bin with no future technical support.)

PC Manufacturers need to see 3D cards as essential

Diablo II Update - Posted by Ckaoz

It seems as though there were some problems that occured with the Diablo II ladder reset and some peeps in the gaming community were able to reap the benefits of computer terrorism (in a sense) as they stripped players characters without accessing there accounts. You can learn more about it at diabloii.net.

Gaming News Blues - Posted by Ckaoz

Well, there just isn't much going on since the holiday, if more pops up I will post it here for the next days news, I have been diligently looking into making a new look and layout for the website, but this stuff takes time, as it's hard to juggle stuff from day to day live and work, but I am working on it. If you all have ideas feel free to give me a holler! What would you like to see!

Monday January 1st, 2001

New Gamespy - Posted by Ckaoz

For all those witha registered copy of Gamespy there is a new version you can download. Not many enhancements, it's a minor update that fixes some issues with Quake 2 favorites.(On a sidenote, sorry about the lack of updates yesterday, but damnit there isnt much news this time of year, ARGHH)

Gamespy Interview - Posted by Ckaoz

An interesting find over at Gamespy. There is an article with Rich Carlson from Rogue Entertainment on the History of PC games. There are a tone of links to most of the games listed within his rendition of history of games, some of them are full dowloads (ie Zork).

Gooseman Profile - Posted by Ckaoz

Avault has put up a GREAT article on Gooseman, the creator of Counter-strike. Adds a bit of history of what he is all about and his plans for the future after making the world's most popular mod for a PC game to date.