June 30, 2004
Battlefield 1942 ships for the Mac
I guess they'll just be playing amongst themselves, because everyone we know has moved on to Battlefield Vietnam. Gamespy reports that Aspyr Media has shipped Battlefield Vietnam and the Road to Rome expansion pack for OS X.
Mac users can expect to see BF Vietnam around the same time PC gamers are playing Duke Nukem Forever.
Posted by jb at 09:53 PM | TrackBack
Rumbling sound heard near Ian Flemming's grave
"Going where no previous James Bond™ game has dared to tread, GoldenEye: Rogue Agent™ breaks all the rules. Transport to the dark side of the Bond universe to experience life as a high-rolling, cold-hearted villain.
As an aspiring 00 agent gone bad, you’re recruited by Auric Goldfinger in a ruthless war against Dr. No for control of the Bond underworld. A brutal encounter with Dr. No costs you an eye, but Goldfinger’s technicians replace it with a gold-hued, synthetic eye, earning you the name ‘GoldenEye’. With the ability to customize and upgrade your villain persona, wreak havoc as you make your unrelenting rise through the ranks."
I think I've heard of this 'GoldenEye' before, although when it was a movie title the 'E' in 'Eye' wasn't 'capitalized', so I guess that makes it an 'entirely' different 'concept'.
Where was I going with this? Oh, right, EA released a trailer for GoldenEye: Rogue Agent for the Xbox. The game looks beautiful, and takes you to a variety of locales, as any Bond game should.
Posted by jb at 10:08 AM | TrackBack
June 28, 2004
Indie Success Story: Live for Speed
Live for Speed is one of the rare success stories of independent game development. The LFS team has managed to succeed where larger, commercial development efforts have failed; they've created a strongly-branded, engaging race simulation game with a rabid fan-base (not to mention snagging a 92% rating from PC Gamer).
Three Guys in a Garage
Well, not exactly a garage, but it is just three guys that have managed to pull together one of the best racing sims around. Scawen Roberts, Eric Bailey and Victor van Vlaardingen have been working on LFS for the past 3+ years. Without a publishing firm behind the game, the LFS three have developed an online promotion and sales solution that works well. It is possible to purchase (~ US $22), download and be playing the game in a matter of minutes (bandwidth permitting). The LFS website indicates almost 40,000 registered racers and dozens of teams.
The Simulation
Currently in version S1, LFS is a realistic racing simulator with a broad range of vehicles and tracks. The game is available as a free demo, which is limited to 2 cars and 1 racing environment, and a full version, which adds more cars, tracks, a skidpad and an autocross editor.
The game supports three racing modes: Single Player, Hotlapping and Multiplayer.
The Single Player gameplay allows for the addition of AI racers, which have been executed fabulously. The AI racers are slow and tentative at first, but learn as you compete with them. You'll often see a message indicating that it is the first time a particular AI racer has driven a track. This is intended to be a warning of possible slow/erratic behavior. You can also assign the AI racers to one of five pre-determined skill levels.
Hotlapping is also a solo experience, but done with the intention of creating an official laptime that can be submitted to the LFS website. The laptimes you submit are used to compare your times with those of other LFS'ers to establish a ranking.
These modes are fun, but nothing compared to the Multiplayer experience. This is where the heart of the appeal is for this sim. Going head-to-head with other racers is a thrilling experience, even more so in the company of folks that really want to race cleanly and not perform car-to-car ballistics experiments.
There are also dozens of online racing leagues and competitions to join. As of late, endurance leagues are getting a lot of attention, where races go well beyond the short 10-15 lap races that are the norm.
To encourage competition and stats whores, the LFS three have created LFS World where you can find detailed analysis of all online racing data. Individual race results, driver histories, trends, aggregate race data, it's all there. As of this writing, LFS World reports that 21,230,918 miles have been driven, and 403,906 total races have been run online.
Not all is roses, however. The in-game UI is definitely primitive compared to most commercial ventures, and doesn't instill much confidence the first time you launch the game. The physics of the sim feel great, but definitely would be criticized as "arcadish" by some of the more hard-core sim fans. The graphics engine is showing its age, and fans are eager for some new bells and whistles. That being said, none of these issues detract significantly from the overall experience.
S2
Scawen, Eric and Victor have been steadily pushing towards the next major release of LFS, dubbed S2. Some of the features to be expected:
- 8-10 new cars
- 3 new track areas
- Downforce settings
- Tire wear modeling
- Fuel usage
- Improved suspension system
- More cars allowed in multiplayer races
- Improved sounds
Posted by jb at 10:22 PM | TrackBack
ID releases Doom II expansion, nobody cares
Surfing to idsoftware.com, and looking up Doom will present you with a vibrantly written release (ie sentences that end in exclamation points) that announces new levels for Doom II.
Ok Carmack knock it off. I saw the Doom III demo at E3 3 Years Ago! The announcement and release dates of Half-Life 2, Battlefield, and several other games have sent me careening into a new dimension of apathy toward Doom III.
Do I want to play it? Yes. Do I think it will be interesting? Yes. But honestly I'm not so interested anymore. I feel as though I've been on a high-school date for 3 years now, making out every night, then just going home.
If I get another note saying that you'll put out soon, I'm going to have an aneurysm. Give up the goods or I'm asking for my ring back.
Posted by at 12:52 PM | TrackBack
Why buy one $500 video card when you can buy two?
SLI is back. Way back in the '90s, 3dfx gave consumers the option of buying two Voodoo2 cards, which could be bridged to produce nearly twice the performance.
Now that PCI Express is becoming the next standard for the graphics card bus, the possibility of doing the modern equivelent of SLI is here. Enter Nvidia.
Nvidia has announced that they are working on SLI for the PCI Express version of the new GeForce 6800. Current tests are showing a 77% performance increase over the single-card configurations, but they expect this number to rise to 90%.
Also, by my count, this means that it's possible to have 4 digital-video out ports on a single box. Does this mean we can finally do real surround gaming? It also appears that due to the incredibly large cooling requirements, such a configuration will take up 4 PCI slots. Ack.
I for one, welcome our new dual-card overlords. ATI, are you listening?
Posted by jb at 10:38 AM | TrackBack
More Half-Life 2 details
Via gamesindustry.biz. Gabe Newell announced that the planned release date for HL2 is sometime in August. Gabe also indicated that the installer will consume approximately 2 GB, which will extract to around 3.5 GB.
The game will ship in the following languages: English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Korean, Simplified and Traditional Chinese, Japanese and Thai.
Posted by jb at 09:07 AM | TrackBack
June 27, 2004
Game PR Catchphrases: What They Really Mean
Ryan "OMGWTFBBQ" Adams has written a wonderful article exposing the true meaning behind the words written to promote an upcoming release.
Quote: We've listened to what gamers are saying, and we're going to deliver. Gamers know what they want.
Indicates: This company really cares about gamers, and they've seen the light. Instead of sticking to their own designs stubbornly, they'll see how good the general public's ideas really are.
True Meaning: We fired that really awesome lead designer. Instead of having true direction, this game is going to be drawn and quartered by the six thousand directions people want their games to go in. You're all idiots. Have fun with your shooter/rpg/completely open-ended/expertly written/realistic/over-the-top/co-op train simulator.
Posted by jb at 04:46 PM | TrackBack
Civilization IV details from Soren Johnson
Okay, last Civ post for a bit, we promise. The presentation given by Civ4 Project Lead Soren Johnson at this year's Game Developers Conference has been posted. The theme? "Don't Blow It!"
In addition to the business positioning of the new game, Soren hints at some of the changes we should expect to see. Some notes:
- Modern interface/help conventions
- Continuous, immersive 3D world
- Drop unfun legacy (pollution, rioting, maintenance, corruption/waste
- Mod-friendly file formats
- Multiplayer re-coded from scratch
You can download the PowerPoint presentation here. (Note: turn on the "presenter notes" in PowerPoint to see more details)
Posted by jb at 02:27 PM | TrackBack
June 26, 2004
EA's Inside the Battle Volume 3
EA has updated their Battle for Middle-Earth site with a new video for the "Inside the Battle" series. The series takes a look at various technical elements that underly the game experience. This particular piece highlights the A.I. used in the game.
It still just doesn't feel right to see the good guys get stomped.
Posted by jb at 05:33 PM | TrackBack
New Colin McRae Rally 2005 trailer
Codemasters has released a trailer showing loads of in-game footage from their upcoming release for the Xbox.
The game will feature a career mode, interactive environments, a robust damage model and online play via Xbox Live.
Posted by jb at 10:17 AM
June 25, 2004
A Clash in Civilization
As a follow-up to our previous item regarding the Civilization Fanatics' Center, Kuro5hin has a great article covering Intersite Democracy Games.
A Democracy Game is when a group of people play a single country as team, deciding as a group how their game should be played. This often results in a meta-game, with participants employing political maneuvers to advance their strategic wishes.
This alone is a fascinating concept. However, as the article covers in detail, it has been taken to the next level. An Intersite Democracy Game has several teams competing against each other. Teams have taken different approaches to this, some creating their own governmental structure for decision making (Minister of War, etc.).
In the latest game, the two largest and sometimes acrimonious sites (Civ Fanatics' Center and Apolyton), are battling along with a few other, smaller sites. In addition, Fireaxis (the developer of Civ 3) has entered a team into the fray. The game has been running for over six months now, but I won't spoil the details about who is still in the running.
This is really an interesting development, and certainly speaks volumes about the complexity and depth of Civilization.
Posted by jb at 12:00 PM
June 24, 2004
Games and the Imagination
GameDev.net has a feature written by Richard Dare (Dick Dare?), discussing how imagination factors into gameplay.
"In older, more knowledgeable gamers too we can see the primacy of an underlying fantasy. More than one gamer has admitted to me that he plays Civilization because he likes the idea of ruling a nation, waging war and taking over the world. One gamer of my acquaintance told me how he enjoys playing Civilization in a certain way, to create a situation where there are two main world powers in the game, himself and an opponent, both with advanced levels of technology. He would then plan a massive campaign against his enemy, creating an all-or-nothing war to end all wars. So in many games, a fantasy might "kick in" when their playing pieces become arranged in a certain way, creating a situation or process of interest to the gamer."
Posted by jb at 11:12 AM
June 23, 2004
Battlefield killer?
NovaLogic seems to have pulled a stunner. GameSpy and GameSpot have both released very favorable reviews for the new Joint Operations: Typhoon Rising.
At a glance the game seems very similar to EA's Battlefield series (1942 and Vietnam), but the details seem to have been done exceptionally well. Reports are that the maps and gameplay modes encourage constant action and require team strategy. This is a good thing, as the game will support up to 150 players. Nobody wants to sit around with 74 other helicopter-camping smacktards.
The only real downsides seem to be the washed-out color palette and weak vehicle physics/control. Both seem patchable.
I'm picking this up today.
Posted by jb at 03:31 PM
High Dynamic Range (HDR) introduction
Using HDR, your whites will come out whiter, and your darks will maintain their vibrant colors. HDR allows for the specification of a greater range of lighting intensity, and can produce nice glow/halo effects seen when viewing bright light sources.
I recently picked up an ATI Radeon X800 Pro, which is the first card I've owned that supports HDR rendering (because it supports PS 2.0 and floating point textures). The difference is astounding.
Anirudh S Shastry has written a nice tutorial that will walk you through the steps to get your own HDR app running ASAP.
Posted by jb at 10:10 AM
Alienware needs your cash
The new Alienware ALX comes in at $5,100 for the out-of-box configuration. If you have the money to buy this, keep in mind that after you buy it: you will still be pale and/or lonely.
At the time of this writing, I can't tell you what all the standard features are, because the customization page has javascript errors. The sleek, badly coded site does tell us that the $5k+ gets you the following:
an aluminum breifcase - most likely branded and just the sort of thing that will gather dust in your room while you think of how you could possibly use it without being pointed at.
a keychain - nothing like showing the valet at China Club that you're a real gamer when you ask him to park your tricked out '96 civic.
access to private alienware servers - because most games don't already have enough empty servers.
game install option - no kidding, you can send in up to 3 games and the aliens will install them for you. If you opt for this, they will also send, free, a Clapper™ for your lazy jelly donut eating ass.
For the price, I would hope that it comes with a monitor, or perhaps a sexual favor.
Posted by at 09:28 AM
June 22, 2004
Red Dead Revolver dominates May
Via gameindustry.biz. Despite mediocre reviews, Rockstar's Red Dead Revolver (PS2) takes the number one spot for US sales last month knocking EA's Fight Night 2004 (PS2) down a spot.
Only 2 titles for the Xbox, and 2 titles for the GameCube were able to crack the top 15.
Posted by jb at 09:41 PM
I can hear you
I was told as a kid that when hunting: you should never fire two shots in a row. This was because after two shots all the animals would know exactly where you were. I have no idea why I was told this. While other kids were hunting deer, I was playing, "Hunt the Wumpus" on my TI-99/4a.
However! For all you snipers who proclaim, "howd j00 know where I wa syou h4x0r" I highly recommend getting a set of headphones that didn't come free with the in-flight magazine.
I prefer heavy circumaural sets with studio drivers - jb likes the sleek professional in-ear sets. If you don't know what a driver or a pro in-ear set is, then it's time to broaden your horizons.
Posted by at 01:06 PM
Magical Sound Shower
Not getting enough physical abuse from your significant other as punishment for poor driving? Outrun.org is the place for you. A site dedicated to the variants of the Outrun series.
You'll find just about every sound clip from the original game (Magical Sound Shower was always my driving music of choice), ROMs, manuals and plenty o' screens.
Posted by jb at 10:28 AM
June 21, 2004
Next Xbox to forego backwards compatibility?
Via Slashdot (and the server is therefore probably suffering the resulting beating), rumors are abound that the next Xbox will not have backwards compatibility with current games.
This sounds like a test balloon to me, which will allow Microsoft to guage public reaction to such a scenario. However, if the architecture is as radically different as people are speculating, I can't see how support of legacy games would be technically feasible.
Posted by jb at 10:53 PM
But somebody might see it
Via Gizmodo. While the author gets a little excited, and nearly proclaims this as the second coming, the GameDeck is a nice little gaming center. With dedicated space for keyboard/mouse, a wheel, pedals and 2 joysticks, you're pretty well covered for any genre.
Posted by jb at 06:17 PM
June 18, 2004
Mario Golf: Advance Tour available soon
It's as cutesy as you imagine it is. Nintendo has launched a website in advance of the June 21 launch date of Mario Golf: Advance Tour. They've got screens, videos and general game information.
Mario Golf will support 2 types of gameplay: Story Mode and Quick Game. Story Mode is similar to a career mode, allowing players to unlock new courses and eventually reach the Mushroom Kingdom. The game will also interface with the GameCube version to unlock new features.
Posted by jb at 09:47 AM
June 17, 2004
Civilization Fanatics' Center
This site has been around for a long time, but I've just managed to discover it. If you're into Civilization, this is the one-stop place to find strategy guides, patches, tools, fan-created addons and thousands of pages worth of discussions.
One of the cooler features is Game of the Month (GOTM). Essentially, every month (hence the name) someone creates a scenario that many people play. Discussions take place about the best strategies and there is a competition to see who gets the highest score.
If you thought you had Civ figured out, you're not even close.
Posted by jb at 04:44 PM
am3 brings video to the GBA
Japanese firm am3 will soon begin shipping an adapter that will allow Gameboy Advance owners to play video, stills and flash-like animations. The adapter serves as an interface between the GBA and a SmartMedia card.
It looks like am3 is using a proprietary DRM solution to control content. I give it a month before this gets cracked and we start seeing GBA porn.
The adapter will sell for eleventy-gajillion yen.
Posted by jb at 01:38 PM
TechTV fans rioting in the streets
Well, not yet at least, but Comcast certainly has a mess on its hands. Wired News has a story covering the unrest caused by the recent merging of TechTV and the G4 gaming network. It seems that firing 285 employees and taking the entire TechTV web archives offline has made some folks none too happy.
The TechTV website contained a vast amount of informative content, and received around 2 million visitors per month. They've taken that repository of knowledge, and turned it into a piece of crap site containing DIY pages such as:
[ Error#: -2147467259] [msxml4.dll ] [ An invalid character was found in text content. / ]
Posted by jb at 12:24 PM
GarageGames releases Torque Shader Engine - Early Adoper License
For the past few years, GarageGames has been selling a full blown game engine known as Torque. This is the same engine that powers Tribes 2, and is optimized for large outdoor venues. While the GarageGames community has released a lot of enhancements and content packs, the Torque engine is showing its age.
With the release of the Torque Shader Engine (TSE), GarageGames is giving developers some incredibly powerful features including: dynamic lighting, bumpmapping, glow, refraction and a brand new lighting system.
TSE is available now for US $150.
Posted by jb at 10:00 AM
June 16, 2004
Myst IV: Revelation is coming
Ubisoft has a mini-site up showing some of the goodies to be expected in the upcoming Myst update. It appears as though Revelation is using the Myst-classic pre-renders, but scenes appear to be much more animated, contain nice ambient touches and use a navigation interface much like Quicktime VR.
The new site has some screenshots, videos and news. I look forward to spending days getting lost in the Myst world, trying to discover bizarre cause-effect relationships between seemly unrelated objects.
Posted by jb at 11:58 PM
New PSX models on the way
Sony will start shipping two new PSX models on July 1. Same storage space, but improved UI and they've added an analog satellite tuner. Europe should see these new models by year's end, and the US will never ever see them. Ever.
Posted by jb at 11:45 PM
June 15, 2004
How to invalidate the warranty on your new Radeon X800 Pro
Some ingenious folks have figured out how to turn a Radeon X800 Pro into an X800 XT, which has yet to ship. The main difference between these two cards is that the XT has 16 pixel pipes (vs. 12 for the Pro) and is speed bumped.
The change involves scraping two contact points, applying some conductive paint, a BIOS flash and a bit of overclocking.
It seems as though success is limited at this point, but nobody has reported any catastrophes. But, given the fact that this card is currently selling for ~ US $450, it's a fairly high-stakes endeavor.
Posted by jb at 12:52 PM
June 14, 2004
Insane console auction
Someone is attempting to auction off what appears to be every console ever sold in Japan, including many development kits, in one big sale. At a starting price of US $100,000 I'm not sure who his target market is, but I'd hate to see the shipping fees. The price itself is actually not bad if you start to add up some of the more expensive items like the PS2 development kits (which I think are always property of Sony, therefore probably illegal to resell).
Given the restrictions the US places on importing electronics, would this get past customs?
Posted by jb at 10:40 AM
June 13, 2004
Best gaming mouse available?
I started using the new Logitech MX510 optical mouse a few weeks ago and am incredibly happy with it. This is a gamer's mouse.
Much like the previous MX mice, the MX510 has a resolution of 800 dpi. Unlike its predecessors, it has 5.8 megapixel optical sensor. The only way I can make this thing skip is to stand up and do a full-arm swipe at high speed.
The problem with slower optical mice usually manifests itself when attempting the "oh shit, he's behind me" gambit. The result is usually a quick vertical jump of the crosshairs. With a mouse this quick, wheeling around in one quick swipe is fluid and accurate.
I have yet to try out Razer's optical mouse, the Viper. It has impressive (and superior) technical specs, but the MX510 looks more comfortable and has more than two buttons.
ExtremeTech has a thorough review if you're intrigued.
Posted by jb at 06:56 PM
Plumber fragging fun
Super Mario War is a blast. A multi-player Mario deatchmatch game created "as a tribute to Mario War by Samuele Poletti".
Open source: check. Map editor: check. Cross-platform friendly: check. Internet play: well... ok, it's not perfect, but a great way to waste some time with a few friends.
Posted by jb at 02:16 PM
OpenGL 2.0 feature set to be released at SIGGRAPH 2004
The OpenGL ARB announces that the 2.0 feature set will be released at this year's SIGGRAPH, which will begin August 8th.
Posted by jb at 01:03 PM
Nintendo releases 8MB memory card
In what would have been a notable story in 1997, Nintendo announces they are now shipping an 8MB memory card for the GameCube (Memory Card 1019) for $29.99. Considering you can now buy 128MB USB flash drives for less than this, shouldn't anything that comes with only 8MB just be free?
Posted by jb at 12:13 PM
June 12, 2004
Valve Bullys Cybercafé
It seems that while one side of the company was proclaiming its undying affection for the gaming community, the other side decided that a little tough love was needed to keep things in order.
"Well, Valve Software has sent BattleGround PC Gaming a cease and desist letter. Normally, such a letter would offer three options: a) cease using the software; b) license the software; or, c) get sued. In a bullying fashion, Valve has dropped option a). Rather than simply allow BattleGround PC Gaming to stop using the software, Valve is demanding that BattleGround pay up front for a one-year license or get sued."
Posted by jb at 10:43 PM
