Wednesday, May 10, 2000

Q3: Team Arena Shots -- 7:55 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

3D Action Planet has 32 screenshots, GameSpy has 10, and PlanetQuake has three different screenshots (click each word for a different one) from id's forthcoming Quake III: Team Arena mission pack. GameSpy is planning a full preview tomorrow. Thanks Blue's News.

Raging.Com = Altavista Lite -- 7:49 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Slashdot sends word that Altavista has registered the domain name Raging.com. Raging is a web searching site that uses the same engine as Altavista, but it doesn't have all the portal garbage on the pages, making everything faster. Simple, but slick.

J.t.Qbe comments: You mean, it's like AltaVista used to be?

Episode I: Obi-Wan This Fall -- 6:03 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

LucasArts has announced that its new first/third-person hybrid shooter, Episode I: Obi-Wan, will be available this fall! Here's a snip from the press release:

Obi-Wan captures all the complexity of lightsaber battle through an innovative and intuitive glyph combat system, which relies on intuitive gesture-based movements to allow players to control the Force in ways they’ve never imagined. As players traverse the highly detailed interactive environments, Obi-Wan moves with incredible Jedi agility using realistically-animated flips, rolls and jumps.

One challenge that very few games have met adequately is using a melee weapon like a lightsaber in a first-person shooter. Here's to hoping Obi-Wan does it right.

LucasArts usually doesn't announce dates for a game's release until it is just about done, so it would seem very likely that this game will actually be on time. Thanks JediKnight.net.

Win2K Game Fixes -- 5:57 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Windows Update has a list of compatibility fixes for those poor souls who were foolhardy enough to install Windows 2000. Most of these fixes are game-related. Thanks Blue.

Even More i820 Problems -- 5:11 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

CNet is reporting that Intel has discovered a problem with the memory translator hub (MTH) that allows i820 chipset motherboards to use older memory instead of RAMBUS. The flaw could cause computers to lock up or reboot themselves. Intel is offering to replace all the mobos with this problem. Thanks Slashdot.

Hook on Pixels vs. Texels -- 1:54 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

When reading a video card's spec sheet, do you ever find yourself asking "What's the difference between pixels and texels in a card's fillrate?" Brian Hook has the answer at VE. Go and read.

Shockwave Classic Video Games -- 12:49 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Macromedia, in conjunction with Midway games, has made several classic arcade games (including Defender and Joust) available to play online in Shockwave format at Shockwave.com. Joust was always one of my favorite arcade games. It's a little tough to play with the keyboard, but I'm going to try with my Gravis Gamepad and see if that works better. The games are ports of the original ROMs so they are very true to the original. Definitely worth a look.

History today -- 12:49 pm CST, Update by The Master

• 1775: Ethan Allen leads capture of British fortress at Ticonderoga, N.Y.
• 1865: Union forces capture Confederate President Jefferson Davis in Irwinville, GA.
• 1869: Union & Central Pacific Rail lines are joined at Promontory, UT, with the driving of a golden spike.
• 1924: J. Edgar Hoover becomes FBI director.
• 1933: Nazi and Nationalist students and professors burn books written by authors that Adolph Hitler calls "un-German".
• 1940: Winston Churchill took over as Prime Minister of Great Britian following the resignation of Neville Chamberlain.
• 1941: Rudolph Hess is capture after parachuting into Scotland on a "peace mission".
• 1945: Soviet troops occupy Prague. Allied forces defeat Japanese forces at Rangoon.
• 1994: Nelson Mandela sworn as first black President of South Africa.
• 1995: Great Britain lifts ban on ministerial talks with Sinn Fein, the political wing of the IRA.

Pondering the Imponderable -- 9:07 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Everybody and their dog are heading out to the west coast for E3 so gaming news is more than a little bit slow. I'm sure that will change once the expo actually starts. Of course, the only titles that really seem to interest me that will be shown at E3 are id's Quake III: Team Arena and LucasArts' Episode I: Obi-Wan.

Tuesday, May 9, 2000

New Fear and Loathing -- 7:29 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Our own Wraith has sent in his latest Fear and Loathing on the Internet column which you can find here. A word of caution, Wraith deals with some controversial topics here, which are bound to stir up some strong emotions whether you agree or disagree with him. Just a reminder, flames are always cheerfully accepted at /dev/null.

Inoxx UT Map Pack Released -- 7:13 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Epic's Cedric "Inoxx" Fiorentino has released his much-anticipated Inoxx Map Pack for Unreal Tournament. You can get it from GameCenter or the mirrors that are FilePlanet. Thanks Voodoo Extreme.

Obi-Wan Screenies -- 5:06 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

GamersZone has scored even more screenshots from LucasArts' upcoming first/third-person shooter, Episode I: Obi-Wan. The only problem I noticed with these shots is that some of the destroyer droid models seem to be missing parts. Not sure if that's a problem with the screenshots, resizing the screenshots, or the game itself. Thanks Blue.

id .plan Updates -- 1:52 pm CST, Update by The Master

John Carmack updated his .plan with word of the Quake 1/Quakeworld Tools sourcecode release under GPL:

And the Q1 utilities are now also available under the GPL in source/q1tools_gpl.tgz.

.In addition, Graeme Devine updated his .plan with word of a final patch to correct problems with mod compilation on Macintoshes:

Just finished a final MacQuake3 fix for Q3F and other mods. It should be up and around soon (it needs the latest point release to run). If any other mods had compile issues on the Mac, then this patch should fix it as well.

Bill Gates whines some more -- 12:04 pm CST, Update by The Master

Okay, first-be sure your sitting down, and have a strong stomach. Then go read this article by Bill Gates whining about how it's bad to break up Microsoft.

I have never read such a pile of qwrap in my life. He's so obviously grasping at straws my 1-year-old could see it. Get a spine Bill. It is not the end of the world if M$ is broken up. Your "Applications M$" will still own 90+% of the office suite seats. The Operating System M$ will still dominate the Intel OS landscape. They will still both produce products that people will buy. And if the breakup forces you to compete, all the better. Maybe Exchange will lose a couple MB of memory requirements and Windows will be more stable. And maybe every time I edit news in IE I can depend on it NOT Blue Screening on me.

Or maybe you'll crawl back in your crib and cry like the baby you're emulating. Gimme a break. . .

J.t.Qbe comments: Don't you like how whiny Bill equates Microsoft with innovation and goodness? I don't think so. He really pulled out all the stops with this one, didn't he? So sorry, Bill: public opinion isn't going to decide the case. It'll be a judge who doesn't believe your lies.

Speaking of which, Bill claimed that M$ invented the toolbar. No way. If M$ HAD invented the toolbar, it'd be patented by now and no one else could use it without paying a heap o' cash. Check out The Microsoft Hall of Innovation for earlier (much earlier) examples of toolbars. Bill is full of qrap. Here's a guide to translating Bill Gates: "innovation" = "stealing"; "good of the consumer" = "I want more money"; "competition" = "we want to crush everyone else".

RDRAM vs. SDRAM -- 11:51 am CST, Update by The Master

For the mega-techy in the crowd, check out this article over on HardwareCentral on RDRAM versus SDRAM. Good read if you can handle the drops into techno-speak.

New MW4 Screenshots -- 11:44 am CST, Update by The Master

There are some new screenshots of MechWarrior 4 over on GameSpy. That Atlas looking over a burning city makes me wanna buy this sucker RIGHT NOW.

History today -- 8:47 am CST, Update by The Master

• 1502: Christopher Columbus leaves Spain on his fourth and final trip to the Western Hemisphere.
• 1754: The famous "Join or Die" cartoon depicting the 13 American colonies as a snake is run in Benjamin Franklin's "Pennsylvania Gazette".
• 1915: The Battle of Artois during World War I begins. When it ends on May 27, 216,000 men are killed or wounded.
• 1926: Richard Byrd and Floyd Bennett are the first men to fly over the North Pole.
• 1936: Italy annexes Abyssinia (now Ethiopia).
• 1945: Germany's Field Marshal Keitel signed final surrender documents at the end of World War II; the German garrison in the Channel Islands surrenders.
• 1974: House Judiciary Committee opens hearings on whether to recommend President Nixon for impeachment.
• 1994: South Africa's parliment selects Nelson Mandela to be the first black President of South Africa.

Past Two Days' News

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