Slashdot Mirror

shadowcabbit writes "Gameforms is reporting that director John Woo, who previously optioned Nintendo's Metroid series of games for the silver screen, is in negotiations with Universal to direct the 2005 film adaptation of Spy Hunter. The film, which will star Dwayne Johnson (aka The Rock), has been in the planning stages since 2001, but has not yet begun production."

Thanks to IGN PS2 for their article revealing that Sega studio director Tetsuya Mizuguchi will be leaving the company. According to the piece: "The end of Mizuguchi's tenure at Sega, which brought to the world such classics as Sega Rally, Space Channel 5 and Rez, will apparently take place on the 10th of this month", and this news comes after Mizuguchi's studio, UGA, are "to merge with fellow internal development studio Sonic Team" as part of Sega's major development re-organization that also saw other significant changes, including the Hitmaker and Sega Rosso studios merging and fellow Sega auteur Yu Suzuki getting his own studio, Digitalrex.

DeadMeat (TM) writes "According to GameForms, Sammy announced that it will be working with Capcom on arcade versions of a forthcoming Sammy vs. Capcom 2D fighting game, as well as a solo Sammy project, a four-player Guilty Gear fighter sequel. Screenshots of the latter are available from Impress Game Watch, with presumably more information about the announcement for those who speak Japanese." Update: 09/12 04:10 GMT by S : GameSpot has more information on the full line-up at the AMShow arcade exhibition in Tokyo, which is where this news originated from.

DeadMeat (TM) writes "According to GameForms, Sammy announced that it will be working with Capcom on arcade versions of a forthcoming Sammy vs. Capcom 2D fighting game, as well as a solo Sammy project, a four-player Guilty Gear fighter sequel. Screenshots of the latter are available from Impress Game Watch, with presumably more information about the announcement for those who speak Japanese." Update: 09/12 04:10 GMT by S : GameSpot has more information on the full line-up at the AMShow arcade exhibition in Tokyo, which is where this news originated from.

Dark Paladin writes "Recently, I asked readers to recommend some good books that were out there. There were crows for the usual crowd, like Terry Pratchet, Nail Gaiman, David Eddings, Terry Brooks, so on and so forth. But one name that kept coming up over and over again as a "must read" was R. R. Martin and the book "A Game of Thrones". So after the umpteenth "you've got to check it out or I'll burn your hat", I decided to give it a shot. And discovered one of the best read fantasy novels I've read in a decade. The story is your base fantasy stuff - "long ago, some bad things happened, but things are good - but watch out - the bad times are coming again!" Read on for the rest of his review. A Game of Thrones (A Song of Fire and Ice #1) author R. R. Martin pages 807 publisher Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group rating Very Good reviewer John Hummel ISBN 0553573403 summary A gritty, dirty, disturbing fantasy tale of the court intrigues in the backdrop of an upcoming war.

But Martin does it by focusing not on one main character, but on a whole slew of them, each chapter a view from their perspective as events rage around them. Mainly around the Stark family, who's patriarch, Eddard Stark, is the Lord of Winterfell, a country to the far north who's job it is to keep up the Wall - think "Great Wall of China", only make it out of ice and stone. The Starks put a lot of stock in honor and duty, concept that must serve them well to survive a world where summers can last for years - and the winters even longer. Eddard has known war and battle once in his lifetime, when he and his best friend Robert lead an army to overthrow the Mad King almost a generation ago. Now, with his 5 children and 1 bastard child, he looks forward to a life ruling his castle in peace and training the next generation to be Starks.

Or he would, but when Robert comes calling asking Eddard to become the "Hand of the King", Eddard and his family are put into a living chess match, where loyalties shift like chameleon color, and sometimes, the pieces are lost forever. And with all the court intrigues, something dark, magical, and deadly hovers in the background, like an avalanche about to fall without warning.

What makes Martin's writing so compelling is his ability to tie us into a fictional world as fully realized as our own. It's a gritty and disturbing world, where royal families can marry brother to sister to keep bloodlines pure, Mongolian horde empires have their own brand of laws and morals, and a joust is as celebrated as a professional wrestling match - and far more dangerous. He does have a tendency to go overboard in describing the littlest detail of what armor one person is wearing and how it gleams in the sun with cloaks as soft or supple as sin (I think he used that phrase around 3 times in the book, and it was old the 2nd time), but its also those little attention to details that makes the world breath.

But more than his descriptions of the places and events are his writings about people. As I mentioned, each chapter is written from the point of view of a different character, so you get the perspective of Arya, the tomboy princess on moment, the next the view of Tyrion the Imp, dwarf (physically, not Ghimli) who's royal family opposes the Starks and reaches for the crown. Each character has their own strengths and weaknesses, things you love them for and things you hate them for. And as they interact with each other, you can see all the chess pieces on the board moving, wheels within wheels spinning as Martin brings you closer into the story, making you feel a connection with each of them - even the ones you are certain are less than moral or good. He also has no compunction about killing off main characters, which means you can't trust that the "Good Guys" will make off all right in the end.

It's a book about the love of family, how it can be twisted into something terrible and ugly, or used as a tie that binds together. It's a story about the price of honor, duty and loyalty, and what those words actually mean. It's a great book, and I'm eagerly looking forward to trying out the rest of the books in this series to see if they keep up the excellent quality of this one.

You can purchase A game of Thronesfrom bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

Thanks to an anonymous reader for pointing to IGN.com's article discussing the 10 biggest Playstation 2 rumors currently circulating. Subjects discussed include whether Final Fantasy VII-2 is really planned, if there's actually a sequel to Ico called Nico, the chances of Starcraft:Ghost ever appearing on PS2 (low, apparently?), the likelihood that UGO/Sega are working on an Astro Boy game, and, naturally, rumors about the PS3. As IGN so succintly puts it: "What's the truth worth when you have imagination?"

Warrior-GS writes "The final part of the Future of PC Gaming is up at GameSpy. This one deals with the future of user-created games and talks to developers and mod makers, as well as identifying tools that can assist them. There is also a Q&A with Warren Spector on where he thinks PC gaming is headed in the next several years." John Scabadone points to a "nice article featuring an update on the state of the handheld gaming industry along with a roundtable of some of the premier developers." Read on below for several more gaming updates, too.

pandrew writes "Square has openly admitted to doing something people have been asking for for many years now: a sequel! Though not what most people have asked for (i.e. Final Fantasy 7) this is still a very big step in the Final Fantasy line, since no game in the series has ever had a follow up with a connecting storyline."

k-hell writes "The Mother of All Games, Scorched Earth has been updated to allow for playing on Internet. Rendered in OpenGL, Scorched 3D now features a 3D island environment and LAN and Internet play. See screenshots here. You can download a Windows binary package and/or Windows source package here. At the same time, you should also grab the excellent server browser The All-Seeing Eye."

Lucifer writes "'Sega announced a list of new Sega AGES game titles for PlayStation 2, remakes of their classic Master System, Mega Drive/Genesis, Saturn titles. Each game will retail for 2500 yen, and the first four titles are scheduled to release in Japan in summer 2003.' 15 years later and I'm going to start playing Phantasy Star again! ;-)"

Finally, bredroll writes "Attention fellow Geeks! Ever wanted to live 100ft underground in a ex British gov't nuclear bunker for three days and do nothing but geek at extreme levels and play LAN games? Well, we can help, This year's event includes food and bunks as well,

In-Bunker Events

• Battle Royale (Robot Wars-type event)
• Underground Noise Fest (see site)
• High-speed switched LAN
• Various LAN game tournaments
• NTK will be there
• + more ....

Users of all systems welcome, Linux, BSD, Windows, Mac, anything, the more diverse the better. The bunker is located in Essex (UK) near the town of Brentwood. Details about booking places and prices are on our site."

zenintrude writes "Gameforms is reporting that Square has signed a deal with Dell that will secure new Dell computers to be shipping with Final Fantasy XI pre-installed. This comes on the heels of another story involving Square partnering with nVidia, in which certain aspects/details in Final Fantasy XI will only be able to be accomplished with a geForce4 card."

Castolari writes "Gameforms reports about the Japanese launch of FF XI, Square's online venture with the series. Apparently, there's some serious technical problems with the server load as well." They also have some Screenshots. I'm still hoping that someone will get the MMORPG right in the not so distant future.

Castolari writes "Gameforms reports about the Japanese launch of FF XI, Square's online venture with the series. Apparently, there's some serious technical problems with the server load as well." They also have some Screenshots. I'm still hoping that someone will get the MMORPG right in the not so distant future.

Castolari writes "Gameforms reports about the Japanese launch of FF XI, Square's online venture with the series. Apparently, there's some serious technical problems with the server load as well." They also have some Screenshots. I'm still hoping that someone will get the MMORPG right in the not so distant future.