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Hmm. The GameSpy preview has a bunch of screenshots attached. The UXO Stratics page has a big screenshots archive. Not sure there's a lack of screenshots to complain about?

Gamespy.com goes into depth showing the inner workings @ Cindy on the inside. Good interview as well

"System Shock 2, Thief, Deus Ex-- these are the games that are consistently lauded as the masterpieces of the genre, and are as consistently re-played as id's mindless mousekillers."

Replayed by who? You only have evidence of you yourself replaying them. And the "genre" is arguable. I would not put Deus Ex or Thief into the same first person shooter genre as Quake 3 or System Shock 2. Thief was much more about sneaking around rather than shooting (in fact the hardest difficulty required that you killed no one). Gameplay was totally different in Thief. Deus Ex was more of a shooter-RPG hybrid-- it wasn't about combat and puzzles as much as an involved story with a focus on character interaction and player stats development. System Shock 2 was a "true" first person shooter in my opinion (it did not try to merge multiple genres too much), but it was very much a sleeper hit due to its complexity and release during the multiplayer boom (and throughout SS2 I always felt this intense loneliness that multiplayer gaming was the polar opposite of). The 4 player coop patch didn't do much to change that. SS2 was unique for its RPG elements but at its heart was a plain "survival" type shooter with simple AI, annoying maze-like levels and tedious objective-based gameplay (how much did you have to do before activating those ship generators?). I loved SS2 for the fear one felt and the story, but not for the crux of its gameplay which was as simple as Quake I.

The only masterpiece of the "true" single player shooter was in my opinion Half-Life, and for multiplayer it is Tribes 2. Both took what was the essence of each genre and brought it to the next level. For Half-Life as a single player game it was a cool premise, good map puzzles, awesome AI, creative weapons and an overall immersive environment. For Tribes 2 as an excellent multiplayer game it was the value of teamwork, integration of different combat types and strategies, and efficient netcode. Neither tried to merge genres, as Deus Ex did with the rpg elements, and both were at their hearts first person shooters, unlike Thief which was a first person sneaker if you had to give the genre a name.

P.S. I doubt you'll find as many people replaying those games as Quake 3 which constantly has thousands of players online.

Just for kicks, check the latest Gamespy Grudge: Strategy vs. Blowing Stuff Up

There is a much longer and more in-depth interview with the Carmack over at Gamespy. Basically the source for the CNN article.

Good book - you can read a whole chapter of it here.. along with an interview with the author and a few other bits.

But even reusing characters is, in many ways, a cop-out. Same reason so many TV shows start with a known character from another show (you know, Joni loves Chaci (sp?) Syndrome). Perhaps it's a very novel and creative show, but the point is that people are still banking on that name recognition and brand familiarity.

To me, that's by definition not as original as creating a new game from scratch. I'll readily admit that I haven't tried Wario Ware, but just hearing Wario conjures up certain connotations -- and from the description on IGN Pocket, we do have a relatively kid-friendly, arcade action game, as random as it might be.

The bottom line is that Nintendo, even when they have something quite nearly wholly original, has to tag the game with a character simply for name recognition, aka "$$$". This is no Incredible Crisis, for better or worse.

And just when you thought it couldn't get any worse, what does ole johnC do from QuakeCon?

John Carmack: I thought it would be kind of neat if we took the DOOM renderer, and we had a team take previous games-don't touch the game, just revamp it graphically. Just take Quake II, and just use the DOOM engine to make brand new graphic models and everything. But don't spend time messing with the gameplay because we know that is pretty good. Just release it as Quake II Remix with brand new graphics technology and sell it at a middle-level price instead of a boutique price.

I thought that was a pretty good idea.

Super. As if updating Resident Evil for GameCube wasn't enough, now we might have the exact same freakin' gameplay from Quake 2 back again. Goldeneye, Team Fortress, Action Quake, SOCOM were all great strides over the state of current fps. Be a little adventurous! Least Carmack's fair enough that he's not looking for people to pay more than $20 or so for it.

Even if the point seems so small to you as to be useless, gaming companies simply aren't, as a whole, taking all that many risks. Perhaps the US is so steeped in capitalism that we just don't care any more, but I think the article points out fairly well that there is very little pure originality for pure originality's sake.

Gamespy have released a new screenshot of this game - If you ask me, it seems to have outdone every other game on the platform - the graphics are simply amazing.

Gamespy.com has an excellent article on this as well located here.

FP ;D

Doom III has had physics simulation for a very long time. A Gamespy interview from August 2002 states, "First, Tim showed the physics system by shooting some boxes off a shelf -- the boxes would react differently depending on where they were shot. Next, Tim shot the side of a lighting fixture, causing it to swing back and forth, and subsequently cast moving shadows on the zombie below." The 2002 E3 demo also showed ragdoll physics, as an enemy fell down the stairs you could see his limbs bending and moving realistically as they hit a siderail and then the steps.

The physics enhancements are in no way a response to the unveiling of Half-Life 2, which unlike Doom 3 does not use an in-house developed physics engine (Half-Life 2 and many other games use the Havok physics engine). They were in place and demonstrated to the public far before Half-Life 2 was ever shown.

Romero said he was gonna kick my ass, and I'm still waiting.

Didn't the ad say that he was going to make you "his bitch"?

Well, those who bought the game certainly did become his bitch, among other things.

...three years ago.

You'll want to check out their thoughts on tax shelters in MMORPGs and the risks involved.

You'll want to check out their thoughts on tax shelters in MMORPGs and the risks involved.

Who do you think pays the developers while they make the game? Very few developers are in a position to publish a game without any outside funding. Web-based games are cheap to make, but does the world really need another Bejeweled rip-off? Who is going to pay for the 3 year development of a game and the engine license in the first place?

Who paid the ppl when they were working on Counterstrike in their spare time? No one? And yet CS is good enough to be a retail product. How can this be? Could it be that sufficiently motivated hobbyists can create content that is as good as or better than commercial games. Nah, that couldn't be it. :)

Then lets talk quality control. Its the publisher who does the QA. Now I know we all have different opinions about how well that works, but it is something.

Most publishers don't even do their own QA they farm it out to temporary workers. If there is 0 budget for QA then a reasonable level of QA can be performed by releasing their game to an expanding list of beta testers that gets larger as the devs feel more comfortable with the state of their game.

Along with quality control goes support. Who is to say there would even be a serious customer support webpage, let alone a call and email center?

Patches? See above for cash. Once the game is out the amount of money earned is basically set. The chance of extended support with patches is even more unlikely.

Broadband support is not ready. If you don't believe me, look how the Counter-strike population shot up once it became a retail product. That was a free game in the first place, but since it was a huge download it didn't REALLY blow up until someone could walk into a store and buy it at retail. Broadband is spreading but its just not there yet.

I think the fact that CS really blew up is somewhat a function of broadband not being pervasive but I would suggest to you that it is also a function of percieved value. I'm not sure of their numbers but the folks over at garagegames.com seem to be doing pretty well selling games w/o some huge publisher.

Is a couple thousand units sold enough to justify making a top quality game in the first place? Enemy Territory was recently released and even at the delicious price of 0 it only has less than 8000 users online at a time. Assuming TEN times that many have downloaded it, that is eighty thousand units. 80k units at $50 each (yeah right for an online buy) = 4 Large. Blizzard (chosen because I could easily find the info) has about 150 employees. The sales from that game would earn each employee an average of 27k per year. For exactly one year. They definitely need a larger base than that, even given the well rounded up and generous numbers.

You're totally missing the point. No one is saying that publishers are going away overnight and that all the big dev houses will switch over to online distribution next week. These things start with the smaller dev houses (and these guys are a portion of a small dev house) and graduates to the larger houses later. Why on earth do you think Valve has developed Steam .If it isn't a viable means of distributing content (which is all games really are today) why is Valve doing it? Valve mentions that 75% of their players are on broadband btw. Like any new technology online distribution will be tried and proven in the smaller dev houses and the graduate up to the big boys.

Then there is the physical product itself. There are so many questions there.

Other people in this thread have answered these questions.

Don't even think about publishers going away just yet. Wallstreet analysts will be the first to correctly predict that one.

You must to be joking? I work for a financial company and let me tell you that most wall street analysts are lazy, self centered, blue blooded morons who are only in their business for the cash. The moment you hear a wall street analyst predict the doom of publishers you can rest assured *it has already happened*.

... but it'd be nice if they covered input, sound, and networking like DirectX does. Arguably that'd make porting games to Linux much easier. Plus, it'd give developers an alternative to DirectX that's more portable.

Just a thought, but I don't expect to get a lot of attention for it because I'm hinting that MS did something right.

State of Emergency, anyone?

Why do they even bother? All they do is endlessly promote games that may not be any good anyway.

Maybe you have not been paying attention, so let me refresh your memoriy. GTA3, Vice City, Max Payne, Midnight Club 2, are these the games which 'may not be any good?'

Keep to what your good at, trolling on /. and R* will keep to what they are good at, making some of the best games on the planet.

Why do they even bother? All they do is endlessly promote games that may not be any good anyway.

Maybe you have not been paying attention, so let me refresh your memoriy. GTA3, Vice City, Max Payne, Midnight Club 2, are these the games which 'may not be any good?'

Keep to what your good at, trolling on /. and R* will keep to what they are good at, making some of the best games on the planet.

Why do they even bother? All they do is endlessly promote games that may not be any good anyway.

Maybe you have not been paying attention, so let me refresh your memoriy. GTA3, Vice City, Max Payne, Midnight Club 2, are these the games which 'may not be any good?'

Keep to what your good at, trolling on /. and R* will keep to what they are good at, making some of the best games on the planet.

Why do they even bother? All they do is endlessly promote games that may not be any good anyway.

Maybe you have not been paying attention, so let me refresh your memoriy. GTA3, Vice City, Max Payne, Midnight Club 2, are these the games which 'may not be any good?'

Keep to what your good at, trolling on /. and R* will keep to what they are good at, making some of the best games on the planet.

Ditto for movies. Didja see the bit in that list where they praised Batman & Robin? I mean, COME ON..

(link)

Smartest #23, 1993: Namco and Sega Bring Arcades Home, seems to be the most depressing "advance" for me. As noted in the editor comments, designing arcade games for future home use pretty much spelled the end of the 1980s arcade culture.

In the 80s, you had mom-n-pop arcades in little hole-in-the-wall spots. My favorite was one in downtown Tulsa that you'd never have found unless you happened to walk past and look inside. That's the one where I lost my $10 (see my lame-o attempt to First Post this article). Another was across the street from the grocery store I worked at, and was a great place to wind down after bagging groceries in the days before "paper or plastic?"

Now, it's virtually impossible to support a stand-alone arcade. Oh, you can drive down any street in Texas (at least) and see video parlors, but they're devoted to Cherry Master and Video Poker, not Pac-Man and Asteroids. The only place you can find a real game selection is at the mall or the movie theater. I wasn't into the mall scene as a teen, and I'm even less inclined that way in my 30s.

Although I did manage to embarass my daughter at DDR. She tried it out, but was wearing the wrong shoes and bailed. So I hopped on, much to her embarassment, but to the amusement of the rest of the teenyboppers. I don't think she's forgiven me yet...

I mean, I liked EverQuest as much as the next guy, but Delsyn (who had comments at the bottom of that page) was a bit on the generous side when talking about their customer service.

CS was never perfected in EQ. Rather, it was pretty damn close about a year after release, at which point Sony Online showed back up, put certain people (George Scotto, for example) in key positions, and proceeded to give EQ CS the ass reaming it had been waiting for. To say that the Star Wars Galaxies team has forgotten all those lessons verges on senility. The SWG CS method (filing CS tickets which get answered later whether the player is online or off) is far more efficient, and the only reason CS seems worse in SWG is that SWG is new, and the number of CS tickets filed is way up. Once things settle, CS will likely be slightly better in SWG than in EQ, despite the lack of a volunteer-supported CSR corps.

Perhaps people simply haven't had the right inspiration before? So far, pretty much the only goal has been "Kill stuff, get better, kill bigger stuff, repeat."

If you read the reviews from places like GameSpy, you'll find people have finally found more to do in Star Wars Galaxies.

Finally, a game's turned up where you can really be a crafter. Not one that does it during downtime in fights to help with the main goal of battle XP but one who runs a store and that's their life in game. The final post in the article probably sums it up best:

I logged in for a couple of minutes to grab a few more screenshots. The next thing I knew, I had run all the way to Weetzie's Wearables (205 - 5483 on Corellia), a great little clothing shop owned by Wallaby's friend on Ahazi. I was wearing nothing, save the lousy clothes I had managed to scavenge up since switching servers from Bria to Ahazi. Weetzie took me in, looked over my character's clothing, and just said "No." Then she and I (and a few other GameSpy employees who had logged on) just sat for an hour and talked about my goals in the game. I want to become a bounty hunter, and she crafted an entirely unique ensemble just for me.

I don't spend that much time shopping for clothes in real life.

And it's not just crafting. There're architects, store owners, prospectors, droid mechanics. Sure, a lot of people are complaining that they don't get to be UberJediTwinkie99 but more people are finding they get to enjoy being just another guy hanging out in the universe of their childhood dreams before popping down to the Mos Eisley cantina for a drink. In a game like that, people are finally getting inspired to enjoy their roles, rather than twink. Once you're actually enjoying your role, the roleplaying comes automatically.

The problem's been, so far, that for all they pretend games are about roleplaying, they're not, they're about getting numbers and being tougher than everyone else. Finally, a game's come out where simply being in the world is what's fun.

From GameSpy

Since older videogames had relatively simple graphics, box art artists often had to "embellish" and conjure up visions of what they imagined the game would look like if the creators had more than 16k of memory to work with.

Unfortunately, the guy who did the artwork for the Atari Computer port of Pac-Man envisioned Pac-Man as a buck-toothed, Frisbee eating, washed-up marathon runner with high socks who lived in a castle.

There's a rumor that a live-action Pac-Man movie may be in the works, but it won't be nearly as good as my version. If I directed the film, Pac-Man would be an unemployed guy in a yellow suit who lives in a dirty apartment and verbally abuses his wife (Mrs. Pac-Man). At the beginning of the film, Mrs. Pac-Man leaves Pac-Man for Dig Dug ("At least that way I'll get a good pumping every once in awhile," she'll say) and Pac-Man soon spirals deep into a crippling "power pellet" addiction. To make matters worse, the ghosts buy Pac-Man's apartment complex and threaten to evict him. Pac-Man is powerless to stop the ghosts, so he gets chased from his home and ends up chomping up marbles on the street. Eventually, he starts having seizures due to pellet withdrawal and ends up in rehab. He's cured and released, but ends up overdosing on power pellets, bursting into the landlord's office, and eating all the ghosts to death. Then Pac-Man goes on trial for murder and it's really dramatic.

Hollywood will no doubt steal my brilliant story idea. Just you wait.

Check out Gamespy's list of Top 10 Worst Box Covers in their Humor section.

Check out Gamespy's list of Top 10 Worst Box Covers in their Humor section.

don't forget this gamespy article.

Phones aren't the only mobile devices with games. They have company in the iPod. Second-gen iPods had one game, Brick (which is really Breakout, the old Atari coin-op engineered by Steve Wozniak), and the new third-gen iPods have three: Brick, Solitaire, and Parachute.

I haven't fiddled with a new iPod yet, so I don't know what Parachute is; but it might be that very old Mac game where you had to parachute into a moving hay-filled sleigh or something. Solitaire looks good.

The iPod's not exactly a Game Boy Advance, but at least it gives you something to do in a queue. Also, Apple's screens are always very good. The one in the iPod is, at 2", bigger than most phone screens. It's well backlit too - which, I hear, the Advance isn't.

What other kinds of devices out there have games?

While I don't think H-L 1 was the best game ever, a quick trip over to Gamespy tells us that there are currently 84,320 people playing Half Life, with BF1942 in second place with a paltry 8,440. Link to those live stats.

Mr.

Is this PowerPlay modified, finished, and rebranded?

some comments about PowerPlay here( it's the second item listed on the page, about half way down)

GameSpy recently ran a feature called The 25 Dumbest Moments In Gaming. The Universal vs. Nintendo infringement suit made it to number 20. They discuss it here.

GameSpy recently ran a feature called The 25 Dumbest Moments In Gaming. The Universal vs. Nintendo infringement suit made it to number 20. They discuss it here.

GameSpy recently ran a feature called The 25 Dumbest Moments In Gaming. The Universal vs. Nintendo infringement suit made it to number 20. They discuss it here.

For those of you who are interested in picking up a game now and then, I highly recommend the ProQuake engine (GPL) and the CRMod++ DeathMatch competition framework.

These are modifications of NetQuake that were made to keep the original feel of Quake, with some minor improvements. None of the core of the game is changed with these packages. You can even connect to these machines with the original Quake client.

List of CRMod++ servers

-molo

We thank you for your entry in the "Early Post, Easy Karma" competition. We regret to inform you that your quickly-typed, contentless entry did not accrue the cheap karma for which you had hoped.

In the future, you may wish to include an obvious, tangenitally-related link or certain typographic contrivances if you wish to gain the attention of gullible moderators.

Don't be discouraged! Thanks for playing!

Hmmm... I know where they got that idea. If you've even played the CHAOS mod for Quake2 then you'll remember the "happy grenades".

Those little bouncing bundles of joy that followed you and giggled while they blew the crap out of you.

I believe there is an UT version of the mod, but it wasn't as fun as the original. Ah, I miss the Quake2 days.

larry

It's not too strange to see video games making a break into Japanese drugstores, they've been in convenience stores for years now.

True, but so did Sinfest and PVP. I am surprised that there are no more mentions of PVP, Dork Tower and Nodwick, which all combine paper and online publishing.

True, but so did Sinfest and PVP. I am surprised that there are no more mentions of PVP, Dork Tower and Nodwick, which all combine paper and online publishing.

Ideo may design a lot of things well, but they have made some mistakes.

They designed the US version of Sega's Saturn controller, which many gamers considered inferior to the Japanese version. The US verison had the same features as the Japanese version but a clunkier layout and more internal parts. Sega eventually dropped the US version and sold the Japanese version everywhere. Plus, Saturn was one of few consoles to put more than four buttons under the right thumb, but that was probably Sega's decision, not Ideo's.

Goblin Commander certainly looks interesting to me. If it makes it's current speculated date, it'll be out by the end of the year or the beginning of the next.

And most important, find a way to kick the (undeserved) just for kids image.

Wouldn't say it is underserved, not when they did crap like this.

Might not be true now but some of us have long memories.

The NWN community has been getting broader and more interesting, perhaps mainly due to the VAST number of third-party modules out there, and the new module content that Bioware puts out as well. Think of it as another manifestation of the miracle of Open Source; a lot of things that were added to the latest NWN expansion pack actually came from the community and were added in.

From your post, it's obvious to me that you know nothing about this, and the only reason I'm replying is because it pains me to see such an uninformed post sitting at +5.

Anyone remember this positive Japanese perspective on the game, from a rather unlikely source? (Slashdot story here.

Of a case involving MCA Universal, Nintendo and Donkey Kong.

It ends up Universal didn't actually OWN the rights to Donkey Kong, but bullied several companies, and sued Nintendo anyway... and ended up paying 1.8 million for the trouble.

Ryan Fenton

Does SCO have Robert Stein as a legal consultant?