Slashdot Mirror

Decaffeinated Jedi writes "This week, GameSpy is serving up a variety of articles regarding Cryptic Studios' upcoming massively multiplayer superhero PC roleplaying game, City of Heroes (following up on its December 2003 preview). The preview offers hands-on impressions of the game, a look at the origin and ongoing adventures of Kingblade (an in-game character created by one of the editors), a roundtable with the developers, several screenshot galleries, and more. City of Heroes is currently in beta and scheduled for released on April 27, 2004. Will it join the ranks of Freedom Force in breaking the legendary superhero game curse? Only time will tell, true believers!" There's more info on this NCSoft-published game at COH Stratics and the official site.

Thanks to GameSpot for their preview of Irrational's PC RPG sequel, Freedom Force vs. the Third Reich. According to the first look at this previously unannounced title, a follow-up to the popular tactical role-playing game which featured "a stable of superheroes based on classic 1960s Silver Age comics", this sequel boasts an enhanced 3D engine and Nazi tentacle-bots, as "...the Freedom Force team must travel back in time to World War II to battle a new supervillain named Blitzkrieg, who is the defender of the Reich."

mrleemrlee writes "Marvel Entertainment has sent a cease-and-desist letter to The Skindex, which houses skins for customizing computer games such as The Sims and Freedom Force. The Webmaster has responded by pulling the website's content and publishing a copy of the letter. This is interesting in that such skinning has been going on for a decade, at least since Doom. Only now has Marvel decided to protect its IP; what might it have in store? Do other sites have anything to worry about?" Are user-created game skins of their characters good publicity for companies like Marvel, or an unacceptable copyright violation?

Thanks to an anonymous reader for pointing to a PlanetTribes post showing off a new set of screenshots (proudly proclaiming the game '29% complete') for Tribes: Vengeance, a forthcoming Unreal-engine PC FPS being developed by System Shock 2 and Freedom Force creators Irrational. The title is an eagerly-awaited sequel to a franchise once thought extremely unwell, and an earlier preview at GameSpot explains that this newly unveiled title should ship in late 2004, and will concentrate on both single and multi-player gameplay aspects this time round.

Thanks to an anonymous reader for pointing to a PlanetTribes post showing off a new set of screenshots (proudly proclaiming the game '29% complete') for Tribes: Vengeance, a forthcoming Unreal-engine PC FPS being developed by System Shock 2 and Freedom Force creators Irrational. The title is an eagerly-awaited sequel to a franchise once thought extremely unwell, and an earlier preview at GameSpot explains that this newly unveiled title should ship in late 2004, and will concentrate on both single and multi-player gameplay aspects this time round.

Thanks to an anonymous reader for pointing to a PlanetTribes post showing off a new set of screenshots (proudly proclaiming the game '29% complete') for Tribes: Vengeance, a forthcoming Unreal-engine PC FPS being developed by System Shock 2 and Freedom Force creators Irrational. The title is an eagerly-awaited sequel to a franchise once thought extremely unwell, and an earlier preview at GameSpot explains that this newly unveiled title should ship in late 2004, and will concentrate on both single and multi-player gameplay aspects this time round.

Mathias Wittlock writes "Etienne Aubert has created a mod for the classic System Shock 2 which replaces all models with much better looking, higher polygon ones. Maybe a reason to pick up this game again?" You can also find more info about this classic Looking Glass-legacy title at fan site Sshock2.com - and this is yet another good mod for an older game.