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Contracts,
Thief: Deadly Shadows
Welcome to another Game.Ars. It's October, and that means
it's time for horror movies and horror games to start rising from their graves
in your town. I have only one goal for this month, and that is to be first in
line for the new Chucky movie. If nothing else, Jennifer Tilly is worth the $10
ticket price: she's cute, funny and, uh, cute. And hey, come to think of it,
where is our Chucky video game? Blizzard? Valve? Bioware? No? Oh, well. While we
wait for someone to be brave enough to release a Chucky title, let's look at the
past week in gaming news.
Cha-ching!
A new record was set at EB Games when The Sims 2
sold one million copies in just ten days. It's the biggest game launch for EA
in more than 20 years. And this is not just an American fad according to
EA's marketing VP, more than half of the sales were recorded across the pond,
in Europe.
Check out our review of The
Sims 2.
A shot of Devil Whiskey
Devil Whiskey, a hand-crafted role-playing game in
the style of Bard's Tale and the older Might and Magic games is looking for a
certified Linux/Unix System
Administrator. I saw the post for the job early this week and have no idea if
it's
filled yet. This is the kind of thing that can really flesh out a resumé, even
if you're not specifically looking to break into the gaming field.
Check out Devil Whiskey here.
Half-Life 2 stuck in court
Two weeks ago I mentioned that Half-Life would be going gold
soon, and that was correct. The game is officially "finished" with a
gold candidate ready for approval. But Valve and Vivendi are biting at each
other like rabid dogs over certain copyright issues.
The legal jargon is all Greek to me. Even after reading up
on the case, I don't fully understand what the logic behind the hold-up would be.
What I do understand is that Half Life 2 could be delayed for up to six
months, even if the gold candidate is approved, pressed, printed and packaged.
According to Vivendi, Valve's claims that the game would be
released in September were made without its consent.
If you want more details, including some of the legalese,
check out this
article at Gamespot.com from Tuesday.
Games: a recent history
GameSpy put up a list of their "25 Most Memorable Games
of the Past 5 Years." It's a good read over which to enjoy your morning
coffee so I thought I'd link it here for anyone who missed it. I know that 5
years isn't exactly a trip down Nostalgia Street, but still, it made me
realize just how much fun I've been having since 1999. Time goes by in a blur,
so taking a look back over your shoulder to see where you've been once in a
can be fun, if not instructive. Here's a snippet from the discussion about Deus Ex:
"The truth was, it was actually a very linear game it didn't feel that
way while you were playing it, though! At GameSpy it really opened our eyes. For
weeks we talked about it with one another, and for years afterwards we compared
games to it."
Check out the full
article here.
Pirates off the starboard mouse!
Taking a classic game, remaking it with current technology
and releasing it on a new generation of gamers has become common practice.
We're not talking sequels here; these are modern versions of the old-school
originals. And unlike movie remakes, which usually do little to improve on the
original, video games lend themselves quite well to this recycling practice.
Sid Meier's Pirates! is one of my all-time
favorite games. When I heard that Firaxis was releasing a re-make of it, I was
terribly excited and curious about how much of the original gameplay would
remain intact. It looks, from all I've read, to be on the right track, and as
I speak (type?) Pirates is preparing to set sail.
GameSpot.com has a
new
preview of the game with an interesting look at the design and development
process. Ever hear of "iterative prototyping"? Yean, me neither.
"It's a lot simpler than it sounds: iterative, because we work in a
cyclical fashion, taking a pass at improving the game, stepping back to evaluate
it, then building on that foundation with the next pass; and prototyping,
because we start with simple models and simulations of things�"
You can check out the preview
here where you'll learn more about Firaxis' design process and about some
turn-based elements that made it into the game.
Star power in Area 51
Area 51, a game due for PS2 and Xbox next year, will
put players in charge of investigating an attack at (you guessed it) Area 51,
the infamous UFO crash site and top secret US-government facility in the Nevada
desert. Recently Midway
Games announced that X-Files star David Duchovny will join Marilyn Manson and Powers
Boothe as part of the voice-acting cast. Certainly, Duchovny was courted due to
his work in the X-Files series, which was (and still is) a cult favorite for
UFO-ologists and conspiracy theorists around the world.
Area 51 is a first-person shooter that got a lot of
good press at E3, and Paramount Pictures has already acquired rights to bring the
game to the big screen. The hype is big-time but the game isn't due until March
of 2005. We'll keep our eyes out for details as they surface. I understand that Area
51 is the conversion of a popular arcade game, but I've never played it.
Bullet news
-
SCi Entertainment and Davis Panzer Productions will
partner to develop a video game based on Highlander. There can be
only one!
-
Oh, no! There goes Tokyo! Go, go Godzilla!
-
New video of Bard's
Tale at IGN.
-
Yet another Half
Life 2 preview with the latest sights and sounds.
-
Bloodrayne 2
goes gold. It's due on shelves Oct 12.
Some recent releases
-
Evil Genius
-
Crusader Kings
-
Dukes of Hazzard: Return of the General Lee
(PS2, Xbox)
Past Game.Ars action is archived on this page.
Revision History
Date |
Version |
Changes |
10/01/2004 |
1.0 |
Release |
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