Tim Schafer's Grim Fandango and Black Isle Studio's Fallout 2 have already been released. King's Quest: Mask of Eternity and Quest for Glory: Dragonfire are yet to get out of the door, but we're waiting.

"We saw the Great Pumpkin."
        ---Linus Van Pelt, Charles M. Schultz's Peanuts,
Matthew Arcilla

 

"Cain? Aren't you that bald doofus from Command and Conquer?"  After Tim Cain's (not so shocking) departure from Interplay, he, like many other designers these days, has gone rogue to strike on new ventures with fellow Interplayers Leonard Boyarsky and Jason Anderson have founded Troika Games.  Recently, he signed a deal (no specifics yet on the contract details) with Sierra On-Line to publish Troika's first game, which has already been announced as an RPG.  The Troika crew are responsible in varying positions with the development of the sleeper hit RPG, Fallout which won RPG awards everywhere from respectable gaming 'zines.  ---c/o Matthew Arcilla  Telenovela by Gaming Contact Site  A year-long miniseries will be debuting on the World Opponent Network, called The Cypher. In this series, players will explore castle ruins, access the files of the legendary Scotland Yard, aand search for the clues to an era-spanning mystery.   James Francis Ravenshim, discovers within his family castle, a series of hidden chambers containing charts, documents and devices which he must decipher to figure out the reason behind their existence.  The Cypher will require Realplayer but so says WON that it is design even for slower connections. The series will conclude by the end of 1999.  ---c/o Matthew Arcilla

 

Also, each page now has it's own catchy tag-line, just for fun. This set of news should have the status bar of your web browser read "JustAdventure News! - Better than watching glue drip off of paper!". If it doesn't then you can personally come over to my house and hit me with a rubber chicken. The same kind of crappy taglines have been added

As of now, I am still having a dickens of a time updating. But rain or shine, I still deliver the goods... So perhaps I'll go postal this Halloween. Don't expect many news updates in the coming week, although the industry is getting pretty active and exciting right now. I'll be out for the weekend for Halloween and All Saint's, so forgive me. But then again, I don't get much mail, so I really don't know if anyone cares about this page.

Anywho, today marks the debut of the aforementioned JANews! Mailpage, where I will publicly humiliate those who dare to refute my opinions. Ahh, if I cannot take over the world, at least I'll have some form of omnipotence in my little microcosm.

Oh and I caught up with a guy from Cendant Hotels, and got some comment about the Cendant Software sales fiasco out of him, so details are below. Also, I will soon get back to a regular daily news status, as soon as I can get the rest of the system fixed.

I am also starting work on a new website, which has yet to be named, which will just be a hypercolumn by me on gaming rants and gaming rants and gaming rants, plus a truck load of gaming junk that interests me. Perhaps I'll call it Egocentric Gamer.

My brother is also working on a new website called Conspiracy Theory, which will be a webpage of excessive paranoia, conspiracies and neurotic visions of horror. Yum.

"Nonsense. It makes me feel smarter, more agressive...",
Matthew Arcilla

 

"He's Dead, Jim."   <Insert 4 minor 1 progression of two notes> "I just don't understand, Bones." "I know Jim, but I think you'd get used to the fact that we lose an ensigns a lot on our missions." "Quiet Bones, I'm doing my intense gripping stare." "Sorry, Jim."   In an ugly financial status during the quarter end (September), Interplay reported a net loss of 15.1M dollars. The company attributed the loss to "shipping delays for Fallout 2 and overall lower than expected worldwide sales for Wild 9."   Interplay President Chris Kilpatrick said in a statement to GameSpot News:  "Due to the lower than expected financial results and near-term revenue outlook, the company is currently experiencing cash and liquidity pressures. In response to this, we are attempting to negotiate an expanded line of credit and are implementing a corporate restructuring program."  According to a lot of reports, Interplay's senior management may end up with pay cuts. Fifty employees have already been dismissed.  Because of these ugly problems, development for three titles under their wing have been directly affected. Earthworm Jim 3D and Shiny Entertainment's Messiah have been pushed back to a middle of 1999 release.  But foremost in adventure gamers' minds is the status of the long-delayed Star Trek: The Secret of Vulcan Fury. Well, the title has been placed on hold. Even more shocking is that the developer, Tribal Dreams, (Of Light and Darkness) has officially been given the axe.   The future looks grim for Vulcan Fury, although it is not yet on the flatline status.  ---c/o Evan Dickens and Matthew Arcilla  "Party-time, Party-time... Ex-CE-llent!"   Details on the previously announced Fallout 2 Premiere Bash have been released. The big bash will take place at the Triangle Square at 1870 Harbor Boulevard in Costa Mesa, California. This is all happening October 30, beginning at 8:00pm.    Team members from the Black Isle development team will be there, and a band will be playing, no confirmation yet which band that is. The first 1,000 fans will receive a goodie bag filled with Fallout 2 items. Fallout 2 costumes are strongly encouraged, and there is of course, a costume contest.   ---c/o Matthew Arcilla  Classic Sierra Games En Masse  Sierra On-Line has made available seven different game-packs, which seemed to be tailor made for different audiences.   The packs available include The Gabriel Knight Mysteries, featuring the two award-winning installments of the Gabriel Knight series by Jane Jensen, plus loads of goodies. Sierra's Quest Series: Volume 1, Darkness: The Supernatural Collection, Game Pack for Windows 98, 486 Pack and Police Quest: SWAT Force Pack and Mac Entertainment Pack for unfairly deprived Mac gamers. Prices vary from twenty to fifty dollars.  ---c/o Matthew Arcilla  "Buenos Dias, Senor."  Grim Fandango has shipped. Cheers around the adventure community resound around the globe. Unfortunately, we Pinoys have to wait a while for the original boxed copy to get here. Pirates will be here in a jiffy, though.  ----c/o Matthew Arcilla  Wilco's Domain Lives Again!  Troels Pleimert, he of the legendary Wilco's Domain, has returned from his exchange student program and is back! The "Freelance Space Quest Historian" and "Wilco-Worshipper", has rejigged his site for a flashy new look, although the contents of the original site have yet to be completely reinstalled.  Wilco's Domain is no more, as it sports a new moniker as Wilco's Coffin, but look forward to more of the legendary content and humor that made it famous in the Space Quest circles, right there with the Virtual Broomcloset. More power to the World Wide Wilco Web!  ---c/o Matthew Arcilla

 

"There was supposed to be an earth-shattering kaboom."
        ---Frank Savage, Lead Programmer of Wing Commander III
Matthew Arcilla

 

Grim Fandango Makes Its Journey.  LucasArts Entertainment Company just announced by way of press release, that Grim Fandango, Tim Schafer's (Full Throttle, Day of the Tentacle) latest adventure offering, has just gone gold, and will be ready to ship. In fact, it should be in stores now as you read this.  I can only say one thing: YAHOOO!!!!!!  ---c/o Matthew Arcilla   Help Wanted  RPGHQ, this cool site dedicated to... uh, RPGs, duh!, is looking for people to help out at their site. I'd apply, but I have like, no free time as it is. Otherwise, I'd have finished writing two more articles for my column at JA.   Applicants should have the usual expected HTML knowledge, some decent grasp of the English language and time for the workload. Oh yeah, and a love for RPGs. Send all applications to Rind or SuperJaded   ---c/o Matthew Arcilla  Adventure Games Suck  Saleswise, at least. According to the latest issue of Computer Gaming World (November 1998), in a response to a letter by Jeff Sengstack concerning the state of adventure games, adventure games are not faring well financially.   Given that today's computer games cost an couple odd million dollars or so to create, and sell for thirty dollars upwards, "you've got to sell 67,000 copies to break even." According to PC Data (AKA the king of software charts), these are the top 12 best-selling adventure games as of July:    Title Units Sold Revenue in U.S. Dollars Myst 341,201 5,994,983 Riven 219,602 9,378,571 Police Quest: SWAT 152,425 1,662,405 The X-Files Game 64,680 2,769,311 Betrayal At Antara 52,309 674,058 Journeyman Project 2: Buried in Time 52,269 2,178,771 Men In Black 49,520 1,423,382 Titanic: Adventure Out of Time 48,121 476,509 Blade Runner 47,939 2,283,055 Shivers II: Harvest of Souls 45,963 445,196 Douglas Adams' Starship Titanic 41,523 1,841,429 The Curse of Monkey Island 40,538 1,576,281    This is really crazy. That means most of these games lost money instead of earning it. You thought The Last Express was an isolated case? Think again, adventures are losing hold of their deep roots in the industry.  ---c/o Matthew Arcilla