As usual, NONE of these articles have been contributed by the following sorry bastiches: Craig White, Randy Sluganski, Andy Bellatti, Peter Rollo, Evan Dickens, Noah Koontz and the rest of the JA staff.

I squish I squish da banana,
Matthew Arcilla

 

Three-Headed Dog Becomes A Rock  Due to conflicts in the lines of legalities and technicalities, Cerberus Games, developer of Mystic Isle, has been forced to rename itself as Big Red Rock Entertainment. Their website has had an appropriate name and URL change.  ---c/o Matthew Arcilla  Is It Anything Like a Hobbit Hole?  Sierra has unveiled their little website which promotes the new multi-player Middle Earth game, based on the works of King Fantasy, J.R.R. Tolkien. Sierra promises regular updates, and is quick to point out that the game will not be out by the year 2000, and will be developed by Yosemite Entertainment.  The game itself will be set many, many generations after Sauron's defeat and the Ring Wars and players can be all sorts of races from the Tolkien menagerie. That includes dwarves, elves and hobbits!  In the mean time, let's pass the 463 remaining days by visiting the website over and over!! Or you can buy all those Middle Earth playing cards from Iron Crown.  ---c/o Matthew Arcilla  Last Express... Movie... Possible... Cheer in Glee. Now.  The Last Express, best known for being a well-written game that didn't break even, is now has the possibility of becoming a movie. Jordan Mechner (Prince of Persia, Karateka) is currently in talks to bring the storyline to the big screen. However, the movie will most likely be in live-action as opposed to the rotoscoped art noveau cartoons of the game.  ---c/o Matthew Arcilla  Movie Madness  That crazy little trailer for Fallout 2 that everyone was talking about the GenCon '98, is now available for public download. It's mighty big, I warn you, so don't say I didn't. Check it out here. Oh cool, wiat there's also some trailer's over there for Baldur's Gate and Mordor II. Both are also RPGs.  ---c/o Matthew Arcilla  Million-Dollar Company for Sale  An unconfirmed rumor has it that Cendant may be about to be bought by the Lagardere Group, which currently holds Matra and Hachette-Filipachi under its belt.   ---c/o Matthew Arcilla  I'll Be Lapsed In Time...  Hammerhead Entertainment has re-released Timelapse, that award-winning little Myst clone. Also, a few weeks back, they put up a brand new web site on all things Timelapsy. Check out the website here.  ---c/o Matthew Arcilla  In Europe, Our Vision is Active (groan)  Activision has made a deal with LucasArts to become the publishers of their games on European territory with the exception of France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Portugal, and on all platforms except the N64.  ---c/o Matthew Arcilla  More Pirates!? Call in the SPA!  The ECTS saw Microprose (which was recently purchased by Hasbro) confirming rumors that Sid Meier's legendary Pirates!, that wonderful little genre-busting gem, will be getting a sequel, and is currently in pre-production.  ---c/o Matthew Arcilla  The Journey Continues, Man.  Contrary to popular belief, the Journeyman series is NOT dead. You all hear that? It ain't dead. Red Orb did not terminate the series but instead returned the rights to developer Presto Studios.  Presto's Greg Uhler made a statement to the press clearly indicating that they are actively in search of a publisher for the game. Although Activision is publishing their third-person shooter Beneath, Presto is looking at a range of publishers.  Red Orb still has some rights to the game, due to a certain amount of development money invested, but it will be a matter of time before full ownership of the Journeyman series returns to Presto. Thus the future of Journeyman 4 is definitely not bleak.  ---c/o Matthew Arcilla  "Brian Moriarty? Isn't he dead?"  Brian Moriarty (Loom, Wishbringer) has a few words to say about the state of adventure game, really a small nit actually, in GameSpot's Apple ][ Reunion article. Check out his comments here.  ---c/o Matthew Arcilla  "Don't You Have A Kingdom to Run?"  Blizzard Entertainment (Warcraft, Diablo) made an announcement that they are engaged the in-house development of action figures for their popular computer games (finally, I've been dreaming of this thing for years). That's right, we're talking WarCraft and StarCraft toys.  The figures are scheduled to ship on time for the holidays, and figures for the Grunt and Footman from Warcraft and Marine, Zealot and Hydralisk from StarCraft have been confirmed as part of the lineup.  I once heard, back in the early 90s that they were gonna make Space Quest action figures to coincide with the release of the MPC-CD version of Space Quest IV: Roger Wilco and the Time Rippers. Too bad that was just a rumor... Although I'd kill for a really neat Sequel Police figure, if you want my opinion. Ah well..  ---c/o Matthew Arcilla   GK3 Site Update  A bunch of incremental updates have been made to the Gabriel Knight 3: Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned promotional web site. There is a new character bio for Grace Nakimura, and some cast updates, but the greatest update of all has got to be the inclusion of the E3 promotional trailer, up for grabs. Hurry, hurry, hurry!  ---c/o Matthew Arcilla

 

We're having cold mush,
Matthew Arcilla

 

Just Adventure Status  Reviews abound at JustAdventure! Visit and read the reviews for Douglas Adams' Starship Titanic and Heart of Darkness. Plus Randy Sluganski has delivered us a preview of Redguard, Bethesda Softworks' adventure game based on The Elder Scrolls universe (which the RPGs Daggerfall and Arena are set in)  Sad news, Andy Bellatti is forced to shut down his Sierra Spotlight column. What could possible be to blame? Well, it's SCHOOL. Or the lack of time that it leaves in its wake.  Dear readers,  Andy here talking to you.  I guess I thought it would never come down to this, but after   careful meditation, I have chosen to stop my weekly (or bi-weekly) contributions to Just Adventure.   I wish it didn't have to be this way, because I love this job (everything from conducting interviews, to digging for news, giving my opinion, etc.)  However, my free time is very, very  sparse now and lately instead of rushing and making a column ahead of time, I would be   fretting out the last minute trying to think of something.  I want to thank each and every one of you who always sent me words of appreciation and hope.  Even those who didn't send me very polite E-mails... thank you for making me want to defend my points of view even *more*! :-)    Although nothing is definite yet, if things go as I would like them to, this will not be the end of me at Just Adventure. Currently, I am talking to Craig about whether I could perhaps  be an "irregular columnist" or a "monthly columnist" and do one opinion column per month.  Also, I would be extremely interested in supplying news for the "news only" page we own.  Just Adventure is a tremendous website with very friendly individuals.  In other words, please do not start thinking that I am leaving because of disputes, differences, etc.  I simply do  not have the time to keep this up.  Thank you for your support.  Most likely, however, I'll be back.  Regards,  Andy Bellatti  In other news, I am alive once more to take all those news thingies in that nobody from JustAdventure seems to contribute. They also took down their link to this page. I'll go kill Craig now with this big stick... oh, look, here comes Craig with an even BIGGER stick. Well, scrap that idea.

 

 

Just Adventure Status  Well good ole Jaromir Krol, has found a new lawbreaker to imprison into the Dungeon of Shame and it's called Zombieville (geeze the name sounds bad already...), come visit and mock this pathetic piece of thing they dare to call "game".  Plus, Randy "The World's Youngest 40-Year Old" Sluganski, has added his review of Redjack to the site.  Oh yeah, and in the coming week, JustAdventure's ghost URL may stop functioning, because we're moving over to SoftCom, who'll be the new host to the site. So if you can't access the site a bit, don't worry we haven't been hit by a doomsday comet yet. We have to get big, fat and prosperous first.

 

 

I Want MY GTV!!!  Infogrames Entertainment, along with European broadcaster Canal Plus, announced the launch of Game One, Europe's first 24-hour video game channel. Set to go live via satellite during the upcoming ECTS (September 6 to 8), Game One will feature around the clock game news, reviews, and features.   Game One will be distributed to some 1.3 million French households and to more than 3 million prospective European viewers via other broadcasting services by the end of 1998. The show is expected to appear in the United States in the near future.   According to Gilles Lioret, president of the company Game One, "We are looking to pioneer an entirely new medium for the video game market, one that deserves its own channel. Much like MTV did with music more than a decade ago, we are pushing video games onto the television screen."   Game One is aimed at viewers between the ages of 10 and 25 years old (well, there goes the lot of us old foggies). The news segment will focus on new titles, news flashes, upcoming products, and industry dirt. Other segments include Game Play (hard-core gamers); The Top (chart show); Level One, (tips and tricks); Focus, which will take a look at the video game community as a whole; and Warp Zone, which will examine the marriage between video games and movies.   Game One also plans to offer in-depth coverage of the hottest gaming trade shows.  Pretty exciting news for us gaming geeks. How about a little bit of that for us Filipinos over here?  ---c/o Matthew Arcilla  "Ask and You Shall Receive"  The Webmaster of the starting developer Cerberus Games is looking to get people to ask questions about their soon-to-come game, Mystic Isle. This way, he can get more frequently asked questions. To get some questions of your own in, just visit their message board.  ---c/o Matthew Arcilla  "They Love It!!! Aieeeeee!"   Well, here is the list of the top ten best-selling PC games for the week of August 16 to 22, 1998, according to PC Data. No surprises, really.    Rank          Title (Publisher)    1              StarCraft (Cendant Software)  2              Unreal (GT Interactive)   3              Deer Hunter (GT Interactive)   4              Rocky Mountain Trophy Hunter (GT Interactive)   5              Myst (Learning Company)   6                 Cabela's Big Game Hunter (Activision)   7              Flight Simulator 98 (Microsoft)   8              Titanic: Adventure Out of Time (Cyberflix)   9              Diablo (Cendant Software)   10            Final Fantasy VII (Eidos)    The fauna-gaming phenomenon continue's with Deer Hunter and Cabela's Big Game Hunter. Unreal, Diablo, StarCraft and Myst continue to stay strong... as usual. Final Fantasy VII slowly slips down as the marketing hype dies with it. Huge sales continue with Titanic: Adventure Out of Time, which most analysts attribute to word-asssociation with a certain billion-dollar making movie.  ---c/o Matthew Arcilla

 

Overworked, underpaid, Anatevka...
Matthew Arcilla

 

JustAdventure Status  Also, one of the two venerable crusty old veterans at JustAdventure, Randy Sluganski has finished up his latest installment in The State of Adventure Gaming, read all the chaotic ideas he can corrupt your mind with now... go, now, go!  Plus Randy and Craig have tagteamed together to give you their opinions on Soap Bubble Productions' Morpheus, c'mon and read their opinions down at the JA Corral!      The Assembly Line, my own column at JustAdventure was to get an update this week. Of course, my unexpected sabbatical has postponed it, although I am trying to finish the second draft.  Release Date Mania  'ey, it's 8 days more till Grim Fandango is released! Fallout 2 will be ready to come out (no, not the Degeneres kind) this October. Now let's hope LucasArts and Interplay don't get any ideas in following the "ever-shifting release date" standards of the industry... not like GABRIEL KNIGHT 3!!!!   Oh look, here come our good friends Jane Jensen and Adam "Carlos likes giving me silly nicknames" Bormann... Hi, Adam and Jane what're you doing with those two-by-fours?... wait, don't look at me like that... I was just kidding, really.... GAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!  Adam: Greetings everyone, my name is Adam "Don't hate me because I'm beautiful" Bormann. For now JustAdventure News! is unable to continue due to um... natural causes.... Until Craig White is able to reassemble Matthew, JustAdventure News! will remain on hiatus.... thanks everyone, and buy Gabriel Knight 3!!  ---this bit of inanity c/o Matthew Arcilla

 

Chained to a terminal forever,
Matthew Arcilla

 

JustAdventure Status  Watch out for The Assembly Line, my own column at JustAdventure to get an update this week. This time, I'll be talking about game engines. Also, an interview with some people of the design team of Gruesome Castle by interviewmeister himself, Craig White, has been posted here.   DragonFire PostPoned.... Again.  Sierra made a statement to fans that Quest for Glory V: Dragonfire's release date has been pushed back from September to an October/November release, this came in through their F.A.C.S. newsletter.   Excuses are abound this time around. According to Jay Usher, project manager, significant changes have been made to the plot and some of the voice actores had to re-record their lines.  Also, either Usher or designer Lori Cole will be online on Sept. 9th at 7.00pm pacific/10.00pm eastern at GameWeek. So bookmark this link QGFans, and wait for the day.    Plust, the Quest for Glory: DragonFire official website will be receiving a major overhaul in two or three weeks, mostly to prepare for the game's release and "make it more interactive".  Finally, Robin Bradley no longer handles the F.A.C.S. Newsletter. Writing chores have now been delegated to Tom Craven.  ---c/o Matthew Arcilla   They Killed Kenny, I'll Bet...  In Kent Tessman's Guilty Bastards you're a so-called detective who's just in the rock bottom point of his career. Here's the press release from Tessman's The General Coffee Company Film Productions:  ANNOUNCING GUILTY BASTARDS   Could be worse.  Could've been you who got whacked.  But other than that, you can't really think of any way your situation could go downhill from here. You're a detective--at least you call yourself one--but no one has a particularly high opinion of your detecting skills, and truth be told, you're kinda beginning to doubt them yourself at the moment.  Not to mention the fact that everyone you talk to is lying to you and sneaking around behind your back.  Now you're not without hope:  but you're going to have to piece together whatever clues you can find, spy on people, dig through their garbage, and indulge in a little break-and-entering--whatever it takes to trip these idiots up.   Before someone rubs you out, of course.   Guilty Bastards is an adventure game featuring full-color graphics, 32-channel stereo sound, a host of sound effects, rich writing peppered liberally with good jokes and bad, and the ability to communicate with the world around you and the guilty bastards in it using anything from simple commands to full sentences.   Guilty Bastards is written in Hugo, a highly portable programming language for interactive fiction.  An easy-to-install Win95/98/NT version is available, and ports of the new v2.5 engine should appear soon for other platforms.   And hey, free game.  So y'all check out Guilty Bastards by visiting it's lovely little page. Now y'all don't come back till y'got it, y'hear?! I know I will, when my connection's good.  ---c/o Craig White

 

 

"Read My Lips, No New Trailer."  Rumors abound that LucasArts upcoming geek's guide CD, Star Wars: Behind the Magic (an encyclopedia of all things Star Wars) will also feature the movie trailer for the Episode One of the Star Wars Saga, due out next year. Pressboys of LucasArts' insist that this rumor is entirely false.   It has been confirmed however, that info regarding these prequel movies will be on the product, but the information that is to be placed has yet to be finalized.  ---c/o Matthew Arcilla  Planescape Makes PC Debut  While we all bait our breath for Fallout 2, (the post-post-nuclear role playing game) RPG freaks better buy more bait, since they'll be needing it for their breaths as they await for Planescape Torment. Black Isle Studios (a division of Interplay) will be developing the first ever Advanced Dungeons and Dragons computer game set in the Planescape world (damn those Forgotten Realms dweebs!).   The game will utilize the engine of Bioware's (another Interplay division) upcoming Baldur's Gate. They say it's coming next Spring... right.  ---c/o Matthew Arcilla

 

All work and no pay,
Matthew Arcilla

 

JustAdventure Status  As the summer comes to an end, all the Westerners of JA are busy working on their suntans, I mean, their reviews and articles. But right now you can read Craig White's interview with Istvan Pely (Majestic, Syn-Factor). Go, now, go!  CindyV Has Left the Building  Cindy Vanous, the lovely ex-webmaster, is now an ex-game designer of Sierra, for she has departed. She was previously hard at work on what is currently known as The Un-Named Game. Cindy still does computer game reviews for various magazines and still maintains her highly enjoyable website. It is still uncertain who will take over her design duties on the Un-Named Game.   ---c/o Craig White  Hal Barwood Leads The Next Indy  Apparently Hal Barwood (Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis) is the person who is leading the design team of LucasArts' next Indiana Jones game, a pseudo-Tomb Raider game called Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine. The game is set during the Cold War era, and Sophia Hapgood (from Fate of Atlantis) will return to assist Indy. Beau Bridges is providing the voice for Indy this time, who was previously voiced by Doug Lee.   In the meantime, pick up all the news on the Infernal Machine at the Indy 3D Network, the coolest site on all the hype about it.  ---c/o Matthew Arcilla