News Archive

August 1999

Monday, August 29, 1999

      This is one big Carrier isn't it?

Sony and Verant Interactive have joined up together to work on their new and latest project, Sovereign. It is a massively multiplayer strategy game that will allow a minimum of 4 to as much as 500 players to participate in a single world. Before a game begins each player must choose up to six personas: soldier, diplomat, spy, economist, scientist, and theologian and apply each one effectively in the course of a game. In addition to winning games, part of your main goal is to also build up your personas with points obtained from those victories. Furthermore, you will be able to pass on any one of your personas from one server to another allowing you to join games with friends on different servers to further enhance them. All of these personas provide the player with many features to fiddle around with but the one I found the most interesting is that spies will able to eavesdrop on ally chats to gather important information without being detected.

      A nice shot of a Submarine

Sovereign also offers game play that's never been conceived before in any strategy game to date. For every game created, the game play for each participant will last approximately four to five weeks. This does not mean that you'll have to play four to five weeks non-stop. You can if you want to but be prepared to drink loads and loads and loads of coffee :). Of course, most of us would like to leave a game whenever they wish to. However, to do so you'll have to choose one of three options carefully since game play will continue on even without your presence. As your first option, you can shut down production, trade, and movement orders and fortify your position by retreating your troops back to your own city. The only problem you may have is that you'll slowly lose revenue and resources if you stay entrenched too long. Your second option is to pass total control of your troops to an ally. But the drawback with this one is that your ally may not be as trustworthy as you may think. Your last option is to transfer your control to the computer's AI with simple instructions given to it to perform certain situations. Yet this is also not that preferable because computer's AI are known to be stupid. So whatever you decide to do, Sovereign is capable of sending out messages to you via email, ICQ, and/or even page you on your pager for updates on the status of your ongoing game.

      A pretty lovely aerial view  

In any event, Sovereign may be another outstanding game to watch out for in the coming years. You can find more details about it here or here at their main site.

Past Game News

Wednesday, August 25, 1999

It's that time again... folks. Let's all go over to Blizzard's site and take a glance at their new SSOTW. The latest pic shows what the new battle.net chat room will be like in Diablo 2 and I must say it's coming along very nicely. The addition of players' character portraits at the bottom of the chat room is a great new feature. Max Schaefer, VP of Blizzard North, states that the options in the shot will be available for beta testers but there will be more options in the final version when the game goes gold. You can read more about this here. He also points out that some of those characters in the screen are part of the Blizzard's team players and mentions which one belong to whom here. There were some complaints about the font size used because it was too large and it took only 12 visible lines rather than the usual 17 now used currently on battle.net. However, Max replied saying that they will do something about that today.

Monday, August 23, 1999

Move over Starfleet Commmand... here comes Homeworld by Relic and Sierra. Homeworld is a game similar to that of most real-time ship strategy games except that the game play rotates around in 3D dimensions providing new strategy opportunities with the added support of really, amazing 3D graphics. What makes this game so predictably good is that it has taken the best elements from Starcraft and X-Wing and combined them both to form a real unique game for other future games to follow.

Also, the story behind this game isn't too shabby either. You're a race called the Kushans who through scientific discovery found that their origins weren't native to their own planet, Kharak. In light of this, the Kushans began to do more research as to where they really came from. They soon realized that there was an ancient city buried beneath their own planet's surface and at the heart of this city was a huge spaceship. The discovery of the spaceship was a big monumental step forward to their cause. The contents of the ship indicated that the Kushans did come from outerspace and provided solid evidence as to where they exactly came from. So immediately they began research and construction in hopes that someday they will be able to set forth back to their home world in the spaceship they found and after 250 years they did just that. But as to what dangers await them in their journey back? You'll have to find out.

The expected release date is September, 1999. You can read up more about this game here and/or you can explore Homeworld's main site here for more information.

Friday, August 20, 1999

Run to the stores everyone! Drakan: Order of the Flame is currently on store shelves now as we speak. Actually, Surreal the company that produced the game released it on Wednesday, August 18, 1999... a couple days earlier than expected. Since during its initial release, Electronics Boutique reported that it has reached the #1 selling spot for PC games and I believe it probably remain so until C&C: Tiberian Sun comes out next week. If you do decide to rush out and get the game now, you can play Drakan online right away at mplayer.com. As a side note, there is a cool contest going on where you can win Drakan as a 3rd prize winner. And if that's not incentive enough to join the contest... you've got to check out what's in store for those who win the 1st and 2nd prizes. Here is the site where you can sign up.

Thursday, August 19, 1999

In all CRPG games you've played so far, hacking and slashing monsters is basically done through a simple repetitive movement of the mouse and clicking it on a monster. If that sounds tiresome and boring to you then go check out Revenant. Revenant is a new RPG game coming out this winter. The plot of the game goes like this... you play the role of a dead warrior, Locke, who was brought back to life to rescue a princess and to defeat an evil cult of priests. The game's battle system will encompass the combat style movements of other games such as Mortal Kombat and merge it into a very rich 3D tiled background RPG game. In addition, Revenant offers a wide variety of weapons, more than 30 spells to cast, hundreds of interchangeable armor for many combinations, over 50 NPCs to interact with, and much more. Revenant also features a game editor so players can build their own levels filled with monsters, items, voice dialogs, scripts, and so on. The game supports both single and multiplayer mode of play. In multiplayer, you get to play with up to 4 others in death match and dungeon hunt. So... all in all, if you're an avid RPGer whose tired of the average, dull hack and slash combat usually found in CRPG games then keep an eye on this one, it might satisfy your desires. If you want more information about this game go to their main site here. You can even download a playable demo of the game here if the game really catches your interest.

Wednesday, August 18, 1999

There's some very interesting tidbits coming out of Blizzard about their upcoming game Diablo 2 and other insights.

First, take a look at their new screen shot of the week (SSOTW). The picture portrays a paladin attempting to resist cold. If you scan the screen very carefully, you'll notice a figure of a warrior outlined in green at the top right corner of the picture. What is that figure doing there and what is it for? Well, to my surprise it's a durability indicator. Yes.. that's right... durability is back in after an earlier announcement that durability will not be in Diablo 2. You can check out the reason why they decided to add it back in here.

Second, there will be 48 basic types of armor and about 70 weapon types which doesn't include magical and uniques in the game. The sorceress has a Thunderstorm skill which calls up a thunderstorm to periodically strike lightning at the nearest target. The Amazon can shoot multiple arrows at the same time depending on skill points and she also has a strafe skill for firing arrows at monsters within a certain radius/area. There will be gems in the game for socketable items to increase attributes and other effects. The gems can be upgraded at gem shrines.

But the most important tidbit you should take note, they've set a definite price for the game when it comes out. A very hefty price of $60 US dollars or about $85 to $95 Canadian.... OUCH! So start saving up... everyone! Another fascinating tidbit they've also added was that they will reveal their next upcoming product at the ECTS in London, England on September 5th, 1999. Hmm... what do you think it will be? Starcraft 2, Warcraft 3, Diablo 3, or a new product altogether? In any case.... you can find all this latest info. and more here.

Dragon Match:

An aerial deathmatch between players on dragon-back.

Melee Deathmatch:

A ground only deathmatch between players using nothing but weapons and spells.

Master of the Dragon:

A combination of the above two matches where players on the ground compete to control a single dragon. The player who wins out and controls the dragon can then attack from above at the players below while the players on the ground attempt to knock off the dragon using spells and projectile weapons. The first player who succeed in killing the dragon will then gain control of it.

And the game offers so much more... you can check out their main site here where you can download a demo (3D card required to play), read up on the story, monsters, characters and more than 25 previews of the game taken from other sites. There is also a real, amazing fan site here for some really nice pictures of Succubis in the game... woo.. wee..

*roar* >>firebreath>> ~scorched~.