Daily News Spin — March 23, 2001 (Friday)

Crime Cities Early Hours

Mark has played this import from Europe and decided not to vacation in the Pandemia Star System this summer as a result. You can read his impressions of this science fiction game here.

Torn announced

Interplay and Black Isle have announced a new RPG called Torn. It will be based on the Fallout game system but will be real-time and use a version of the Lithtech engine.

It looks like Interplay is planning on having the Torn universe become their staple medieval fantasy game series once their rights to use the Dungeons and Dragons license expire. Sounds like a good plan and Interplay and Black Isle are certainly among the leading RPG developers out there today, but we wonder how much appeal the Black Isle-created Torn universe will have compared to the established D&D license.

Kohan demo available

Kohan seems to be something of a hit among strategy game fans, a blend of RTS gameplay with turn-based depth. Timegate Studios has made a demo available. You can read all the details and find links to download mirrors here.

Garriott on UO2 cancellation

Gamespy talked to Origin founder Richard Garriott at GDC and got his thoughts on the cancellation and layoffs at Origin. While he was sad to see it come to pass, he did have this to say, which is interesting.

...it could be an opportunity in the sense that my non-compete [agreement with EA] runs out here in about 8 days, and I was debating how to hire a team to get back into the business and I know a lot of the best people, a lot of my best friends who were at Origin, were very committed to their team and to their project and to the leadership around them within that company.

Gamespy also talked to some former UO2 people who claimed that the game was playable and just needed to be balanced. If true, it makes the cancellation even more baffling.

Crave selling PC games to EA; gamers worry

Daily Radar is reporting a rumor about Crave selling all their PC games to Electronic Arts. This is a bit worrisome, as it gives the superhero game curse yet another chance to strike. One of the titles in development that Crave was going to publish is Freedom Force, the superhero game being developed by Irrational Games. EA will probably review every title in development and decide whether to continue to fund each project.

3am

The news from GDC sure seems slow and uneventful. First Gamestock was a bit of a dud, and now no fireworks from GDC, though we're hopeful some fistfights will break out today at the conference. It did warm our PC-loving hearts to read these comments from Ensemble's Bruce Shelley about the viability of the PC platform.

"In terms of functionality and innovation, I think the PC is still way out in front," said Bruce Shelley of Ensemble Studios, creator of Microsoft's popular "Age of Empires" series. "All the creative stuff in our industry is first done on a PC."

And the truth shall set us free. Go Bruce!

Finally, congratuations to Evil Avatar (Phil Hansen) on the birth of his first child, a boy, August Sebastian Hansen. Of course now this child will spend the rest of his life explaining that while his name is August, he was born in March. Phil, how could you! :)

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