Weekend News Spin — March 3-4, 2001

Serious Sims

Can computer games be art? We don't know, but it looks like a type of art can be made in the style of a computer game. Jon Haddock has fashioned 20 interesting scenes from popular culture and history and made them look like a computer game, according to this LA Times story.

At first sight, Haddock's images look perfectly Sims-like, but then the saltwater-taffy colors coalesce into images that are both eerily familiar and creepy as hell. Instead of seeing a Sim in his roofless cyber-living room, there's an isometric image of Martin Luther King Jr. crumpled on the Lorraine Hotel balcony. Or Buddhist monk Quang Duc incinerating himself on a Saigon street corner. Or two teens with guns in the Columbine High School cafeteria.

Thought-provoking is the term that comes to mind when we view these images. Click on the thumbnail below to view Haddock's online gallery.

Commando wants to make computer game the hard way

Former Australian army commando Rodd Millner wants to ride a hot air balloon up to the edge where the atmosphere ends and outer space begins. Then he wants to jump out of the ballon and plunge some 40,000 meters (25 miles) back to earth in the highest skydive ever.

It's estimated that he'll reach a top speed of 1,100 mph during the seven-minute fall. He'd be the first person to break the sound barrier unaided. Crazy stuff, but this caught our eye in the AP wire story reprinted in the Washington Post:

Millner hopes to turn his plunge into a virtual computer game using film from cameras that will be fitted to his suit and the balloon.

All this just to make another Skydive, one of the worst games released last year? Say it ain't so, Rodd!

Majesty expansion and the Borg

Cyberlore's expansion for Majesty, The Northern Expansion, should be in stores around the middle of the month. After a lot of futzing around with various distribution schemes, it looks like it will simply be a $20 expansion.

Cyberlore's also the center of an intriguing rumor. They're playing the "neither confirm nor deny" game about a rumored Star Trek Borg game they may be doing for Activision. This would be a Borg colony simulator. Scifi-Gaming has the scoop, though remember this is still just a rumor.

Borg Assimilation is a Borg colony simulation from developer Cyberlore, who also worked on titles such as Majesty. The gameplay basics can be described as a mixture from "the settlers" and "Sim City".

Cyberlore developed Deadlock and Deadlock II, the latter quite a good game after being patched.

New Alan Emrich column

The former editor of Computer Gaming World magazine and current Master of Orion 3 designer has a new column posted at PC Strategy Games. He takes a look at what has happened to the strategic sports management games.

Computer strategy gaming has evolved a sort-of leper colony for sports strategy games. Most of the titles you'll find there are by companies like Mom & Popware or Garage Door Games. Chances are they were programmed in the pre-Windows days when a line of text after a "C-prompt" was the state of the art in graphics.

You can also read our interview with Emrich where he discusses Master of Orion 3 in great detail. It's timeless, which is a way of saying it's not a new interview.

Also, Quicksilver, the group developing MOO3, has relaunchned their MOO3 website.

He's soooo grumpy!

CGO has a nice "Grumpy Gamer" column from RPG maker Jeff Vogel. He looks at what it is about Diablo 2 that is so addictive.

Diablo II, in short, passes what I call the pee test. To pass, a game has to keep you playing so intently that you don't even get up to pee.

Heh. Nice column.

In just 60 Seconds you'll be a Disciple, too

Please, someone turn off the clever headline generator! We advise you to ignore these cutesy headlines and head right on over to read our 60 Second Preview of Disciples 2 from Strategy First. We have — brace yourselves — THREE EXCLUSIVE SCREENSHOTS!

Whoo-hoo! They actually look cool too. Check out our preview.

So what do you think of this game? We don't have a lot of turn-based games in the works. Post comments in our forum.

3am

The Muslims in Afghanistan are destroying religious statues, many of them irreplaceable art objects, including two of the largest statues of Buddha in the world that were carved into a mountainside. It's amazing how much is destroyed in the name of religion.

Click here to read yesterday's news