Daily News Spin — March 5, 2001 (Monday)

Dave Perry, journalist, does Witchboy

Really now, this is too much! Shiny's Dave Perry is interviewing other game developers, in this case Ion's Harvey Smith. We'll have no choice but to start making games in retaliation.

The interview is posted at Perry's website.

Seriously gold

Gone Gold is reporting that Serious Sam is gold. Gathering of Developers will publish this game. Gone Gold is also reporting that Gathering's Mike Wilson told them that G.O.D.'s budget line is being discontinued, though Serious Sam will still be published at a $20 price point.

In other gold news, Strategy First sent us an email announcing Kohan Immortal Sovereign as being gold. This is a strategy game with roleplaying elements.

Both of these games have been generating a lot of good buzz.

Fun "What if" article at Stomped

A tip of the hat to Stomped for a creative new article. They've asked a number of game developers to imagine how their favorite games would have turned out if they had been done in another genre. Here's Rich Carlson, formerly of Ion Storm and Rogue, writing about what Doom would be like as a tactical wargame:

What if Doom were a turn based tactical level wargame? This oddball idea appealed to Iikka Ker�nen and I so much that we actually created a boardgame design based on it. Man, those chits have some funny names. ; ) We made up a movement and combat system, geomorphic maps, designed human and demon troop units, weapons, vehicles, special items and powerups, heroes and special demon lords, and a dozen scenarios. There's even a deathmatch "mode" with pseudo-real-time combat and special dm maps.. No kidding.

It's an interesting article, although several of the designers ramble on a bit.

Earth and Beyond announced

EA has issued a press release announced Earth and Beyond, the MMORPG in development at Westwood, according to scifi-gaming.

It�s a big universe. How far will you go? Board your own starship and take off for unexplored corners of the universe. Be a feared fighter pilot, an intrepid explorer, or a savvy trader. Do it all with hundreds of thousands of other players for the first time ever when Earth and Beyond� comes alive at EA.com, the Web�s largest entertainment destination.

And:

"Our goal is simple: Put gamers in the middle of a science fiction space epic and make them the stars," said Eric Wang, producer of Earth and Beyond. "They will be the heroes and villains, the rogue warriors, valiant space knights, explorers, smugglers, miners, scientists, capitalists and more. We want players to feel like they can do just about anything in this game, become whoever they want to become."

And this:

Earth and Beyond will feature: Three major player professions (trader, explorer and warrior) and nine variations. Hundreds of areas to explore, including planets, moons, nebulas, starports, stargates, black holes, capital ships and many more. The ability to not only explore space, but to land on and explore planets, all built in glorious 3D. Hundreds of missions designed for each profession. Missions will range from 30 minute quick tasks to quests that could take several weeks.

The official website will go live today at 5pm,

Everlore offers subscriptions

Everlore, one of the most popular EverQuest sites, and the other sites in the Lore network are now offering readers an option of subscribing to the sites for a year for $15. What do you get? You get to view the sites without seeing any ads whatsoever. Those who don't subscribe will be subjected to banner ads, tower ads, and yes, popups.

With the current status of the Internet advertising industry, revenue streams used to pay for site maintenance (bandwidth, server equipment, firewalls etc) have been dwindling. It has become harder by the month to maintain our sites. Recently the Lore Network was forced to turn pop-up banners on to get some sort of revenue to keep the sites up and running. We know that these pop-up banners and advertising in general is something most users don't want.

The bandwidth costs for popular sites like these run into the thousands of dollars per month. Further, many of these sites have hired full-time employees to help run the site and provide the kind of timely information that readers appreciate. It's tough when the revenue dwindles.

"Kiss me Cate," says Computer Games Magazine

They love her! They really love her! They're sending Monolith lots of XXXOOOs. We spotted a press release announcing CGS's annual awards, and No One Lives Forever crossed the finish line first, got the blue ribbon, and then took home the cake as game of the year. Here's a partial list of the awards:

Game of the Year and Action Game of the Year "No One Lives Forever"
Developer: Monolith/Publisher: Fox Interactive

Adventure Game of the Year "The Longest Journey"
Developer: Funcom/Publisher: Funcom

Online Game of the Year "Half-Life: Counter-Strike"
Developer: Minh Le/Valve/Publisher: Sierra

Racing Game of the Year "Motocross Madness 2"
Developer: Rainbow Studios/Publisher: Microsoft

Real-time Strategy Game of the Year "Sacrifice"
Developer: Shiny Entertainment/Publisher: Interplay

Role-playing Game of the Year "Baldur's Gate II"
Developer: BioWare/Publisher: Black Isle

Sci-Fi Simulation of the Year "Crimson Skies"
Developer: Zipper Interactive/Publisher: Microsoft

Simulation of the Year "Steel Beasts"
Developer: eSim Games/Publisher: Shrapnel Games

Sports Game of the Year "NHL 2001"
Developer: EA Sports/Publisher: EA Sports

Strategy Game of the Year "Shogun: Total War"
Developer: Creative Assembly/Publisher: Electronic Arts

Wargame of the Year "Combat Mission: Beyond Overlord"
Developer: Big Time Software/Publisher: battlefront.com

What? No Flying Heroes? It's a travesty! Here's the entire press release.

Anatomy of a snoozer

Since we couldn't disagree with him more, we persuaded Bruce Geryk to explain why he thinks Shadow Watch is awful and Odium is great. Odds are you missed both games, but don't let that stop you from reading Geryk's observations on what distinguishes a sleeper from a snoozer. From the guy who does GamePen's Strategic Therapy, we bring you one of the most wrong-headed opinions since Mark chose Flying Heroes as the Best Game of 2000 and Tom trashed Deus Ex.

3am

We're glad to see Monolith has released a spread of new maps for No One Lives Forever. There are three new deathmatch maps and five new UNITY vs. HARM maps. But more importantly, we're glad to see the editing tools have finally been released. We can expect a slew of third party maps available soon.

Click here to read the weekend's news