Daily News Spin — March 6, 2001 (Tuesday)

Cyberlore does Star Trek

Activision has officially announced Star Trek: Borg Assimilator, a game in which you use Borg nano-technology to swallow pristine environments and subvert their culture. Insert corporate metaphor here. Another Star Trek game, huh? After Star Trek: Armada, Star Trek: New Worlds, and the ongoing fumbling of Starfleet Command II, does anyone without commemorative Spock's Death plates on his fireplace mantel care?

But wait, there's more. The most significant detail of this announcement is that the game is being developed by Cyberlore, the fellows who created Majesty. Majesty was one of the most innovative real time strategy games of 2000, a year that say plenty of RTS innovation. Early screenshots of Borg Assimilator posted on Avault reveal some potential design similarities. The press release also mentions that Assimilator will incorporate "unique design innovations pioneered by Cyberlore Studios". This is the best news for the license since the Starfleet Battles board game rules were used for Starfleet Command.

Consider too Bridge Commander in development by Larry Holland's Totally Games, the creators of LucasArts' X-Wing series. It's about time the Star Trek license was handed over to developers with that vision thing rather than mercenaries chasing the fast bucks blindly faithful fans shell out for any dreck with a Star Trek logo on the box.

Worst thing for a multiplayer game: Success

Brad Wardell returns with a new column looking at how success spoils the fun for multiplayer games.

Agree? Disagree? Post your thoughts in our forum.

EA wants you!

Ever wondered how game companies compete for talented developers? Fast Company has an article about how EA attempts to make sure they have the best developers on staff.

....So Hare and his team designed an email called "Get in the Game" and sent it to the 18,000 people who had agreed to receive correspondence. The email was a fun pitch with colorful graphics that outlined the various positions that EA was offering and the qualities it was looking for in candidates. It also included an enticing "sneak peak" video clip of its soon-to-be-released, highly anticipated Madden 2001, a game also developed in Orlando, and, Hare believed, a compelling selling point for why people might want to work at that studio.

The Madden preview was as slick and as riveting as a movie trailer, complete with sound effects, grunting football players, impressive real-life 3D animation, and a dramatic soundtrack: "O Fortuna," from Carl Orff's Carmina Burana -- music to get anyone's blood boiling. And it must have done just that for those people who saw the video clip and then clicked on a link to get more information from EA's Florida studio. "We had close to 3,000 people jump from passive candidates to active ones by going to the Florida link," says Rueff. "The Orlando studio was blown away."

It's an article aimed at business types, so there's not a lot there about games or game creation.

Infogrames wants to be the "Friends" of gaming

The LA Times has an article looking at Infogrames and their plan to climb to profitability as well as their history. It was either open a pizza place or a game company back in the early '80's, and games won.

Our industry has missed an opportunity to target a broader market," said Jason Bell, Infogrames' senior vice president of publishing. "We want to create non-weird, non-nerdy forms of entertainment, the equivalent of 'Friends' for the interactive entertainment industry."

In July, Infogrames opened a Los Angeles office to tap into the Hollywood scene. With Bell as the point man, Infogrames nabbed the gaming licenses for the movies "La Femme Nikita" and "Men in Black," as well as for the Peanuts comic strip. Infogrames also is negotiating for the gaming rights to "M:I-2" and "The Terminator."

It's an interesting read if you're interested in the background of these companies.

Website malaise

Fuckedcompany is reporting a rumor that 20 have been laid off at UGO, which could signal problems for a number of websites in their network (Shacknews, Old Man Murray, Evil Avatar, Voodoo Extreme, Stratics, and on and on).

Lum the Mad's site also reported this rumor and Lum penned an interesting editorial about the whole situation.

We've got mail

Now that we've been around for a few months, we're getting enough legitimate email to revive our Astonishing Letters section, which used to consist mainly of emails we just invented. This week, the designer of Shadow Watch offers a gracious response to Bruce Geryk's anti-Shadow Watch polemic. Also, an unruly mob simmers.

3am

Have we mentioned that we love SSG's Warlords: Battlecry? By "we", we mean Tom. Mark doesn't like the graphics and is busy playing Ground Control, which has stuff like dynamic lighting and lens flare.

So we were glad to hear from SSG's Mick Robertson, who announced that some new RPG scenarios have been posted. These scenarios are the rough equivalent of those puzzle missions in Red Alert -- no base building and therefore a limited pool of units. But whereas they were really annoying in Red Alert, they're a great way to flex your favorite heroes in Warlords: Battlecry; hence, they're called RPG scenarios. Designed by a fan named "Llewrend", the scenarios are difficult, but they aren't as sadistic as "How Good is Your Hero?", an insidious challenge created by Warlords' designer, Steve Fawkner. You can find all of them, along with plenty of other scenarios, on the Warlords: Battlecry scenario download page.

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