- Fixed Server exploit
- Fixed Mouse wheel
- Fixed NT 4.0 Sound
- FPS Boost
- in_mouse set to -1 will provide 1.17ish sensitivity, in_mouse set to 1 will provide current sensitivity

Does anyone know if Black Isle is making strides to make sure NWN runs good under winxp ??

French: Just to clarify, it is BioWare that is developing NWN. Black Isle is our publisher. We will be testing NWN under WinXP, but we will not be deciding on supported operating systems until near the end of development. This is neither a yea or nay for WinXP, just a "we haven't decided yet". Personally, I see no reason why NWN wouldn't run just fine under WinXP. We will know more later.
 

There are 36 weapons for you to discover and use. Gargantuan axes, shrink rays, portable holes, and massive mallets will be at your disposal. Several weapons have offensive and defensive uses. The baseball bat lets you flatten your enemies and hit projectile attacks back at their senders. The freeze ray was particularly fun to use. Stopping your foes in their tracks and smashing them into hundreds of ice cubes is a particularly satisfying sensation.

From Prehistory to the Nano Age of the 22nd Century, Empire Earth serves up gaming on an epic scale. Empire Earth is an epic real-time strategy (RTS) game that covers 500,000 years of human history, from the discovery of fire to the laser battles of the future. Each player takes control of a fledgling civilization and strives to forge the greatest of all empires. Rick Goodman, Lead Designer of the acclaimed game Age of Empires(r), catapults the RTS genre into a bold new era.

DivX decoder registered itself for 3.x formats even if user answered No when installing

Found one more bug in 3.x decoder

Fixed problem with quality loss when encoding at height not multiple of 16 and low resolution

Fixed crash when encoding on Pentium II / Celeron machines (accidentally introduced in beta 2)

Fixed noise problems in playing 3.x content

More accurate 2-pass VBR

Rearranged controls in encoder config dialog

Obviously, any game done with the new Doom engine is going to run slower than a game done with Q3 technology. You can make some of it back up by going to the simpler lighting model and running at a lower resolution, but you just won't be able to hit 60+ fps on a GF2. The low end of our supported platforms will be a GF1 / 64 bit GF2Go / Radeon, and it is expected to chug a bit there, even with everything cut down.

There are several more Q3 engine games in the works that will continue to run great on existing systems, and Doom is still a long ways off in any case, so there will be a lot more upgrades and new systems. We are aiming to have a GF3 run Doom with all features enabled at 30 fps. We expect the high end cards at the time of release to run it at 60+ fps with improved quality. This is an intentionally lower average FPS for the hardware cross section than we targeted for Q3, but still higher than we targeted Q2 and earlier games (before hardware acceleration was prevalent).

In the GLQuake days, light maps were considered an extravagance ("Render the entire screen TWICE? Are you MAD?"), and some unfortunate hardware companies just thought increased performance meant higher resolutions and more triangles instead of more complex pixel operations. Five passes sounds like a lot right now, but it will be just as quaint as dual texturing in the near future. I am quite looking forward to 100+ operations per interaction in future work.

We have now started to accept applications from players interested in being part of the beta tests of Project Entropia. We will split the beta test into a number of stages, but it's only necessary to apply once since we'll save all applications and use them when we select the participants for each stage. So, if you're not chosen for the first beta test, don't worry. You'll have more chances further down the long road of Beta tests.

We will notify those who are selected by e-mail, so it is very important that you provide a valid e-mail address.

We also ask you to fill out this application form as accurately as possible to help us select testers with a full range of computer systems and Internet connections.

Equipped with an MSI graphics card, featuring the NVIDIA GeForce3 GPU and its nFiniteFX Engine, this system delivers blazingly fast gameplay and true-to-life multimedia experiences. Register between August 1 and August 31, 2001 for your chance to win.

...AI seems 100% scripted and iffy-looking (seem to have trouble navigating sometimes and shoot each other in the back, all the enemies are essentially the same, just a few different weapons, different models/skins), the texture detail on the world isn't as amazing as I expected it to be on my GeForce3... then there's little things like the fact that you can't jump straight up and shoot... you can't crouch-walk or slow-mo dive under (or over) things... can't destroy a lot of things that you'd expect to be able to destroy, levels are almost 100% linear (again, not something that bothers me), no water of any kind, no curves, no multiplayer of any kind (and no promise of a multiplayer upgrade yet) weird clipping issues when you dive (you'd think since you have to do that all the time they'd have tried to fix that), grenade physics seem a little odd... Just seems oddly lacking in features/content for 4 years of development...

Bug-fixing, bug-fixing, bug-fixing

The Marines are much better about getting out of your line of fire than they used to be, thanks to Chris Butcher

We've got tanks working in multiplayer games now

Shiek and Bernie got lightning in the game

Eric reworked the Banshee and Pelican, tripling their poly counts and adding more detailed textures

Marcus is making metal look better and more realistic

Chris Hughes added a bunch of marine heads to the game (some of whom look familiar) and tweaked Cortana's face

The shotgun is finally coming into its own, and is sublimely satisfying to wield

Joseph is working on (his words) "a variety of infinitely cool things that our fans will love that I can say nothing about"

Gameplay, as expected, was exceptional. This is adrenaline-pumping stuff we're talking about here folks. If you think sniping someone with an AWP in Counter-Strike is exciting, nothing beats capping a Nazi from a distance. There's just something to be said about watching a Nazi getting his helmet shot off. In addition, the various death animations are also very well done. Although it wasn't fully incorporated in the build we played, the enemies are going to have locational based injuries. "What this means is if you hit someone in the shoulder from the front, they're going to fall back," explains Hirschmann, "shoot them in the back and they'll fall forward." It was pretty cool to see a Nazi soldier stand up straight and jiggle as he was taking repeated sub-machine gunfire from us. Call us evil yes, but these are Nazis we're talking about.

Vampire Slayer

Uncrossable Parrallel

Day of Defeat

Hostle Intent

Food Fight!

 

We've taken out a lot of the things that suck about PVP combat. In the past, the player who lost an encounter suffered far more than the victor gained. Dark Age is doing it differently - there's no actual pain when you lose a fight in our game, just a sting in the way of constitution and a nice stroll back to the battlefield (and that only if you choose to do so). The "loser" does not lose anything substantial. Therefore, for the RVR battles to be meaningful, the victor must gain something. Otherwise, you're just playing (insert your favorite FPS here).

We're using realm points. The points are gained primarily for successfully killing another player. Higher level players are worth more points than lower. The more realm points a player has, the more points his death will be worth to his enemies. Having lots of realm points will grant certain rewards, most of which are designed to help command a battle. A guild pooling their realm points can take over an outpost, fly their own flag, and equip their own NPC guards.

I see the concern over the unbalancing potential - a level 50 player with a lot of combat under his belt will have an edge over a 50 who never does any RVR. Guys, it really won't matter. The two players are in the same realm, they're never going to fight each other. And if the guy with no combat time feels the need to get the same rewards, he is free to do so by the same methods that his realmmate used. Opposing realm players is not a rare spawn on a weekly timer. Nothing is stopping you from grabbing some pals and going hunting.

The only niggle so far with this beautifully constructed adventure is that the clues you're given sometimes range so wildly that you're left in a quandary as to what to do. In some areas your task is spelled out in one-syllable words; in others you're left completely alone to figure out what's going on, even in terms of what's happening in the storyline. This can lead to repeated deaths, but thanks to the fact that you respawn with the items you've gained intact, it's not as annoying as it could be. The save system is console-like in nature, but slightly different from the norm - you save by collecting camera power-ups littering the levels, and returning them to your guide. This is only introduced in the third 'mini-level' of the game, though, so prepare yourselves for a fairly lengthy first go.

Fixed the network "hitching" problem that was causing stutters during play.

Added VCR Mode controls to allow fast-forwarding, slow-motion, pausing. Also fixed the known playback crashes. There may be other issues. Please let us know if you see any issues with the playback.

Cameras will now add Sensor Jammer Pack users to the sensor net, thus allowing turrets to fire at those players when within a camera's detection radius. The number of cameras that can be carried at one time has been reduced. - Changed Tournament mode so that skins are always Storm vs. Inferno in order to let players more easily organize ladder and league matches.

Grenade icons are included so players can easily determine which grenade is being carried by looking at the HUD icon.

Admins in Tournament mode can now hear global observer chat, thus allowing them to more easily hear when players need to be added to a team.

There is now a "no parking" zone around a flag (similar to the anti-camping zone around a nexus in a Hunters game). If a vehicle is parked near a flag, it will begin to take damage while in that area.

Handling on the Wildcat has been slightly improved (better spring controls so it doesn't bounce quite as much).

VCR Playback files are now in a compressed format to make it easier to distribute them
 

ut_alleys by BotKiller
ut_austria by Tub
ut_casa by SweetnutZ
ut_riyadh by dotEXE
ut_rommel by Bar-B-Q
ut_pressurezone by Gerbil!
ut_uptown by BattleCow
ut_village by Tub [updated by Legomanser and NRGizeR]

Beta 2.3 does have some code changes, but they are only minor; we removed unnecessary setting of a few cvars on every frame, and we fixed the "bad player movement angle" that some people were reporting. We understand that there are many other issues that were brough to our attention, but the main focus of this release are the map and not code fixes.

Voodoo Extreme -- Heroes play a vital role in Empire Earth, how did you choose those particular people, and what special powers do they have?

Heroes have been an important part of the design right from the start of the project. It did take some time to decide on who the Heroes would be. The future Heroes are fictional, of course, but they all have a story around them. We wanted the Heroes of the past to be familiar and important figures from history.

There are two kinds of Heroes in Empire Earth: Warrior Heroes and Strategist Heroes. Both kinds support your troops in battle, but Warriors get into the fray and provide morale for the troops around them. Strategists, on the other hand, do their best behind the lines, increasing the vitality and stamina of their troops. Strategist Heroes can also bellow a Battle Cry, which demoralizes enemies.

Also, like most other units, Heroes can be upgraded. When you go up an Epoch you can upgrade your Heroes into new Heroes who are more appropriate and better equipped for the new time period. For example, when you go from the Dark Age to the Middle Ages, the Hero Charlemagne can be replaced with William the Conqueror.

In this game spells are the weapon you'll be using most often against the foe. You'll discover that there are three types of spells to cast: summoning, enchantments, and sorcery. Summoning happens to be rather powerful, and in Etherlords you'll discover that every race has it's own set of creatures you can summon (there are thirty kinds of monsters to be summoned, each with their own distinct abilities and characteristics)

The developers have now reached the testing and polish stage as the game's features are complete. While Gray Matter focuses on polishing the game balance, working on the cinematics and storytelling, and finalizing technical issues like video card compatibility, Nerve Software continues to wrap up the multiplayer portion of the game. The teams have also begun extensive testing.

Return to Castle Wolfenstein will be shown at QuakeCon this week. Attendees will be able to see for themselves just how far along the game is, and they'll even get a glimpse of the multiplayer game at the convention as well.

It is true that the lot of us were locked out of the building today. Why this is happening nobody knows for certain, aside from those in upper management at Siera/Vivendi. The whole thing is quite a shock for most of us, aside from those few in upper management at Dynamix who could not manage the meager bit of human decency that it would have taken to give us a warning. It is like that in corporate america, these people really do not seem to have come equipped with a soul. I blame the 60-70 percent of Sierra that has nothing to do with creating anything but instead leech of the top like a bloated lamprey. Not only are they the cause of this situation, but they are the ones that stand to benefit in the short term whether they intended it or not. This liquidation is all about artificially inflating 3rd quarter profits for V/U, much like releasing before the game was ready was about inflating 2nd quarter profits.We should have become wary last week when a part of Dynamix management took their sick days after returning from a visit to Sierra.

You no longer have to shake the virtual dice to move your boot or hat off Old Kent Road. There is no more going to jail, no more passing Go and certainly no more collecting £200. MT gets rid of all the faff that hinders play on the PC and introduces more of a real-time mentality. But you'll notice the biggest difference is shown in the title: the word "Tycoon" isn't just there to look good. Far from just dealing with land, hotels and the waterworks, you've now got a multitude of businesses to fiddle around with because you're able to build anything from toy stores to shops that sell banjos. Things just got interesting...

Geo-Mod™ Engine: The only game with real-time, arbitrary geometry modification allowing for complete environmental destruction

Controllable vehicles

Location-based damage system: Realistic enemy damage

Advanced physics simulation: Supports falling geometry, particles and liquid

many more features

Journey into the new and exciting world of the Audigy™ processor. Packed with 4x more power than any existing audio processor, the Audigy processor enables EAX ADVANCED HD™ to deliver a host of innovative, high-definition audio effects with next-generation interactive 3D audio for gaming and sophisticated effects for music.

The Audigy processor is the first DSP to be released that is capable of delivering 4x more effects processing power than any current audio processor and EAX ADVANCED HD™.

EAX ADVANCED HD™ offers dramatically increased 3D audio performance and functionality for games, along with superior audio fidelity and powerful music enhancement technologies, for an unsurpassed digital entertainment experience.

The high performance sound engine is optimized for complex digital audio signal mixing and processing for next-generation interactive 3D audio for gaming and sophisticated effects for music.

Includes the power to process more complex audio algorithms, rendering higher fidelity effects and reverbs.

...the Radeon 8500 has a lot of potential. As usual, that potential is contingent on solid drivers which ATI has not been famous for in the past but they have been improving over time. There is no doubt that the Radeon 8500's architecture and technology is sufficient to allow it to become a GeForce3 killer, however whether or not its drivers will allow it to is another question.

With features like TRUFORM and SMOOTHVISION that can offer tangible improvements today (or in the very near future), the Radeon 8500 could be the better choice of the two when it's released in September. The only prohibitive factors would be the price which at $399 will be a tough buy for many and the drivers which will hopefully, for ATI's sake, improve significantly by the time the Radeon 8500 hits the streets.

The DirectX8.1 features are welcome, and something that developers who are already taking advantage of GeForce3 can easily take advantage of. TrueForm is probably a waste of time that developers won't bother supporting. I don't have a card yet, so I can't confirm the performance claims, but I expect it should be at least pretty good and potentially great, given ATI's track record in the past couple years.

There’s not much to say here other than “Thanks NVIDIA” for the updated drivers. Although the main recipients of the performance increase will be GeForce3 owners (as they very well should be for paying so much for their cards), GeForce2 GTS/Pro/Ultra and MX/200/400 owners will get a small boost as well. You can’t really complain about free performance.

on twinking: I do understand how twinking affects people in other games. Some people level up faster, and then the high level game is choked to death before someone playing the game with level appropriate items has a chance to catch up. But I say again: IT DOES NOT MATTER HERE. The high level equipment on a low level will just be a WASTE OF MONEY. It will not provide ANY BENEFIT. The players wearing twink gear will not level ANY FASTER due to wearing spiffed gear. If they level faster, it will be because of the hours they play and how well they know the game, NOT THE TWINKING.

I wish I could talk about storage solutions, some of you will be made happy.

Clarification: the "this doesn't belong to you" feature has nothing to do with twinking, or my personal philosophy of "it doesn't affect you so don't sweat it." It's just to prevent theft and user frustration when you screw up and drop something.

Resource gathering feature added, including the ability to earn wealth and experience

Improved game client performance

Enhanced character creation screen

Minor bugs fixed

On August 15, National Nuclear Security Administration head John A. Gordon will join Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and IBM management to dedicate the IBM ASCI White supercomputer, which uses 8,192 processors to perform 12.3 trillion operations per second.

The Geo-Mod™ technolgy adds alot to the game. Normally players would know the map and have distinct routes, but now you can blow a hole in the wall/floor and create your own route! Although the test is not full featured, there is plenty of carnage to keep you playing.
 

The mod also features a character selection system similar to old-school paper RPGs. You choose your body-type, weapons, and perks (such as extra adrenaline, night-vision and so on). This way, your character is a reflection of your playing style. Also, not only can you customize how your character is equipped, but how he LOOKS as well. DC features a unique character customization system wherein you can pick skin color, accessories (hats, hair, glasses, etc.). There are literally THOUSANDS of possible combinations. This mod will be one of the first games where u can recognize someone by how they look, not just the name at the bottom of the screen.

Nine devs have stayed on to continue work on the latest patch. While they do get a severance package as mentioned before, they are required to finish this patch to Sierra's satisfaction. According to the source this limits their ability to move on to other projects until possibly October.

The new producer for Tribes 2 is Rob Fung. He is also the producer for SWAT and was previously the producer for the Police Quest line of games.

The new Tribes 2 dev team will include members of the SWAT team as well as those from Johnny Drama and other lines. Sierra is trying to recruit current Tribes 2 dev team members into the new T2 Dev team; it looks like at least three of the current Tribes 2 dev team members are interested in joining up.

Dave Georgeson was one of the members not allowed to return to the building after it was locked & closed.

We also used virtual lights to control the lights in the room around you -- if blue photon torpedo shoots by on right, lights on right side of the room will glow blue. We also used it for a few special effects -- in a red alert, the whole room glows red, when you combine that with the lights, it's really breathtaking.

August 16, 2001 – Redmond, WA -- Microsoft and Gas Powered Games have made the careful decision not to release Dungeon Siege in the fall of 2001. Both companies remain extremely excited about the game and are committed to completing the title and bringing the highly anticipated game to store shelves in 2002.

“Our decision to delay the release of Dungeon Siege is one of the toughest we’ve had to make, but we firmly believe that this is the right choice given that one of the most critical steps in creating an RPG is the tuning and balancing stage,” said Chris Taylor, Lead Designer, Gas Powered Games. “We’ve made a promise to build a game that delivers an over-the-top experience, and we’ll do whatever it takes to deliver on that promise.”

This new development schedule will deliver the high-quality RPG game that fans demand and expect from Microsoft and Gas Powered Games.

Everything going to plan this will be the last beta release.

There are no known problems apart from display/refresh rate is disabled on 9x/ME.

In this version overclocking on cards: Ali TNT2, m64, Vanta and Crush has been fixed and some problems with color control has been fixed on 2000/XP.

Ammo boxes all have 110 "health." As soon as this "health" reaches or drops below zero, the box explodes.

You may damage an ammo box in any way that you like. Rail it if you need to.

Machinegun, shotgun, and rail gun ammunition do up to 75 damage upon the initial explosion. After that, projectiles fire in all directions. They hurt.

Lightning gun ammo does up to 75 damage immediately and then creates a 1/2 second electric field that incrementally damages anyone around as well as drawing them in towards the center of it. The closer they get, the more it hurts. I've seen 280 damage altogether from one of these.

All other ammunition (grenades, rockets, plasma, BFG plasma) simply blow up in a big way.

BFG ammunition can do 300 damage, all the rest do 200.

The grenade explosion has a larger radius of damage than the others.

Action Vault: Have system requirements and recommendations been determined at this point?

Mike Verdu: We're currently developing towards a PIII-500 with any hardware accelerator card that supports T&L (e.g. GeForce I, 2, 3, ATI Radeon, etc.). The game will look fantastic on a high end system, but should be playable on a good mid-range machine. We are still evaluating how to support lower end systems with TNT2 and Voodoo3/4 class cards... Infogrames will make a final determination later this year

All realms will be shut down at 9:00 A.M. PDT (UTC -8) on Monday, August 20th for approximately 2 hours. Diablo II v1.09 will be distributed to all the servers during this time.

REMINDER: Diablo II v1.09 will fix the "dual wield" bug. Any characters exploiting this bug when Diablo II v1.09 goes live will lose one of the weapons involved.

Consumers expecting to pay the $299 suggested retail price for Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox video game console may be in for some sticker shock.

Beginning next month, many retailers will be requiring customers to pay from $499 to as much as $1,200 to reserve an Xbox console that, like it or not, will come bundled with games, peripherals and warranties.

The reason: Microsoft will provide additional marketing money to merchants that agree to include the software giant's games in their bundles. That's because Microsoft's games carry higher profit margins for the Redmond, Wash., company than those published by third-party companies such as Activision Inc. and Electronic Arts Inc. The plan is angering consumers.

The five billion dollar lawsuit against several of the largest game makers has taken yet another turn. Judge Lewis Babcock, a chief Colorado judge has ruled that Eidos is exempt from the lawsuit since Final Fantasy 7, which was published for the PC by Eidos and developed by Square, does not feature guns prominently within the context of the game.

Families of the victims of the Columbine school shootings, blame in part the violent video games that Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold played for the shooting death of 13 people in 1999.

It's the complete package. It doesn't matter what platform you get, we have some cool stuff for you. On PSX and N64 we have Madden Classic, which allows you to re-live the 16-bit version of Madden. On PC we have the brand new PS2 engine, which brings all of the momentum-based physics, smooth animation and new gameplay of the PS2, while keeping all of the online features intact. On PS2/Xbox/NGC, we have the best-looking, most complete football product ever, and did I mention the cheerleader cards?

Removed the last SSE instructions from the YUY2->YV12 MMX conversion function

Added sanity checks for log file contents

Fixed a problem where the DirectShow filter was not applying brightness/contrast/saturation settings when starting playback

Reverted the DirectShow filter overlay operation to 4.0 (beta 2) style due to reports about decreased performance on some computers

Fixed a few problems in 2-pass VBR (sorry guys!)

Fixed a memory leak at the highest post-processing levels

With all the changes going on around here lately, I'm a very busy weasel, but here's what's on the radar for me in the short term.

Patch is coming along nicely. Expect stabilization and refinement of things found in Beta 4. As I understand, we're keeping the speed from Beta 4, and many of the other improvements, but likely losing the SJ changes. One little thing can throw out the balance of the whole game and nobody wants to do that. There should be a beta 5 very soon (I mean any day now).

Playable demo will shortly follow the public release of the patch. There is no recording or playback functionality in the demo - it's just not designed for that

There's been a lot of discussion about the future of Tribes, and I've been approached with a movie script and a pitch for an animated series. I'll let you know if any of this pans out

Note: Microsoft Age of Empires II: The Conquerors Expansion 1.0C is an update of Age of Empires II: The Conquerors Expansion 1.0. The installation of patch 1.0B is not necessary as this patch contains the same enhancements and bug fixes. Patch 1.0C also fixes mini map trainer issues with Age of Kings The Conquerors.

Patch 1.0C will not install correctly if you have previous installed a WAREZ version of the game, the CD Hack or any trainers. You must delete and install the Conquerors for the patch to work correctly.

Known Issues with Patch 1.0C - Readme file is from version 1.0B. (the Same install and de-install instructions from Patch 1.0B still apply).

The USEast realm is now online. There is a high degree of confidence that the Level 1 character issue will not affect characters on this realm. As this determination is made for the other realms, they will also be brought online. Be aware that there is the possibility that characters played on the USEast will in fact be returned to level 1.

Quake's weapons

Quake's monsters (all but the Spawn)

Quake's pickup items

20 original, high quality MP3's

high quality music also available as a CD you can purchase from me for $8 (click the music menu link for purchase info)

a huge texture WAD of Quake's textures (no DOOM textures will be used)

12 levels total

DDF and RTS coded using the EDGE engines super powerful scripting languages

The Nintendo GameCube has been delayed until November 18th in North America, according to Nintendo's Spaceworld Press Kit. This shocking news comes after the system was announced for a November 5th release date. This places the GameCube about two weeks later than it's original release date as well as two weeks after the launch of Microsoft's Xbox console that hits streets on November 8th.

Nintendo issued a press release after this announcement stating that there will be 700,000 units in stores on launch day with only Luigi's Mansion and Wave Race: Blue Storm being the two first-party titles for you to play at launch. Pikmin will follow a day later with Smash Bros and Eternal Darkness following in December.

In a stunt involving Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates and Group Vice President Jim Allchin, helicopters will circle the company's Redmond, Wash., headquarters as the pair hand off Windows XP to PC makers, said sources familiar with the event. The helicopters are expected to be decorated with Windows XP and major PC maker logos.

Well first off I would have to say this is one sexy handheld. I personally love the look, very nice polished silver finish. I would say it pretty much looks like brushed metal but the casing is plastic. My first impressions of the size of the iPAQ was that it was of average size compared to other PDAs like the Palm IIIC and the Handspring Prism but then I found out that it was enclosed in a sleeve so I took that off and instantly the words sexy flashed in my mind.

Graphically, Empire Earth is coming along swimmingly. Despite its 3D engine, the final camera will be fixed with the option to zoom (but not rotate). This was done for the sake of preserving gameplay and simplicity. The maps on which the action takes place range from itty bitty teeny-weeny all the way to "ah crap that's big." Designer over at Stainless Steal Jon Alenson told us, "Our gigantic map takes a standard unit twenty minutes or half an hour to walk across," twenty minutes, yikes. Thankfully the entire environment is made to be lively, featuring swaying trees, vibrant colors, and an assortment of fauna. Alenson: "One of our programmers is a real animal guy, so he designed it so that all of the animals in the game migrate to their favorite spots, whether it be on the hills, or near water. And, they all have babies that grow up into adults. There's about fifteen or twenty different kinds of animals."

Who can refuse cute and cuddly Pandas or majestic lions? Microsoft is betting not many and has rolled out Zoo Tycoon (ZT) for the world to see. Based on the success of Roller Coaster Tycoon (RTC) and loosely on the interface, ZT gives you the same freedom to build your own park or complete various scenarios. In Roller Coaster Tycoon, success was dependent on the happiness of the customers; Zoo Tycoon brings a twist to that thought, making the happiness of the animals the chief indicator of success. Happy, playful animals will attract crowds, breed more often and bring more money into your pocket books. Sad animals escape and eat your clientele.

Lego Games claims the game we've been playing is 95% complete, and there's certainly a lot to explore. In story mode, you traverse five islands based on Lego play themes: Sandy Bay, Adventurers: Dino Island, Arctic, Life on Mars, and Xalax itself. Each race earns you a golden brick, which are used to gain access to the different islands. Easy, eh? And on top of that, each island has an area over which you can roam, to earn bonus bricks, and access to a secret area.

Action Vault: What are some of the challenges you've had to face when translating the C&C universe from 2D to 3D? What sorts of benefits have resulted from this move?

Jani Penttinen: The big difference in looking at a 2D image and placing the player into a 3D world is that once the player is able to explore the C&C universe he will want to try out all the vehicles and go inside buildings to see what's in there and how it all works. It has required a lot of design and also special features in the 3D engine, but I'm really happy with the result. This new view adds a lot to the C&C universe as even though the levels mainly feature elements from the universe that the player already knows, there is now an opportunity to learn much more about what's going on. If you want to know what happens to Tiberium for instance, you can go inside the refinery and find it out.

The graphics engine is stepped up a little better than last years port, and they obviosly addressed lag problems. In my opinion, this is not one to miss!
 

Dateline: 1985 As President Ronald Reagan begins his second term in the White House a little-known politician, Mikhail Gorbachev, becomes leader of the Soviet Union. Gorbachev is a reformer who wants to create a new era of peace and co-operation with the Western world. He uses terms like "Glasnost" and "Perestroika" - modernist policies which involve a re-structuring of the Soviet state and a move away from the old tensions of the Cold War.

Gorbachev's appointment causes immediate tensions itself. Many of the Communist 'old guard', from Generals to Regional Politicians, refuse to accept him and chaos ensues. After a few days the central government manages to control the situation and the country falls into an uneasy truce with itself. But in some outlying areas, often controlled by powerful men with their own agendas, the situation remains dangerously unclear and the Soviet Government loses any real sense of power.

One such area is the Malden Islands group of Everon, a peaceful independent republic, Malden itself, another independent state which contains an important NATO strategic base, and Kolgujev, a Soviet outpost controlled by General Ivan Vasilii Guba - an old-school Communist general who firmly believes in the harshest of Cold War policies. Guba has set himself up as some kind of feudal warlord from his stronghold on Kolgujev and refuses to listen to any orders from Moscow. The island has become a staging post for his well-equipped modern army to attempt to control the surrounding area and then… who knows?

Unreal fans asked for it -- now they got it. Based on popular demand, the ASMD Shock Rifle and Flak Cannon have been integrated into Unreal 2. This brings the total number of weapons in the game to 17.

Reduce the load on hardware by tweaking in-game graphics

Ability to optimise cache and swap file

Work with some mods

Work with mods that us the "-direct -txt" option

Able to store configurations for different mods

Located on the small continent of Odus, the Stonebrunt Mountains are rich with vegetation and distinctive hills that give way to the towering Mount Klaw; the largest mountain in Odus and home to the Kerran village of Kejeka. The zone of Stonebrunt is designed to be a mid-level, outdoor zone similar in scope and scale to the Lake of Ill Omen on Kunark, which has proven to be a very popular zone in EverQuest. "Stonebrunt marks the fifth free zone we've added to the world of Norrath," states Brad McQuaid, Vice President of Product Development, Sony Online Entertainment. "The commitment by our team to give EverQuest subscribers more uncharted territory to explore is strong and we're very excited to see new faces on the continent of Odus."

Fixed more problems with decoding 3.x

Incompatibility of codec with Vidomi encoder

Incorrect bitrate achieved during capture in '1-pass' mode
with AVI_IO capture application

A few bugs in decoder implementation MPEG-2 inverse
quantization ( not really used now, but necessary to claim that
decoder is 100% compliant with MPEG-4 simple profile )

Slightly improved accuracy of RGB->YUV MMX/SSE conversions

Increased version number ( 4.0 -> 4.01 )

Some cleanup in help file, topic 'deinterlacing'

most important: hopefully fixed problem with some DivX 3.11
clips fading to green between keyframes.

Changes/Additions:

Multicast spectator added

Voice communication added

Added server chat to logging

Redesigned multiplayer scoreboard

CapsLock key is now bindable

Switching to Spectator is now logged

Changed minimum value for "mp_chattime" to 1 second

Changed minimum value for "mp_buytime" to 0.25 (15 seconds)

Radio commands can be heard by nearby enemies

Bug Fixes:

Bunny hopping removed

Fixed client-side shots not matching the server-side counterparts

Fixed banned.cfg problem with more than 1024 entries

Fixed screenshots overwriting each other

Buffer overflow exploit fixed

"condump", "cmdlist", and "cvarlist" only write out to the game directory

Fixed Spectator mode bug

Fixed hitbox issues

Fixed nightvision bug

Fixed "slot10" not working correctly

Blood Decal

Bullet Hole's

C4 LED Replacement

Explosion Sprites

Full HUD Replacements

Muzzle Flash Sprites

Radar Sprite

Sniper Scope

Wall Puff Sprites

Rifle Scope