Week Nine...

August 22nd, 1998
Bourbon Assault
I know that by now all of you have forgotten that the demo version of Urban Assault came out last week and I promised some screen shots right? Well, I've finally gotten around to it. I have to admit that at first I wasn't too interested in the game, the idea of combining two different types of video games, in this case a RTS and a Sim/Action game, usually results in complete disaster, want to know how this game fared?

The Good - Smooth and fluid (like any good Bourbon- Ed). That is the best way to describe the graphics in this game. They just flow nicely without lurching or jumping about. After getting the hang of the game I started having fun. Which always scores highly in my book. I would actually consider buying it if I had any money.

The Bad - This game seems to be begging for 24-bit color. The game is not a perfect balance of its two types, of its two parents, it resembles the RTS side more than the other. Which isn't really a bad thing.

The Ugly - See The Bad (above.) The controls are a little intimidating at first, but eventually I got use to them. Not that there are too many, I think it is the fact that most of the time an RTS game is played from a topdown perspective, and not a 3D first person one. -Noxious?

This is a nice shot of the map, note that the target is a specialty beer store.

Look! I'm a tank shooting at an anti-tank helicopter! Look! I'm DEAD!

There is no place like home, even if it is a glowing hovering base.

UnrealGL
Just because I feel like being redundant, the OpenGL alpha patch for the Rendition V2x00 chip is out and ready to crash your system. Actually, I don't have clue if it will crash your system or not. I've yet to buy Unreal seeing as until now they had yet to make a version for my computer. (Kind of like buying an N64 game and not owning an N64.) Seeing as they now have an alpha patch to make it work on my computer... I still doubt I'll go buy it. I was actually having more fun ragging the game than I could ever have playing it. Now I'll have to find something else to rag. (sigh) -Noxious?

August 21st, 1998
Motocross Screenshot Madness
Been playing the trial version of Motocross Madness for a little over an hour now, and grabbed a few screenshots while I was at it. I really need a third arm for the screenshots, or maybe I need to set the keyboard on the ground or something. Not sure. Want to hear about the game?

The Good: It runs really well on my current system and it is almost fun to play. Actually pulling off a stunt without crashing is rewarding. For someone who eats, drinks, and sleeps motocross, well this might be the game made for you.

The Bad: It really would have been nice if they could have set it up so that the front and rear brakes were different buttons, I think it would have made control a little better. The landscape is rather sparse isn't it? It is just empty and desolate. Fuse warned me about the sound, and I didn't believe him... To say the least, the sound is nothing to brag about.

The Ugly: After playing this game for an hour my headache is even worse than it was before. -Noxious?

The game starts out by calling me a Freak...

How did I change the damn camera angle!?!

Slight HTML Change (Improved?)
Well, after playing around in Netscape Navigator for a few moments I realised why I hate it so much from a HTML point of view. I toyed with many fixes for the problems using Netscape, and I was able to come up with a solution that seems to work both in IE4 and Netscape.

IF TEXT DOES NOT LINE UP RIGHT, IF ITEMS ARE OFF CENTER, IF EVERYTHING DOES NOT FIT IN THE WINDOW PROPERLY, IF GRAPHICS ARE STRETCHED OR OTHERWISE MESSED UP, IF THIS SITE DOES NOT LOOK RIGHT...

LET... US... KNOW!

I still can't understand how the site managed to look so bad in Netscape for so long without somebody so much as telling us one single time that this was happening.

-Fuse!

Motocross Temporary Insanity
Microsoft has released the trial version of Motocross Madness. Which I am currently downloading. The demo is going to cost you 19mb of hard drive space, and requires 16mb RAM, a 133 Pentium w/4mb video card, or 166 Pentium w/2mb video memory. You'll also want that to be a DirectX 5 compatable video card. That should cover almost everyone, right? If I get some time I'll see if I can post some screen shots later this evening. Oh, you can DL that demo from Download.com HERE. -Noxious?

August 20th, 1998
Quakearoni
I noticed today on OGR that id issued a press release about Quake III Arena, which is even harder to say 3 times fast than Quake Arena. As you all know Quake III Arena will have an all new engine. (Because they want to upstage Unreal.) With spiffo new feature like curved surfaces. (Like the N64 has been doing for 2 years now.) and have really detailed textures. (To take up more texture memory and hard drive space.) Now on to the interesting bits... Quake III Arena is to let players gain experience in each level, so I'm guessing you come out of each level a little tougher than before, and players will have unique abilities as well. Well, if you really want the game bad enough see how many times you can say Quake III Arena until 1999, when it comes out. -Noxious?

ATI Rules PC Graphics
High benchmark scores are always nice, but when it comes to terms of most units sold, that title belongs to none other than ATI. In a report by Mercury Research, ATI is the top seller of graphics chips. Want some numbers? Here are the words right from ATI:

ATI Technologies Inc. today announced that it is the leading provider of graphics technology to the computer industry around the globe, following release of Mercury Research's latest report on the graphics industry. ATI now commands 24 per cent of all graphics shipments worldwide, according to Mercury's "PC Graphics and Chip Sets '98, second quarter edition."

The crowning of ATI as the world's graphics leader follows a steady climb since 1996, when it had forged an 11 per cent market share. The Mercury report places ATI at the top in overall desktop graphics, with a market share of 27 per cent, a lead that mushrooms to 35 per cent in 3D shipments. The Mercury report also shows that ATI is quickly gaining strength in the mobile 3D market, with a 31 per cent share in portable 3D graphics.

With more design wins with the industry's top 10 computer makers, and industry awards than any other graphics vendor, ATI is on target to increase its Q2 market victory.

So, while everyone else brags about their awesome benchmark scores, ATI currently has bragging rights as well, and it has something to do with market share, and money. I'm not sure if it is a good or bad thing that the gaming industry completely ignores ATI CIF, but all told the most common 2D and 3D chipset, both come from ATI. -Noxious?

August 19th, 1998
A Cold Response
You might remember awhile back (if you don't have Alzheimer's disease or drink way too much caffeine) that Blizzard canceled Warcraft: Adventures. You'll also remember that it was supposed to be an adventure game based off the Warcraft world. Closer to the present, so even those of you who can't remember last week might remember that a petition was set up to demand that Blizzard continue making the game. So, what am I going on and on about? Um, I forgot. Oh, heh. Here is Blizzard's response:

Blizzard wants to take a minute to respond to the Warcraft Adventures petition that is circulating on the Internet. First, we want to express our gratitude to the Warcraft fans that took the time to organize such an effort. We recognize that the cancellation of Warcraft Adventures has disappointed some of our customers, and we appreciate that they have shared their opinions with us.

Secondly, we want let you know that stopping development was not a decision that was taken lightly. It was a hard call to make, but each of us knows that it was the right choice. The cancellation was not a business or marketing decision or even a statement about the adventure genre. The decision centered around the level of value that we want to give our customers. In essence, it was a case of stepping up and really proving to ourselves and gamers that we will not sell out on the quality of our games.

And finally, we hope that Warcraft fans will consider our track record and trust our judgement on ending the project. The cancellation of Warcraft Adventures does not signal the demise of Azeroth. We have every intention of returning to the Warcraft world because there are still chapters to be told. We will keep you informed as we announce future Warcraft plans.

What does that really mean? Well, I think it means: The game sucked, and they didn't want to offend the Orcs with such crap. -Noxious?

Where Are The Updates?
A friend of mine I don't often get to see anymore came into town yesterday and I kinda got the "Awefuggit" attitude about the page. In case you have not heard yet, OpenGL Unreal should be out this week, a subject which I don't really have an opinion on. I'm also scrapping the idea of fixing the HTML bug which makes this site look wrong on the Netscape browsers, and change the whole site, which is going to take some time. Well, I've got work to do. Take care. -Noxious?

August 17th, 1998
It's The End Of The Site As We Know It
After a lot of careful consideration, and a lot of convincing from the Macintosh Sales Rep. at CompLUSA over the weekend Fuse and I have decided to both give up the PC Gaming world and buy an iMac. The thing is just too damn cute to not own one, and the thought of an Ice Blue USB Zip Drive just makes me happy for some reason. I think what I'll miss the most about the PC are my 3 mouse buttons, Ensoniq, Rendition, and everybody in the PC industry sueing each other.

Some of you are probably thinking we've lost our minds, but after thinking about it the Mac gets its software a little bit later, kind of like the people with a PC who don't own 3Dfx cards. It isn't fair to be treated like your money isn't good enough due to the fact that you don't have the specific hardware that the game maker is sucking up to at the moment, but at least with the Mac it is a whole different platform, and the programmers have a better excuse.

Soon this site will be taken down and the iMac Gamers Online Resource (iGOR) will take it's place. I'm also glad about this since there will be a lot less news about games on the iMac than the PC and it will save me a lot of spare time and I can play games on my N64 more. Not that this matters much since no one likes this site anyways.

For those of you who think this is complete bullshit, you're 100% correct. To be quite honest both of us have sunk even more money into our PC's this weekend, with no sign of stopping while the bank account is still in the positive intergers. Not to say I don't like the iMac, it is very interesting and if it had been made 2 years ago I would have bought one. It is a very compact computer, which is nice since I often take my PC with me from time to time, and I don't own a laptop. Oh well, on to other topics. -Noxious?

Why Didn't You Tell Us?
While I played with the iMac this past Saturday I also got to play with the very fast cable modem attached to it, so I decided to hit this site to see what it looked like on the iMac... I soon (and I mean VERY SOON) found out that Netscape on the Mac does not like the way the two tables sit side by side on this page, and puts them on top of each other, which doesn't look right. I just have one question really, does it look like that on the latest version of Netscape for the PC? And if so, why didn't anyone tell us?!? Oh well. Here is what I intended the site to look like, I'll be working on fixing the problem shortly. -Noxious?

Chump Change
For the rather small sum of $122.5 million the worlds largest entertainment software publisher, Electronic Arts bought all outstanding stock of Westwood Studios from Virgin Interactive. There is a very long press release, but it basicly says the same thing in a much more long winded fashion, telling you how Westwood made Command & Conquer, Lands of Lore, and Dune, but you knew that already, didn't you? -Noxious?

New Demos & New Sites
Eidos has released another demo for Commandos. This one is multiplayer, and it can be found under this. Eidos also put up a new site for the game Gangsters. Though the game doesn't have the best graphics I've ever seen, it does sound interesting. Playing the role of a 1920s gangster with all the perks, like killing, and bribing your way to the top. Sounds like fun to me. -Noxious?

Microsoft Wants (More Of) Your Money
Microsoft would really like for you to go out and buy their two most recent releases, which are Motocross Madness and Urban Assualt, seeing as they should be in stores now. -Noxious?