Site News - Tales & Poetry

With the first entry of what I hope will be many to come, I have opened the Tales & Poetry section of the site, listed under 'General'. The first story was written by Patrick (aka. Draake / Joshua Mandrake), an old gaming friend to many of us. It is entitled 'Character Background: Joshua Mandrake' and I'm sure you'll enjoy reading it as much as we have.

If you'd like to have a story or poem of your own added to this section, please send it to me and I'll have it added :)

-Andrew (Starfire21 / Reltrethan)

Beta News - Ace of Angels

Flying Rock Enterprises are currently working on a Space Simulation Combat game called Ace of Angels. The main game will be campaign based, and feature the Outerchange servers, for which you can apply to beta test here, but for now the Battlezone Arena servers are the operational ones which are in open beta, so there is no need to complete and application form for it. You simply need to download the client version of the game from here, start up a user, and let the fighting begin.

If you wish to nail me to the walls, I'll be downloading and testing Ace of Angels sometime next week :)

Thanks to Patrick (aka. Draake / Joshua Mandrake) for finding Ace of Angels, keep up the good work my friend.

-Andrew (Starfire21 / Reltrethan)

Hardware News - XBox

Microsoft's Console/PC crossover, the XBox, is set for release on the 8th of November this year. While Memory, Adaptors and Expansions have yet to be announced, the XBox system itself will set you back $299 US. The controllers have yet to be priced, but you'll probably want a few as this system is aimed more towards multiplayer and internet gaming than the more conventional consoles.

The XBox's main features include an Intel 733 MHz Processor, An Ethernet port, an NVidia Video card (which model is not specified), an internal Hard Drive for storing game data, a Multi-Signal Audio-Video for TV and home theater connectivity, a front loading DVD tray, and four controller ports.

-Andrew (Starfire21 / Reltrethan)

Gaming News - Midgard

Anarchy Online developers, Funcom, have announced at E3 (Electronic Entertainment Expo) that work is underway for a their new MMORPG called Midgard. Based around trade, politics, building and any other number of areas partaining to a more refined lifestyle, Midgard is estimated for completion in late 2002. Gamespy.com have a preview here.

-Andrew (Starfire21 / Reltrethan)

Site News - Horizons

Just finished the Horizons overview for the Beta Testing section of the site. Also made a few cosmetic changes to the look of the site, nothing too drastic though :)

Gaming News - Planetarion

The Planetarion team have just installed two new servers, making six in total now. This has greatly increased the quality of service to the players. In case you haven't seen Planetarion yet, it's a free browser-based space strategy/war game, aimed at resource management, alliances and strategic attacks on others to benefit your planet and/or galaxy. The website can be found here. The Site Portal takes you to the main website.

-Andrew (Starfire21 / Reltrethan)

Gaming News - Horizons

With NCsoft recently being connected with Artifact Entertainment, the developers of Horizons, there has been some concern that something is happening between the two which will affect the outcome of the game. Not to worry, NCsoft are an investor and licensor for having a version of Horizons adapted and released on the Asian market, so there will be no changes to Horizons in any way.

Also, Artifact Entertainment have released a few more rendered models and animations, as well as updating their General FAQ. You can check the media here and the FAQ here. In case you can't find the Horizons' website, it's at http://www.artifact-entertainment.com/horizons/

Gaming News - Counter-Strike Condition Zero

Valve have been working on Condition Zero late into the lonely nights for awhile now. CS Condition Zero consists purely of single-player strategic levels designed for those who cannot get enough of Half-Life's extremely popular Mod; Counter-Strike. There will obviously be no multi-player option for CS Condition Zero, and whether Valve will release it as a commercial game add-on for Half-Life has yet to be seen, but it will likely be a free Mod.

Gaming News - Team Fortress 2 & Counter-Strike 2

Work is also underway for Team Fortress 2 and Counter-Strike 2, basically using a revamped version of the original Half-Life engine, which while perhaps growing a little long in the tooth (which doesn't seem to be stopping Quake after all these years), is still one of the most playable engines out there. While flashy looking graphics is always nice, part of the attraction of the engines which are considered the best is that they are surprisingly well adjusted to computers which might at first seem underpowered for such good looking games. Besides, gameplay counts for just a little bit more in FPS's, a prime example being that Quake 3 has excellent graphics, but is less playable and can have slowdown on even high-end machines.. this begins to show straight away in how much more popular Half-Life and it's mods are for the general public (Team Fortress Classic and Counter-Strike in particular).

If you'd like to keep an eye on all things Team Fortress, a good place to check is Planet Fortress.

-Andrew (Starfire21 / Reltrethan)

Gaming News - Anarchy Online

After 5 years in development, Anarchy Online has been announced for release on the 27th of June, but the opinion of the current testers is that it is nowhere near ready yet. Beta 4 is due to begin very soon, but with a month and a half to go, that doesn't leave much testing time. The release date has already been put back once, so let's hope the team have some tricks up their sleeve for implimentation before it hits the shelves. A buggy reputation is difficult to shake in the online industry.

Gaming News - Underlight

Lyra Studios have initiated their Flyer project for Underlight in an attempt to bring in new subscribers to the game, eventually hoping to have enough funding to begin work on a more updated version of the game. The idea involves a variety of 5 different Flyers which you can download and print out. From there you can post them around your neighbourhood, place them in shop windows or leave some with local games/hobby shops etc. You can select from the list of Flyers here.

Hardware News - Intel & AMD price war

For several weeks now, Intel have been hacking down the prices of their Pentium 4 processors in an attempt to pull the carpet away from under the feet of their arch-rivals, AMD, who have in turn countered by somehow managing to lower the prices of their Athlon Thunderbird chipsets. Previously the P4 has been out of reach for the average consumer, but with their prices basically halving in about a fortnight it shows a ballsy, if rather panic-striken attempt by Intel to win back the market which they have been losing to AMD.

It's fair to note that while Intel have concentrated on bumping their P4's with clock speed which is directly shown as the MHZ speed, AMD have concentrated on the overall performance, and I think it's fair to say an AMD Athlon Thunderbird 1.33 266FSB with it's PC2100 compatibility is faster than a P4 1.5 Ghz, (though being faster than a P4 1.7 Ghz is debatable and pretty much dependant on what you need it to run), but for your money the best bet is still anything in the Athlon range, as AMD have cut their own prices even though they were already extremely low to begin with. The amusing thing is that a Processor is no longer the most expensive vital component for your computer. The crown for that now seems to be on the bonce of the new RAM types which have assailed the market.

-Andrew (Starfire21 / Reltrethan)