Cage's World

Home Features Forums Red Baron Archive Email

March 2001

Wednesday, March 7, 2001

Alien Spider Is Online! Nine11 @ 9:45 Comments

I posted this morning's news over at Alien Spider . The site is still a little rough around the edges, but we'll spit shine and comb her real good... hehe.

Tuesday, March 6, 2001

AlienSpider.com Goes Live Tomorrow Nine11 @ 13:24 Comments

I just got back from Cage's pad. We went over some of the stuff on the AlienSpider site, and it looks like we'll be going live tomorrow. We plan on doing all the news on the main page (like this one) and should have some additional goodies up within the next week or two. Here's what to expect:

-News and views of computer hardware, gaming, ect. (our bread 'n butter).
-Virtual Pool 3 review
-Nascar 4 review
-MP3 guide for getting songs with programs like Napster, newsgroups, burning them to disc, and making disc labels.
-Message boards
-E3 trip and our spin on the event. Cage, John, Franklin, and I are gonna make the trip. We've got a digital camera for some screen lovin' and may be able to post from LA each night of the trip. We plan on being there the frist two days of the show in May.

Cage's World will still be here but will be primarily Cage's personal site (that's what it's always been, I've just been helping out). My involvemenet will shift to AlienSpider but, being a good little News Monkey, I may stick around depending on what Cage needs (we'll hash that out later).

Compaq Price Gouging? Nine11 @ 8:08 Comments

According to PDA Buzz, it looks like Compaq is price gouging with their new iPaq H3635 which is a plain vanilla unit with an updated ROM, CF sleeve, and $100 price increase ($599). I'd wait till the iPaq KY3669 hits the scene with a price that doesn't... er... hurt so much.

Win A PocketPC Or Get One Cheap Nine11 @ 7:58 Comments

There are a mess of PocketPC promotions out there. Some are giving them away while others are offering huge discounts (with internet service). Here are a few links:

-Enter to win a Casio PocketPC with the newest version of MSN Messenger. BTW, MSN Messenger is free.

-Expedia is promoting their free serviece, Expedia To Go, by giving away HP Jornada 548 PocketPCs . Tell your pals to increase your chances to win.

-Audiomobile is offering a Casio EM-500 PocketPC and a 28MB MM card (40MB total) for $259 with a 1 year signup for their service. This deal is kinda like those "sales" at CompUSA where there's an instant rebate and a mail-in rebate to lock in the price. In this case, the mail-in rebate is for $100. Still, it's a good deal if ya like Audiomobile and an extra 28MB of storage.

64MB iPaq Nine11 @ 7:38 Comments

Brighthand is reporting the Compaq 64MB iPAQ 3670 will be available this spring for around $599. I'd guess the 412MHz version will follow this fall... more on that later.

Operation Flashpoint Demo Nine11 @ 7:30 Comments

Flashpoint Combat Trainer has set up a download page for the tactical FPS Operation Flashpoint. They're just waiting for the green light from the game's developer, Codemasters, to link the downloads.

In case you missed previous Operation Flashpoint stuff, Gamespot UK has a nifty preview and 28 screenshots.

Summoner Demo Nine11 @ 7:19 Comments

Don't know how I missed this one, but there is a demo of Volition/THQ's RPG Summoner. It weighs in at a fat-pipe-friendly 63MB.

Tribes 2 Interview Nine11 @ 7:11 Comments

IGN Vault has an interview with Dave Georgeson, producer of Tribes2. They jabbered about some new modes of play like Seige (destroy the other team's base then switch), Rabbit (smear the queer), and Bounty (get a list of players and kill 'em). They also hit on some of the Tribes 2 community stuff.

Unreal II (UT Tech) Screenshots & Movie Nine11 @ 6:48 Comments

Since we're on an Unreal II kick today, Daily Radar posted some U2 screenshots and a 42MB movie a while back. Take a peek if ya missed 'em.

Unreal II Information Nine11 @ 6:32 Comments

Voodoo Extreme has posted some "exclusive" Unreall II info from the April 01 issue of PC Gamer magazine. I haven't got my PCG yet, but the April 01 issue Computer Gaming World also has some U2 info in the Hot Shots section on page 24, and it includes a nearly full-page screenshot.

Here's the cut 'n paste PCG stuff:

-Unreal II will take the best parts of Unreal and Unreal Tournament," says Legend's studio head Mike Verdu. "We're creating a single-player game with a rich story that surrounds 13 combat missions [25 levels]."

-It's an all-new world, and all-new character to play, and an all-new style. While set in the same universe as the first game, Unreal II will introduce five alien races in a story that's designed to be tight-knit.

-In a nutshell you're a "Terran Colonial Authority Frontier Marshall" who patrols the ass-end of space in an old scout ship named the Atlantis.

-Within the 25 levels you'll be conducting infiltration, search-and-rescue and other missions. "We want to capture the magic of Assault in UT," says Verdu.

-Smaller scale battles of four or five monsters at a time, maximum.

-AI bots/marines will be used in tactical situations to help out.

-12 months left in its development.

-Multi-player -- Deathmatch, team DM, Last man standing and CTF, plus a character driven (ala Team Fortress) new mode of play.

-Artifacts/runes will be present on the maps

-New weapons - Grenade launcher, flamethrower, leech gun (fires leeches that attach to enemies and drain their lifeforce/energy) and Takkra (think hive gun from Half-Life).

-GeForce III optimized with 10 times the number of polygons for particles and characters compared to UT, with typical enemies sporting 3,000-5,000 polys and your crew having 7,000-10,000 polys. The improved terrain and level geometry will push 100 times the polycount of UT. There's also an improved meshing system that combined with the new skeletal animation allows for awesome character movement.

-From Tim Sweeney - "Up to now all 3D games have looked similar because of the hardware. Now they'll start to look more unique - though you can give only 12 instructions to the pixel shaders, so it's still a bit limited," explains Sweeney.

-"The path from here to photo-realism is now incremental," says Sweeney. "It's still five or ten years away, though, because it needs huge processing power. We need more speed, more precision in color components to let us move up from 32-bit to 64- and 128-bit, but there are no major improvements to be done.

AMD & Intel Price Cuts Nine11 @ 6:11 Comments

Excite is reporting Intel has cut prices on it's P3 and Celeron processors by as much as 19% due to a decrease in demand. The P4 has also been slashed but not as much. Guess AMD is taking a chunck of the processor biz, or Bush has really fragged the economy, or both.

I also noticed AMD is slashing their prices, but I don't know by how much. This page lists their CPU prices in quantities of 1000, but I don't think those are the real deal because individual CPUs can be found for a few bucks less on the net (I compared against prices at Multiwave ).

Monday, March 5, 2001

Pac Bell Gets Sued Over DSL Nine11 @ 7:55 Comments

PC World is reporting Pac Bell has several lawsuits filed against it (including class action suits) for shoddy DSL service and fraud. Pac Bell is accused of promoting DSL in areas which didn't have the service, messed up and/or lost orders, billing for service before installation, and interference with competitors' DSL orders.

The gross offense was Pac Bell's offer for free DSL service through the end of 2000 with the purchase of a Compaq Presario computer. Consumers signed 2 year contracts but Pac Bell failed to install the "free" DSL lines till after the turn of the year which boink'd any of the free internet access and the incentive for the computer purchase.

One more reason why cable rules!

Summoner Preview Nine11 @ 7:32 Comments

Sharky Extreme has a preview of Volition's RPG Summoner. It's only 2 pages but hits (very quickly) most of the aspects of the game. While the PS2 version only got lackluster reviews, the PC game looks a little more promising.

Sunday, March 4, 2001

Half-Life: Rally Screenshots Nine11 @ 8:30 Comments

There are some new screenies of the mod-in-progress Half-Life Rally. The cars are lookin' pretty spiffy but those hills are still kinda square for my tastes. Still, the cool game modes like Hot Potato (got a sticky-bomb on your bumper to ram onto other cars) keep me waiting for the finished product.

Round Drive Cable Review & Giveaway Nine11 @ 8:21 Comments

Extreme Overclocking reviewed some slick rounded IDE and floppy drive cables. Because of their smaller size, they offer better airflow through your case and are about 2" longer than standard cables... damn cool if ya got a tall tower (mine is 26", ooh baby!). EO is also giving away some of these bad boys!

GeForce3 Benchmarks & Breakdown Nine11 @ 8:07 Comments

nV News took a peek at the GeForce3 benchmarks over at R I V A Station (in German) and have a breakdown of the results. So, how incredible is the GF3? For the basic 1024*768-32 gamer with a GF2 Ultra, you'll get about 10fps but the GF3 really shines from there on with advanced graphic options turned on (in this case, bump-mapping).

Saturday, March 3, 2001

Kyocera PDA/Phone Nine11 @ 10:55 Comments

According to PDABuzz , Verizon will be offering the Kyocera QCP-6035 next week. The Kyocera is what you'd get if a Palm Pilot and a Nokia phone got drunk one weekend and forgot the... er... "protection." It runs on the Palm OS, sports 8MB RAM, and has wireless phone, fax, internet functions, but is still kinda expensive at $500.

Diablo II: Lord of Destruction Nine11 @ 10:44 Comments

Gamespot has the skinny on the Diablo II: Lord of Destruction expansion which adds a 5th act, two new character classes (Assassin and Druid), and a butt-load of features and gameplay enhancements. I'm really jazzed about the Assassin because she (yep, it's a girl) has some really cool martial arts skills and attacks. Another cool feature is the ability to pimp out NPC mercenaries with stuff from your inventory.

Emperor: Battle for Dune Q&A Nine11 @ 10:24 Comments

Gamer's Pulse sat down with the producer of Emperor: Battle for Dune. They hit so many snazzy aspects of the game, it's hard to summarize and you'll just have to go and read it yourself. One thing that did stick out in my mind was a unit called the "projector tank." It has the ability to project any other unit (friendly or enemy) ahead of itself and is used for spying and deterrent tactics. That would be damn cool in a multiplayer game.

Icewind Dale: Heart of Winter Review Nine11 @ 10:06 Comments

Firing Squad posted a review of Icewind Dale: Heart of Winter. They smacked it with a 65% verdict because it really didn't bring anything new to the table and was more of an extension of the original game. I have mixed feelings about that because, more than a few times, I've finished a game but just longed to play one more chapter (I had SERIOUS gamelock on Diablo... played it through 3 times!).

Another ding is the inability to generate a new high level character because the game is meant to be continued right from the end of the original. This means gamers who have uninstalled BGII have to play the original again or start the expansion with a level 1 character... not a good idea. The only other option is to use one of the pre-made characters which ships with IWD:HOW, and no self-respecting RPGer would ever do that!

Despite FS's general distaste of IWD:HOW's game design and narrow-mindedness of only being an expansion, they really liked everything else. A serious spit-shine has been given to the graphics, sound, voice acting, and gameplay. They even have an extensive screenshot gallery that is quite tasty!

BG II Expansion Interview Nine11 @ 9:40 Comments

Daily Radar interviewed Alan Miranda, BioWare's producer of Baldur's Gate II: Throne of Bhaal. They hit some specific features of the game such as the ability to import characters/parties from BGII, the addition of two new villains and their minions (some borrowed from IceWind Dale), being able to summon NPCs from BGII, 'n stuf.

Napster Tries To Hide Behind A Screen Nine11 @ 9:28 Comments

Poor little Napster. Excite is reporting those guys are getting beaten to a pulp by RIAA. Their appeal is going south, and they're trying to implement some sort of software screen which wouldn't list artists and/or songs which are copyrighted. Napster programmers are working overtime this weekend before they have to show up in court on Monday.

Friday, March 2, 2001

Alien Spider Update Nine11 @ 11:05 Comments

Cage and his team have been workin' overtime getting the new site up and runnin'. I must say, it's very clean and loads damn fast! Thanks again to Bill for all the graphics.

I've been busy doing the news thang but will move my posts to the new domain sometime next week. We're all working on some unique content (if not unique, just interesting) and should have some of that stuff ready as well. We're shootin' for March 7, but you can check out the new layout here.

Additionally, our team has been expanded and includes the following people:

Brett "Nine11" Oetting - "News Monkey" and Co-Founder.
Ron "Cage" Griffith - Features Editor and Co-Founder.
John Dunbar - Flight Sim Editor.
Bill Westerhout - Artist and Strategy Games Editor.
Franklin Edwards - Games Reviews.

Trainz Screenshotz Nine11 @ 10:49 Comments

When you were a kid, did ya ever oogle at those big-assed model train sets with all the hills, towns, bridges, 'n stuff? Well, Auran has a model train simulator which looks pretty swank! They also have 4 screenshotz for your viewing pleasure.

USB 2.0 Is Here! Nine11 @ 10:24 Comments

USB Workshop is reporting NEC has started production of their Universal Serial Bus (USB) 2.0 host controller device (PD720100). What does that mean for Mr Joe Gamer? Well, USB2 slings data at 60MB/sec which should make make any hardware which sits on the USB interface (CD-RW, broadband modems, Zip drives, ect.) work much better.

New Neverwinter Nights screens Nine11 @ 10:14 Comments

GameSpot has some new Neverwinter Nights screenies running on a GeForce3 which show off some advanced bump-mapping (please, no jokes about the female armor!).

In-Stroke.com Nine11 @ 10:07 Comments

Cage turned me onto InStroke.com which is a Virtual Pool 3 site hosted by SportsPlanet. It looks pretty cool and has plenty of info, cues, and tournaments.

Tribes2: Fallout TC Nine11 @ 10:01 Comments

Fallout it an interesting lookin' total conversion for the yet-to-be-released Tribes2. They uproot the Tribes universe and plant it in a nuclear wasteland (think Mad Max) and let the surviving tribes duke it out for survival.

Win Stuff! Nine11 @ 9:53 Comments

Here are a couple of contests we ran across:

Empire Earth University Contest. 3 first prize winners get a $500 gift certificate to Best Buy and an all expense paid trip to play Empire Earth at Stainless Steel Studios. 25 2nd runners up get an Empire Earth Wall Calendar and your choice of Homeworld, Homeworld: Cataclysm, or Zeus: Master of Olympus.

Win a GeForce3 . Nvidia will randomly select 5 people who fill out their survey to recieve a GeForce3 video card.

Neverwinter Nights Preview Nine11 @ 9:24 Comments

GamePen has a preview of the RPG Neverwinter Nights. Some spiffy features of this game are a rotating camera, detailed environments/characters/animations, and some slick 3D graphic effects. Another feature I thought was cool is the AI will add enemy units to balance COOP games (ie. a singel player will find a couple of baddies in one spot while 2 guys playing COOP will find 4). They've got a few screenies which look killer as well, so go and check this stuff out!

Civilization III Preview Nine11 @ 9:14 Comments

Gamespot UK smacked up a preview of Civilization III. It's pretty light because the game's in such early stages of development, and all the screenies of units are pre-game lookin'. Still, it's a good read for all ya Civ fans.

Thursday, March 1, 2001

Alien Spider Update Nine11 @ 9:18 Comments

Cage and I got all the business paperwork hammered out last week, and Cage got the final touches done on the Alien Spider web site with the help of his team. The graphics look great, and I'd like to thank Bill (our artist) for all his hard work. A little more polish is all we need, and the new site should be up within a week!

Damn, now I gotta work on those reviews/editorials...

Diplomacy in Civ III Nine11 @ 9:10 Comments

The Civilization III site has been updated with new info how diplomacy has been implemented in the game. There's also some nifty Shockwave pictures of Abraham Lincoln and Mao Tse Tung which have sliders that change their mugs from happy to angry (depending on your diplomacy). The update is dated 2/21 but wasn't there yesterday.

Baldur's Gate II: Throne of Bhaal Nine11 @ 8:52 Comments

FGN is reporting a new expansion for Baldur's Gate II called Throne of Bhaal. I wasn't able to find anyting over at the official BG2 web site or at Interplay , so I'm treating this one as a rumor

Icewind Dale: Heart Of Winter Free Addon Nine11 @ 8:17 Comments

Over at the Official Heart of Winter Chat in GameSpy Arcade, Darren Monahan, Producer of IWDHOW, mentioned a free addon pack. He didn't list any details, but the news should please fans of the game. Thanks to Cage for the heads-up.

Echelon Demo Quick Impressions Cage @ 3:52 Comments

After seeing Nine11's news item I went ahead and took Echelon out for a spin. Echelon is being developed by Bubka (A Russian company) and published by Bethesda Softworks.

Yep, all the menus and text are in Russian. It does make it challenging to figure out how to configure the options and navigate through the game.

I had better luck then Nine11 did. To be fair, I have spent a bit more time with flight sims. Also, fortunately for me I was able to select the joystick control by just guessing from the option menu. Since mouse was spelled out, it was just a matter of picking an option other then that. I went for one of the options towards the bottom of the list and hit the jackpot. I got full support for my twist rudders and throttle on my MS FF stick. Woohee!

The graphics were interesting, but not as stunning as I thought they would be from Nine11's description. It's still easy to see sharp edges on the mountains. Texture details seemed to be blurry and not all that impressive in spots. It does seem like they really went all out to implement fogging and lens flare effects. I don't doubt that it could be "realistic" to have it that way, considering the arena I was flying in, which was high in the mountains.

Yep, I caught that option for "T&L" in the graphics setup, and of course selected it. I wish I could read Russian. Too bad I didn't stick it out with that Russian language class in college. There were a lot of other interesting looking options that I would have loved to play with.

I tried out several different err.....jets? I was pleasantly surprised that they at least made an effort to model some basic flight forces. You can't just point/jerk/and shoot like you can in Crimson Skies. While there appear to be some enemy location radar prompts you are not given an exact 3 dimensional fix, which is kind of nice and challenging. A radar map on the HUD shows your relative orientation and distance to the enemy, as well as which way the enemy is pointing. When you get closer a red arrow/carrot will appear in the upper corner of the HUD showing you which direction to go to find the enemy. It does not show you if the enemy is above or below you, which is nice.

The weapons require that you lead the target to get the proper angle for effective deflection shooting. The projectiles look kind of cheesy, especially some of the energy weapon balls. However the resulting damage and hit effects are quite satisfying. You can see the other jet shake and shudder from the hit. Also you can blow off specific parts and watch the enemy jet try to stay in the air minus a few parts. When you hit a critical spot the resulting explosion and fireball is quite spectacular.

I noticed several times when I was taking off some stuttering and slow downs in the frame rate. It didn't happen every time, with every plane. That's on my GeForce 2 GTS powered Athlon 1.1 GHz system. Of course I had all the graphic options maxed, but I couldn't tell for sure at what resolution.

I didn't notice any clipping of the textures. I did have some fun with the enemy as I wove through the mountains and watched them explode into the side of a cliff while they tried to follow me. The enemy AI didn't seem to be too tough, but I have no idea what the difficulty was set at. I know I was mortal, since I managed to kill myself by going head on with an enemy jet twice. Doh!

Echelon looks like it might be fun, but it needs some polishing. I didn't check out the multiplay, though it did try to connect to the Internet before it crashed because of my ZoneAlarm settings. I might give it another whirl later.

Echelon demo at Avault - 45.8 MB.