Paul “Locki” Wedgewood of Splash Damage updated the ET:QW development blog, announcing a new public beta release for QuakeCon.
The beta includes a host of features and updates as well as a new map: Valley. Here it is, straight from the blog:
The GDF need to destroy a Strogg Prionite Contaminator that’s poisoning a reservoir (the Strogg are attempting to render the local population defenseless to Stroggification). Our Level Design Team has been polishing Valley like crazy, plus it’s larger than Sewer, and features four additional GDF vehicles (the Anansi Attack ‘Copter, Bumblebee Transport Chopper, the Platypus Assault Boat, and the Mobile Command Post) and improved visuals over Sewer. We’re confident you’re going to have fun on this map!
And here’s a short list of updates and features:
-Balancing, Refinements and Bugs
-Improved Bots
-Improved Prediction and Player Physics
-Improved Vehicle Physics and Controls
-Improved Interface
-Improved Audio
-Improved Game Performance
-PunkBuster
-Unranked Server Support
-Brand-new Statistics Website
All QuakeCon BYOC attendees will be able to play the beta. After a week or two, you’ll be able to get it from FilePlanet.
Read the full list and descriptions over at the ET:QW Dev Blog.
Uwe Boll is in the news again — actually, he’s being sued by the news.
That is, if you can call the New York Post “news.” It seems that after some back and forth between the paper and Boll, Boll launched a couple of parody Post sites promoting his new movie, POSTAL.
The New York Postal sites didn’t go over well with Rupert Murdoch’s employees, so Boll and the paper are going to court.
In a statement, Boll said:
The New York Post’s attempt to slander my character and my movie POSTAL by stating that the movie mocks and makes fun out of September 11 victims is entirely incorrect and false. Their approach to writing this article was totally unethical. In fact, during their research for the article, The New York Post had to replace the three journalists who choose to support my concept. The publisher chose to censor these journalists and had Jill Culora write the article without even conducting an interview with me to explain what the movie is about.
I suppose no press is bad press, right?
Check out the Post parody sites.
Site 1
Site 2
A Sony exec announced via PlayStation.Blog that Rockstar Games’ as-yet-unannounced franchise will be exclusive to the PS3.
This is Michael Shorrock. I’m the Director of 3rd Party Relations at SCEA. As you may have seen this morning/last night on GameHead with Geoff Keighley, we are announcing that a new franchise from Rockstar Games will be exclusive to PS3. As part of our long standing relationship with Rockstar, and the incredible success for both companies with the cultural icon that is Grand Theft Auto, we’ve agreed to the PlayStation exclusive rights of the next great franchise from the Rockstar studios.
Everyone knows to have success in this business you need to look ahead, identifying the talent and titles that are going to give consumers new kinds of gaming experiences that help set the bar for the rest of the industry. Rockstar has a heritage for doing just that. We have had incredible success with the GTA franchise and are happy to continue to offer those titles on our platforms, and even more excited about what’s to come from the current and future relationship between our companies. Rockstar really wanted to make a game that you can truly only do on PS3, harnessing the power of CELL and Blu-ray disc and this deal lets them do just that. This is really a win-win situation for both companies. As Jack mentioned in the interview with Geoff, this franchise is not LA Noire, but something all new. We agreed with Rockstar and Take-Two Interactive Software that we wouldn’t disclose anything more about the deal or title at this time, so stay tuned, we’ll share more info as soon as we can.
So the question is, what’s the new franchise? Based on Rockstar’s previous work, I have compiled the following suggestions:
- Dateline NBC: To Catch a Predator: The Game
- Simon Wiesenthal Presents Konzentrationslager Auschwitz
- Rockstar Games Presents Bocce Ball
- The Legend of Billie Jean
- Computer Game Piracy: The Game
- Tamakeri: The Game
Last Wednesday The Hollywood Reporter reported an overall $50 price drop for the Xbox 360 line, presumably in response to Sony’s recent discounts on the PlayStation 3. At that time, Microsoft refused to confirm or deny the story.
Since then, bloggers have uncovered that the unannounced price drop is real. First, both Toys “R” Us and Wal-Mart advertised a “price break” on the 20GB 360 “Premium,” with a list of $349.99.
Toys “R” Us (left), Walmart circulars.
Today, Joystiq found a Circuit City circular offering price cuts on the entire product line.
I checked Amazon.com, and the 20GB SKU is still selling for $399.99. Neither the Toys “R” Us website nor the Wal-Mart site are offering the price reduction, which suggests that only certain retailers’ brick & mortar stores are affected at this time.
Microsoft may be dropping prices in advance of three major title releases this fall: Madden NFL 08, John Woo Presents Stranglehold, and of course Halo 3.
Before you run out to Wal-Mart to save $50, be sure to read this.
On June 28, Rooster Teeth Productions published the final episode ever of the beloved Halo machinima series Red vs. Blue: The Blood Gulch Chronicles. Halo fans across the galaxy mourned as the 100th episode, with three alternate endings, brought an end to the hilarious adventures of Red and his inept crew of Spartans. According to creator Burnie Burns and his cohorts, there would be no more RvB.
They lied.
The cloying stench of filthy lucre has lured the Rooster Teeth guys back to the RvB trough. New episodes, created in Halo 3, will be streamed on the Amazon, Best Buy, Circuit City, GameStop, and Wal-Mart websites.
In anticipation of the big launch of Halo 3 in September, a five-episode special edition of Red vs. Blue will premiere at participating retail websites starting on Tuesday, July 31. The episodes feature Sarge preparing Donut, Simmons, and the rest of his soldiers for the upcoming move from Halo 2 into Halo 3.
Red vs. Blue is a pioneering video series created by Rooster Teeth that uses Halo characters to act out a continuing story. The animation is created in real-time by using a video game engine to power the visuals. Graham Leggat of the San Francisco film society dubbed Red vs. Blue the “first masterpiece of machinima.” This very popular “machinima” series, which has a huge online following, spans five seasons and 100 episodes, and it portrays the adventures of two groups of rather unwilling soldiers in an isolated canyon called Blood Gulch.
With clever dialogue and engaging characters, the series has won four awards from the Academy of Machinima Arts & Sciences. Rooster Teeth also created the machinima series 1-800-MAGIC, based on the world of Shadowrun. Episodes of Red vs. Blue are available on Xbox LIVE Marketplace, or you can find out more by visiting their official site.
Isn’t it great how PR flacks can take something cool and make it sound tedious?
Kotaku reports on another cool DIY console mod: turn your Nintendo 64 rumble pack into a tattoo gun.
Anonymous Kotaku reader-slash-prison guard says:
It is actually pretty easy. There are no workshops in maximum security. They do it in their rooms with a battery (power) taped to a tube (could be a pen or a tightly wound piece of paper). The motor from the rumble pack is taken out and attached to the top of the tube. A needle or pin is run down the middle of the tube. When “on” the needle will move up and down like a sewing machine. The needle is then dipped in “ink.” This is made a number of ways; the easiest is to use ball point pen ink, but they could use other items to get different colors or looks.
Tattoo-making materials are forbidden in US prisons, but prisoners can purchase old N64s with the money they earn. Why video game controllers with rumble packs aren’t simply forbidden is unclear; perhaps there is a rehabilitative component to Diddy Kong Racing.
I set out to make a prison tattoo gun here in the office, using a pen, a battery and an Xbox controller. But I couldn’t find a tiny screwdriver to get the controller open. I’ll send an exclusive, collectible GGL wrist warmer to the first reader who sends me a picture of their homemade tattoo/rumble gun.
On instructables.com, a thrifty gamer posts his instructions for manufacturing one’s own Guitar Hero controller, complete with a “proof of concept” video demonstration. The guitar doesn’t look great, but it seems to play perfectly.
The components:
a PS1 controller with analog sticks
trigger buttons of another PS1 controller
some other switches and plastic pieces
a whammy bar
some screws
a tilt sensor (with instructions on how to build your own!)
a flat cable consisting of 6 wires and a bunch of other shorter wires
2 pieces from a roll-top
a thick paper with fine surface on one side
a long piece of wooden slat
hot glue
soldering-iron
an electric drill, rasp, Stanley knife and some other tools
And here’s what the final product looks like:
And here’s the video of the DIY Guitar Hero guitar in action:
And here’s the RedOctane exec who’s going to get pissed:
If you thought GameTap was nothing more than a service that charges you money to play old video games you can get for free on an emulator, you were wrong.
It’s a service that charges you money to play old video games you can get for free on an emulator, with a terrible interface.
But now GameTap is also a media site. This month, the Turner-owned video game portal premiered Tomb Raider Re/Visioned, a ten-episode animated Lara Croft story featuring Minnie Driver as the voice of the large-polygonned archaeologist. The first three episodes are written and directed by Aeon Flux creator Peter Chung. The series is streamed for free at tombraider.gametap.com. (you don’t have to install the terrible interface to watch the videos.)
Look at me, Lara Croft! I’m dancing! I’m doing the boobie dance!
Five of the ten episodes are now available, and I can say the story is an odd mix of sophisticated adult occult themes, written into a format oddly reminiscent of old 80s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles episodes (and Lara Croft even looks more like April O’Neil than Aeon Flux). Lara must defeat a group intent on obtaining artefacts that give power over death, while society at large reels from the consequences of possessing such power.
Other contributors to what has been promised to be the first of many seasons include comics legends Jim Lee (X-men) and Warren Ellis (Transmetropolitan). Future seasons will focus on different “IP,” or intellectual property, according to GameTap VP Ricardo Sanchez. It’d always nice to see art referred to as “IP” or “product.”
The games and/or characters for the second season are still under wraps.
Sanchez revealed that Lara Croft was chosen for this first series because of her popularity, and the availability of the character. (The fact that GameTap is currently pushing six previous Tomb Raider titles, all of which go pay-only after August 2nd, couldn’t have hurt.) The series was created without the input of the game creators.
Link.
After spending a little time with the Halo ActionClix collectible miniatures game, I found myself wishing there were some kind of computer program that could simulate these battles in real time. You know, maybe present them from the first-person point of view of a Spartan soldier.
That would be neat.
WizKids, the company that brought us collectible minis games based on Marvel, DC & indie comics (I love my Abbey Chase mini), Mechwarrior, Crimson Skies and Shadowrun, now brings the world of Halo to the tabletop. Hitting that crowded, poorly-stocked local games store in September, the Halo ActionClix Series One will have over 80 pieces, including Covenant Hunters, a Warthog combat vehicle and a Banshee Covenant air assault vehicle.
But if you weren’t at Comic-Con, you didn’t have a chance to pay $250 for one of these:
That’s the exclusive “Battle-damaged Scarab,” the Covenant four-legged mecha tank. Like other mega-figures offered by WizKids, such as or Fin Fang Foom or Galactus, the Scarab is scaled to the other figures. Which means it’s ginormous.
The Fin Fang Foom figure I got at Wizard World. Click to see the image gallery.
The game recreates videogame mechanics, including respawning, weapon swaps and vehicle-based combat. Like other collectible minis game, stats for each piece are recorded on a rotating dial in the base. The game mechanics require that the Scarab be boarded and destroyed from inside.
At Wizard World, Fin Fang Foom was the item to get. Now, WizKids builds their booth out of the damn things.
Midway held a party in San Diego’s tony Gaslamp District Thursday night to celebrate the upcoming release of Aqua Teen Hunger Force Zombie Ninja Pro-Am, a movie tie-in game that utterly failed to be released around the time of the movie.
Heck it even failed to make it out in time for Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters for DVD, the two-disc set dropping on August 14.
Comic-Con attendees enjoy the ATHFZNPA demo. And free drinks. Read more »
GGL Wire is sending seven brave men to QuakeCon to cover all aspects of the event. Expect interviews, VODs of the matches and as little Slasher on air as we can possibly have.
What exactly will we cover? You get a say in it. If you want to know something specific about the event or if you want to ask a question to a “fascinating individual,” then we want to know.
Consider this a prime opportunity to get a good interview out of any player attending, be that an Enemy Territory: Quake Wars competitor, or a Quake Quad Damage Tournament pro. Also, if you want to know something specific about Enemy Territory: Quake Wars or id Tech 5, we’ll be covering those big announcements too.
There are no holds barred regarding the questions; silly and offbeat questions are welcome, but you can safely expect questions like “What sensitivity do you use?” to be ignored. Post your question right here!
For ease of compilation, use this format:
Player / Topic
Question
Have at it. Your questions will be asked in interviews broadcast on GGLTV.
There is a pantheon of gods in the Comic-Con universe: George Lucas, Joss Whedon, Stan Lee, Frank Miller, Alan Moore, Hiyao Miyazaki. But none of them, not even Lucas, garners the kind of devotion felt by fans of British fantasy writer Neil Gaiman.
Gaiman is the author of six novels, including Stardust (the basis for the film starring Robert DeNiro and Michelle Pfeiffer that opens August 10), four short story collections, and many other works. But he’s still best known for The Sandman, his 75-issue comic series that ended in 1996.
He appeared in a room of 4,000 fans, admitting that he had nothing prepared to discuss. So he talked about his earliest Comic-Con experience in 1989, when he could still walk around and meet comics professionals without getting mobbed by rabid fans. Read more »
