They also take a look at the Playstation game, SaGa Frontier 2. Was it better than the original? We sure hope so. Find the review at http://www.gamespy.com/reviews/saga2_a.shtm

They also talk with the guys from Alliance Games, the team formed from the merger of the folks behind Expert Quake and Loki's Minions. Check out the interview at http://www.gamespy.com/spotlights/alliance_a.shtm

"Since Sony's Playstation 2 was officially announced a year ago in March 1999, this next generation console has been one of the most widely-discussed topics between console and non-console fans. The specifications of the console were, to say the least, mind-boggling. With a CPU running at close to 300 MHz with a 128-bit Emotion Engine (think: SIMD for PS2), a dedicated 150 MHz graphics processor, a new dedicated audio processor, and a 4X DVD-ROM drive, the specs of the Playstation 2 put, when it was announced, those of PCs to shame.
Sporting two USB ports, and a high-bandwidth, high-speed FireWire port, the PS2 also comes ready for future expansion. The PS2 also comes with a PCMCIA slot, useful for adding new drives and the like"

It was a brief visit, so I'll share some brief impressions: The full scene 4X anti-aliasing is as cool as I expected, I had a taste of the effect in my first 3D accelerator, the Vérité (of all things) and was already aware of how even lower resolution images can be enhanced by smoothing out the stair-stepping around the edges. The effect is just as impressive on high-resolution scenes, eliminating not only jaggies around the edges of images, but removing all sorts of noise and moiré patterns from textures and such. It does entail a performance hit, and twitch gamers tend to turn off eye candy in favor of performance, but the full-scene AA is awfully sweet, with possibly even greater impact on how some images appear than the use of 32/24-bit color. Nothing screams "computer generated" like jagged edges, and switching between normal views of Falcon 4 and anti-aliased views was like switching between the past and the future.

There is a bug that may be giving Q3A mod developers some headaches if they are trying to add new holdable items.

File cg_event.c, function CG_UseItem; the line:
itemNum = es->event - EV_USE_ITEM0;
should be:
itemNum = (es->event & ~EV_EVENT_BITS) - EV_USE_ITEM0;

This causes itemNum to be invalid about half the time, preventing any client side effect tied to the item from occurring.

"Practically all of the massively multiplayer online games at the moment are 'men in tights' games, and Star Wars has the real opportunity to expand online gaming to a more casual gamer," Jeffery says. "I think there's a high degree of intimidation to entry in online gaming. A lot of casual gamers are just put off by the fact that there's newbie-bashing and you have to be pretty hardcore to just know what's going on."

There will be opportunities for players to hack and slash their way to the next level, Jeffery says, but LucasArts will emphasize the nonviolent aspects of the game. "We want people to be able to go in there and have an experience that might have no killing whatever, where level increasing is gained by doing good, or simply being a successful trader or a good spy."

A hands-on preview of Vampire: The Masquerade by PC.IGN.

A preview and three new screens of Independence War 2 at Gamespot UK.

There's a preview of Flying Heroes at the AVault.

Jiovanie Velazquez, artist working on Summoner, is interviewed by Summoner Homeland.

Gary Stelmack of Red Storm, chatted with SimHQ about Red Storm's upcoming ( as in a week or so) Urban Ops, the mission pack for Rogue Spear.

Sam Brown of Legend Entertainment is interviewed by ShadorLogoth.com (WTF) regarding Wheel of Time.

Couple of Raven Software interviews: One with Gil Gibb discussing the GHOUL system in SoF; the other with Kenn Hoekstra regarding game development.

Digital Extremes' lead designer James Schmalz is grilled about their new game Dark Sector.

You are one of the best mercenary space-pilots in the Sol system. Play the beginning five, single-player missions of this intense space-combat adventure, featuring: a free-form mission structure, furious space-fighter warfare, full in-game cinematics, innovative new weapons and the most incredible large-scale objects ever seen in a space game.
This demo lets gamers try out Base Wars, one of Tachyon's multiplayer game types. Two teams (GalSpan and Bora) advance through ten levels of technology by collecting crystals and defeating enemy players. Each technology level allows the team access to better weapons, hardware, and base defenses. Upon reaching the tenth level, the goal is to destroy the life support systems on the other team's base.

This is a Flight simulation / RTS genre mix using 3Dfx's Glide and OpenGL. Development of this game is far from finished, but all key parts of the game are included with this demo. Deranged Raid is FREEWARE and OPENSOURCE.
DERANGED RAID is a team game. Each team consists of one or more pilots who pilot their own vehicles. The goal is to destroy the enemy Command Center, while defending your own. One part of the game consists of flying and fighting with your ship, the other part plays like a normal RTS-game: you build structures and defense systems, harvest resources and try to keep the enemy from doing the same.

With this update, dynamic scenery will work both day and night, whether you have shadows turned ON or OFF.

Flight Simulator now includes shadows for aircraft, buildings, and dynamic scenery. The complete redesign of the scenery system in Flight Simulator 2000 made the previous method of displaying shadows obsolete.

To view shadows, make sure that the Aircraft Shadows and Ground Scenery Shadows settings are selected in the Image Quality tab of the Display Settings dialog box. To get to this dialog box in Flight Simulator, click the Options menu, point to Settings, and then click Display. Then click the Image Quality tab.

The problem with setup failing to rename some files has been solved. The problem was a result of incorrect registry settings.

Autopilot-induced oscillations while following the ILS glideslope have been fixed.

Displayed ATIS frequencies are now limited to frequencies tunable with the Communication radio.

The Learjet 45 and the Boeing 737-400 ADF needles now correct for magnetic variation.

Voodoo2 video cards now correctly render gauges.

The VSI needle in the Learjet and the 777 move in full scale when metric units of measure are in use.

Several issues with the 413 patch have been pointed out. We will have an updated patch as soon as possible to address these issues. In the meantime, if you are having D3D video performance problems, see Erik's update below. If you are having problems installing UT, or getting an error after installation that "UnrealTournament.exe is not a valid Win32 application" or "UnrealTournament.exe is too big to fit into system memory", try installing into the default directory for UT (c:\UnrealTournament). Our patch installer seems to be occasionally corrupting files when installing into different directory structures. We are still working on the problems of the 413 patch not working with minimum installs, and problems patching the Spanish/Italian version of UT.

GS: Which single aspect of MechWarrior 4 excites you the most?

TJ: For me, it's finally being able to bring the multiplayer BattleTech experience we had in the pods to the PC user. The thought of hundreds of dedicated servers running MechWarrior 4 across all different styles of play and multiplayer modes makes me giddy.

Martian Gothic is a relatively non-linear game. With over 120 locations, it will take the average gamer between 40 and 60 hours to make it through, which translates into more than a few sleepless nights.

The game is a mixture of puzzle solving - all puzzles are related to real-life object combination and manipulation, according to developer Creative Reality - and combat.

By executing the Allegiance Server Code, sites will be automatically listed among the worldwide free-play servers for Allegiance on the MSN Gaming Zone. Gamers who are interested in hosting an Allegiance free-play server can download the free file and support manual at: http://www.microsoft.com/games/allegiance/downloads.htm

Allegiance will be available in retail stores for an anticipated street price of US$40. Gamers can then choose to play on public-domain servers free of charge or access the Allegiance Zone, a subscription service that provides larger-scale games, special events, persistent scoring and rankings, and new exclusive content. Players are eligible for one free month on the Allegiance Zone ($9.95 value) with game purchase.

Electronic Arts Inc. (Nasdaq: ERTS) and the U.S. subsidiaries of Sega Enterprises Ltd. and Nintendo Co. filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court in San Francisco. They are seeking an injunction to halt sales of counterfeit games on Yahoo! (Nasdaq: YHOO). The suit is the first time the companies have taken on an online retailer. Electronic Arts is based in Redwood City, Calif., while Sega and Nintendo are based in Japan.

Diane Hunt, a spokeswoman for Yahoo! in San Jose, Calif., said the company hadn't seen the suit yet and couldn't comment on it. She noted that Yahoo! shuts down illegal auctions when it hears about them from buyers or sellers, but so far hasn't found a practical way to search through "millions of listings" for possible illegal items.

The lawsuit alleges Yahoo! profits from the sales and is aware they are happening. Richard Flamm, general counsel for Nintendo of America in Redmond, Wash., said Yahoo hasn't responded to requests to stop the activity.

The game is outrageously addicting. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you will even yell at your Sims. Your goal is to keep them happy and make some friends. It’s gigapets meets Dungeon Keeper meets Freud’s worst nightmare meets the Brady Bunch. As the puppetmaster, you pull all the strings and dictate how your Sims will grow (or wither and die) in the environment. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to check in on the Sorority sisters and find out what this game feels about same-sex marriages.

GA-Source has snapped up a 12 new screenshots from the latest MDK2 build, given to them at the recent MDK2 launch party.

SCi recently released 12 new action-packed screenshots and a development update for their upcoming action racer, Carmageddon TDR 2000.

A representative for Bethesda Softworks has told GA-Source that tomorrow they will be making an official announcement for the long awaited sequel to Daggerfall - The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind. First image included: http://www.ga-source.com/all/news/bits/02+29+2000/12:23:0.shtml

The update includes over 20 character and weapon enhancements, many of which came from fan suggestions. A complete list of improvements can be found at http://www.westwood.com

"The rewards systems are what set this game apart. Unlike every other real-time strategy you don't have direct control over your heroes. You can't order a group of warriors to lay waste to an enemy castle, or to explore an area. Instead you can place a reward flag on the castle and the warriors, if they see fit, lay waste to the castle in order to collect the bounty. The key here is " if they see fit"

Continuing to build the library of multiplayer titles for the Sega Dreamcast Network, Sega of America announced today a deal with Activision, Inc. to publish id Software's QUAKE III Arena(tm) " for the 128-bit, Internet-ready Sega Dreamcast(tm) videogame console. The title is being developed, under id Software's supervision and direction, by Activision and Raster Productions for Sega Dreamcast and published by Sega of America. QUAKE III Arena is expected to ship later this year.

Using the Sega Dreamcast Network, Sega Dreamcast gamers will be able to play QUAKE III Arena against both Sega Dreamcast and PC owners. This is the first time that QUAKE III Arena will be available on a videogame console and the first time in history that PC gamers can play against console gamers via real-time networked gameplay. Whether played in multiplayer or single player mode, QUAKE III Arena is sure to give gamers an adrenaline rush and keep them coming back for more.

"id Software has continually been at the forefront of online games and we are thrilled to have them involved in our efforts to expand the way people play games on Sega Dreamcast," said Charles Bellfield, director of corporate communications, Sega of America. "In 2000, Sega's focus is on online games for Sega Dreamcast and we are pleased to be shipping a proven hit such as QUAKE III Arena."

Electronic Arts Inc. (Nasdaq: ERTS) and the U.S. subsidiaries of Sega Enterprises Ltd. and Nintendo Co. filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court in San Francisco. They are seeking an injunction to halt sales of counterfeit games on Yahoo! (Nasdaq: YHOO). The suit is the first time the companies have taken on an online retailer. Electronic Arts is based in Redwood City, Calif., while Sega and Nintendo are based in Japan.

Diane Hunt, a spokeswoman for Yahoo! in San Jose, Calif., said the company hadn't seen the suit yet and couldn't comment on it. She noted that Yahoo! shuts down illegal auctions when it hears about them from buyers or sellers, but so far hasn't found a practical way to search through "millions of listings" for possible illegal items.

The lawsuit alleges Yahoo! profits from the sales and is aware they are happening. Richard Flamm, general counsel for Nintendo of America in Redmond, Wash., said Yahoo hasn't responded to requests to stop the activity.

IGNPC: Just how many models of Porsche will be in there?

PR: Although the final numbers are still being determined, we anticipate that there will be over 80 models of car available on PC – compared to 50 on PlayStation.

GameSpot UK:
What's the attraction of setting a game based in Norse era and mythology - how has this fed into the game design?

Timothy Gerritsen:
Many of us at Human Head had read stories about the Vikings and their legends, and had read the Norse mythologies about the gods Thor, Odin and Loki as kids. It is a deeply rich culture that has contributed a great deal to our present day literature and cultural psyche. It is also an area often overlooked in games other than in cartoonish ways. We decided the time had come to do an epic adventure fantasy game about Viking mythology. Rune, however, is not a documentary simulation of Viking life, so don't get me wrong. What we've done is taken the legends of the Vikings and combined them with our own takes on the culture to create what is essentially a fantasy legend brought to life in an action game.

Tip #9 - Use the crack whore skins. He will see the scantily clad model and be so dismayed that he will hesitate before shooting you.

Microsoft today announced the start of its server spawn program for Allegiance, a brand-new multiplayer space combat game, by releasing the stand-alone server code for the game as a free download. The server code, which is a self-extracting, executable file, allows any PC or server to host free multiplayer games of Allegiance. The server code will also be included in the retail shipping version of Allegiance, which is expected to hit store shelves later this week. The game combines furious space combat with the social challenge of squadron-based combat in a stunning 3D universe.

By executing the Allegiance Server Code, sites will be automatically listed among the worldwide free-play servers for Allegiance on the MSN Gaming Zone (http://www.zone.com/allegiance/). Gamers who are interested in hosting an Allegiance free-play server can download the free file and support manual at:

http://www.microsoft.com/games/allegiance/downloads.htm

Allegiance will be available in retail stores for an anticipated street price of US$40. Gamers can then choose to play on public-domain servers free of charge or access the Allegiance Zone, a subscription service that provides larger-scale games, special events, persistent scoring and rankings, and new exclusive content. Players are eligible for one free month on the Allegiance Zone ($9.95 value) with game purchase.

In Allegiance, players can pilot and customize many different classes of ships; from scouts and fighters to battle cruisers. They also have the ability to switch between a variety of combat roles, including pilot, turret gunner or base commander. Hundreds of players can engage each other in death-match style arenas or in cooperative play. Gamers will be able to represent their identity, through recorded accomplishments and medals, giving combatants the chance to become part of an ongoing, dynamic universe. Allegiance also features rich strategic elements such as controllable assets, researchable technology and command features.

For more information about Allegiance, visit the game's official site at:

http://www.microsoft.com/games/allegiance/

Soldier-of-Fortune: Given the chance, what would you change about Soldier of Fortune?

Kenn Hoekstra (Project Administrator): I wish we had time to add weapon mods to the weapon functionality and outfit menu. Taking a stock weapon and adding a silencer, laser site, flashlight, larger clip or different rounds would have been very cool. User controlled vehicles would have been cool, too. You can never seem to do everything you want to do in a game, it seems. If you could, why would any game have a sequel? =)

DR: Explain this half-beast character that you play in Vampire. What's the attraction to playing undead characters -- is this some sort of gothic chic?

CH: You begin the game as Christof Romuald, a mortal knight fighting for God and greater glory, but soon after the game begins, you are turned into a vampire and must contend with a world that, for you, has turned upside down. All the things you believed in, good and evil, are no longer the same for you as your humanity is subverted. But on the other hand, the attraction of this character change is that you get to play an immortal creature of legend, with strength and powers beyond mortal comprehension. One of my favorite things about this vampire world, called the World of Darkness, is that the character struggles against the beast within to maintain his humanity, providing a sense of the tragic hero.

All Star Wars games that don't have a title at the time that they begin evelopment end up being assigned a code name. Well, we've just landed information about one that is supposed to be amazing in the next generation gaming market. Europa, the code name for the project, is LucasArts' first upcoming effort in the next generation market. TFN has learned that in addition to the N64 title to be released this Christmas and the recently released Star Wars Online, LEC has another really great looking title tighly under wraps possibly for the PC and Playstation 2. While we do expect an official announcement soon, here's your first word about the new TPM game, exclusive to TFN:

"LucasArts is developing what sounds to be an Episode I related flight simulator type of game. The project is code named "Europa" and is anticipated to run only on the higest end PCs and one of the next generation consoles. From what I've seen it looks like it's shaping up into a very cool game. One source suggested that Europa is, quite simply, the most beautiful flight/simulator/shooter that just has to be seen to be appreciated. More soon."

New features (Gameplay):

- D3D uses vertex buffers for all drawing operations - gives overall performance boost.
- Can now use number and arrow keys to navigate voice menu
- Random bots picks from all 32 (not first 16) - including the specially configured ones
- Can summon specific bots: 'AddBotNamed Alarik' adds the bot with the name Alarik (if he's in the list of configured bots)
- Now shows waiting players on team scoreboards before start of game (players who aren't ready are greyed out)
- Improved bot AI about triggering pressure zone when player is in it
- Changed xDSL and cable modem clientspeed to 10000 (and added separate category in netspeed selection)
- No longer need to type 'iamtheone' for cheats in single player
- Demos can now play looping - demoplay demofile?loop
- Turbo/hardcore mode is now shown in UBrowser for team games

S-o-F: What is your favorite weapon in Soldier of Fortune and why? Favorite hit location / enemy body part to dismember and why? >;-)

Brian: My favorite weapon is the SMG- It is fast and furious and I love the "dance" it puts the enemies into. I think my favorite hit location is a hard one. I have 3 favorites of the throat, the Groin , and finally shooting the head clean off. But that's me I am a little brutal.

GAMELINKS.NET: The terrain engine look absolutely incredible and it appears that Tribes 2 will blow away the competition in terms of outdoor environments once again. With this in mind, have there been major performance related issues in trying to incorporate intensive features such as water and fog?

RICK OVERMAN: Not for fog. Our fog in TRIBES 2 is vertex-based and supported directly by hardware. We’re still considering some other permutations, but it’s safe to say fog isn’t going to be a problem with most hardware.

Water, on the other hand, could create some issues. Water’s translucency means that the combination of polygons and textures that make up a body of water is essentially drawn over the polygons and textures that make up the "underwater" terrain. So there’s an overdraw issue because your machine has to draw the lake bottom and then draw another layer of translucent water over the top of that terrain, essentially drawing your pixels twice in the same map location. You can scale down your poly count to compensate if you’re having performance problems, but you can’t do much with the doubled textures.

There are always performance-related issues when introducing new environmental features, but we think we’ve worked out some good solutions for TRIBES 2. The amount of data that makes up TRIBES 2 maps is actually far less than for TRIBES 1 maps, even though our maps in T2 provide the user with larger, vastly more complex landscapes.

The AI has been improved considerably and, as a result, the other characters in the game now react to your presence more realistically. They hear you when you walk across noisy surfaces and hunt you out based on where they last heard your footsteps. They also see you more easily if you have not completely hidden yourself, and they run for help, yelling at the top of their voices if they think they can't handle you alone. When that happens, be very fast on your feet or you'll be killed. Guards now carry bows too, so it's no longer simply a matter of knocking out the opposition from a distance. On the whole, the game is a lot less forgiving than Thief, but more atmospheric because of it.

Tactical combat, however, is the main element of Heart Of Stone, and again this relies on the ability-focused nature of characters. Brother Spencer has an "earthquake" attack, which involves jumping and landing heavily to shake opponents over parapets and ledges. The Norman Princess, the only archer on the team, can make use of torches proffered by other characters to shoot fire arrows, while the Mercenary's pike becomes useful in narrow corridors, allowing him to hold opponents at bay while his colleagues pick them off.

Argosy 2325's unique setting recycles traditional dogfighting elements while introducing new ones, bringing with them additional challenges. The presence of the ice ceiling sandwiches the action between it and the seabed, forcing you to ensure that the momentum from your combat maneuvers doesn't propel you into a surface sturdier than your SeaHawk's ceramic-coated hull. There are advantages to the dual-surface area, however. Traveling close the ocean floor considerably lessens your engine noise, thereby making you much harder to detect on enemy sonar. Cruising close the ice makes you much more visible on enemy sonar, but also extends your own sonar range, enabling you to detect your enemies approaching much sooner than you would have at a lower altitude.

According to Alex Papasavas, President of ReAllis, it is this mix of first person action and turn-based strategy that promises to keep the gameplay unique, while introducing gameplay elements that gamers are already accustomed to. "Perhaps it can be related to the classic title, Archon; Turn Based Strategy/3rd Person 2D Shooter," he explains.

He continued, "Archon similarly flipped between strategic moves on the chess-like board and intense arena combat between various characters. Some other great works that influenced the development of Rogue Wars are Tribes, Warcraft II, Doom, Unreal, Quake and Mortal Combat."

There seems to be some confusion over the multiple SKUs of Soldier of Fortune. The standard full version of Soldier of Fortune comes in a green box and the Tactical Low Violence Version comes in a red box. I think that THIS ARTICLE sums up the differences and the reasoning behind it quite well. If you are ordering the game online, odds are you will see two listings: One called "Soldier of Fortune" and another called "Soldier of Fortune Tactical Version" like this listing on Amazon.com.

Of course the best way to make sure that you get the version you are looking for is to go down to your local software retailer and hand pick the version you want. If that's not an option, call the Customer Service department of the website or store that you ordered from and make sure you are getting what you want. That's what the CS people are there for and it will save you a lot of headaches because of the strict software return policies that exist in today's market.

There is NO WAY to enable the full violence in the tactical version and no patch or hack to do so will ever be released, supported or endorsed by Raven Software or Activision.

FS: What do you think are the advantages and disadvantages of developing for the X-Box as opposed to other consoles like the Playstation 2?

Jake: For everyone out there that already supports DirectX it's a godsend. Since we support OpenGL it's not going to be so easy, but such is the life of a games developer :) Obviously we as PC developers will have to get our heads around the idea of not patching games, even though there is an 8meg harddrive included in the package. Since Microsoft has said "Don't expect to use this to patch games" we should use that to get out of this mindset of 'ship now, patch later'.

Of course being able to use the MS DEV studio set of tools really helps too. All us PC developers are familiar with these, and to be honest, they are the most complete set of development tools out there. The PSX2 has lots of 'little' processors in it, which makes debugging code a touch more complex than just worrying about the one program thread.

However the PSX2, - because of it's more complex architecture - should present us with more opportunities to squeeze performance out of it. Put it this way. The X-box will be like PC games. Pretty much everyone gets roughly the same sort of performance out of it polygon wise, give or take 15% or so. With the PSX2, if you know what you are doing, the difference could be as much as 50%. The PSX2 I think is really going to sort out the wheat from the chaff programmer wise.

Our sources in the US tell us that the main elements of the game are all in place and the beta is in Q&A at the moment. In fact, the whole game can be played right through to the end at this stage. As a result, most of the work which is being done right now involves adjusting the skill levels and AI of the monsters and player characters, along with other play-balancing issues. Bugs related to graphics and sound are also being fixed and the game is being tweaked in the system requirements department to ensure that it works on the maximum number of PCs.

I can't help but think Shadow Watch would have benefited from a little more time in development. On the surface, the backdrop of syndicate power and political intrigue seem to be right on target, a near perfect setting for a comic book-style game of strategy. While these elements are unique, Shadow Watch misses its mark slightly, mostly due to its simple gameplay mechanics. It has a lot of great components, such as an inventive conversation system, engaging role-playing aspects, and interesting characters, and also features a well told story. Unfortunately, a solid story and interesting characters don't add up to a good product.

The X-Box will have at its disposal the financial backing of one of the wealthiest companies in the world, Microsoft. Microsoft is more than just a company with money, it is a company of innovation. They are constantly looking to broaden their horizons, grow, and become the best at what they do. Sure, many complain that their Windows Software has too many bugs that lead to constant crashes. While that may be true, those people should realize that without that same software, computers in general would not be used nearly as much as they are. Hardware, Software, and E-Commerce sales would dwarf in comparison to today's numbers. Close to 90% of computer users run some incarnation of Windows which makes life easier for not only the users, but for the developers.

Up until recently, I would not have added this title to this list, but since Blizzard lost 3 of its key developers they have announced that WarCraft III will be returning back to its RTS roots, and somewhat leave behind the ideals of a role-playing game.

A lot of the details on this game are still in flux, but as it stands right now WarCraft III will remain a full 3D game, but will not offer zoom or camera rotation. The camera view will be pulled back significantly and set to an exact angle. This should make it look more like WarCraft II, only prettier due to the 3D enhancements.

It has been suggested that there will be far less buildings in this sequel, and the need to produce massive armies will be decreased due to the fact that units will be much more expensive while at the same time being much more powerful. The idea being that this way you spend more time on the strategy aspects of the game instead of trying to bum rush your opponent with the largest army.

Soldier of Fortune is the best first-person shooter since Half-Life; Unreal Tournament, Quake III Arena and Tribes were also outstanding, but let’s be honest, they have no real single-player element other than some overhyped practice mode with 'bots. Soldier of Fortune's story isn’t the deepest in the world, but it’s on par with just about any action movie. The in-engine rendered cut-scenes, mission briefings and other storytelling elements really convey the feeling that you are John Mullins, and it’s your job to save the world. I was captivated for the full twenty hours it took to play the game, and for those adults looking for extreme action, Soldier of Fortune could be just what the doctor ordered. Come back next week for our full multi-player coverage, featuring a weapons report, deathmatch, capture the flag, assassination mode, and more!

Theocracy is a real-time strategy game in which you take control of one of the Aztec tribes, develop the tribe to its ultimate destiny, and resist the Spanish conquistadors.

But before this final fight you will have to:

establish trade routes between you and your neighbouring states

develop diplomatic relations between you and the others provinces

conquer new territories

develop your economy and your empire

After one century, you will have to resist the fierce assault of the Spanish. 400 years of History are in the balance: History is in your hands!

Puppet: Messiah is done… Team EGO can now get some rest :), What does it feel like after these nearly three years of development to know that the game is finished?

Stuart: It’s a bit surreal to be quite honest; ever since I’ve worked at Shiny Messiah has been a part of our daily lives.

My experience with Messiah all started for me back in early 1998 when I joined Shiny as an assistant designer on Wild 9. While Wild 9 was a cool game, Messiah was clearly leaps and bounds beyond where we were with regard to both technology and gameplay. The Wild 9 team sat on the second floor of Shiny’s building and the Messiah team was on the third floor. I had no reason to ever venture upstairs so finally one day I asked our producer to take me upstairs and introduce me to some of the guys and take a sneak peek at Messiah.

Put simply, I was blown away! While at that time the AI wasn’t working anywhere near how it does today and there was only one level to really see, I couldn’t believe my eyes at how cool the game was. The technology was unlike anything I had ever seen before at that time and the game mechanic of possessing other characters in the game was really exciting to me as well.

I left the Messiah team room that day green with envy that there was a team lucky enough to be working on such an advanced project. I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to work on such a cool project…

…Fast-forward two years…

…and now I look back with wonder at how I moved from being an assistant designer on the Wild 9 team, looking at Messiah in awe, to helping the team produce the title a short two years later.

It’s going to be very bizarre to see Messiah sitting on the shelves at the local software store.

Officially we have not signed a publishing deal for UT PSX2 so this is just speculative. But we hope to have the game ready as a North American and European PlayStation2 launch title. The game is up and running with full features but still needs a lot of optimization work. We are just getting into taking advantage of the PlayStation2s vector units where most of the machines performance potential lies.

We will definitely have support for USB networking and split screen multiplayer. We also plan to have support for modems and Sonys broadband networking but since the specifics of those things have not been made available to developers yet I do not know about the timing or exactly how it will work. But obviously Internet support is Unreal Tournaments best feature and we plan to do everything possible to exploit the Internet on the PlayStation2.

We would love to ship with PlayStation2to PC networking support and that is currently possible because we have not made any game content changes. However I can not promise whether this will happen because we might decide to make significant content or control changes to optimize the UT experience for PlayStation2 which would break network compatibility. We will just have to see.

I can not comment on timing or media issues since those will depend on our as yet unsigned publishing deal.

• 3 new weekly columns have been started at AN.
  Every Thursday, I write a editorial or column on various subjects in my own section, shivaSite.
  The latest column is "