News from the Net

              From our reporter, Alex van Kaam

  Hi and welcome to this issue's news from the web.

  The first thing I wanted to start off with is Etherlords, I
  stumbled across it by accident on Beta Bites
  http://www.betabites.com/features/etherlords/etherlordsshots.htm
  l and I must say it looks very, very nice. I have included a
  screenshot for Sue to post in this issue and I think you will
  have to agree with me on the visual part.  About the game itself
  I could not find much more than what is below:

Etherlords key features:

Totally different:
Novel gameplay blending best of magic combat prompted by trading
card games and strategic resource management

4 magic races, each with its distinctive realms, architecture,
spells, and combat styles

In the beginning, there was Magic:
Over 300 spells including summoning, instants, enchantments, and
rituals
Create your custom set of battle spells through carefully planned
strategic production of spell ingredients and research
Non-linear multi-branched spell research tree for each race

Clever tactics against raw power:

True 3D turn-based combat featuring a multitude of tactical
solutions
Use your custom set of battle spells to create your individual
combat style
64 heroes of 4 different races, each with its specific abilities,
stats and skills to develop complex diplomacy system featuring
long-term alliances and barter dealings

Over 20 game levels fused by a background story-line
Unique battle system specifically tailored for dynamic Internet
and LAN multiplayer combat

Advanced 3D graphics revolutionary for the genre:
True 3D engine with the level of detail up to 50 000 polygons per
frame
Exceptionally highly detailed in-game world featuring a great
variety of inhabitants and stylish architecture
Over 160 richly detailed monsters to summon
Vast diversity of perfectly smooth, highly personal animations for
each character and monster
Dazzling special effects for each spell
Advanced intellectual camera for ultimate beauty of the scene

  It seems to be a cross between Unreal/Quake meets Diablo and a
  bit of Final Fantasy 7 thrown in (from what I can see of the
  screenshots)


  As you may have heard, Escape from Monkey Island has gone gold
  (probably in the stores when you read this), if you're not sure
  it's something for you then you could head over to
  http://www.zdnet.com/gamespot/filters/products/media/0,11100,91
  3819,00.html and download a few of the movies or go to the
  following locations for reviews and previews:
  http://gamepen.ugo.com/gamepen/review.asp?itemid=3657
  http://www.dailyradar.com/previews/game_preview_623.html
  http://www.zdnet.com/gamespot/stories/previews/0,10869,256935
  4,00.html
  and if you have a fast connection download the demo over at
  http://www.zdnet.com/gamespot/filters/products/downloads/0,110
  95,913819,00.html

  Have fun!

  For those of you who have played Homeworld I am sure you will be
  pleased that HomeWorld Cataclysm has been released, you can get
  some reviews over at:
  http://gamepen.ugo.com/gamepen/review.asp?itemid=3494
  http://firingsquad.gamers.com/games/hwcatreview/
  http://www.avault.com/reviews/review_temp.asp?game=hwcat
  and it seems to be liked by almost everybody.

  Of course all of you should have noticed that Baldur Gate 2 is
  out, there are plenty of reviews and some solutions on the web,
  so I will just place a few URLs to big BG sites and you can
  continue your surf from there:
  http://www.bgdungeon.com/bg2/ (has a walkthrough as well !!)
  http://www.tgeweb.com/ironworks/baldursgate2/
  http://www.planetbaldursgate.com/

  As you also know (well I assume you do) IceWind Dale has been
  out sometime, I also bought it a few days ago and I must say so
  far I enjoy it more then BG 2, dunno why, graphics don't compare
  to BG 2, but I do like making a full party of my own...... and I
  think Imoen is pain in the @$$ in BG2 <g> Anyways head over to
  http://rpgvault.ign.com/features/den/iwdhow01.shtml for "Icewind
  Dale: Heart of Winter Designer Diary, Prologue"

  I am not sure if we should be happy or not but it seems there
  will be a Buffy the Vampire Slayer game, here is some small info
  of the game:

GAME DESCRIPTION:
With the help of her allies and featured characters from the TV
series-- Angel, Xander, Cordelia, Willow, Oz and Giles - Buffy
must destroy the enemy by using her slaying powers, martial arts,
slaying senses and quick healing ability. The game combines
action, fighting, drama, humor, exploration and puzzle solving in
rich interactive 3-D environments.

Players will have the opportunity to play this game in
environments that are familiar to fans of the show such as
Sunnydale High School, the cemetery, town square, the shopping
mall, The Bronze nightclub and Buffy's home.

To maintain the authentic look and feel from the TV series, the
producers and creators of the shows, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and
Angel, will play an active role in the development of this title.
Developed by The Collective, a Southern California-based game
developer, the Buffy the Vampire Slayer design team will create
detailed and accurate character and environment depictions from
the TV series and apply them to the interactive game.

  I assume the puzzles are more in the style of "push button x to
  open door y" but who knows <g>, anyways you can always check out
  http://www.foxinteractive.com/games/buffy/ if you're intrested.

  Another release that was hard not to notice was C&C - Red Alert
  2, there is a nice review over at
  http://www.avault.com/reviews/review_temp.asp?game=reda2 - For
  your convenience here is a small extract:

Red Alert 2's basic tenets of gameplay will seem instantly
familiar to anyone who's picked up an RTS title within the last
few years, as it appears on the surface to maintain the same basic
format that its Command & Conquer predecessors established so long
ago. In other words, players must scour the land for gold, use
mining vehicles to collect it; and must constantly expand their
base while developing the technology tree as well as their army.
Of course, the manner in which you accomplish this will heavily
depend on your given faction, as each side has its own set of
advantages and disadvantages. For example, the Allies are cursed
with relatively slow production times, though, they make up for it
with incredibly speedy resource collection. Conversely, the
Soviets have lightning-fast production speeds, though, their
resource collection takes considerably longer to implement. Still,
while these core RTS concepts may seem familiar, one shouldn't
make the mistake of assuming that Red Alert 2 is the sum of its
basic parts.

All of this factors considerably into how you proceed throughout a
given mission, though, the missions themselves will often rise
above these patterns to present the player with a goal that
requires a varying set of strategies, depending on the type and
style of objective. For instance, you might need to deeply
entrench yourself into the landscape and develop some heavy
defensive tactics in order to protect your top-secret laboratory
from being destroyed by the Allies. While the invasion of the
Virgin Islands will require that you learn to balance your naval
forces against the protection of your base perimeter. On the other
hand, some missions do away with the production routine entirely,
leaving you with a pre-determined set of forces to implement your
goals; others give you only a structure or two and ask that you
manage with your restricted resources.  This particular approach
stands as a break from the standard RTS formula, as does the
modernized atmosphere which characterizes Red Alert 2. It's an
entirely regular sight to find yourself storming through the
streets of a bustling metropolis, cars maniacally careening away
as your troops punch holes in the landscape. All in all, the
various missions are a distinct variance from the genre standard,
and elevate themselves above the core RTS concepts.

  A game that had a quiet release (well at least I did not hear of
  it very much) is Odyssey, Avault has yet another review of it
  over at
  http://www.avault.com/reviews/review_temp.asp?game=odyssey, and
  as usual I was kind enough to rip a bit of the review from the
  page for you :-)

The Greek scribe Homer wrote two epics, the Iliad and the Odyssey,
arguably the greatest works of Western fiction ever written. These
two poems are loosely connected by Ulysses (also known as
Odysseus), a Greek soldier in the Trojan War depicted in the
Iliad. A cunning warrior, Ulysses was the mind behind the Trojan
Horse, the well-known gambit that won the war. Sailing back to his
home in Ithaca after helping his countrymen achieve this victory,
Ulysses and his men are lost at sea. His wife Penelope, beset by
multiple suitors, refuses to believe that her husband is dead,
even as Ulysses, worlds away, begins a perilous voyage home. This
is the rich backdrop of Cryo Interactive and Dreamcatcher's new
adventure, Odyssey: The Search for Ulysses.

As one might expect from the close ties to the literary work, some
familiarity with Homer's pieces is almost a prerequisite to a full
appreciation of Odyssey's epic story. Dreamcatcher's version
begins at roughly the same point that the literary one does.
Players assume the identity of Heritias, close friend of Ulysses,
who sets out to discover his countryman's fate at Penelope's
behest. With only a seaworthy vessel, Penelope's family seal, and
his trusty sword to aid him, Heritias travels to the ruins of Troy
to find out what has become of Ulysses.

Almost immediately, Heritias locates a friendly mercenary who
claims that Ulysses is present right there in Troy, mourning
fallen comrades, and that he can be located in a matter of
minutes. Of course, it isn't quite as straightforward as that;
Heritias has fallen out of favor with an angry, mysterious god,
and he is framed for a murder that he didn't commit. In his flight
from Troy, he continues to search for Ulysses, and finds himself
on an odyssey of his own, venturing to all of the corners of the
world and interacting with many mythical characters, both mortal
and divine.

The protagonist, Heritias, is unlike most luckless adventure game
protagonists; he is more akin to Hercules than Guybrush
Threepwood. He is a well-muscled, bearded warrior, but like his
friend Ulysses, he often triumphs using his wits rather than his
sword. Players control Heritias in a shifting third person
perspective, similar to LucasArts' Grim Fandango, in which each
location is broken down into several screens that Heritias can
move between. There is a great deal of camera movement within each
screen however, making them feel a bit larger as well as making
the camera cuts less frequent. Of course, cutscenes depicting
particularly dramatic events are frequently inserted into the game
engine. The interface is completely keyboard-driven, featuring no
disruptive onscreen icons or text, with the exception of the
inventory screen.

  I also included a screenshot which Sue can add to SynTax.... all
  in all it does not look like a bad game. Maybe it's bad luck is
  that it is released around the same time as Monkey Island....
  shame, no real adventures for a long time and then two at
  once...

  By accident I stumbled onto
  http://www.cdmag.com/adventure_vault/ not sure if I mentioned it
  before but it is packed with hints, reviews and previews, so
  might be worth a look.

  The Wizardry 8 site has been updated with some game manual
  sketches.  Renderings of the Mage, Psionic, Valkyrie, Samurai,
  and Ninja are all available for viewing, only about a third of
  the total number of classes the game will include. The game is
  currently in a closed beta phase, although there's no word yet
  on a release date or a publisher. Anyways head over to
  http://www.sir- tech.com/wizardry8/index1.html and you can see
  them and even download the 22mb preview movie... which does look
  nice I must say

  Sierra has been working hard on Arcanum, you can check out
  http://www.sierrastudios.com/games/arcanum/, the screenshots I
  saw reminded me a bit of Ultima 7 mixed with Diablo 1, I could
  of course be totally wrong <g> so I will place the game info
  below and you can judge for yourself.

Imagine a place of wonder, where magic and technology hold equal
sway, and an adventurer might just as easily wield a flintlock
pistol as a flaming sword.  A place where great industrial cities
house castle keeps and factories, home to Dwarves, Humans, Orcs
and Elves alike. A place of ancient runes and steamworks, of magic
and machines, of sorcery and science.

Welcome to the Land of Arcanum

Arcanum is the first game to come from the development house
Troika Games, LLC, started by former Fallout team members Tim
Cain, Leonard Boyarsky, and Jason Anderson. This team takes the
depth of gameplay and world-building in role-playing games to
entirely new levels of realism and excitement.

Arcanum creates a compelling new world where magic and technology
coexist in an uneasy balance. As Arcanum opens, the mechanical age
has only recently arrived in this ancient land where Humans,
Elves, Dwarves, Orcs and other races have learned to survive in
the new sprawling industrialized cities. But this radical shift
from magic to technology has created a potentially explosive
situation. As the townspeople and other thinkers begin mass
production of light bulbs, batteries, eyeglasses and guns, the
Mages grow leery. This tightly wound setting is the starting point
from which the character must set out on his quest.

Features

Classless, point-based attribute system allows for limitless
creativity in guiding your character's development.
Complex stat system underlies every event taking place within
Arcanum.
Customize your character, including 8 basic stats (Strength and
Charisma), more than a dozen derived stats (Poison Resistance and
Character Speed), 16 primary skills (Gambling and Healing), 80
spells within 16 colleges, and 56 technological degrees within 8
disciplines.
Automatic character management features let you delve into the
quest at hand for action-oriented players.
Explore a huge game environment, with dozens of cities, dungeons,
and towns to find.
Meet more than 300 unique characters and 280 different monster
types across the land of Arcanum.
Multiple paths to victory abound in the scores of quests
surrounding the main storyline.

Accurate day/night cycles affect the gameplay, from combat to
thieving skills.
Take on a band of ogres in real-time, or plan your strategy
through a turn-based system of combat - you choose.
Take the adventure online cooperatively or competitively over the
Internet or LAN.

  You can also check out the beta impression over at
  http://rpgvault.ign.com/features/impressions/arcanumbeta.shtml
  or read part 1 below

While the definitions of this term can vary quite a bit from one
gamer to the next, Arcanum is obviously a hardcore computer RPG,
not one of the many titles we see these days with hyphenated genre
labels. The game begins by presenting you with the choice of
creating your character or selecting a pre-made one. Should you
choose the latter option, the only decision you have is which one.
The beta includes an even dozen. As a group they encompass a wide
range of races, backgrounds, abilities and interests. All 12 and
their backgrounds can be seen in our recent Arcanum Character
Gallery, so there's no need to go into further detail here. As
soon as you select a character, the introductory cinematic begins.

If your preference is to create your character from scratch, the
next decision is your character's race and gender. Eight races are
available, these being Human, Elf, Dwarf, Gnome, Halfling,
Half-Elf, Half- Orc and Half-Ogre. As is often the case, Human is
the base race, while each of the others has different advantages
and drawbacks. Human, Elf, Half- Elf and Half-Orc characters can
be either gender while the other races must be males. Gender
choice is said to affect some quests; some are only available to
one or the other. The next step allows you to pick a background,
although you are not required to do so.  Each offers some type of
advantage, which is balanced with something negative. The
selection of possible backgrounds can be affected by character
race or gender. Portrait and name selection come next. The ability

to add custom portraits is planned, but has not been implemented
in the beta.

After this comes the Character Editor, which gives you a limited
number of points that can be used to buy hit points, mana, the
eight basic stats (Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Beauty,
Intelligence, Willpower, Perception and Charisma), the 12 skills
(three each in the Technological, Combat and Thieving categories),
"degrees" from the eight technological Disciplines (Herbology,
Chemistry, Electrical, Explosives, Gun Smithy, Mechanical, Smithy
and Therapeutics) and spells from the 16 colleges of magick
(Conveyance, Divination, Air Earth, Fire, Water, Force, Mental,
Meta, Morph, Nature, Black Necromantic, White Necromantic,
Phantasm, Summoning and Temporal). Also offered at this time are
numerous auto-level schemes such as Necromancer, Gun Technologist
and Air Elementalist that will, if chosen, automatically spend the
character point gained each time a new level is reached. The final
step is the Barter interface where you have the opportunity to
purchase some starting equipment.

Even this summary of the character creation process makes it sound
pretty deep, which it is. It might also seem long and complicated,
but it is not. If you choose a pre-made character, all you need to
do is read the descriptions and pick one. They're not very long,
so you can be playing within two or three minutes. The full
process takes longer, especially the first time if you read all
the little bits of information. However, since the game uses a
point allocation system rather than rolling for stats, the process
can still be quite short. The first character I created took
longer, but the five characters I've made since have each been
completed in only a couple of minutes since I didn't have to read
the descriptions et al again.

The core design goals of Arcanum include allowing players to
create unique characters that can be role-played in a variety of
ways, with the game experience being affected by your choices.
Accordingly, the game is intended to be playable with a widely
divergent range of characters and playing styles including but not
limited to melee fighters, gunfighters, magic-users,
technologists, gamblers, thieves and diplomats. Although it is
impossible to assess how well this objective is met without
playing a variety of characters and styles, the character creation
process does indeed provide tremendous scope. It's expected that
even more will be available in the full game. For example, team
members have stated that many more character backgrounds will be
added. Overall, character creation and development seem very
likely to be among Arcanum's core strengths, with the pre-made
characters and the auto-level schemes providing very fast and
handy alternatives for anyone who prefers less character
management.

One cinematic shows an airship bound for the great city of Tarant.
You are aboard, headed there to seek your fortune. Suddenly and
for no apparent reason, it is attacked by a couple of small flying
machines and shot down. As the game proper opens, you are on the
ground beside the burning remains of the blimp, which has crashed
in clearing. A few feet away, a gnome calls out and offers you
your first quest, asking you to return an item to a boy. This is
his dying breath, so you receive no further information.
Immediately thereafter, an individual named Virgil approaches you.
As you speak with him, you learn that he thinks you are a
reincarnated figure whom members of his religious group call The
Living One. Thus the adventure begins, but that's a tale for
another day.

  To end this news I though it would be time again to place the
  Game Release dates, so here they are:

Recent Releases - Since October 5, 2000
Blair Witch Volume 2: The Legend of Coffin Rock - Gathering of
Developers
Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2 - Electronic Arts
Rune - Gathering of Developers
Starship Troopers: Terran Ascendancy - Hasbro Interactive

November 2000 Release Dates
01- Conquest: Frontier Wars - Microsoft
08- Tribes 2 - Sierra Studios


Blair Witch Volume 3: The Elly Kedward Tale - Gathering of
Developers
Conquest of the New World 2 - Interplay
Escape from Monkey Island - LucasArts
Fallout: Tactics - Brotherhood of Steel - Interplay
MechWarrior 4: Vengeance - Microsoft
Sacrifice - Interplay
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - The Fallen - Simon & Schuster
Interactive
Wizardry VIII - Sir-Tech

December 2000 Release Dates
12- Black & White - Electronic Arts
Buffy the Vampire Slayer - Fox Interactive
Giants: Citizen Kabuto - Interplay
Gunman Chronicles - Sierra Studios
Oni - Bungie
Team Fortress 2: Brotherhood of Arms - Sierra Studios


January 2001 Release Dates
Hitman: Codename 47 - Eidos Interactive
Loose Cannon - Microsoft
Neverwinter Nights - Interplay
Privateer 3 - Electronic Arts
Star Wars: Episode I - Obi-Wan - LucasArts

October 2001 Release Dates
Warcraft III - Blizzard Entertainment










                              - o -