News The Sims 2 is due out in the near future but there's one more expansion program to come for the original game, The Sims Makin' Magic. Here's some info from http://thesims.ea.com/us/index.html Brace Yourselves! The Sims are Makin' Magic! In this expansion pack for The Sims original series, your Sims can cast magic spells to improve their love life, wreak havoc on visiting neighbors, or put an end to their tedious chores. An all-new magical carnival-themed destination, exciting new gameplay, and a whole new cast of quirky characters await you in this powerful pack of magical high jinx. Send your Sims to Magic Town to perform mind-boggling tricks and discover secret recipes for spells and charms. Back home, transform everyday objects into helpful minions, hypnotize your so-called friends, or turn that annoying neighbor into a frog. Watch out, spells go haywire if your Sims lack that magic something. See what happens when you challenge the fate of your Sims as you concoct and cast magic spells with good or bad intentions. In The Sims Makin' Magic, expect the unexpected. Also on the Sims' side, SimCity 4: Rush Hour is an expansion set for SimCity 4, due out in the Autumn. With the new SimCity 4 Rush Hour Expansion Pack your city is on the move. Get your Sims on the road to happiness as you take total control of your city's transportation. Take charge of vehicles en route to destinations or disasters, and take to the streets to control your city at a new level. Put Sims on the move in zeppelins, helicopters, ferries, and new cars. Unlock more vehicle choices as you gain traction with your cities' transportation problems. Choose from all-new road types including wide avenues, suspension bridges, or one way streets. Map out a seamless regional network that whisks Sims from one city to another. Add popular structures such as historic rail stations or classic Americana road marks. In SimCity 4 Rush Hour, put your foot on the gas and get your Sims on the go! Alex sent me details of a prequel to Space Squest called Space Quest 0: Replicated. Here's some info from the official site at http://wiw.org/~jess/roger.html June 25, 2003 - The Virtual Broomcloset is proud to announce the release of Jeff Stewart's Space Quest 0: Replicated, an all- new AGI fan game set prior to the events of the Sarien Encounter! In the tradition of The Lost Chapter, Space Quest: Replicated offers fans an untold tale of Roger Wilco as our hero finds himself posted aboard Labion Orbital Station 10, a Class 3 Cloning Facility. Unfortunately, it appears that a mysterious someone (or something) has murdered all of Roger's fellow crewmates during one of his famous supply-closet naps. Join Roger as he escapes the station, travels to Labion for the first time, and manages to die in literally dozens of creative new ways as he struggles to figure out what happened aboard LOS10. Replicated is built using the same technology as SQ1 and SQ2, featuring an old-fashioned text parser and gorgeous 16-color graphics--some of the best that I've ever seen, in fact! So, what are you waiting for? Download Space Quest 0: Replicated (699k) today and give it a whirl! I'll review the game next issue Age of Wonders: Shadow Magic is due out soon. See http://aow2.godgames.com/shadowmagic/home.html for more info Welcome to the Age of Wonders: Take the throne of an ancient Wizard-King, build an empire of magic, command fantastic armies, and determine the shape of the world for ages to come! Age of Wonders: Shadow Magic takes the acclaimed fantasy strategy series to new heights. This new stand-alone game enhances the series' praised fusion of empire building, role- playing and tactical combat with the eerie Shadow World and battle with races never before seen, across new and diverse landscapes. Combined with the option of creating a totally unique environment with the map editor and rewriting the history of this world through the enhanced campaign editor, you are ensured a constant stream of completely new game experiences. The Age of Wonders 2 site at http://aow2.godgames.com/aow2/files.html has three scenarios to download. Save the scenarios to your \scenarios\custom directory in your Age of Wonders II game folder. The scenarios are: The Marching Desert, Death Swamp and Let Sleeping Gods Lie. Empire of Magic was due out in May but I haven't seen it yet. Here's a bit of info: Somewhere far away lays the land of powerful demons and breath taking beauty. The land of brave knights, doom and salvation. Land of many faces where marvelous adventures await your arrival. Sharpen your swords and gather up enough magic power because in the end of this summer a strategic delicacy arrives - Empire Of Magic. Story doesn't fit to the category to common straightforward storylines and using a lot of minor plots it diversifies the playtime. Bethesda Softworks' Pirates of the Caribbean is also due out soon. This sequel features improvements like a new story 30 years later, the ability to chose a character, random quests, more strategic elements, improved character animations, and nicer, reflective water. It was previously known as Sea Dogs II Here's a new MMORPH. Horizons is a next-generation, fantasy- themed, massively multiplayer online game. Based in the world of Istaria, Horizons allows thousands of players to take the roles of humans, fiends and dragons to adventure together in the civilized and untamed regions of the world. You'll take control of an adventurer of one of the many races that inhabit the civilized empire and choose a path toward success as an Explorer, Miner, Craftsmen, Wizard, Warrior or Settler. The game features literally millions of character customizations and features, an open-ended school-based skill system and Advanced community tools, allowing complete management of player guilds, associations and towns. It comes from Artifact Entertainment and is due out towards the end of the year. Its minimum system requirements are a Pentium III 850 MHz,256 MB or more RAM, Direct X 8.1 or greater, 64 MB or greater supported Direct3D video card, Dial-up Internet connection. Lords of the Realm III has been described as the ultimate medieval simulation. It covers the entire life of being a lord in the middle ages - castle building and design, rural estate management, acquiring knights and soldiers to make armies, warfare and conquest, politics and diplomacy, and the struggle with or against the Church, and with the rising merchant class. The elements that made the Lords of the Realm series a best seller worldwide are now powered by an all-new 3-D graphics engine designed to catapult the game to the forefront of the strategy genre Finally in Wildlife Park from Naughty Dog/Koch Media the player must build a Wildlife Park from the ground up, continually tweaking it so that the visitors will happily spend their money. He starts out with only the park area, a ticket booth and a decent amount of money. From there the player has to acquire animals for his park, build their surroundings, stock souvenir and snack stands, add a few employees, and then opens the gates and let the visitors flow in. Wildlife Park features more than 50 different animals with individual behavior patterns and needs. They come young and old, aging visually over timeand in genders, possibly breeding and rearing their offspring. The player's job through all of this is to satisfy the animals' needs, allowing them to thrive, so that the park will be constantly full of visitors. - o -