 |
|
|
 |
| Subscribe to Ars Technica! Have news? Send it in. |
|
|
Serving the PC enthusiast for over 5x10-2 centuries |
|
||||||
|
|
|
||||||
|
||||||||
|
|
|
 |
|
||||
 |
||||||||
 Buyer's Guide How-To's & Tweaks Product Reviews Ars Shopping Engine  Technical Blackpapers CPU Theory & Praxis Ars OpenForum Search Ars  Wankerdesk AskArs! Diary of a Geek Game.Ars Report Mac.Ars takes on... Linux.Ars  Subscribe to Ars Ars Merchandise Who We Ars Advertising Links |
|
Brian Fargo interviewIf you like to get into the minds of the major players in the game's industry, you'll find this interview appealing. Gamespot got Brian Fargo, CEO of Interplay for nearly 20 years, to have a short sit down. The interview discusses Fargo's reasons for resigning from Interplay and he hints about his plans to return to the industry "in a major way." Here comes QuakeCon 2K2Scheduled to take place in Mesquite, TX this August, QuakeCon 2K2 is already creating a buzz. Thousands of gamers are expected to converge on the Convention Center and Exhibit Hall, with more than 1,200 people expected to participate in a Bring-Your-Own-Computer LAN party. Woo hoo! That sounds like some Texas-style gaming to me! This year's event includes clan battles and a Quake III Arena deathmatch frag-fests along with team battles in Return to Castle Wolfenstein. As always, industry ears will be tuned in, since QuakeCon has always been a platform for id to reveal its latest news about upcoming games. In-depth Dungeon Siege previewRichard Greenhill recently did a tasty preview of Dungeon Siege for gamesdomain.com. Based on a late beta version of the game, he talks about the interface, graphics and many design elements. He even touches on some of the fine details implemented in the game, such as: "�for possibly the first time since 16-bit classic Dungeon Master, your characters will only partially drink from their flasks, which is dependent on how much health/mana they need to recoup. Smart!" � Richard Greenhill for gamesdomain.com I like that. Any game that shows this kind of attention to detail usually ends up being a winner in my book. The preview goes on to touch on all the important aspects of the game like story and interface control, so if you feel the urge, go read the full preview right here. Update your Battle RealmsThe latest downloadable upgrade from Liquid Entertainment will add new multiplayer maps a world editor and a number of fixes to its popular game, Battle Realms. This real-time strategy title, based on Far Eastern culture and mythology, has won a lot of critical praise and has offered its players a whole lot of support. If Flash games came gourmet styleI was recently directed to a Web site where the flashiest Flash games I've seen in a while reside. They're all free to play if you've got a player installed. Melanie, a long-time reader sent me an e-mail that simply said: "Should you become bored..." - Melanie R. Well, I wasn't bored, but I did go to the site and an hour later, here I am posting a link on Game.Ars. My favorite one is called Perilous Journey, where you captain a 16th-century ship and blast falling stones and dragons with your cannon. Great sound effects! Enjoy. More pimpageLast week, at reader request, I linked up a site for the online multiplayer space game, Jumpgate. This week, Shawn S. wrote to me with a similar query. Here's what he said: "While you are out looking at some of the other space MMOGs, check out DarkSpace. It's kinda in the same boat, being pretty much done by one person with a VERY supportive community." Shawn S. If you bit the hook with Jumpgate, but weren't quite sure about it, try DarkSpace on for size. You get to command a massive starship in an action/strategy space combat game. Sound good? Click here. 2002's fast startersAlthough the economic climate is still shaky today, game sales overall remained quite strong. As you peruse the list below (best selling games of January), you'll see that many of the titles have become what could be called "veterans" of the sales charts. A couple of words that we've come to get used to are "Sims," and "Tycoon." I was pleased to see Allied Assault top January's list, since it's one of my recent favorites. Without further adieu (one of three French words I know), here are January's top-twenty games.
Cheat Codes of the Weak: SimGolfIf you have to cheat at SimGolf, I guess you can call it a Mulligan. So, if your golf pro is coming up as low man on the leader board, try this simple short cut to financial fortitude. To enter cheat mode, follow the steps below then use the cheat and cash in.
Bullet news
Patches
On Shelves (or soon will be)
Gone Gold
Keep Gaming. High scores are life's little doggie treats.- CarlDiscuss this edition!
Past Game.Ars action: 02/17/2002 - Carls' movie favs; Awards
galore; Carmack on GeForce 4MX Even more past Game.Ars Action can be found here.
Back to Ars
|
|
 |
| |||
Is
there an unexplored game genre out there somewhere? I was thinking about
real-time strategy games earlier today and started to think about a setting that
would work well that hasn't been explored yet. Some themes have been ignored for
the most part, the Wild West, World War I and the Pirate era, for example, but
even these have been explored at least once. I'm talking about common RTS design
here, where you build a base, secure resources, pump out units and attack your
enemy (i.e., Starcraft and Command & Conquer).
