• Preview - Ground Control
  Time: 10:23 AM EST/15:23 GMT News Source: AGN3D Posted By: Per Kristensen

Incite Games has taken a long hard (insert Billy Wilson comment here) look at Massive Entertainment's upcoming 3D RTS, Gound Control. This game is said to utilize the best elements from games like Myth II and Force 21.

Take the battlefields from Bungie's Myth II, the no-resource-management concepts from Microprose's MechCommander, and the platoon-sized forces from Red Storm's Force 21, combine them with a little science fiction, and you may well find yourself with Ground Control.

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• Preview - Alone in the Dark 4
  Time: 10:23 AM EST/15:23 GMT News Source: AGN3D Posted By: Per Kristensen

Alone in the Dark was a really cool game when it was released years ago. It helped pave the way for classics like Resident Evil. Now it French developer, Darkworks, is set on bringing us yet another chapter in the Alone in the Dark series. This brings it up to a total of 4 games in the series. Gamelinks has a preview up of the game.

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• Review - Shadow Watch
  Time: 10:23 AM EST/15:23 GMT News Source: AGN3D Posted By: Per Kristensen

Gamesdomain fired off a full review of Red Storm Entertainment's upcoming turn based strategy game, Shadow Watch. So if you liked X-Com and/or Jagged Alliance I guess you might want to take a look at this one as well.

The fact that the operatives can gain skills and abilities during the Campaign is also a big plus. It makes SW more of a "Strategy/Adventure" hybrid, maybe with a little "RPG" thrown in for good measure. There is nothing nicer than seeing Rafael develop the ability to blow open doors like Bear does! And developing Archer into the "total package" as a team leader really makes a big difference in team survivability. Overall, I thought that the addition of these many and varied abilities enhanced the gameplay nicely as after each mission there are decisions for you to make, which make me feel like I'm actually in control of something.

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• Preview - Thief 2: The Metal Age
  Time: 01:30 PM EST/18:30 GMT News Source: Netgames Posted By: Per Kristensen

Gamelinks has taken a good look at Looking Glass Studios' upcoming sequel to Thief: The Dark Project. Entitled Thief 2: The Metal Age, the game sets you in the shoes of the lone thief who sets out to steal various items and relics. Here's preview of the preview.

Gameplay makes the game." This saying couldn't be more true when in reference to Looking Glass Studios original Thief: The Dark Project game, a sleeper hit but an instant success. Cluttered with painful 8-bit graphics and a very tough learning curve, it's game play saved Thief: The Dark Project from garnering such unflattering awards as "Coaster" of the year game award. Instead the game's developers gambled with the focus on the game, and decided that an element never really used as a primary game play element, Stealth would be what made the game different. The gamble paid off, big time! Garnering a huge hardcore following, Thief: The Dark Project took gamers through a dark world of thievery and first person adventure in which playing a thief named Garrett enticed gamers on many different level never delved into by first person game makers before. At the end of the first game, Looking Glass Studios announced in the credits a sequel, called "The Metal Age", and so gave away that a second Thief game was already in the works. So here we are on the verge of a March release of what is expected to be a highly successful sequel and another cash-cow for both developer Looking Glass and publisher Eidos Interactive, with a look at Thief 2: The Metal Age.

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• Edios loses money - Lara burned out?
  Time: 01:30 PM EST/18:30 GMT News Source: Gamerush Posted By: Per Kristensen

BBC News is reporting that the London-based gaming company, Eidos is has taken a big fall in profits. In fact in the nine months up until the end of '99, Eidos suffered loses of £11million, compared to a profit of £36.2million the year before. I guess that's what happens when you re-use the same concept to many times, instead of coming up with a new idea.

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• New Frogger 2 screenies
  Time: 01:30 PM EST/18:30 GMT News Source: Avault Posted By: Per Kristensen

The Adrenaline Vault scored a bunch of new screenshots from Hasbro's upcoming Frogger 2 game. With the first Frogger selling over 3 million copies, Frogger 2 is already destined to be a best-seller. The game is set for release around September this year, and will include a new female friend for Frogger, a level set in space and much more.

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• Screenshots - Gunman
  Time: 03:19 EST/20:19 GMT News Source: GA Source Posted By: Per Kristensen

GA Source got the exclusive on some screenshot from a new upcoming Half-Life mod called Gunmen. They also got AVI files, showing some characters.

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• Preview - Imperial Galactica
  Time: 11:33 EST/16:33 GMT News Source: Gamespot Posted By: Per Kristensen

Once again the goodfellas (I mean that in a non gangster sort of way) over at Gamespot has pulled yet another fine looking preview out of their hat. This time it's GT Interactive's upcoming space-strategi game, Imperium Galactica II: Alliances. Here's a peak.

Imperium Galactica II impresses almost immediately - even in the early form we tested. The interface is slick and intuitive, from the main menu to the in-game prompts and windows. MOO2 veterans will have little difficulty diving right into gameplay, despite the fact that Imperium Galactica II uses a real-time engine. No need to fear, though: This is real time in the Star Wars: Rebellion sense (except it works), with a varying time setting that you can pause or speed up to your heart's content. In fact, the real-time engine works quite well in Imperium Galactica II.

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• Preview - Rune
  Time: 11:33 EST/16:33 GMT News Source: AGN3D Posted By: Per Kristensen

Another preview for you today. This one is from the blokes at Gamelinks. The have a preview up of Human Head Studios' forthcoming epic 3D action game, Rune.

Rune will center around melee combat with weapons such as swords, axes, knives, clubs and even unconvential melee weapons such as rocks, bones, and chopped off body parts, all encapsulated around your quest to find the secret of the Dark Vikings bent on wiping out your family and fellow Vikings. To allow for further interactivity with the environment, you'll be able to pick up the weapons of those you've vanquished.

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• Evolva - Hands-on preview
  Time: 04:48 EST/21:48 GMT News Source: Eurogamer Posted By: Per Kristensen

Eurogamer has posted an extensive hands-on preview of Computer Artsworks' upcoming game, Evolva. Some of you GeForce owners may have tried the demo, that shipped with some GeForce cards. Here's a snippet.

Objectives are fairly varied, ranging from a basic reconnaissance
mission to recover alien genetic material to more complex missions where you
have to locate explosives and use them to destroy an alien structure, or
defending indigenous life forms against hostile aliens."

   "And although the solution to most of your problems is generally fairly
obvious, the frantic fast paced action and the constant mutating of your
genohunters into newer and more deadly forms helps keep things interesting.

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• Activision to co-produce new Star Trek comic book
  Time: 04:48 EST/21:48 GMT News Source: Gamespot Posted By: Per Kristensen

Apperently Activision is to turn the tables on the industry by co-producing a new upcoming coming book from publisher DC Comics. The new comic book is to be based on Activision's upcoming Star Trek computer game, Voyager: Elite Force. Usually it's the other way around where a game is based on a comic. The plot of the comic is said to be identical to that of the game, featuring Captain Janeway and the good crew of the USS Voyager. However the comic book should be in stores before the game, which could prove be quite a spoiler for the game plot.

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• Screenshots - Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force
  Time: 04:48 EST/21:48 GMT News Source: Active Gaming Posted By: Per Kristensen

Michael Webster from Activision was nice enough to send me a couple of screenshots from their upcoming 3D shooter based on the Star Trek universe, Voyager: Elite Force. In this game you join the crew of Federation starship USS Voyager, which is lost in the Delta Quadrant. Voyager: Elite Force uses id Software's Quake 3 engine which has been modified to fit the needs. The game is being developed by Raven Software. I don't know if all of these shots have been seen before but I thought I would post them anyway.

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• Preview - Combat Mission: Beyond Overlord
  Time: 10:05 EST/15:05 GMT News Source: AGN3D Posted By: Per Kristensen

Gamesdomain has popped up a preview of Big Time Software's upcoming simultaneous turn-based WWII 3D wargame, Combat Mission: Beyond Overlord. In this game you are able to view the battle field from a number of different 3D views.

The battlefield is displayed in 3D, with camera positions ranging from ground level (zoom 1) to eye in the sky (zoom 7 or 8). The camera can be freely scrolled and panned to offer a view from almost anywhere. Each minute of action can be rewound, replayed, paused and viewed from any angle. This makes watching the resolution of each turn exceptionally tense (as you have no chance to intervene to give new orders) and at the same time renders the game system ideal for play by email (pbem). If you want to watch an event from another angle, you can do so, to your heart's content. Scrolling the camera can now be done much faster than in the demo, with the number pad keys giving accelerated movement. To traverse a map quickly, you can also jump out to a higher zoom level.

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• Screenshots - Devil Inside
  Time: 10:05 EST/15:05 GMT News Source: AGN3D Posted By: Per Kristensen

AGN3D has added a new game to their screenshots section. Devil Inside is the name of the game, which is currently under development by Gamesquad. Here are some of the features.

• A game of action/adventure created by the author of the Alone in the Dark series, Hubert Chardeau.
• Set in the strange world of American "real life" TV, starring the two main characters, Dave and his female double, Deva.
• More than 50 different enemies, each one more macabre and vicious that the next.
• 7 different weapons, 8 psychic powers and many detailed and atmospheric levels.
• An exceptional production in terms of camera action and hyper-realistic animations of the characters.

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Unreal Tournament: 1941 interview & shots
Time: 10:05 EST/15:05 GMT News Source: GA Source Posted By: Per Kristensen

Ever heard of 2 little movies called "Saving Private Ryan" and "The Thin Red Line"? Well apparently the developers over at Reactor did, and decided to make a game in the same atmosphere as the 2 WWII movies. GA Source got a hold of a couple of screenshots from the upcoming game. If you'd like to know more about UT: 1941, than also check out the interview they did with Lead Designer, Tuomo Korva.

What new features have you added in terms of gameplay?

I think the best new feature in 1941 is the possibility to have a very large number of soldiers on the battlefield. Needless to say, we had to come up with some special tricks to accomplish this in Unreal. I don't think there's any other games in development that simulate platoon/company scale battles in real forest terrain, so 1941 will be quite unique.

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• Razer-CPL Qualifier coverage
  Time: 04:33 EST/21:31 GMT News Source: Eurogamer Posted By: Per Kristensen

Eurogamer is covering the Razer-CPL Qualifier event, which is taking place in London.

The Razer-CPL tournament in Dallas this April will be the biggest Quake 3 tourney so far, with 512 players taking part and $100,000 in prizes up for grabs! You have to be pretty dedicated to fly out to Dallas from Europe though, and that's where the local qualifiers come in.

The UK qualifier is taking place at our old haunt in the heart of London, The Playing Fields. And thanks to sponsors GamePlay the winner will get flown out to Dallas, a free room at the hotel, an automatic place in the last 64 at the Razer-CPL event, and £500 spending money to paint the town red .. well, a nice shade of pastel pink maybe.

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• Overdrive announced
  Time: 04:33 EST/21:31 GMT News Source: GA Source Posted By: Per Kristensen

GA Source has the scoop on a newly announced upcoming game from developer No Fate. Overdrive is the title of this game which started out as a mod for Quake 3, but then moved on to become a stand-alone game. Snip this.

Overdrive promises to take high-speed, criminal-driving action to a whole new level. Although only a few months into development no fate has revealed to us that their upcoming title will be very action oriented and violent. "Overdrive is a racer involving car bombing and completing drive by's for the mob," Kamil Mansuri, Lead Design for no fate told us. "Its similar in theme to Grand Theft Auto, but with more focus on killing individual people, and it will be multiplayer only," he explained.

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• Daikatana interview
  Time: 04:33 EST/21:31 GMT News Source: VoodooExtreme Posted By: Per Kristensen

Rob Waters from Warcentral had the opportunity to interview kelly Hoemer, the producer of Daikatana over at Ion Storm. Here's the lo-down on when the game is gonna be out.

[RW] Finally, when can we expect Daikatana to be on retail store shelves?
[Kelly Hoerner] Sometime in late February is what everyone here thinks.

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• Battle of Britain screenies
  Time: 04:33 EST/21:31 GMT News Source: GA Source Posted By: Per Kristensen

Also at GA Source today is a couple of new screenshots from Empire Interactive's upcoming WW2 fighter-sim, Battle of Britain.

Features:

• Simulations of Luftwaffe’s 1000 aircraft raids
• Cloud that you can hide in and behind
• Fly the Spitfire, Hurricane, Bf109, Bf110, Ju87 Stuka divebomber - Act as gunner in Junkers 88, Heinkel 111, Dornier 17 Other aircraft: Defiant, Blenheim bomber, Air-Sea rescue float aircraft
• Interactive virtual cockpits
• Range of flight models: arcade to full realism
• Real-time fully interactive dynamic campaigns that can be played from both sides.
• Play as a Controller or a Pilot
• Multiplayer death match, team play and quickmission mode playable over the Internet, LAN and direct connect.

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• Interview - Blade Unsheated
  Time: 04:33 EST/21:31 GMT News Source: Eurogamer Posted By: Per Kristensen

John over at Eurogamer sends word that they got a new interview up with Wavier Carrillo of Rebel Act. The subject is Rebel Act's upcoming (and sweet loking) game, Blade.

"It's a portal 3D engine with real time physics and real-time shadows", Xavier explained. "It's very powerful, and allows a lot of interactivity with the environment. Everything has been done to reinforce the feeling of reality."

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• Review - Who wants to be a millionaire
  Time: 11:08 EST/16:08 GMT News Source: Gamespot Posted By: Per Kristensen

  Gamespot has reviewed "Who wants to be a millionaire". This is a somewhat different type of game, than we are used to these days. It is the game version of the TV trivia gameshow starring Regis Philbin. Don't know the show? Well, neither do I, but apparently it's very popular. Here's a snippet from the review:

  Most hard-core gamers probably gnash their teeth at the thought of Regis Philbin and his simple-minded trivia game outselling every other supposedly respectable game on the market. The TV game show that has every executive from other networks feverishly reshuffling his prime-time grid is also burning up the computer entertainment charts. With more than a million copies sold and no end in sight, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire is the people's choice, whether fraggers like it or not.

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