Daily News Spin — February 12, 2001

AC Volunteers involuntarily removed

Gamespy is reporting that over 100 volunteer guides in Asheron's Call are being replaced by eight paid workers. Microsoft has not commented yet, according to the story.

If true, this is likely a move to head off possible repercussions from the AOL volunteer case that should be decided soon. In that case the plaintiffs, former AOL volunteers, are suing for back pay saying that in effect they were doing the work of employees and therefore should have been paid. Ex-Ultima Online volunteer guides have also brought suit against Origin over the same issue.

We don't really have an opinion about this, but after playing in these online games and witnessing firsthand the antics of some of the players, we think the volunteer guides should at least get babysitting wages.

Have you played The Mahabharata lately?

It seems that India, which already exports about $6 billion in software every year, has decided to jump into the game market. According to a Reuters story posted on Yahoo, an Indian film company wants to see some of its properties turned into games.

Madras-based Pentamedia Graphics Ltd, which has carved itself a niche in making computer animation films and entertainment, has invested $4.0 million in Purple Drop, Inc, a Silicon Valley startup which will help its army of engineers serve the gaming industry and develop games based on its films.

While $4 million may not seem like a lot, Pentamedia does have the advantage of being able to tap into India's rich cultural heritage.

Purple Drop has been given the rights to make games out of Pentamedia's animation films, Pandavas, based on the five princes at the center of India's ancient epic, The Mahabharata, and Sinbad, based on the legendary Arabian Nights tale.

Purple Drop plans on licensing engines for their initial games. The Mahabharata and Sinbad sound like interesting subjects, but we're not sure how a legendary figure like Ghandi can be used in a game. Anyone for a Quake passive resistance mod?

Red Alert 2 even redder

Westwood just released a fairly substantial patch for Red Alert 2. Among the changes and fixes are some welcome new ways to move around the map, hot keys for placing buildings, and a few issues of balance: Libyan nuke vans are toned down a bit (whew...) and some of the IFV combos aren't quite so fierce. There's also an observer mode that lets you spy on multiplayer games, which might be an interesting and entertaining way to learn new tricks. You can get the patch through the ingame updater or you can download it here.

Playing GAMES Studios The Moon Project, which boasts some pretty impressive unit AI, we're reminded that Red Alert 2 is still lacking in some important areas. We'd rather Westwood patch in things like intelligent unit behavior so Red Alert 2 doesn't feel so much like herding cats. It's great fun as a giddy overblown game, but it's not nearly as good as it should be.

"The end of the likes of Quake"

On their final day, Gamecenter published the contents of a memo believed to be from the Interactive Digital Software Association. The memo lists a series of steps to regulate the marketing of M-rated games. In their commentary, Gamecenter says they're "chilled to the bone" and it "means we could soon see the end of the likes of Quake, Doom, Half-Life, Unreal Tournament, and much more".

Our reaction wasn't nearly as dramtic. The entertainment industry as a whole has been caught red-handed marketing unsuitable material to minors. The memo rightly notes, "We simply cannot have a credible self-regulatory regime that does not create some objective standards governing what constitutes improper target marketing." If this memo is authentic, it represents the ISDA's admirable attempt to atone for their oversight in the past and to avoid it in the future. Since children should not be subjected to advertising for M-rated games, we support discussion of the steps mentioned in the memo.

The right stuff

We got an email over the weekend from Tsuyoshi Kawahito, aka TK, one of the few remaining champions of flight simming. TK was behind the programming of Jane's Longbow 2 and the design of Microprose's European Air War, two sims that would probably appear in any armchair pilot's list of Top Five Flight Sims Ever.

TK informally announced the first title from Third Wire, the company he founded after Microprose cut off their sim developers. Currently known only as "Project 1", it will be a flight sim covering aircraft from the underrepresented early days of jets, featuring long neglected airplanes like the F-4 Phantom and the F-104 Starfighter.

Project 1 doesn't have a publisher yet, and in his email, TK says he's well aware of the uphill struggle it will take to get a flight sim on the retail shelves. But based on our experience with his previous titles, we're convinced if anyone has the right combination of flight sim know-how and appreciation for accessible game design, it's TK.

3am

We realize this may be copyright violation, but we were so amused at Entertainment Weekly's capsule review of Whipped, that we're going to run it here and now, in its entirety: "Don't." Reading that one-word review put us in mind of Hannibal, which we saw this weekend. Much to our dismay. It is, however, slightly better than Whipped.

Click here to read the weekend's news