Daily News Spin — April 30, 2001 (Monday)

Daily Radar shutting down?

GameSpyDaily is reporting that Imagine's shutting down Daily Radar. There's no indication of this on Daily Radar's site, but we've heard it from another source too. We have no idea if this will affect the newly launched PC Accelerator pay-to-view site.

Big news. Love 'em or hate 'em, Daily Radar did a great job of generating traffic. It's too bad that editorial sites have so much trouble trying to survive these days.

Update: The evidence is piling up. We've had a peek at the email that was sent from one of Imagine's execs where he confirmed the closing. So, unless someone spoofed the email, it looks like the plug has been pulled.

Sid Meier's Sim Golf?

We'll engage in a bit of rumor-mongering. Apolyton, an all-things Civilization site is reporting on the rumor that the Sid Meier-Maxis collaboration may be an update of Sim Golf. The source of the rumor is an email from a gamer who puported to see the game listed as an upcoming game at a computer game store. Apolyton was careful to label it as a rumor, but they did make this intriguing statement.

Any such statements at this point are mere speculation, and should be taken no more as such, but sources close to Maxis who we have contacted (and who wish to remain anonymous) seem to be reluctant to officially dismiss the story.

Still, it's fun to speculate.

New Heroes of Might and Magic IV screenshots

We spotted this link on Usenet. H3Trio has a number of new Heroes of Might and Magic IV screenshots. Here's the link.

Art of Magic delayed indefinitely

First Mythos goes under and Dreamland is cancelled. Now Charybdis, the development studio creating the sequel to Mythos' Magic and Mayhem, have gone out of business according to this Eurogamer story.

At the time of writing we had been unable to contact Charybdis, whose phones have apparently been disconnected for several days. Virgin PR manager Jon Brooke confirmed the developer's demise though, while assuring us that this is not the end of the game. Virgin own the rights to the title, and will be passing it on to another development team, with an announcement of who will be picking up the duty of finishing the 3D role-playing strategy game expected in the near future.

Virgin is now saying that the game will be published in September instead of this summer. No word yet on how this affects Betheseda who hold the North American publishing rights.

In related news, 20 former Charybdis employees have been hired by Climax Online Studio to work on Warhammer Online.

The Mushroom grills Al Lowe

The creator of the Leisure Suit Larry series answers some questions.

The Mushroom: What do you feel caused the decline in adventure gaming?

Lowe: It was the perfect type of game for the period. Back in the 80's, anyone who used a computer had to be adept at puzzle solving-otherwise, you'd never get the damned things to work! DOS was one long training course for adventure gamers. As more and more "non-engineering types" bought computers, they weren't interested in just solving puzzles. They wanted more action. Also, Myst killed off an entire generation of people who were told that it was the perfect game for them. When they didn't like it, or couldn't finish it, or didn't get it, they never had anything more to do with adventure games.

An oldster takes up gaming

The London Times invited Derwent May to try some computer and videogames. "A young-at-heart Times correspondent, former literary editor and gentleman ornithologist, tried his hand at computer gaming. Now we can�t get him to stop" begins the story. Mr. May enjoyed his games.

I have just had a long session playing computer games for the first time in my life. I am still reeling with strange emotions, as if I were about to produce a poem.

Fortunately, he doesn't actually produce any poems. He did seem a bit puzzled by Undying.

But the real problem was finding my way through these gloomy scenes. A bend was just visible in the darkness, and if I took it, I might find my way down to the floor below; or if I went up to a door, I might find it would open mysteriously.

Yet other doors would not open, and I kept finding myself totally trapped, going round and round the same rooms and galleries again and again. It was a Kafkaesque sensation.

Those doors will never open, Derwent. You can take that to the nearest British bank.

SF Gate looks at violence in the media

Yeah, it's a look at violence in movies, music, and videogames, tracing the debate all the way back to Plato and Aristotle.

Has popular culture gone too far? Plato thought so.

In his "Republic," the philosopher called for the suppression of explicit poems and bedtime stories, which, he felt, gave children immoral ideas.

Some years later, Plato's pupil Aristotle argued otherwise, suggesting that art forms such as tragic dramas helped audiences purge their fears and frustrations. He used the term katharsis to describe the experience.

We had a catharsis of sorts once in college, but it came after a night of bingeing on beer and Jack-in-the-Box tacos. It wasn't emotions that were purged, unfortunately.

Expand Icewind Dale for free soon

Interplay and Black Isle Studios are working on a free expansion to Icewind Dale, according to the official website.

Over the past month, several of the boys from the Icewind Dale team have been busy working on a free downloadable expansion set for Heart of Winter, and wanted to give you some updates as to its progress, as well as introduce it to those of you who are interested in continuing the adventures in Icewind Dale.

The expansion will include new magic items, monsters, and this cool-sounding quest:

When the web expansion is installed, a mysterious halfling introduces himself in the Whistling Gallows Inn in Lonelywood. He seeks a party of stalwart heroes for a quest to a place of great wonder, with treasures beyond the imagination. Should the party accept, they will be transported to a new place, far from the icy terrain of the Dalelands, finding themselves within the walls of a ruined castle in an unfamiliar land...

A small fellow transports a party to unfamilar lands? Sounds like Herv� Villechaize from Fantasy Island.

The London Times sallys forth

God save the Queen and the Times of London. This does a good job of saying what needs to be said about the Columbine lawsuit.

In a situation like this, it seems virtually impossible to point a finger of blame in one particular direction. The simple fact that many thousands of people play violent video games (or watch violent films, or read violent books) and have absolutely no inclination to pick up a gun must indicate that this is not a cause-and-effect situation. If blame is to be apportioned then how about the lax American gun laws, or the state of a community which lets bullying and the obvious mental distress of teenagers like Klebold and Harris go unchecked? There seems, sadly, to be something in human nature that finds violence enjoyable, or at least cathartic, to watch � take the Roman gladiatorial games as an example. Should we not in some way be thankful that our society has evolved to a state where this �need� for violence can, for most people, be sated by taking it out on electronic avatars as opposed to their next-door neighbours? A society entirely free from violence is a wonderful thing to hope for. But reaching that Utopia requires more fundamental changes than banning a few computer games.

Indeed.

Tiger's in the game

Yahoo has reprinted an AP story about how EA is using motion capture of the most expensive tiger in the world, Tiger Woods, in their golf game.

As he reached the top of his backswing, Woods suddenly stopped and backed away from the ball. Someone with a clicking camera had ruined his concentration.

``Hey! Watch it!'' Woods shouted, pointing out the offender. ``Have some respect for the game!''

But there was no cameraman. No fairway or ball, either. There was only Woods, wearing a skintight black jumpsuit with reflective dots, holding a driver on one of Universal Studios' cavernous soundstages.

We'd like to see Tiger wear the jumpsuit with reflective dots when he plays at the Masters. It's much cooler than that green jacket he gets, which we imagine he only wears on St. Patrick's Day.

The World Is Not Enough cancelled

Bah, a PC game is cancelled in favor of a PS2-only game. EA has taken the TWINE FPS levels and combined them with some car racing levels to come up with Agent Under Fire.

No PC version is planned, which makes us want to download an N64 emulator and play Goldeneye on our PCs.

Brian Reynolds on game balance

GameSpy has a nice article penned by Big Huge Game's Brian Reynolds, he of Civilization 2 and Alpha Centauri fame.

As work began on Civ2, we observed that in the original game victory was very often decided in the "Age of Chariots." Here was this glorious game featuring material from throughout the course of human history, yet most decent players were effectively winning without even getting beyond the classical era. Players used chariots to rapidly conquer several nearby opponents, building a larger population than the other players, and then switched to a "peaceful" strategy and used their larger populations to blast rapidly through the technology tree.

Interesting stuff, but we want to know about Brian's Big Huge Game! Where is it? Is it big? Is it huge?

Neocron and Planetside explored

Neocron Online has an interesting piece that compares the two first-person shooter massively multiplayer games in development, Neocron and Planetside.

Neocron is alike to Planetside in the fact that it will be primarily from a first person perspective, but it will focus more on a roleplaying aspect. Neocron has a gritty, cyberpunk feel much akin to the gaming classic "Shadowrun." Consisting of four classes and many features designed to make the game feel like a futuristic metropolis. Neocron so far takes place in one huge city, complete with a unique timeline.

60 Seconds that could change your life...

Or maybe not, but we have a couple of recent 60 Second Reviews up that we forgot to shout about. Tom finds that Outlive is a superlative RTS experience, while Fate of the Dragon seems to be the antithesis of what we want in an RTS.

3am

Blue Byte is reporting that a fake Settlers IV map is really a virus. Stay away from s4maps_newyork.exe, and remember that all Settler IV maps have a .MAP extension.

If they made a Half-Life movie, who should play Gordon Freeman? GameSpy asked their readers and came up with the top ten actors. Eric Clapton, though?

Gamasutra has an article entitled Behavioral Game Design. It's about how elements of behavioral psychology can be used in game design. We think. Some of these Gamasutra articles ask us to jump right into the deep waters without any floaties.

Against all expectations, X-COM Enforcer is fun. We're surprised.

Congrats to PopTop's Phil Steinmeyer and his wife on the birth of their son Daniel, who weighed in at 8 pounds 5 ounces and is "healthy and happy" according to Phil. Phil is a master scheduler. His wife had her baby just after the release of Tropico, which also makes us wonder why they didn't name him Fidel?

"The Spy and the Stripper" could be the title of this news story about how recently apprehended FBI agent Robert Hanssen showered a stripper with money and gifts and never once asked to have sex with her. That's got to be the weirdest part. Now he's in jail accused of selling secrets to the Russians and she's a crack whore with no upper teeth. There's probably a few morality lessons in this International Herald Tribune story.

Oracle's Larry Ellison is giving millions to anti-aging research. "'`Most people accept early on that they will die,'' said Ellison biographer Mark Wilson. '`But part of Larry Ellison is saying if he's smart enough, he should be able to beat it. . . . Death is just another kind of corporate opponent that he can outfox.''' Ah, what good are riches when the Grim Reaper's at the door, eh Larry?

The Denver Post discovers the All Your Base craze in this article.

"It's really pretty wild," Brad Mudge, chairman of the English department at the University of Colorado-Denver and a lecturer on pop culture, says with a laugh. "It's counter-insurgency, a taking back of popular culture and rewriting the dominant discourse. The site is sort of the computer age equivalent of college kids putting a cow in the clock tower, though it probably didn't take as long to set up."

Whatever. Leave it to an academic to over-complicate it.

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