Daily News Spin — August 23, 2001 (Thursday)

Games promote non-violence (and make for good alibis)

If you've ever had any doubts about the essential goodness of game playing, doubt no more. A woman accused of murdering a marshal who was evicting her from her apartment tried to pin the blame on her boyfriend, according to this NY Times story.

They also said that Ms. Jones had been as cagey as she had been remorseful, telling detectives at one point that she and Mr. Bryce had merely engaged in a tussle. And for several hours she tried to assign blame for the killing to her boyfriend, Antoine Bennaugh, they said.

Didn't stick, though:

One law enforcement official said that Mr. Bennaugh had played no role in the crime, and had been inside the apartment at the time, playing Nintendo. He was released yesterday without being charged.

It's never been more clear. If you want to keep your nose clean, play games. Thanks, Supertanker!

Empire Earth in beta

Looks like thousands of beta testers have been notified and the FTPing of the beta has begun. Voodoo Extreme has posted some nice screenshots of some action from the beta. Thanks Omniscient!

Civilization III enters beta

Looks like it's the Age of Betas. Firaxis also sends word that the game is feature-complete and has moved into the bug-smiting and testing phase. The game's on track for an October release. Sid Meier should be in your Christmas stockings this year.

Spaceworld news about the Gamecube

Cube.ign has a slew of articles up about Spaceworld. The biggest news is that the US launch is slipping a couple of weeks until November 18, which probably has the boys in Redmond breaking out the champagne since the Xbox will now beat the Gamecube to the stores. The Nintendo launch will also be a bit sparse with Luigi's Mansion and Wave Race: Blue Storm being the only games available the initial day, with Pikmin to follow a day later.

That has got to hurt, but if they can't get it out earlier, there's little then can do. That's a really thin launch bundle, too.

Lots of screenshots and video footage at Cube.ign, including some of the Zelda and Mario games. Thanks James!

Update: Looks like we were wrong about the launch titles. We misread IGN's story and didn't notice it was referring to first-party Nintendo games. There will be a healthy number of third-party titles at launch as well, as you can see here. Thanks Bob!

3am

FGN is spreading the rumor that Sierra may announce Half-Life 2 at ECTs next week and that it's only six months away from completion.

This is neat. Some people are working on making a handheld NES. Check it out. Thanks Gary!

Trade Empires from Frog City and Eidos and gold.

CompUSA and IGN have some kind of advertising deal going. Expect to see IGN Editor's Choice tags on games in the CompUSA stores.

Ichiro vs Godzilla: the web comic book. Who will win, the mighy Seattle Mariner, or good old Godzilla? Thanks Tim!

Linux Today has a good look at the whole Loki Games mess. Amazingly, one former employee who just won a lawsuit against Loki not only worked for a year without being paid, but lent the company $100,000 via his credit card.

Because we fear this man, we'll post a link to his latest bit of mad scientist game development. Here are some screens of Derek Smart's Earth Force Command, some kind of a shooter. Ok Derek, you can untie us now!

USA Today looks at how some in the music industry are trying to create music CD's that will prevent people from "ripping" them, either for Napster like sharing, or for creating your own compilation discs. The technology basically prevents the discs from being readable by a CDROM driver OR a computer DVD drive. Yikes! Thanks Jeff!

The Majestic coverage in the mainstream press continues. The NY Times takes a look at it. This is an overview and not any kind of a review.

Click here to read yesterday's news