Daily News Spin — June 26, 2001 (Tuesday)

Kuala Lumpur cracks down

In a move that would make Sen. Lieberman wipe away tears of gratitude, the Ampang Jaya Municipal Council carted away 20 computers and three schoolchildren, including a girl in school uniform. The crime, according to this New Straits Times story?

Council president Ahmad Kabit, who led the raid, said the cafe also flouted several provisions under the Selangor Entertainment Enactment, including allowing underage children into the premises, and operating into the wee hours of the morning.

"The cafe is supposed to offer Internet services but it also offered video games to children who play truant," Ahmad said.

You have to love how Kabit leads by example. We'd love to see Lieberman lead a raid! This is just part of a month-long series of raids ordered by Selangor Menteri Besar Datuk Seri Mohamad Khir Toyo, who's obviously a bitter man over how long it takes him to sign his name.

Also, we have to admit that we don't even know where the hell Kuala Lumpur is. It's probably a borough in New York city.

Garriott's new masters busted for piracy

NCSoft, makers of Lineage and the company that swallowed up Richard Garriott's new company, apparently were all too happy to use pirated software, according to this Korean Herald story.

NCSoft is one of the key beneficiaries of intellectual property on the Web. Unfortunately, the company did not live up to its corporate identity earlier this year. The reason: It was caught using unlicensed and pirated software, including Starcraft, another popular online game developed by Blizzard of the U.S.

They were just one of many Korean companies found to be using pirated software in an investigation headed up by the Korea Software Property-Right Council. The excuse of most of these companies?

"Korean companies are still reluctant to buy licensed software for their daily operations and keep complaining about the steep prices, but that's a lame excuse," Kim said.

There you have it. Be sure to pirate any of NCSoft's games, because after all, you can use that money for better things, such as buying games from companies that respect intellectual property.

Laser Squad Nemesis news

Laser Squad Nemesis passed a milestone as the developers, CODO Games, played their first email game with it. Here's what Julian Gollop of X-COM fame had to say about it in a forum post.

You will be glad to know that we have successufully completed our first proper client/server email test. I played a game against Nick, which he only just won after a bitterly fought battle lasting 16 turns.

And:

The game is still quite limited at the moment, with only 3 marine types available (we were playing marines vs marines). The commanders were able to make good use of there heavy laser guns by blasting through walls, which was pretty handy because the sliding doors don't actually slide open yet! Snipers proved effective at long range, but fairly useless at close range because of their inability to step out of cover, fire and then step back into cover. They need to be well protected or kept well out of the way. Steve learned this lesson pretty effectively when he chose to deploy 5 snipers against my mixed squad. The snipers were marched out into open terrain and were gunned down from the surrounding buildings in a short space of time.

Nostalgia time

Remember Unlimited Adventures, the Gold Box engine that was released as a dungeon maker? A fan site is working on a new engine that they hope will be an improved version of Unlimited Adventures. Check out Dungeon Craft here.

Well before the Gold Box games you might have played board games. If so, you may remember OGRE and G.E.V. from Steve Jackson Games. These were two great games. We just noticed that The Wargamer has reviews of new versions of these games that come with metal miniatures. Check out the reviews, complete with photos of the miniatures. Here's the Deluxe G.E.V and Deluxe OGRE links.

3am

The official Shadowbane site has an interesting article about the creation of one of the areas in the game, The Vampyre Lord Keep.

Lionhead announced that they may do a Game Boy Advance version of Black and White. Bizarre.

Desslock ranks his top RPG picks from E3. Surprisingly, the massively multiplayer Mary Kate and Ashley game isn't included. He must be a misogynist.

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