Daily News Spin — September 4, 2001 (Tuesday)

Starships Unlimited sequel in the works

Tom loved this game. Now we received a press release announcing a publisher for the sequel, Matrix Games.

Matrix Games is proud to announce the signing of a deal with ApeZone to publish their latest game Starships Unlimited II. Details on Starships Unlimited II can be found at Matrix Games at [this link]. ApeZone's Starships Unlimited has been receiving rave reviews and we expect it to move up to even higher levels with Starships Unlimited II. Better graphics, sound, AI and interface are just a few of the many enhancements gamers can expect.

Professional gaming and sponsors

The Chicago Tribune has an article looking at corporate sponsership of game tournaments like the CPL and the players. Jonathan "Fatality" Wendel has signed a six figure endorsement deal and hopes to be as dominant as Tiger Woods. He's being featured in an upcoming pay-per-view TV match.

Here's some funny stuff from the article:

Cyberathletes are not your typical corporate shills. Logitech used to sponsor players more readily--until it realized some were forgetting to roll out of bed.

"They forgot what time the plane was leaving," said Fred Swan, a marketing director at Logitech. "We would have them working in our booth at a tournament, and they would go on a break and go sign a deal with a competitor."

Fans are also a different breed.

During amateur competitions, some forgo bathing and even a warm bed to play nearly non-stop, showing up on a Friday, competing as long as they can through the weekend and sleeping only when they've reached exhaustion.

Amid the din of hundreds of computer games being played simultaneously at the recent QuakeCon in Texas, Billingsley clutched a keyboard and mouse he brought just for the event and waited for his name to be called for the amateur competition.

Billingsley conceded that some non-gamers may be baffled at the notion of watching cyberathletes duke it out on a video monitor.

"They have curling up in Canada and they call that a sport, so why not?" he said.

He's got a point. And just as curling has taken off, so shall professional gaming.

Also in the Trib, a look at Majestic.

When I was well into the game, I explained it all to my wife. She wasn't pleased at the idea of me giving a credit card number and our contact information to a company that promised to threaten my life, then charge us for it.

Scattered Tribes

With the hatchet-job done on Dynamix, you may be wondering what's become of the Tribes 2 team. Former Dynamix employee Blake Hutchins (writer) posted on the H-web boards.

- The dev team was exploring the possibility of forming a new company. We were looking at several options, including contracting with Sierra to continue developing Tribes and/or working with publishers like Microsoft or Turbine to develop original material for console. These options are gone. A cadre of five dev team members broke off to form their own company, very likely to use the V12 from Garage Games, though in all honesty I have no idea what their plans are. There were enough key people in that splinter group to shut down all immediate funding options for the team.

- Those of us who are left are exploring the slim possibility of putting together a new team. We still have a considerable amount of talent left, so we'll see what happens.

- Dave Georgeson has accepted an offer to become the Executive Grand Poobah of Planetside. He'd wanted to stay with the dev team, but after the team split, he felt he had no option but to take Verant's offer.

- The remaining dev team members will explore all job offers individually.

Voodoo Extreme dug this up.

WoW!

It's old news by now, but what the hell. It's official. Blizzard announced World of Warcraft at ECTS. It will be a massively multiplayer game that allows players to pretend that they're orcs and ride in undersea turtles that fire phallic-shaped torpedoes at oil derricks, which are also phallic-shaped. Make of that what you will.

Perhaps the best preview of this just-announced game is at WarcraftIII.net.

3am

The Black & White expansion, Creatures Isles, will allow players to breed their pets. We're guessing that the actual breeding process won't be too graphic, but you never know.

Rage announced Mobile Forces, a team-based Unreal game that will add vehicles to the mix. Sounds rather Tribe-ish.

CompUSA is taking preorders for the Xbox. You'll have to order the console and another $200 worth of Xbox stuff to get it, though, for a grand total of $499. It can't be all games, either. You have to buy two accessories as part of the deal. We'll wait.

Croteam has announced that a Serious Sam sequel is in the works.

He found the rocket launcher. Here's a link to a story about a criminal in France who was using a rocket launcher to duel the police. We spotted the link on Blue's.

ECTS awarded Anarchy Online an award for the Best Multiplayer game at the show. Sheesh.

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