KatsBits ARCHIVES 2005 May

[back]Archive 2005 MAY

Bet on Soldier movie [22nd May 05] ^

Two new 56k dialup modem friendly versions of the Bet on Soldier movie mentioned in the previous news item below are mow available. They're exactly the same as the massive 30+MB files but have just been recompiled for dialup connection (reduced size and quality). See links below.

Visit official site for movie >>

Enemy Territory : Quake Wars [16th May 05] ^

So this is what they were keeping so secret, damn those SplashDamage

Squad movements

ID SOFTWARE STORMS THE FRONT LINES WITH
ENEMY TERRITORY : QUAKE WARS

Santa Monica, CA – May 16, 2005 – id Software™ and Activision, Inc. (Nasdaq: ATVI) today announced the development of ENEMY TERRITORY: QUAKE WARS™. Developed by Splash Damage and built on id Software’s new MegaTexture™ rendering technology, ENEMY TERRITORY: QUAKE WARS pits the armies of Earth against the invading alien Strogg in the ultimate online strategic shooter. Featuring strategic team play, persistent character promotions, day and nighttime combat missions, and the universe’s most powerful weapons and vehicles, ENEMY TERRITORY: QUAKE WARS transports players to the front lines of an epic new war for Earth.

“For years, fans have enjoyed incredible battles on the Strogg home planet; but with ENEMY TERRITORY: QUAKE WARS, we’re taking players back to the war that started it all – the Strogg invasion of Earth – where the choice is to fight with the humans or the alien Strogg in a massive campaign for survival,” said Todd Hollenshead, CEO, id Software. “Like all great id Software games, ENEMY TERRITORY: QUAKE WARS unites bleeding-edge technology, a fantastic universe, and meticulously balanced gameplay to deliver an engrossing and futuristic gaming experience.”

“We have been so proud of Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory’s™ rave reviews, ‘Game of the Year’ awards, and massive fan-base, so to work with id again in developing ENEMY TERRITORY: QUAKE WARS is an amazing opportunity.” states Paul Wedgwood, Lead Game Designer and Owner of Splash Damage Ltd. “The stories of the Strogg invasion of Earth have always fascinated me, and now through ENEMY TERRITORY: QUAKE WARS, we’re able to bring this incredible war to life with an uncompromising level of detail and realism.”

As the invasion begins, players choose to battle as one of five unique classes in either the EDF (Earth Defense Force – humans) or the barbaric alien Strogg armies, each augmented with specialist weapons and combat hardware. Troops utilize over 40 conventional and futuristic vehicles, deployable structures, and defense systems like quad-bikes, tanks, and alien walkers for epic ground assaults; or helicopters and anti-gravity ships to lend firepower from the air. Throughout each battle, teams establish bases, deploy defense structures, artillery, radar, and advanced forward-command systems into enemy territory while constructing and demolishing obstacles to speed progress and gain a tactical advantage over the enemy.

With realistic dynamic lighting and shadowing from headlights, searchlights and even the moon, battles can be fought during the day or night; while accurate simulation of the atmosphere, weather, and vegetation combine to create an unparalleled degree of realism. Battlefields are perfectly rendered using MegaTexture, a totally new rendering technology developed by id Software that crunches millions of polygons and a gigabyte-scale texture into a single, seamless and un-tiled landscape with unique detail down to the square inch or the un-obscured distant horizon.

Players can take on class specific missions or join a fireteam to utilize advanced command and communication options, including voice-chat and the game’s context sensitive mission order system. With bitterly contested multi-battle campaigns, each soldier fights not only for victory, but to gain valuable skills, special rewards for team-play, and persistent military promotions and medals. ENEMY TERRITORY: QUAKE WARS will debut at this year’s Electronic Entertainment Expo in Activision’s booth #1224 in the South Hall.

Win $10,000.! we kid you not.! [14th May 05] ^

Electronic Arts is running a competition where you could stand to win $10,000 for playing through their upcoming title, Medal of Honor : European Assault, which is scheduled to be release in June 2005. Of course they don't want to make it too easy so check out the blurb below on what you need to do to enter this competition.

One War. One Code. TEN THOUSAND reasons to play.

EA is proud to announce an event unlike any other with the Medal of Honor European AssaultT "Crack the Code" Contest!!! This challenging test of skill will be exclusively available to purchasers of Medal of Honor European Assault! Be the first individual to finish the Medal of Honor European Assault game in Hero (most difficult) mode, conquer the German machine, and then unlock a top-secret code from German intelligence... so top-secret in fact, that the first to crack the code and report it back to Medal of Honor command at this website will win $10,000! This is no cakewalk... you can be sure that the battles will be intense and the code heavily encrypted... So get ready soldier... Against all odds, the leadership choices you make before and during the heat of battle will define your legacy as a hero and a winner in Medal of Honor European Assault.

Be one of the first gamers to finish the game in Hero mode to crack the code and win $10,000! Hurry... you as a contender are racing against time and anyone else brave enough to take on this challenge. Pre-order your copy of Medal of Honor European Assault today to guarantee your shot at the $10,000 prize. Click here to enter.

Visit the official site and read the rules >>

Bet on Soldier movie [13th May 05] ^

Digital Jesters, the publishers behind upcoming FPS 'Bet on Soldier' being developed by Kylotonn Entertainment, have just sent word that they've released a movie trailer for the game. It's a cutscene movie and unfortunately doesn't contain any actual gameplay related shots but it does set the story up rather nicely. There are two flavours small and large; small being 32MB for about 3.5 minutes of footage.

If DigitalJesters can be pushed to provide a smaller, more 56k friendly version, it'll be posted for all you dialup users. Developers and publishers do tend to forget about the 'little people' all to easily.

Activision E3 lineup [12th May 05] ^

Just got this in and it's literally hot off the presses. Activision have just released their line up for this years (2005) E3 - Electronic Entertainment Expo.

ACTIVISION UNVEILS POWERHOUSE GAME SLATE AT
2005 ELECTRONIC ENTERTAINMENT EXPO

Line-Up Includes Titles Based On Best-Selling Entertainment Brands and Original Intellectual Properties

Santa Monica, CA – May 12, 2005 -- Activision, Inc. (Nasdaq: ATVI) will showcase a blockbuster game line-up at this year’s Electronic Entertainment Expo, taking place at the Los Angeles Convention Center from May 18-20, 2005. The company’s line-up includes titles based on popular entertainment brands like Marvel’s Spider-Man, Fantastic 4, X-Men, as well as, Shrek®, new installments in Activision’s best-selling Tony Hawk and Call of Duty® franchises, and innovative offerings from some of the industry’s top development houses, id Software’s QUAKE 4™ and The Movies™ from Peter Molyneux’s Lionhead Studios.

Activision’s Game Line-Up Includes:

Call of Duty® 2 - The sequel to the 2003 “Game of the Year,” Call of Duty 2 delivers an unparalleled portrayal of the chaos and cinematic intensity of World War II through stunningly detailed graphics, advanced AI, realistic character animations and explosive on-screen action – all powered by Infinity Ward’s brand new proprietary engine. Call of Duty 2 has not yet been rated by the ESRB.

Call of Duty® 2 : Big Red One™ - Building on the Call of Duty brand’s signature epic, cinematic intensity of war, Call of Duty 2: Big Red One unites players in the chaos of battle fighting as part of a squad in the legendary and decorated “Big Red One,” the American 1st Infantry Division. Call of Duty 2: Big Red One has not yet been rated by the ESRB.

Fantastic 4 - The only game based on Twentieth Century Fox’s upcoming feature film, Fantastic 4 is a team-based action-adventure in which players harness the Marvel Super Heroes’ unique and amazing powers through a compelling single-player mode or two-player co-operative gameplay experience. Fantastic 4 has been rated “T” (Teen – with mild language and violence) by the ESRB.

The Movies™ - Developed by Lionhead Studios’ Peter Molyneux, a pioneer in the “life simulation” genre, The Movies lets gamers become Hollywood players, by creating unique movies and releasing them from the studios they build, starring the actors they discover and develop. The Movies has not yet been rated by the ESRB.

QUAKE 4™ – Earth is under siege by the Strogg, a barbaric alien race moving through the universe consuming, recycling and annihilating any civilization in their path. In a desperate attempt to survive, an armada of Earth’s finest warriors is sent to take the battle to the Strogg home planet. Id Software’s QUAKE 4 has not yet been rated by the ESRB.

Shrek®SuperSlam - Ogre-sized brawling action collides with the hilarious ShrekÒ universe in Shrek SuperSlam, the ultimate four-player melee game. Shrek SuperSlam has not yet been rated by the ESRB.

Tony Hawk’s American Wasteland™ - For the first time ever, Tony Hawk’s American Wasteland™ gives players the freedom to experience continuous skating and BMX biking action without leaving the game or waiting for load times as they explore and choose missions in a massive, living Los Angeles skate world. Tony Hawk’s American Wasteland has not yet been rated by the ESRB.

Ultimate Spider-Man - Take on the role of the world’s most famous Super Hero, Marvel’s Spider-Man, and one of his most menacing nemeses, Venom, in an original storyline written and illustrated by the creative team behind the best-selling “Ultimate Spider-Man” comic book series. Ultimate Spider-Man has not yet been rated by the ESRB.

X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse – The sequel to the best-selling X-Men title ever, X-Men Legends, X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse is an all new action-RPG that lets players create, customize and control teams of four mutants from 16 all-time favorite X-Men and classic Brotherhood villains from the Marvel Universe. X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse has not yet been rated by the ESRB.

It's worth mentioning here that E3 is generally 'trade only', it's not open to the public. But becasue E3 happens before QuakeCon this will most likely be the 1st time the gamepress and industry pundits are able to get a 'public' (not 'demos' or 'builds') view of the much anticipated Quake 4 and then relay that info on to us lesser mortals.

PlanetQuake PoTD - kat1024 [10th May 05] ^

May not mean much to some people but this is the 1st time I've had a PoTD (Picture of The Day) on PlanetQuake. It's of kat1024 and links to the 4 shots of the map posted on the info page here. Linked to below is a larger version of the screengrab.

kat1024 as PoTD at PlanetQuake

PlanetQuake PoTD archive >>

Forum funkyness fixed [5th May 05] ^

The Quake3Bits forums have been playing up for a long time and it's only just recently that the cause has been figured out; the ASP database where all the info is stored has, as a result of installs, ammends and updates over the years, got it's knickers in a twist and decided to misbehave - it actually got corrupted which meant that the ASP forum couldn't read/write to it correctly which returned errors or stopped the forums form being displayed.

A friend managed to fix the problem by running a 'compact and repair' job on the db which has been added to a new and clean install of the forum code. So far it's all running 'OK'. There was some good info, esp regarding the upcoming Doom 3 powered RtCW 2 (Wolfenstein 'X') and a recently rejigged resources thread with WWII military info that I didn't want to loose, so mighty thanks go out to my guy @cbits.

Quake3Bits forum >>