Welcome to this week’s The Gist of It, taking a look
at the highlights and lowlights in gaming for the week ending February 15th,
1999.
MTV’s Rock and Jock
This past weekend I had the pleasure of attending MTV’s Rock and Jock Bowling event
in California, sponsored in part by 3DO. Along with a hunk of generation Y celebrities in
the crowd, 3DO set up two demo stations for the Nintendo 64 version of BattleTanx and the
forthcoming PlayStation version of Army Men 3D – two fantastic multiplayer games.
Nevertheless, the highlight of the evening was to have teen-queen Jennifer Love Hewitt
pick up the PlayStation controller and give Army Men 3D a whirl as we all stood in
appreciation…of the game, of course. You can see all the excitement of Rock and Jock
February 20th on MTV. Don’t miss it!
Wing
Commander Movie
It looks like Chris Robert’s Wing Commander movie is finally going to see the light
of day, despite rumors that it would go straight to video or be held until after the
behemoth Star Wars: Episode I arrives in late-May. Sources tell us that Fox will announce
on Monday that Wing Commander is coming to a theatre near you on March 12, 1999, only
about a month from now. Apparently the success of Freddie Prinze Jr’s
"She’s All That" (number one at the box office last week) sealed the deal
– He plays Col. Blair in the movie version of Wing Commander. Early word on the movie
is mixed, but word has it a trailer should appear within days so we can start to judge for
ourselves.
Homeworld’s European Tagline
I’m often dumbfounded by some of the taglines thrown out there for games, but by far
one of the lamest ones I’ve come across is the European promotional tagline for
Sierra and Relic’s excellent upcoming RTS game Homeworld. Here it is:
"Space…is there enough in your head for Homeworld?" Can you believe that?
But despite the tagline, Homeworld just keeps looking better and better –
it’s now on target for a late Spring/early Summer release. You’ll be hearing a
lot more about the game in the coming months – don’t let that tagline scare you
away!
S3 Texture Compression
Announced last week, the new Savage4 card from S3 looks like it’s going to hit it big
later this Spring when it’s released, largely due to the fact it supports S3’s
texture compression technology. The result? A visual experience that is six times more
impressive than without texture compression. Although S3TC was announced last year at the
Game Developer’s Conference, this year we will see games such as Unreal Tournament
and Quake 3: Arena support it out of the box. Those who have seen Unreal Tournament
running under S3TC tell me it’s absolutely breathtaking. Stay tuned!
Falcon 4.0
I remember seeing Falcon 4.0 at E3 shows 3 or 4 years ago. It was finally released a few
weeks ago and already players are disappointed. A couple of die-hard fans who decided to
pick up the game tell me that it’s filled with bugs. The developers promised a new
patch a week to fix the game, but the first patch was a week late, and unfortunately,
broke more things than it fixed. I guess it’s a small miracle that Falcon 4.0 was
even released, but there’s just no excuse for a game being years late and still being
filled with bugs.
Castlevania
64
I’ve heard mixed opinions of Konami’s new Nintendo game Castlevania 64 –
some readers tell me it’s "abhorrent" and others laud it as being
"solid" – but it looks like Konami isn’t very proud of the game. When
I asked them for a copy to check it out myself, they said they don’t have any
additional copies to send out, and that we wouldn’t be able to get a review unit. So
perhaps it’s off to BlockBluster to check out the game, but it sure isn’t a good
sign when the company refuses to send you a final boxed version of the game. Be warned.
and – Sierra Sports
I’ll always remember meeting the developers of Front Page Sports Football at E3 three
years ago. At that point, Sierra’s football franchise had major faults, and when I
asked the developers what they were going to do to the game, the reply was, "Well, we
are making some really cool menu animations this year!" My response?
"Well, what about the in-game graphics that look dated?" "Oh, we don’t
have time for that this year. It’s all about the menus, and maybe next year we
will have time to re-do the game graphics." I’m not making this up. Hence,
it’s no surprise that Sierra finally put Front Page Sports Football to rest a few
weeks ago by recalling the game – Apparently it was rushed out to make the end of the
Football season and the result was an incredibly buggy and prematurely released product.
It’s too bad. The initial Front Page Sports: Football game from Dynamix and Pat Cook
was a stroke of genius, but the series seemed to go downhill from there. Points to Sierra
for recalling the game and admitting their mistake, but they have to be ashamed of even
releasing it in the first place.
Before we end this week’s editorial, make sure to check out my latest feature
article in collaboration with GameSpot entitled Reality Comes Knocking: The Story of 3DFX.
Launched last week, we talk to all the players in the 3D-card industry in addition to
developers such as id Software, Westwood Studios, Epic Games, and Blizzard. Read it all right here.
And we will see you back next week for another Gist List on GameSlice!
Your Ideas?
Do you have a suggestion about something that should be added to next week's list?
Is there a game that gist doesn't cut it or one that does it gist
right? E-mail gistlist@gameslice.com
and we'll consider your suggestion.
Thanks for reading!
Geoff
Keighley
Editor-in-Chief
GameSlice
