Back To The Main Page
Master Gamer News- April 10, 1999
Master Gamer News- March 29, 1999
Master Gamer News- March 17, 1999
"Now With 25% More Beef In Every Package"
April 27, 1999
Sega of America has finally confirmed what many retailers have been
saying for weeks: The Dreamcast will be released on September 9 for the
price of $199. September 9 was also the day on which the PlayStation
launched in 1995. The system's 56K modem will presumably come packaged
with the system, but Sega appears to be saving that announcement for E3,
as they would still not officially confirm that the modem will be built-in.
Sega of America's president Bernie Stolar claimed that there will be over
30 Dreamcast games available in the US by the end of the year, about 10-12
of which will be available at the system's launch on September 9 (a lot
better than the N64's two-game launch, eh?). Sega plans to have eight of
its own games ready for the launch of the system: Sonic Adventure, Sega
Rally 2, Virtua Fighter 3 Team Battle, House of the Dead 2 (with a light
gun), Super Speed Racing, Geist Force (a shooter), an NFL football game,
and an NBA basketball game. Sega was quick to point out that the Japanese
conversions of games like Sonic, Virtua Fighter, and Sega Rally would not
be straight ports of the Japanese versions that just happen to be in
English; instead, Sega is working around the clock to try to significantly
improve the games for the US audience. Third-party launch games include
Capcom's Power Stone, Namco's Soul Calibur, Konami's Castlevania, Midway's
boxing game Ready 2 Rumble (which looks awesome based on early screen
shots), and Midway's NFL Blitz 2000. As a side note, European gamers
weren't so lucky as it relates to the Dreamcast's price. It will cost the
equivalent of $320 in Europe.
In other Dreamcast news, Iomega has signed a letter of intent with Sega
to make a Dreamcast version of its popular 100MB Zip drive. In other
words, it gives the Dreamcast write-ability, which Nintendo was never able
to do with the ill-fated N64 add-on, the 64DD. While the possibilities
with such a device are endless, neither Sega nor Iomega would go into
detail as to what specifically it will be used for, except to say that it
would be possible to download game updates off the Internet and save them
to the Zip drive. Sega's press release mentioned that the unit "can be
hooked up to the Dreamcast," which would seem to imply that it will be sold
separately and won't be packaged with the system. Sega and Iomega are
planning to release the Dreamcast Zip drive in "the third quarter." In
other words, sometime in September, unless they plan on releasing an add-on
for a system that's not out yet...
As excited as the development community is about the massive power of
the PlayStation 2, a recent poll conducted by Weekly Famistu of Japan seems
to indicate that the Dreamcast actually has more third-party support than
the PlayStation 2 in Japan. Famistu asked 20 Japanese video game
developers whether they plan on making games for either system, and here
are the results:
Companies that said they will definitely be making Dreamcast games: 17
Companies that said they definitely will not be making Dreamcast games: 2
Companies that said they might be making Dreamcast games: 1
Companies that said they will definitely be making PSX 2games: 7
Companies that said they definitely will not be making PSX 2 games: 1
Companies that said they might be making PSX 2 games: 12
So overall, the Japanese development community seems largely undecided
about the PlayStation 2, and firmly behind the Dreamcast. Here's what the
four most powerful companies polled had to say:
Square on the Dreamcast: no
Square on the PlayStation 2: yes
Namco on the Dreamcast: yes
Namco on the PlayStation 2: yes
Capcom on the Dreamcast: yes
Capcom on the PlayStation 2: yes
Konami on the Dreamcast: yes
Konami on the PlayStation 2: undecided
One more tidbit about the Dreamcast: It is extremely easy for developers
to port their PC games to the Dreamcast, but obviously if everybody did
this the Dreamcast software library would be flooded by crappy PC games.
In order to prevent this from happening, Sega of America's chief Bernie
Stolar says that Sega will only allow developers to port their games to the
Dreamcast from other systems if they make significant improvements and
additions to the games instead of just doing "straight ports" with no
changes whatsoever.
On December 1, 1997, 14-year-old Michael Carneal went on a shooting
spree at his high school in Paducah, Kentucky, and now the parents of three
of the victims are filing a massive lawsuit against dozens of companies.
The parents are seeking a total of $130 million from the makers of the 1995
movie The Basketball Diaries, two Internet porn web sites, and 18 video
game companies which they believe influenced Carneal and made him go on the
shooting spree. One of the prosecuting lawyers stated, "We intend to hurt
Hollywood. We intend to hurt the video game industry. We intend to hurt
sex porn sites." The 18 video game companies being sued are Sony, Sega,
Nintendo, Id Software, GT Interactive, Activision, Eidos, Capcom, Midway,
Acclaim, Interplay, Virgin, Apogee, Virtus, Atari, Lasersoft, Williams, and
Square Soft. The games these companies are responsible for that allegedly
made Carneal into a killer are Quake, Doom, Wolfenstein 3D, Mortal Kombat,
Mortal Kombat 2, Redneck Rampage, Nightmare Creatures, Resident Evil,
MechWarrior, MechWarrior 2, and Final Fantasy. Video games are also being
blamed for the recent tragedy in Littleton, Colorado. An article written
by The Washington Post and picked up by newspapers across the country said
that one of the shooters "spent a lot of time playing Internet war games
like Doom." The article went on to paint the usual stereotypical view of
violent video games by saying, "computer games have become horrifyingly
realistic- and viscous. An entire genre of games called 'first-person
shooters,' encourages the player to dismember monsters and slay people."
For my opinion on all of this, click here.
Sony recently got good news and bad news in its efforts to stop
commercial PlayStation emulation. The good news for Sony was that after
failing to do so twice, it finally managed to get a preliminary injunction
against Connectix, which will prevent them from shipping any more Virtual
Game Stations to retailers. The Virtual Game Station allows owners of
G3-based Macintoshes to play hundreds of PlayStation games on the their
computers. The VGS is far from dead, as Connectix can and will appeal the
ruling just as Sony appealed when they were denied a temporary restraining
order against Connectix on two separate occasions. And until such time
that they are legally allowed to ship more units of the Virtual Game
Station to retailers, Connectix says that they will continue to offer free
technical support and upgrades to the many people who already own VGS's, as
well as the people who will buy the VGS's currently in the retail channel.
Connectix maintains that it is not breaking any laws, and it is still doing
the full-tilt boogie developing a Windows version of the Virtual Game
Station.
The bad news for Sony was that they failed to get a similar restraining
order against the makers of bleem!, an extremely fast, extremely stable
commercial PlayStation emulator for the PC. Prior to the court decision,
over 500,000 people had already downloaded the demo at www.bleem.com, and
thousands more pre-ordered the unit, which is now finished and being sold
despite Sony's efforts. Remember, Sony was also denied their temporary
restraining order against Connectix the first time it tried (actually, the
first two times it tried), but finally got it on the third try (see the
story above this one). You better believe that Sony is going to appeal the
bleem! ruling and keep trying to get the injunction against bleem! like
they did with Connectix.
Former WWF wrestler and manager Mr. Fuji is suing THQ, Nintendo, and
Prima Publishing for using his name and likeness in WCW Vs. NWO: World Tour
without his knowledge or consent. The character in question is "Master
Fuji," a name he used to wrestle under. Master Fuji in the game looks just
like the real-life Mr. Fuji when he was younger, and he even wrestles bare-
foot like Mr. Fuji, and has the same fictional background information that
Mr. Fuji used when he was a wrestler. Mr. Fuji, whose real name is Harry
Fujiwara, is suing THQ for publishing the game, Nintendo for manufacturing
the game, and Prima for publishing a strategy guide for the game which
features pictures of the game's "Master Fuji." He is seeking $1.5 million
in damages. Mr. Fuji was last seen on WWF television a few years ago as
Yokozuna's manager, and he currently lives in Jefferson City, Tennessee,
where he runs a wrestling school. THQ claims that the lawsuit is "without
merit" and said "we plan to defend ourselves vigorously," but then again,
I can't remember a lawsuit since the dawn of mankind in which the company
being sued didn't say that the charges are "without merit" and that they
plan to "defend themselves vigorously." And the moral of the story is:
Don't go putting trademarked characters in video games when you've got no
business doing so. What the heck was THQ thinking? They also deserve to
be sued by several other people for their questionable list of characters
in WCW Vs. NWO: World Tour, most notably Extreme Championship Wrestling's
Sabu. There is a character in World Tour who looks like Sabu, dresses like
Sabu, has some of Sabu's moves, has horned boots like Sabu, and even points
to the sky like Sabu. If that's not copyright infringement, I don't know
what is.
There's a lot more to the "survival horror" genre than Resident Evil.
In addition to the recently-announced Dino Crisis for the PlayStation,
Capcom is developing Onimusha: The Demon Warrior for the PlayStation. This
game is based on the Resident Evil 2 engine, but its gameplay will be very
different. There will be much less blowing zombies' heads off, and much
more sword-fighting with samurai ninjas. The game's graphics look
impressive, with completely polygonal backgrounds instead of the
pre-rendered backgrounds found in Resident Evil 1 and 2. Onimusha: The
Demon Warrior is due out in the US in early 2000.
Westwood Studios will have to finish Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun
without its lead designer Erik Yeo, who left Westwood this week to form his
own company called 7 Studios. The "7" in 7 Studios stands for the number
of founders it will have (Yeo plus six other people, not all of whom are
from Westwood). Yeo says that 7 Studios will more than likely be focusing
all of its development resources on one platform, and they have narrowed it
down to either the PC or the PlayStation 2, but have not yet made up their
minds. Yeo also said that Tiberian Sun was almost done when he left
Westwood, but has a solid month or two of polishing to be done before it
will be ready for release.
Nintendo's game development legend Shigeru Miyamoto made some thinly
veiled statements against the PlayStatation 2 recently. Miyamoto said,
"You can never trust completely what hardware manufacturers say."
(Miyamoto should know considering that the hardware manufacturer he works
for once said "Zelda 64- Fall 1996.") Miyamoto went on to say that "you
should maybe believe only a tenth of what those manufacturers say" and went
on to ask, "Will the improvements in hardware quality actually improve the
quality of the gameplay experience?" Sure it will, or would we all still
be playing NES games...
In addition to being firmly behind the PlayStation 2, Namco will support
the Dreamcast completely if Soul Calibur sells well. Now Namco is also
testing the Nintendo 64 waters with a version of Ridge Racer due out for
the N64 this fall. Namco appears to be becoming a true multi-platform
publisher.
Capcom has renamed the next Resident Evil game for the PlayStation
again. First it was Resident Evil X, then Resident Evil Nemesis, and now
it's Resident Evil 3: Last Escape. It's Mega Man Neo/Nova/Legends all over
again!
Acclaim has released the final list of wrestlers which will be featured
in WWF Attitude. The list is:
-Stone Cold Steve Austin
-The Rock
-Mankind (with Mr. Socko)
-Triple H
-The Undertaker
-Kane
-Jeff Jarrett
-Owen Hart
-Ken Shamrock
-The Acolytes (Faarooq and Bradshaw)
-Goldust
-Val Venis
-Taka Michinoku (despite the fact that he hasn't wrestled on a WWF card in
months)
-D-Lo Brown
-Mark Henry
-The Brood (Gangrel, Edge, and Christian)
-Degeneration X (X-Pac, The Road Dogg, and Bad Ass Billy Gunn)
-The Big Bossman
-The Head Bangers (Mosh and Thrasher, who haven't been on TV in months and
are in the process of getting new gimmicks)
-Brian Christopher
-Droz
-Steve Blackman
-Al Snow
-Dr. Death Steve Williams (who was reportedly released by the WWF last week)
Acclaim also said that there will be ten hidden characters in WWF
Attitude, and screen shots would suggest that six of them will be Shawn
Michaels, The Godfather, Sable, Chyna, Jacquelyn, and Marc Mero (who hasn't
been on TV in recent months due to elbow surgery and his general aloof
nature). Attitude's roster is certainly better than WWF War Zone's, which
had a lot less wrestlers overall and featured several who had left the WWF
nine months before the release of the game. Just one question: Where the
heck is The Big Show Paul Wight? What kind of idiot company says, "Should
we include The Big Show? No"? I'll tell you what kind of idiot company
makes that decision: Acclaim. I hope to God he's in there as a hidden
character, or Acclaim is more stupid than I thought they were. Despite the
huge list of wrestlers and the numerous options and features, the gameplay
in WWF Attitude is almost identical to the gameplay in WWF War Zone. In
other words, WWF Attitude is going to suck, so don't get your hopes up too
high. The PlayStation version of WWF Attitude is due out in late May or
early June, with an N64 version to follow in July. Thankfully, it will be
the last WWF wrestling game from Acclaim, but Acclaim will still be making
wrestling games, either with the ECW license or as unlicensed games with
fictional characters.
Michael Crichton has formed his own game development company, Timeline
Studios. Crichton wrote the Jurassic Park novels and also created ER,
which is currently the most-watched show on television. Crichton will
supply the story lines for Timeline's games, and the games will be
developed by Virtus Corporation, which was founded by one of Jurassic Park:
The Movie's graphics specialists. Timeline's first games are due out early
next year.
The United States Postal Service recently conducted a survey in which
they asked Americans which they thought were the most important trends and
events in the 1980s. The winning subject will appear on a commemorative
stamp. So what got the most votes, you ask? Was it the fall of the Berlin
Wall? Was it the Vietnam Memorial? No, it was video games, which were
chosen by over 250,000 voters. Look for video game stamps next year.
In the most shocking news I've heard all month, it turns out that
Psygnosis (makers of Rascal, G-Police, Chronicles of the Sword, Spice World,
Rosco McQueen: Firefighter Extreme, and so forth) might actually release a
decent game this year! The game is Wipeout 3 for the PlayStation, which
will be prominently featured at the company's E3 booth, where a big multi-
player tournament will be held. The winner of the tournament gets to go to
a party at the Playboy Mansion! Man, I wish I were going to E3 this year...
Origin and Electronic Arts have announced that they have sold over
125,000 copies of Ultima Online. The average Ultima Online owner plays the
game for just under two and a half hours every single day, and no matter
how much time they spend playing, they still pay just $10 per month. Some
Ultima Online players with beefy, rich characters have sold their
characters on the online auction site eBay, and people are actually paying
up to $3,000 for Ultima Online characters. At this rate, the Final Fantasy
7 file currently sitting idle on one of memory cards might one day fetch me
a few thousand dollars...
Some retailers are refusing to sell iMagicGames' upcoming first-person
shooter for the PC, Mortyr, because of the Nazi symbolism on the game's
box. In the game, you actually run around and kill Nazis, so it's not like
you're playing as them and killing innocent people. Still, just the Nazi
symbolism on the game's box is enough to convince some retailers not to
purchase the game in order to avoid any controversy. Mortyr will still be
available at most retailers when it is released next month.
Capcom is bringing the original Resident Evil to the Game Boy Color.
They appear to be very serious about the ambitious conversion, as the
graphics look very good for a GBC game, and Capcom opted to try to make the
game as 3D as possible instead of turning it into a side-scroller.
GT Interactive's reorganization continues as the company recently shut
down its distribution network. This will result in the loss of about 650
jobs, representing almost 40% of GT's workforce.
Nintendo believes that Star Wars: Episode I Racer for the Nintendo 64
will sell N64 systems, and to re-enforce this belief, they will be offering
a limited edition bundle containing the Nintendo 64 system, Star Wars:
Episode I Racer, and one controller. The price will be $150, which is only
slightly more than the N64's normal price of $130 (although it will
probably be dropping to $100 around E3 time next month). As you might have
been able to guess from the title, Star Wars: Episode I Racer will be a
racing game based on the pod racing sequence in Star Wars: The Phantom
Menace. It will be released for the Nintendo 64 and PC sometime between
May 19 and May 24, with a PlayStation version likely to follow a few months
later. The other upcoming Star Wars game will simply be called Star Wars
Episode I: The Phantom Menace, and will be an adventure game for the
PlayStation and PC which will follow the movie's story line. The Phantom
Menace is due out between May 19 and May 24 for the PlayStation and PC, and
LucasArts has stated that it will NOT be brought to the Nintendo 64 or
Dreamcast.
In a recent interview with the Japanese press, Sony Computer
Entertainment's CEO Ken Kutaragi made the following... interesting
statement regarding the PlayStaiton 2: "We will use communications features
to make it possible for users to interact with virtual pets or lovers
inside the machine. Even if they are at work away from home, they will be
able to receive e-mail from their virtual pet or lover, and they could even
get telephone calls." Virtual lovers inside the PSX 2? Naughty (Dog)!
I guess now we know what the "X" in "PSX" stands for...
S.D. Perry has finished the third and fourth Resident Evil novels, and
they will be released to bookstores nationwide next month. The first two
Resident Evil novels told readers what happened between RE1 and RE2, and
the third book, entitled Resident Evil: City of the Dead, is a novel based
on the events of RE2. The fourth book, entitled Resident Evil: Underworld,
is an original Resident Evil adventure featuring RE2's Claire Redfield and
Leon Kennedy, as well as RE1's Rebecca Chambers. Pocket Books will release
these two novels on May 11. I say we boycott all Resident Evil merchandise
except for the games themselves until Pocket Books published an entire
novel about the life of Barry Burton. Can you picture Barry in various
hilarious sexual encounters? I can just picture Barry alone in a room with
a woman, and after she says "Hold on while I slip into something more
comfortable," Barry wonders aloud, "WHAT? What is this?" Then she tries
to kiss him and Barry exclaims, "Stand back, Jill! He's insane!" Then he
would say "I have this!" So until such a novel is produced, join the fight
and stand outside Pocket Books' headquarters with me chanting "We want
Barry! We want Barry! We want Barry!"
Infogrames has continued their aggressive worldwide expansion with the
purchase of the American developer and publisher Accolade. Infogrames,
which recently purchased the prominent United Kingdom-based Gremlin
Interactive, is shelling out around $60 million to buy Accolade and
everything that goes with it (namely the US distribution network and the
Test Drive franchise). Accolade, who has made un-remarkable games for
years now, appears to finally have a mega-hit on their hands with the
giant-robot-game (for lack of a better description) Slave Zero. Slave Zero
will be released on the PC later this year, and a Dreamcast version has
been rumored for some time now. Accolade has yet to officially confirm the
existence of Slave Zero for the Dreamcast, but Electronics Boutiques' web
site has it marked down for an October 2 release.
Hasbro Interactive has signed a deal with Namco to develop and publish
PC games based on classic Namco properties. Hasbro now has the PC
publishing rights to such classic Namco franchises as Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man,
and Dig Dug. The rights to Galaga, Galaxian, and Pole Position are
Hasbro's for whatever system they choose (not just the PC). What will
ultimately come of this deal is more God-awful 3D re-makes like Frogger 3D.
Joy...
Sony is preparing to open a store in San Francisco, California which
will feature all sorts of PlayStation-related material and absolutely
nothing else. The PlayStation store will be located inside of Metreon,
Sony's soon-to-be-opened, massive entertainment complex. The store will
feature over 30 demo stations, and each one will come let customers sample
at least four PlayStation games. The grand opening of the store, which
takes up over 5,000 square feet, is set for June 16.
Despite the phenomenal worldwide sales of the PlayStation, the rest of
Sony's products aren't selling quite as well as they used to, and so their
profits went down last year. Due to Japan's poor economy and lackluster
worldwide sales of most of its electronics, Sony's profits for the 12-month
period ending on March 31 were only about $833 million. Oh my God! Only
$833 million in profits? I wonder how they manage to survive on that chump
change...
To further enforce the concept that Ion Storm needs to get off their
over-paid, under-worked butts and finish Daikatana, Eidos Interactive has
sent their Publishing Director John Kavanagh to Dallas to oversee
development of the game. Daikatana, which is a first-person shooter for
the PC originally scheduled to be released in 1997, is now due for a June
release, although Kavanagh has stated that from the looks of things, it may
not make it to store shelves until September. No word yet on whether he
meant September of this year or September 2009.
Apple made a $135 million profit in the financial year ending March 27,
up significantly from the $55 million profit it made in the same period
last year. Apple sold over $1.5 billion worth of products thanks to
excellent sales of both the value-priced iMac and its G3-based line of
computers, which offered performance that was significantly better than
Intel's Pentium 2 chip at a fraction of the cost. Indeed, Apple is doing
quite well, and it has come a long way from a years ago when rumors were
flying that it was in some serious financial trouble and might have to go
out of business. Now the company has almost $3 billion lying around, and
it's far from financially strapped.
The online gaming service Case's Ladder has been purchased by eUniverse
for $7 million worth of stock. Case's Ladder's membership has been growing
at the amazing rate of over 2,000 new members per day as word spreads
throughout the online community that you can get ranked for free in over
100 games, and participate in hundreds of tournaments each month.
Paramount Pictures has revealed that the script for Tomb Raider: The
Movie was written by Steven de Souza, who also wrote the terrible Street
Fighter movie. The movie is now scheduled for a summer 2000 release. No
word yet on whether it will have outdated graphics and horrible combat
sequences like the games do... (sorry, Tomb Raider fans, I couldn't resist)
3Dfx has announced that they have struck a deal with NEC in which NEC's
Direction PCs will come with 3Dfx's Voodoo 3 cards built-in. Voodoo 3 is
basically a slightly improved re-release of Voodoo 2 with a spiffy
marketing campaign, and it's somewhat surprising that they would strike a
deal with NEC considering that the two of them used to be bitter enemies
and vicious competitors in the 3D accelerator market. Now with NEC
focusing all of its graphics acceleration energy on the Dreamcast (which is
much more powerful than a Voodoo 3-equipped PC), I guess they don't
consider 3Dfx competition anymore, so there's no harm in a little
partnership with them.
Microsoft has purchased Access Software, makers of the popular Links
golf series for the PC. When asked why Microsoft felt the need to buy
Access, a Microsoft company spokesperson said, "Because our own Microsoft
Golf sucks compared to Links, and here at Microsoft we practice a policy of
'If you can't beat 'em, buy 'em!'" OK, maybe Microsoft didn't really say
that, but they may as well have...
MTV News is reporting that there will be a PlayStation game released
this fall based on Wu-Tang. Upon hearing the news, millions of gamers
simultaneously exclaimed, "Wesssssst Siiiiiieeeeeeeeeeeede!" Either that,
or that phrase has nothing to do with Wu-Tang and I just made a complete
fool of myself...
A WORD ON NEXT MONTH'S E3 SHOW
Master Gamer's E3 report will not feature pages and pages of hype on
dozens of games that may as well come straight from the mouths of marketing
executives across the industry. There's no sense in re-hashing what the
marketing personnel say about their games, so I'm not going to do it. If
you want to read a bunch of hype-filled crap about hundreds of games (many
of which will end up sucking royally), go read a bunch of press releases,
or go read the E3 reports in traditional gaming web sites. Master Gamer's
E3 report will feature all of the news coming out of the show, and none of
the hype.
Sources for news: Fastest Game News Online, GameSpot, GameFan, Blue's News,
GI News, Next Generation Online, Adrenaline Vault, VideoGames, Happy Puppy,
Gamesdomain, GameCenter, PlanetQuake, PSM Online, IGN 64, The Sega Zone,
Gaming Age, Weekly Famistu, www.hamsterdance.com
Back To The Main Page
Master Gamer News- April 10, 1999
Master Gamer News- March 29, 1999
Master Gamer News- March 17, 1999
© 2001 ivan@mastergamer.com