December HEATs Up

SegaSoft Networks Inc. is hoping to lure some players to its HEAT.net right through the upcoming holidays with its "Da Bomb Quake Tournament" and "20 Days of December" promotions. Prizes range from a high-performance gaming PC to the "supreme honor and glory of having one's clan logo incorporated into an upcoming Quake mod," the company said.

Da Bomb is an 11-level Quake mod that SegaSoft claims is exclusive to HEAT. HEAT.net is sponsoring a clans tournament using the mod; clans who play Da Bomb during December can register to have their logo included in the HEAT clan ring on HEAT.NET. Clan members will also receive free HEAT T-shirts customized with their clan logo, the companysaid.

The Da Bomb clan tournament will kick off in mid-December, with the winning clan getting to have its logo incorporated into a future level of SegaSoft's Quake mod plus a nice US$2,000 bonus.

Da Bomb is a reverse capture-the-flag scenario, where teams' objectives are to "infiltrate an opponent's base, plant a bomb, and run like hell." Players with a penchant for kamikaze tactics or immolation can detonate their bombs and "make the ultimate sacrifice for the greater glory of the clan." The bombs are timed - if one player holds on to them too long, they blow up, and it's immolation time whether the player wants it to be or not. The mod supports up to four teams at once.

"20 Days of December" is a separate promotion that encourages both paying and nonpaying HEAT.net users to play on the service for 20 or more of December's 31 days. Anyone doing so is entered into a sweepstakes drawing (for members - both free and paying - who log in and play any game on HEAT) for a gaming PC and one year of ISDN service, valued at over $6,000. The winner will be chosen by a random drawing on Jan. 5, 1998.