Game News: Playback

This week there was definitely a big business vibe going on in News.

Many companies were announcing what they made for profits (or didn't make) along with their hefty lists of product announcements and previews. And the PR department for Activision is definitely ramping up for E3 with announcements for Quake III and a new Interstate title. First, lets take a look at some of the bigger stories this week.

GameSpot News has devoted a great deal of coverage to the seemingly never-ending troubles that Ultima Online is facing. GameSpot's Curt Feldman spoke with the lawyer for the plaintiffs who are seeking damages from Origin. And the list of plaintiffs named in the suit is growing - now the list numbers 15.

Cendant, the parent company of Sierra, Blizzard, and Berkeley Systems, got a punch in the gut this week after reporting that it had spotted "potential accounting irregularities" in one of its divisions. Since Wall Street folks often run like insects at the slightest hint of something bad, Cendant's stock plummeted almost 50 percent on Thursday. There was much hair pulling at the home office for sure. (Cendant's share, by the way, nosed up US$2 dollars to close at $21.18.)

In happier news, the folks at Blizzard gave us another look at Diablo II. We also got a look at the newest character to enter the Diablo universe, the Amazon. Also, we found out that you can dress your character and actually see the different types of armor on the character onscreen (and not just in the inventory properties box).

Also, Blood developer, Monolith, took a step forward this week by taking back the rights for its DirectEngine gaming engine and gave it a new name, the LithTech Engine. If you're waiting for the next line of so-called Quake killers, a look at this game shows it definitely has potential to be just that.

Yes, Activision's PR department was running on publicity adrenaline this week with several announcements. The biggest by far was that it will publish Quake III. We assumed that Activision would publish the next in the series considering its success with Quake II (at more than 850,000 copies out there and climbing).

The world of Interstate '76 grows with the announcement of Interstate '82. One new feature that is starting to be a necessity is the need for a 3D card. I82 and Quake III will both need a 3D accelerator to run, so if you don't have one yet - you're going to have to fax Santa your list soon.

Activision isn't immune to the current trend of developers, programmers, and designers leaving to start their own companies, as two of the Heavy Gear team will soon hit the road. Finally, Redline and Activision announce the work being done on their upcoming real-time tactical role-playing game Third World. Third World players will battle it out in a gang warfare atmosphere - almost as good as being the highlight on tonight's episode of Cops.

Hardware junkies got the big announcement from chip-maker Intel that it launched its 350 and 400MHz Pentium II chips - and the new low-cost Celeron chip. This bad boy is built on a completely new bus that allows it to speed past the Pentium 66MHz standard to 100MHz. In English, your games are going to rocket past what they're doing now. If you're looking for more info, read on.

Microsoft will release Windows 98 on June 25 to the world unless the Department of Justice makes a quick move to pull more of MS's Internet Explorer browser from its code. Windows 98 will usher in joysticks for that USB port that has been collecting dust in the back of your PC.

Creative officially announced its Sound Blaster 64PCI sound card along with a new surround sound four-speaker system from the audiophiles at Cambridge Soundworks. Canopus, makers of the Pure 3D card, told the world about the goodies it had in store for its upcoming Voodoo2 card. With the high performance of the Pure 3D cards, we can only expect the same from Canopus.