Saturday, December 21, 2002

Freelancer: Bretonia Preview -- 1:44 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

PC.IGN posted a bit of background information from Freelancer, the upcoming space sim from Microsoft and Digital Anvil. It focuses on one of the four houses in the game, the Bretonians. There's not much gameplay information, but since there are three pages of information on just one of the houses, it shows the depth this game will have. I really want this one to be good . . . Thanks Blue's News.

NWN Linux Client Update -- 11:12 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Bioware made their last update to the Neverwinter Nights Linux client page for the year. I would have hoped there would be more to report, but here's the sum total of their announcement:

This will be the last OS update for the year 2002 as we are off on our Christmas break. Our next OS update is scheduled for Friday, January 10th, 2003.

Despite all of the excitement around sound and The Two Towers, work on the Linux client this week consisted mainly of finishing up some display issues. Resolution switching, full-screen modes, and other mode switching was pretty flaky, but is working fine now. Sound-wise (Samwise?) we are gutting and replacing code like mad and look forward to the the final integration in the new year. There will still be about a week or two of work to make the final changeover.

Well, I guess we'll wait a few week for any word on a beta . . .

Friday, December 20, 2002

NFL Week #16 -- 9:37 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Thankfully, Joey Harrington's ticker will be fine, so we Lions fans won't have to commit ritual seppuku. On this, the penultimate week in the NFL season (we hardly knew ye!), here are my picks: Dolphins, 49ers, Eagles, Redskins, Panthers, Titans, Falcons, Saints, Packers, Colts, Chargers, Rams, Browns, Raiders, Patriots, Bucs.

The Master comments: Eeyore's picks: Dolphins, Eagles, 49ers, Packers, Falcons, Saints, Chiefs, Panthers, Redskins, Giants, Titans, Seahawks, Browns, Broncos, Patriots, Steelers.

Proper PNG Support in IE -- 3:39 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

One of the great frustrations I face as a webmaster is the incomplete PNG support in Internet Explorer, especially with alpha transparency. I know that nobody usually pays attention to these things, but despite that I signed the online petition urging Microsoft to get IE to fully support PNG. PNG allows for transparency without being limited to GIF's 256 colors and draconian licensing. The funny thing is that MS promised full PNG support . . . in IE4! Four years later, still no transparency. There is an ugly scripting hack you can use to get around it, but there's no reason anyone should have to resort to that. If the Mozilla, Netscape, Opera, and Konqueror teams can figure it out, why can't MS?

And while they're at it, they could get around to fully supporting CSS1 and CSS2 too. While I'm dreaming, I'd like a pony.

JK2 for $29 -- 1:56 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

I just saw in the Best Buy flyer (no affiliation, yadda, yadda) that they have Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast on sale for $29.99 through Saturday. If you don't have the game yet, I highly recommend that you take advantage of the sale and get it. It is my nominee for Game of the Year. If you want to know why, read my review.

J.t.Qbe comments: Hmmm, Hun must not have played Morrowind. . .

A.T. Hun comments: No, I didn't, but I'm convinced that it wouldn't have mattered. JK2 is that good--one of the best games I've ever played.

J.t.Qbe comments: No, I know it wouldn't have mattered; I'm just giving you grief. Though I bet you'd like Arx Fatalis if you tried it.

DOOM Archive Reopened -- 9:42 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Oops! Forgot to post this one yesterday. John Romero has reopened Lee Killough's DOOM archive. There's all kinds of DOOM goodies here, including early alpha and beta screenshots and demos. It's hard to believe that was almost a decade ago. It's a great site for old fogeys like me to take a trip down memory lane.

Past Two Days' News

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