Policenauts

via Romhacking.net

At long last, the Policenauts English Translation Patch is released. This is Hideo Kojima’s follow-up to Snatcher, and his most famous officially un-translated game.

This hack features:

1. Complete 100% English translation of all Japanese graphics and text to English. There is not one character of Japanese left in the game - including opening and ending credits.

2. Fixes to graphical glitches in the original game.

3. Fixes to a crash bug in the original game.

Translations - Policenauts

20 Years Of Evolution: Scott Miller And 3D Realms

via Gamasutra

Max Payne is a really good example of that.

When I was working with Remedy back in 1997 and we were first brainstorming Max Payne, I had a big talk them about, "We need to be thinking bigger than just games, guys. We need to develop a game that has a strong enough character and story that Hollywood is going to come to us and want to make a film out of it." And so, we built the game with that idea in mind. Everything was run through the filter of, "Is this a good enough idea that Hollywood will like it too?"

The Max Payne movie came out last October, so that approach did pay off for us, and there is a Duke Nukem movie in pre-production right now.

20 Years Of Evolution: Scott Miller And 3D Realms

Retrospective: Space Quest IV Article

via Eurogamer

There tend to be two angles taken on a retro piece. Either someone goes back to a game they love and explains why they love it, or they go back to a well-known game and point out how it was actually quite flawed. I intend to take a slightly different approach to this reflection on Space Quest IV: Roger Wilco and the Time Rippers. This is a piece about how it was actually quite flawed, and why I love it.

Retrospective: Space Quest IV Article

Buried somewhere inside is a link to an insightful interview with Scott Murphy, one of the lead developers of the series.

The bitterness I posses is at what Sierra and Ken Williams had become as they became more and more successful, and how the Space Quest 6 abortion came about after broken promises and the just plain fucking over I got from the people I'd worked so incredibly hard for. The more successful each game became, the worse they treated us and the less they wanted to pay us. I'm not talking about us demanding more money like some sort of prima donnas. They seemed like they were actually penalizing us for being successful for them. They didn't want to pay us as much, which wasn't a lot anyway, as they had for each of the previous games. We'd done well for them despite the fact that they spent virtually no money advertising the games, especially when you look at how much they hyped the King's Quests. I'm quite proud of how we sold despite that.

On Space Quest 2, I worked fourteen months and had only TWO days off during that period, but that wasn't good enough for them. I got called in and chewed out after that one and SQ3 for taking too long to get them shipped. SQ4 showed how dark we'd become as a result. SQ's 5 and 6 were abysmal in my opinion and I've felt some guilt about 6, even though I inherited a game primarily designed by someone else based around that person's game design around a lame joke on a title of another company's game series, which was about as stupid an idea as I've ever heard of. What a nightmare that was, but that's another story for another time, like maybe after the sweet angel of death comes to take me away. And I didn't even work on SQ5, so comments on "Roger Beamish" might be a little unfair, even though I didn't know it was even being made until I accidentally saw a beta version that had been sent down from Dynamix to one of the Oakhurst producers.

Now that does explain much in the Sierra eventual failure as a company and also why SQ5 and 6 mostly sucked.

Sim War 5

via Pixel Prospector

Sim War 5 is a frantic top down shooter. The graphical style combines a 3D view with pixelated sprites. It has also a fine splitscreen co-op mode. I highly recommend to play this game with a dual analog gamepad.

Sim War 5

Disqus

Disqus, pronounced "discuss", is a service and tool for web comments and discussions. The Disqus comment system can be plugged into any website, blog, or application. Disqus makes commenting easier and more interactive, while connecting websites and commenters across a thriving discussion community.

Disqus is a free service to the general public with absolutely no inline advertisements. A premium model is in development.

DISQUS

Knee-Deep in ZDoom

Stumbled upon something absolutely great while playing Skulltag the other day:

The experience of playing through Knee-Deep in the Dead is one that many gamers will never forget, but through the years the episode has become too easy for many to play through and enjoy the way they did the first time. Knee-Deep in ZDoom is an interpretation of Id Software's original groundbreaking production, Knee-Deep in the Dead. The team has focused on expanding the original episode by utilizing the power of Randy Heit's ZDoom port; adding new areas, features, and gameplay devices not possible under the original Doom engine. Knee-Deep in ZDoom is a new experience, but holds strong to the atmosphere of the original. Relive the fear. Relive the nightmare. Relive Phobos.

Realm 667 - Knee-Deep in ZDoom [KDiZD]

John Carmack - The Boot Interview (Outtakes)

In this 1997 interview which I've found today, John Carmack and Brian Hook of ID software talk about the then current trends and developments. This is the Outtakes part, which has damn interesting stuff like this one:

Alex St. John: So what would you do with Direct3D if you were in charge?

Hook: Hold it, hold it. There's too much speculation here. Having talked to enough ex-Microsoft employees, I know it's a very political landscape. It doesn't matter how good you are technologically, because there are people up there right now who have the capability to solve this problem, but politically do not. So you don't need me to go up there--what you need is someone up there willing to dictate on strategy, end of story, that's it.

John Carmack: Well, I don't know if I agree. I undervalue the strength of politics. I am a technical idealist at heart and I think that if you put someone up there that knows what the hell is going on, and they have authority over the code base, they can fix it. The final word is what gets built into the executables.

Hook: I think a pretty much infallible case has been made for OpenGL

and Microsoft has effectively come back and said "Screw you."



John Carmack: [laughs] Brian's current conspiracy theory is that

Microsoft is investing in Apple to force them to adopt D3D or

something.



Alex St. John: That's not the most irrational thing we've heard. So,

what do you two think about Microsoft showing GLQuake running on top

of Direct3D?


...



Hook: And Microsoft didn't tell us they were going to do an emulation.

If they had simply asked "We're going to do this, do you mind?" We

would have said OK, because we're just into cool technical stuff.

There wouldn't have been a problem, but they didn't even do that.



Alex St. John: It was my job to get your approval, but they fired me

before I could do it!



Hook: Look, this is my view of the people who work at Microsoft. You

have a choice. If you're good enough, you have a choice of where you

work. You have to realize that what you're doing is bad for the

industry. And what you're doing is only good for your personal ego and

your personal power trip and your stock options. If you're doing stuff

that you don't even agree with and you do it for the money--we have a

word for that.



Alex St. John: So what's that word?



Hook: A whore. And I've never done that. I can sleep well at night.

Those people can't.



Alex St. John: Are there particular people that you have in mind?



Hook: No, I'm not even singling out the D3D team. I'm saying in

general that you can have a certain level of honor and integrity, but

not a lot of people exhibit that.



John Carmack: One thing the D3D/GLQuake demonstration did was draw the

lines of battle. Microsoft is always trying to be friendly and put on

a good face and saying "We're doing what the ISVs want" and

everything. But that's really just a front. There's a well-defined

agenda that D3D shall rule the universe; OpenGL shall crumble and die.



But Microsoft can't quite come out and say that. And I would respect

them a hell of a lot more if they actually did, but they're trying to

have your cake and eat it too. And it's just not that way.



Hook: Their D3D developer-relations guy sends e-mail asking if there's

anything he can do. And then something happens and he'll say "Oh, I

had nothing to do with that."



It's like "Fuck you! You work there." That's not my problem and I

don't respect you for coming up with excuses when you come down here

and start saying "Oh, we really want to work with you..." and then

pull a stunt like that. You come off as two-faced, you come off as a

hypocrite. If you want to work with us, pay attention to us. But it's

not what they want to do. They say "Try D3D--you'll like it," And I

kept saying "I don't want to use D3D. I have something else I like."

To me, the analogy was like going to a fast food place and saying "I

want a hamburger," and them saying, "We've got a really good chicken

sandwich."



You know, we're not supposed to do what Microsoft wants. Microsoft is

supposed to enable us to deliver content on their operating system,

but they're not doing that. They're flat-out ignoring us to a large

degree. And I've heard private comment from members of the Direct3D

group where they just categorically ignore anything John Carmack says.

Not because they don't believe in him, but because he disagrees with

them. It's not John Carmack, it's anyone who disagrees with them.

They've done this with hardware people. "Yeah, even though they're the

fastest, they don't have enough volume. We don't really need to work

with them..." And they do that across the board.



 Alex St. John: SGI can't make much money licensing the OpenGL

technology, so they really need to make an NT deal with Microsoft. How

does that make you feel?



John Carmack: This is where I can just be righteously indignant and

disgusted about them. I am a technical idealist and the wrong things

are happening. I understand the reasons why some of them are happening

and I'll probably learn to live with them, but it doesn't keep me from

being pissed-off about it.



Alex St. John: So even if OpenGL dies, will you remain its torchbearer?



John Carmack: No. We're not going to crusade off a cliff. I am

pragmatic at the end; there is a limit as to how much I will let

idealism damage me because I can adapt to whatever is necessary and

Direct3D with Draw primitive doesn't suck.



D3D sucks!



There's just nothing charitable you can say about it. Over the years,

Microsoft will make D3D suck less, but they're dragging us through the

mud along with them as they figure it out.



But in the end, if SGI did give up on OpenGL, we would give it up. I

suppose the gentlemen's bet would be that they're not going to bow out

in the next couple of years.

John Carmack - The Boot Interview (Outtakes) (Nov 25, 1997)