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12/05/2002 Neverwinter Nights: Witch's Wake Player "Manual" Online  -- DISCUSS
Not necessarily the most thorough manual but it does give good insight into game play. This could be the closest thing to playing the actual pen and paper AD&D in the form of a multiplayer computer game, yet. Several Details are added in the module, such as only being able to rest once every 7 hours (approximately 14 minutes game time). Only healing and equal amount of hit points to your level number from that rest period. Lots of skill checks. Combat maneuvers worked into dialogue. Looks to be a well rounded experience. Speaking of XP, that playing field may be leveled for those plagued by XP penalties. (DISCUSS -- XP penalties here.)

12/03/2002 Neverwinter 1.27 PATCH!
Rats and Dire Rats are added to game resources plus several fixes to the game and original campaign. Here are a couple of interesting fixes but read the rest here.

• Monks now suffer the penalty of equipping a shield just like equipping armour.
• Made a preliminary fix for the infamous "Swapping Out the Blood Sailor Uniform After Being Shot By Arrows" crash. Oh man was this an obscure one to find.
• Reversed size bonus for Knockdown so that the larger creature has the advantage as stated in the manual.
• Changed Improved Knockdown so that the attacker knocks down as if it were one size larger, as stated in the manual.
  .....read the rest here

12/02/2002 Neverwinter Nights: Shadows of Undrentide EXPANSION!
Neverwinter Nights: Shadows of Undrentide expansion is scheduled for release in Spring 2003. It will include a 40-hour single player campaign as well as game features new to Neverwinter Nights, such as additional D&D™ skills, feats, classes, monsters, weapons and spells. In addition, the pack will include two new tile sets and other assets for use in the Aurora toolset
NOTE: A second untitled expansion is also in the works
DISCUSS what added features you would like to see in this expansion

12/01/2002 Battlefield 1942 1.2 PATCH!
Improves close combat accuracy and other bugs. Hopefully there will be no more emptying of a clip at an enemy 2 feet away with little effect.

11/29/2002 Neverwinter Nights: Witch Works changes to "The Witch's Wake"
They have been beta testing for over a week so we may see this free module release from Bioware soon. Check on The Witch's Wake progress here.
DISCUSS differences you would like to see from the last official campaign.

11/12/2002 Mechwarrior 4: Mercenaries ships
Delight in a new single player, fully independent expansion (with new multiplayer settings). New maps, new mechs and it uses Mech Paks too. C-bill system works much better than the black market trading from Black Knight. There are multiple plot paths to choose from and basic arena fighting on Solaris. Lead into battle up to 2 lances of mechs (8 mechs) instead of just 1 lance.

10/02/2002 Worms World Mobile Party
The mobile PC gaming market just keeps on growing. Added to the collection is Worms World Party which will soon be available on Pocket PC, Palm OS and Smartphone devices world-wide.

"The new versions of Worms World Party will be available via online distribution platforms and in retail stores in the first quarter of 2003. As part of the agreement, Hexacto is also looking to bundle the PC version of the Team 17 game with the PDA versions of the game in the United States." - Hexacto 9-30-2002

Editor's Note: The PC version of this game is a popular multi-player unwinding experience after a day long hectic LAN party.

09/19/2002 Mechwarrior 4: Mercenaries web site is up
Most notably you can pre-order the game from EBWorld and receive as a parting gift of a limited edition Zeus figure from the new Mechwarrior: Dark Ages table top game. As for Mercs, we have counted up to 10 new mechs.

09/14/2002 Unrealtournament 2003 Demo is release!
As for Unreal Tournament 2003 Demo we could only find a good download at THIS LINK, using the 3rd and final mirror but the download was holding at 49KB/sec download. No complaints here. Be careful where you download. A lot of game sites won't let you download the first day if you aren't paying for their download service.

08/12/2002 Clan 'Mech Pak is Out
Have you ever seen an elephant fly? Well you are about to. We have a 100 ton clan mech with NO omni slots but Jump Jets for a small price of 6 tons. Kodiak a.k.a. Jumping Bear. Also, a mech is included that has a number "8" in the tonnage number and it actually doesn't bite too badly. Yay, Masakari! Don't forget the 65 ton Cauldron-Born and the 40 ton Arctic Wolf are in tow as well. The new weapon is the SMRM, lockable Medium missiles, in different sizes. Better zooming with Enhanced Optics. You can take these new toys for a spin through an abandoned Solaris factory map named . . . "Factory". Looks like they sneaked in another unadvertised map named "New Gothem" where team 1 and 2 spawn points are nested inside 2 separate city areas with destructible bridges in-between. Only downside noticed so far is that neither new map supports Siege Assault or Strongholds. I guess we'll just have to make some ourselves.

08/07/2002 New King of the Graphics Cards
We don't normally post much in the way of hardware, but as choice of graphics accelerator can be very important to a PC gamer, we thought it worth the mention. ATI's Radeon 9700 has been officially announced for the retail market, with a release date of August 19th. This is the card that will (at least briefly) knock nVidia off of the performance throne they've held since even before 3dfx went belly-up. It's also the first fully DirectX 9-compliant part to come out. It's *also* (or is that also also?) going to carry a whopping $399 price tag, so I'm not telling you to run out and nab one. But it is the kind of card you'll want to have in your box whenever Doom 3 comes out.
 

07/11/2002 Neverwinter Nights 1.21 Patch Lots of fixes in a wide variety plus an additional mod, "Contest of Champions". "-Added the ability to Save Games in the Windows Dedicated Server -Contest of Champions module included -Items located in Creature Inventory slots will now be DELETED when validating a Player through ELC and ILR. Custom modules that use Creature Inventory slots to assign Sub Race abilities will have to re-add items on joining the custom module. -Item Costs will now be properly calculated for Plot items in ELC checks. -Sped up character listing coming from a Dedicated Server. -Fixed an issue with saving at inopportune times resulting in breaking save games. -Fixed some item "ghosting" issues. -Fixed the DM Faction bug, where possesing a creature results in that creature's friendly faction going hostile. -2DA files are now being loaded in the proper order in Hak Paks. -General bug fixes"

1.21 Patch

07/11/2002 Neverwinter Nights 1.20 Patch New patch but not necessarily needed immediatly. Read below for details. This was released on the 10th but the Update service can still be unresponsive so if you aren't developing adventures right now you may want to hold off on the updateif you already have Patch 1.19 which is important for game play. "Added code to prevent non-NWN files from corrupting modules in the Toolset NOTE: As this is only a Toolset update, version 1.20 is multiplayer compatible with version 1.19. This means if you patch to 1.20, and your friend doesn't (and is still using 1.19) you should still be able to play together. "

1.20 Patch

07/03/2002 WarCraft III in tha House
Orcs, humans, and associated races are invading computers all across the land today. Between this and Neverwinter Nights (about which all I can say so far is "drool"), you should see some more posting on this site in a few months.

Just kidding. 

06/29/2002 'Mech Chassis Chart Updated
The HappyGamers 'mech chassis comparison chart has been updated to include the full scoop on the four new chassis from the IS 'Mech Pak. The twelve original and Black Knight chassis that have new component options as a result of the IS and Clan Paks have also been updated, and the four chassis from the upcoming Clan Pak have been listed. Their details will be added once that expansion is released at the end of July. 

06/24/2002 WarCraft III... soon
Just in case you needed something to fill your Fourth of July weekend, WarCraft III is shipping out on July 2nd for arrival in stores on July 3rd.

06/19/2002 Neverwinter Nights Shipping
Here I am, still getting familiar with each new chassis in the Inner Sphere Pak, and Neverwinter Nights hits the channel. Speaking of that - if you're interested in taking part in some good online roleplaying with fellow HGers, let us know. We're considering popping up a Neverwinter Nights server.

06/17/2002 MechWarrior 4 Inner Sphere Pak Shipping
More mechy goodness is now on its way to a store near you. The MechWarrior 4 point release 3.0 has also been made available. If you buy the expansion, the point release will be automatically installed. The point release updates the server browser screen to use color coding to differentiate between games. Games that show as white are compatible with the version of the software you have installed, while green games show newer versions, and red games show older versions.

The point release also fixes some bugs, including one that caused some mechs with jump jets to be harder to hit than others, and another that caused damaged to sometimes be recorded incorrectly in multiplayer games. 

06/15/2002 Star Trek: Bridge Commander Part 1 -   Single Player Game Report and Review Read our report and review on the newest Star Trek game. Big battles with big ships and big guns.

06/13/2002 Warcraft III goes Gold
What could trump Neverwinter Nights going gold? Probably this. Stock up on the coffee now. Look for the game in stores in very early July.

Drat and Curses Department. EBWorld.com has bumped the MechWarrior 4 Inner Sphere Pak's ship date back a week, to the 19th. Guess you can't have all good news three days in a row.

06/12/2002 Neverwinter Nights goes Gold
Hoo hah! Bioware has announced that Neverwinter Nights has completed production and is now in replication. This means that the highly-anticipated game, which is essentially an attempt to port pencil-and-paper AD&D gaming to the internet, will be in stores by the end of the month. So it begins.

06/11/2002 Age of Wonders II Ships
The sequel to the popular turn-based strategy game, complete with requisite fantasy setting, has shipped. Compuexpert.com currently has it priced at $32.90.

06/09/2002 World War II Expansions
A Return to Castle Wolfenstein expansion named Enemy Territory is coming out and will include conversions of some single player maps to multiplayer such as the Forrest Compound stealth mission, V1 rocket mission and Bramburg Dam. Engineers will gain the ability to use additional weapons and be able to lay land mines and build certain structures. There will be a new player class called Covert Ops. Also included is a new single player episode comprised of around 10 levels and for you reclusive folks shy of playing multiplayer online (or cursed with slow internet connections), they now have Bots. Hopefully you can even up online teams with bots as well. No release date yet.

Medal of Honor Allied Assault is running a map design contest. Design and submit a single or multiplayer map by July 6th and it may be one of 10 chose to be in the next expansion.  No release date yet but you can read about more details on their site at this link.

06/08/2002 UT2003 Demo Soon
As soon as one week from now a playable demo for Unreal Tournament 2003 should be released.  For those of you wanting more info about this sequel to the popular Unreal Tournament, check out GameSpot's preview.

06/08/2002 Pre-Release Date and Pricing for Mercenaries
EBworld.com is now listing a release date of October 24th for the Mercenaries extension of MechWarrior 4. A price of $49.99 is also listed. Given that Mercenaries is a stand-alone product and not an expansion pack, the price isn't really surprising; hopefully it will bring enough to the table to justify the dollars.

06/04/2002 New Releases A-Comin'
Clear your wallets and your schedules, little gamers, as the summer months have some rather significant releases slated to come our way. June should bring us Neverwinter Nights, Icewind Dale II, the MechWarrior 4 Inner Sphere 'Mech Pak (gone gold about two weeks ago), and, for those of you who can't get rid of that pesky money fast enough, Magic: the Gathering Online.

July won't leave any time to relax, with Unreal Tournament 2003, the Mech4 Clan 'Mech Pak, and that most awaited of long-awaited games, Warcraft III. Schedule your vacation now.

05/30/2002 Avault Reviews Funky Gaming Controller
The Adrenaline Vault has posted a review of the Ultimate Arcade Controller available from XGaming. This interesting (and expensive) gadget should draw looks from those of you who'd like to have an arcade-style control console to plop down in front of virtually any system you own - PC, PS2, Gamecube, Xbox, etc.

05/24/2002 Mechwarrior 4: Mercenaries Expansion Pack
 It is a giant robot Christmas. On the heals of the "Mech Paks", a new single player expansion will be released for Mech 4. The story is centered around an up-and-coming Mercenary group so it is all about making money (C-bills). Look forward to 40 new missions across 10 planets and the ability to command a secondary lance (2 groups of 4 mechs which indicates BIG battles!). Also included: 10 new mechs, a couple new weapons (like the Rotary Autocanon, giant spinning barrels mini gun that can jam), some new electronics (like the Advanced Gyro to keep the mech steady when rocked by large weapons), 19 multiplayer maps, 2 new game types (C-bills places a team or individuals on a budget. Mercenary Affiliation Zone uses Zone.com to keep track of 4 mercenary units' world wide scores. Choose 1 of 4 mercenary units and help add to the total world wide score for that unit.) Look for holiday 2002 release. This is still in development so items reported may change before release time.

05/23/2002 New Doom III Screenshots
 More E3 goodness (badness?) as we get new peeks at the evil legions populating the upcoming game from Carmack and company. The link above takes you to GameSpot's posting of the pics. This looks like a game that will force an upgrade of the ol' graphics card. 

Id also announced that Activision will be the distributor for the game.

05/21/2002 Warcraft III Single-Player on Display
Blizzard has announced that they will be unveiling the single-player campaign for Warcraft III at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (which starts today). How is that good news for those of us unable to attend? Since the multiplayer has already been successfully beta tested, it means the game is pretty much finished cooking. Look for a release possibly as early as late June.

05/20/2002 'Mech Pak Preview
Prepare yourself for more MechWarrior madness by reading our preview of Microsoft's two upcoming 'Mech Paks.

05/20/2002 Nintendo Leaps Ahead
The last of the big three console makers has followed the lead of Sony and Microsoft and done them one better. Nintendo, which had held the price crown for top-line consoles since its GameCube launched at $199 has lowered the price of its console to $149.

05/15/2002 Did We Say Price Drop?
Not only has yesterday's mention of an imminent price drop on the Xbox come true, but Sony's PS2 has come down to match it. Both systems can now be found from many a retailer for $199. Heck, Ebworld is even throwing in an extra controller for the PS2.

05/14/2002 Xbox Prices Dropping?
We don't normally do much with console news here at HG, but since the Xbox is *almost* a PC anyway, we thought it worth a mention. Rumors that Microsoft would soon slash Xbox pricing (reported on CNBC yesterday, among other places) have been given further credence by a Wal*Mart ad. According to ZDNet, the advertisement was slated to run in papers on Sunday but leaked out early. It reports the Xbox price at $199, or $100 less than its current price. 

05/11/2002 Return to Castle Wolfenstein Arms Overview - Part 2.
This article focuses on the extra weapons in the single player game and the differences from multiplayer versions of the mutual weapons.
  
Venom - "With that 800lb gorilla back in the zoo, it’s much easier to run with this weapon"

04/22/2002 Wolfenstein Attacks the Mac
The Macintosh using public can now storm the beaches and stop the undead Nazi's. That's right, Return to Castle Wolfenstein for Mac shipped April 19th. I can hear those one button mouses clicking now.

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