SuperNova Released!Old Apogee and 3D Realms News
3-26-98
SuperNova Released!
Following the release of Beyond the Titanic a few weeks ago, Apogee has released another very early game, SuperNova! This game that was made by Scott Miller and Terry Nagy in 1987. SuperNova was another game made before Kroz and the founding of Apogee Software.
SuperNova is a text adventure game much like Beyond the Titanic in look and feel, but with a enitre different storyline. SuperNova seems to start off in some underground mines and you have to make your way after that.
I'll probably have to make some pages for Beyond the Titanic and SuperNova here.
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3-21-98
Case: Dr. Proton -- Dr. Proton is coming back in Duke Nukem Forever, but didn't he die in Duke Nukem 1? This article I wrote looks into the details of Dr. Proton's death, and presents three theories that attempt to explain his death. There is also a survey that you can answer and post your own theory!
Apogee Sale -- The sale for clearing out the extra inventories of Apogee games is continuing with deeper price cuts. Plutonium Pak for $5, Duke3D Book for $5, Xenophage and Death Rally Combo for an incredible $8.00! I would get advantage of these sales, Apogee is almost giving this stuff away.
3-18-98
Shawn Green was the answer to the Trivia Question asking who was the first employee other than Scott Miller. That one was tough. Joe Sielger posted a new question today, seen below.
Boppin' comes to mind with having a level editor included with the registered version. But, at the rate I'm going, that's probably wrong :)
Doug Howell informed me that 1991's Jumpman Lives! was Apogee's first title with a level editor. Boppin' was the second.
3-16-98
As promised, part 2 of the Scott Miller interview was posted today. Scott Miller speaks a little about Max Payne, Prey, Prey AI, Prey Engine, and the PGL. Another good interview.
3-12-98
A new feature on Mecca World called the Daily Dementia has interviewed Scott Miller in RealAudio today. This is only the first half of the interview. The second half will take place March 16th covering Max Payne and Prey. Here is a summery of what Scott said:
Release dates:
Duke Nukem Forever, hopefully this year. Might slide into 1stQ 1999. Probably a month before the release information will come about the game.
Prey, "Almost ceritainly 1st Quarter next year."
Duke Nukem Movie:
3D Realms has full control over director, cast, and can put any input into the movie. Already sent in guidelines to the producers.
Bombshell:
A new female character that will be introduced in Duke Nukem Forever named Bombshell. She will then star in her own games. So Apogee has a new character!
After Duke Nukem Forever, Scott said that they have to decide whether to make Duke 5, a Bombshell game, or both at the same time.
Some good information and interview, I can't wait for the second half.
3-10-98
A new, no, an old Apogee game has been released today! Beyond the
Titanic was released as freeware in the sprit of the Titanic movie out now. Beyond
the Titanic is a simple text based Adventure Game, and is even older than Kroz! The game
was first published in 1986 by Scott Miller and then later released under Apogee.
This is a rare look at Scott Miller's early work, and I recommend you download it!
3-3-98
Apogee's website is adding more and more keen features. There is now a full featured "Ultimate Bulletin Board" system, or forum up on the site now. You can register an account and log in and post and reply messages. Drop by and post something in the General Forum about the "classic" Apogee games!
2-28-98
Scott Miller has an informative update in his .plan:
Doing a Duke movie is beyond cool. Our deal with Threshold gives us creative control and input, and we're doing our best to make sure this movie is not another Judge Dredd or Batman and Robin. It's pretty amazing talking to Hollywood big shots and having them ask you for your opinion on everything from who should play Duke, where should the movie take place, and story ideas. There's actually a lot of common ground between making movies and games.
I can't give away details yet, but the Duke movie is not the only one we're working on! Please don't email me with guess--I will not acknowledge correct guesses until the news has been made public, which should be in about a month. I must say, though, that our publisher, GTIS, has been doing a terrific job exploiting our games in other media.
Yes, I would have to agree that GT Interactive is really marketing Apogee's games and characters well. Now GTI is making two movie deals. Just gets better and better.
Trivia:
Here is the answer to Question #5: Both Duke Nukem I episode 1, and Duke Nukem 3D Episode 3 have the same individual episode title, that being "Shrapnel City".
No, I didn't get that one :) I knew that DN1 has a "Mission: Moonbase" episode, and DN3 also had an episode taking place on the moon, but it is called "Lunar Apocalypse". But I never looked at the other episodes to see if they match. That's the first time I've been stumped and couldn't even give a guess :)
Update:
Doing some research, I found that Caves of Thor was the first game published by an outside author in 1989. If this question is counting out of house hiring, the author of Caves of Thor would be the answer. (Although I don't know who made the game since it is discontinued).
Update #2: (3-4-98)
I just happened to play Kroz and saw that Terry Nagy was in the High Scores. If he is in Kroz, he must have been the first employee!
2-27-98
The "Official" Prey FAQ v1.2 Released
The Prey FAQ has been brought up to date after its last release last year. This time there are updates everywhere around the FAQ. Most of the document has been changed. Click here to view it.
Weekly Quote: "Not even Commander Keen can survive my Mercury Mines!" - Dr. Proton |
2-24-98
GameSpot has a review of Balls of Steel online. PinballWizards.Com also has a new look thanks to Joe Sielger.
2-20-98
From Scott Miller's .plan update:
Duke Nukem: Time to Kill -- News has leaked and spread rapidly about this title, which is being developed by n-Space (Playstation version) and Eurocom (N64 version). This title has been in development for nearly 10 months, and is already looking quite fantastic. And there's still a *lot* of development left to do, so the end result should be one of the better polished console titles this year.
3D Realms is working closely with n-Space and Eurocom to design these games, and they're going to have all the edge and coolness that players expect from a Duke game, including tons of new in-jokes and new Duke speech. And since they're being developed specifically for the console market (no PC version will ever exist), we're able to take advantage of all the unique features of the consoles. The game's technology, even at this stage, is ahead of the technology I've seen in Tomb Raider II, especially in the area of cool special effects. For example, the Duke's flame thrower effect is easily the best I've ever seen in any video game.
Strange to see Duke in a cowboy hat in the old west :) PSM Online has an exclusive preview with screenshots of this game. Disappointing how this game will never make it on to the PC though.
2-18-98
Threshold Entertainment announced to produce Duke Nukem movie!
The first official word of the Duke Nukem movie was shown today in a press release announcing a partnership with Threshold Entertainment. After about two years of secrecy, it is now official that a movie will happen. Threshold is the same company that produced Mortal Kombat Annihilation, another movie based on a game.
Larry Kasanoff is the CEO of Threshold entertainment, and doing some research, he has worked on films such as True Lies, Terminator 2, the Mortal Combat series, and executive produced over 25 other movies.
This is good news! Hopefully, Threshold will start pre-production soon and maybe in a year or two the world will get Duke Nukem: The Movie.
2-16-98
I have tried v1.1 of Balls of Steel, and yes it does fix the cursor bug! In other news, there is a pretty good interview with Scott Miller on Gamespot.
I think it's a good time for a status update on Apogee's upcoming titles:
Descent: Freespace - Still no official announcement has come from Apogee on the distribution method of this game, but Apogee should get three months of exclusive selling of the registered version. Some of you may know that Apogee was working with the Descent team on the first game and was planned to be an Apogee release. I last heard an April release.
Duke Nukem Forever - The 4th Duke game in the series has been under production for over a year now. And as you may expect, it is a big secret. We probably wont hear anything more about the game until E3. The game will probably be released between 3rdQ 1998 and 2ndQ 1999.
Max Payne - Remedy's action 3D game has been in production since 1996 by the same team who made Apogee's Death Rally. Max will probably be released between 4thQ 1998 and 3rdQ 1999.
Prey - The Prey team have something very large brewing over at Apogee, and their lips are sealed. More information on the game was actually released in 1995/1996 with the first team than now :) Prey will most likely be released between 1stQ 1999 and 4thQ 1999.
It looks like the only thing that might be released soon with the 3D Realms logo on it will be Descent: Freespace.
2-11-98
The patch for v1.1 of Balls of Steel has finally been released! This version of the game fixes many video problems encountered by users and some other minor bugs.
Balls of Steel Registered v1.1 is also making its way into stores, but from what I've heard, there is no way to find out if the store's copy is v1.0 or v1.1.
2-9-98
The Adrenaline Vault has conducted the one of the first reviews of the full version of Balls of Steel that I have seen. The game recived a very good score with 4 1/2 out of 5 stars! The game also got a "Reviewer's Choice." AVault also posted a wonderful interview with Joel Finch, a Wildfire developer. Joel talks about the development of the game, a little history behind the company, and many other intersesting things. Joel spoke about the conversion of the game from DOS to Win95 was the largest reason for delay, and sometimes wishes they never went through with that major rewrite. And here is something else worth mentioning:
AVault: Will you continue your relationship with Apogee Software?
Finch: We found the people at Apogee easy to work with, and consistently helpful through the entire development process, so we would be glad to continue working with them on future projects. And that is not just a big kiss-up job to our publisher, either! They actually were good to work with.
Doug Howell has completed another revision of his great Xenophage FAQ. Following after the Apogee FAQ, Doug converted his FAQ into a very nice HTML format.
2-7-98
Apogee's Website has undergone another design change. This time, the site is back, and white! Along with the new look, came some new Prey info. Something is missing from the main page though, Apogee's Logo! Left out, even though there is clearly room to add one.
Harrison Stryker of Major Stryker is related to Duke Nukem.
B. J. Blazkowicz of Wolf 3D is also related to William Joseph Blazkowicz II(Billy Blaze), from Commander Keen.
Weekly Quote: "I'm back!" - Duke Nukem, in Duke Nukem II. (Voiced by Joe Siegler) |
1-30-98
Some new releases:
Shadow Warrior Voodoo v1.1 Patch has been released. This patch is recommended for anyone with 3Dfx cards (except Rush).
Balls of Steel v1.1 - Joe Siegler has said that the patch will be online as soon as the new web site is online. I hope this version corrects some of the video problems.
East Meets West Pack - GT Interactive is rolling out yet another pack of games. This new pack will contain Duke Nukem 3D: Atomic Edition v1.5 and Shadow Warrior Registered v1.2. It is expected to sell between $40 and $50. Another great value pack like the Kill-A-Ton.
In other news, Joe Siegler has posted some "interesting" pictures of a few Apogee employees. Bryan Turner (Tech Support), has a few pictures that look to be from the Live Cam. Scott "Hungry Man" McCabe has some pictures tailored to food.
1-29-98
Duke Nukem 3D Shareware v1.0 2nd Anniversary
Apogee's all time top selling title is now 2 years old. It was released in the morning of Jan 29th, 1996 as shareware, it is still considered one of the top 3D action games on the market today with a large fan base.
One year ago, on Jan 29th, 1997, at 6:00 PM EST, LameDuke was released for pure curiosity for fans of Duke3D to celebrate the one year anniversary. LameDuke was a December 1994 beta of the game showing how it looked in the middle of development.
Now the game is two years old. I wonder what would be appropriate for this occasion? I know everyone would like a Duke Nukem Forever screenshot or two. I would also like to see that, but not of the "3D" Duke4, but of the "side scroller" Duke4! The lost Duke Nukem game that has never been seen by the public. It was canceled one year ago, but was into development about I year I believe. Joe Sielger, would you like to post a screenshot of the "lost game" for all of the Duke fans out there on this important date?
1-24-98
Undernet's #Duke3D IRC Channel is two years old!
#Duke3D was founded about week before Duke Nukem 3D's release in January 1996 by JudgeDred, Iono(spelling?), and myself (D_Nukem). In the first days of the channel, we helped users find places to download the shareware, help them out installing and getting through the game, and giving out cheat codes. I believe it was Maddog666 who first found most of the cheat codes there.
One person who helped out with the channel on occasions was Disruptor. This was long before the days he became famous and was hired by id software. I remember one "takeover" of the channel was attempted by ATBrill, but Disruptor saved the day. This was all before I registered the channel and "W," Undernet's Channel Service Bot, started in March. One day in February or March a man by the name of RobBrown entered the channel. He said he was a Beta Tester for Apogee software. Of course, everyone went crazy because this was the first "important" person to join the channel. Rob amazed us with this "level-headedness." :) After visiting, Rob Brown became a regular visitor and eventually became a channel operator along side myself.
Also in February 1996, JudgeDred and I created the #Duke3D Website. The page was intended to serve for a place for information about the channel and the game. It has since been not been maintained, but can still be viewed. The page still gets an amazing amount of visits. Most of them were credited for being on the top of the list of Duke3D sites on Yahoo.
By the time the registered version was released, a few more operators joined, such as CarlG and ATBrill. Even another beta tester, Jason Pratt (Pailhead), was visiting the channel. We knew that people were going to be joining the channel asking to download the registered version, but we decided to take a stance of being a Warez Free channel. We faught against the distribution of the game, but continued with helping users.
Another famous feature #Duke3D had was the SwearKick(tm). The operators were supplied with a feature to warn or kick anyone who used swear words. SwearKick(tm) was used against many people, and some people were not too excited about it. :) Many visitors of the channel know that I don't swear, and I try to keep a friendly environment to get together with other Duke Nukem fans. That was reasoning behind SwearKick(tm). I have to thank Rob Brown for making it a reality in the channel with his programming in Rapture.
One the registered version was released, a new breed of people started joining and talking in the channel. These were level designers. Many different people began making levels with the Build editor and others started coming to the channel for help with the editor. Soon, most of the channel was talk about editing levels. I beta tested some of Robert Travis' first levels. He went on to win the TEN Duke3D Map contest and made Duke it Out in DC. Other mappers who visited #Duke3D before they were famous are Scott McCabe (Layre), who later joined the Prey Team, Matt Wood (rocksockm) who also joined the Prey team, and Charlie Wiederhold (Wieder) who later joined Ritual.
Word got around the Apogee beta team about #Duke3D, and other members of the team became regular visitors. Doug Howell, Eric Baker, and Mike Duncan visited the channel along with Jason Pratt and Rob Brown. It became a channel policy that anyone who is an Apogee employee or is an Apogee beta tester gets free ops in the channel. Not many people fell under that category :)
On November 14, 1996, George Broussard stepped into #Duke3D for the first time. Rob Brown is the one who should get credit for speaking to George and others and talking them into visiting. Click on the date for the log and notice how everyone just thought "GeorgB3DR" was just a regular joe until they found out who he was. Getting someone from the company into the channel was a big accomplishment. This event really changed the channel. The channel was no longer just a place for fans to talk to each other, but to actually talk to the people who created the game, the game that was the reason for the channel in the first place. The channel policy of free ops to Apogee employees was put into practice :)
George Broussard became a regular visitor in the channel, and that brought new regulars in also. For a listing of logs of when George Broussard and other employees in the channel, visit my Prey Documents Page. Joe Siegler, Lee Jackson, Brett Young, and probably half of the Apogee employees have since visited the channel at one point or another. Where else can you talk to these people in real time? Other interesting people I've meet were Randy Pitchford's cousin and even Scott Miller's next door neighbor!
One important event happened January 25, 1997:
<D_Nukem> George: Do you guys keep very old versions of games? I'd like to see some screenshots of a very old version of Duke3D, it would be nice to see how
it's come along through the years. Same thing with Shadow Warrior.<GeorgB3DR> DN: Man, we got a 1.3 meg zip of a version of Duke from like 4 years ago. I kinda wanna release it to the world, so you can see how bad it
sucked then :)<GeorgB3DR> You can run around and play it etc...
<GeorgB3DR> I keep forgetting about that. We should to a lameduke.zip and
upload it...
And on January 28, 1997:
<D_Nukem> Joe...the morning of the 29th, how about uploading lameduke.zip for the 1 year anniversary? ;)
<Dopefish> D_Nukem: Interesting idea. I'll mention it to george.
Guess What? My wish came true the next day and the world got "LameDuke" Even #Duke3D was mentioned in the readme.txt of the file.
-- My computer crashed and I had to rewrite the following, I hope I didn't leave anything out.
In January 1997, I met Brad Wernicke, founder of Elite Games / 3D Portal and he eventually became an operator. His sites helped out #Duke3D and vise virsa. With help from users of #Duke3D, Elite Games grew with Shadow Warrior, Unreal, and other sites, and eventually became 3D Portal. The website and the channel are very close. Some long time users might remember Viacom. This annoying user is know for greetings like "!!#@!" and "CB @ EG" and "bwerinksitci" and "Robums!" :)
In May 1997, Shadow Warrior was released. And for the release I decided to have a Launch Party. I thought that #Duke3D wasn't a very appropriate spot to have it, so I chose the new channel #SWarrior. Fans could join at anytime and get up to the minute release date information and actually see the release in person. After the release of the game, most of the people in #Duke3D moved over to #SWarrior.
One interesting event in #Duke3D history is the fake takeover of #Quake. One day, the ops of both channels planned a joke to say that Undernet would let #Duke3D take control of #Quake at 9:00 PM. Over the hours, many people in #Quake were nervous and others were fighting back with trash talk. The story grew along with the suspense and at 9:00 PM, I quietly quit IRC for the night.
One large accomplishment of the channel was to make it into a game. #Duke3D and #SWarrior were advertised in the "Cool Stuff" screens of Shadow Warrior saying to visit Undernet IRC channels #Duke3D and #SWarrior. I'm proud to see the channels in the game and I thank 3D Realms for doing so.
Through the second half of 1997, many thought that #Duke3D would fade away and die. To our surprise, even though the regulars didn't stick around, many users needing help with the game still came into the channel for help. This changed in late 1997. The #1 Question I was asked in #Duke3D was "How do I play over the internet?" Now the answer is iC. iC allows anyone to do a direct connect over the internet and play. One thing iC doesn't have is a place to find other players -- but #Duke3D is the perfect place for this. Thanks to Brad Wernicke for advertising the channel, #Duke3D is back and alive going into 1998. Users are constantly entering the channel offering games.
Two years for one of IRC's most popular gaming channels, a big accomplishment. I'm glad to be apart of all of it -- from the beginning as a founder, until the present. There was a lot of history and good memories in the channel and I've met many people who have gone onto bigger things. Who knows? Maybe #Duke3D will be around for three years!
I'd like to thank a few people for the support over the years:
1-21-98
Joe Siegler has updated us on the status of the next version of Balls of Steel. He said that GT Interactive is now looking at v1.1 to see if it is stable and everything works. Once GT says "okay," Joe will release a Shareware and Registered patch.
Here is a list of what is new in v1.1:
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That's a total of 17 games. There are manyt of ways to count this list, so many of you will have different answers. I have included all of the Kroz games and all games that have been discontinued, but have been sold under the Apogee name at some point in time. |
Weekly Quote: "No wimpy circus or zoo themes!" - Scott Miller |
1-17-98
Balls of Steel v1.1 is expected to be released within in a few days with fixes to the video problems many have encountered plus misc bug fixes.
Joe Siegler has started a little Apogee Trivia segment in his finger file. Trivia? I guess I'm the man for the job! I'll be posting my answers here, on this page. Below is the first question with the hidden answer below.
Update!
I've had to consult the Apogee FAQ for this one, and found that Monster Bash a total of 6 revisions to the regular version of the game: v1.0, v1.01, v1.02, v1.1, v2.0, and v2.1. Total of 6 revisions! Joe Siegler was been busy patching back in '93. :)
1-16-98
Balls of Steel cheat codes are online! Codes for the shareware and registered versions of BOS are now listed and allow you to toggle different events while playing the game. There are over 20 codes for each table, making Balls of Steel have more codes than ROTT! Note: You cannot post to WorldScores after using the codes :) Have fun!
1-15-98
PCPinball.com has a contest for the World's Best Pinball game. You can vote for your favorite Pinball game, including Balls of Steel. Deadline is Jan 31st, so hurry!
1-13-98
Apogee joins G.O.D. (Gathering of Developers)
g.o.d. is a newly formed distributor of games that will be competing with distributors such as GT Interactive. Scott Miller, President of Apogee Software is on the Board of Directors at g.o.d. What does this mean for Apogee games?
As it looks right now, games like Duke Nukem Forever and Prey will still be distributed in the retail channel by GT Interactive, but future titles after Prey will be distributed by g.o.d. and Apogee will drop GTI. g.o.d. works with a different objective than other distributors -- give the developers more freedom and power. More of their mission is explained on the web site. We should expect some kind of formal announcement about this development from Apogee soon with more information.
This week's quote comes from the description of Balls of Steel. I first heard Scott Miller use two years ago, and it has been in every advertisement or description of BOS since.
In other news, an update to the 3Dfx version of Shadow Warrior is imminent. Some bugs popped up in the last release and will be fixed. Still no sign of the BOS v1.1 patch to fix the mouse cursor bug.
Old Weekly Quote: "Here, catch!" - Triad Enforcer (ROTT), played by George Broussard
1-8-98
I'm back from my vacation and got a lot of work done with the Duke Nukem games. I had to do it all from memory since I didn't have the games with me. I also got to Level 4 on Kingdom of Kroz, but got stuck there.
It is now 1998, and this promises to be a good year for Apogee with many releases planned. Lets "prey" that they will be released this year :) All 3D Games are in development for 3D Realms right now: Descent: Freespace, Duke Nukem Forever, Max Payne, and Prey.
No sign of the new version of BOS yet, should be out soon. I see that there are over 1000 people on the high score lists at World Scores now.
Apogee now has online ordering! Digital River offers this service on many of the older Apogee titles at the convenience of the computer and at 50% and more savings off the regular price! The catch? You don't get any original disks mailed to your home, you download the file instead. But at the values here at Digital River, it seems to be worth it. This is the first time in Apogee's history that online ordering of their games have been offered.
I've started a new feature on my page. It's called the weekly quote. I will post a new quote on the top of my page about every week and it will be from some Apogee game, and Apogee employee, or related to Apogee. I'll try to dig up some interesting stuff for this.
12-19-97
I'm going on vacation to Florida until Janurary 5th, so there will be no updates (and no answers to e-mail) until then. I'll be working on the Prey FAQ, new Duke Nukem site content, and beating Kroz on a black and white 386 laptop while I'm there. :)
12-17-97
3D Portal looks to be closing down by the message posted by Brad Wernicke on the front page. Brad started this great game site with "Elitegames' Duke3D Site" and expanded later. I joined on and made a Shadow Warrior site, then many others made sites based on 3D Realms games.
It sounds like Brad finally put his foot down and will be spending more time with his family instead of these time consuming web sites. I would like to say that Brad has been a great contribution to gaming web sites -- his innovative file system has made game addons and maps available to everyone and lets authors spread the maps to others.
As for the game sites, I think someone will take each over and they will find a new home, continuing on Brad Wernicke's and 3D Portal's work.
12-13-97
Balls of Steel Bug Info:
The "mouse cursor offset bug" seems to be only effecting nVIDA RIVA 128 users. This includes the Diamond Viper V330, STB Velocity 128, etc.
With Joe Siegler's advice, I tried installing SDD v6.0 and ran the game. Just doing this seems to fix the problem, but I'll do some more testing. (I'm getting some other errors now)
Version 1.1 of BOS will fix this problem and it may be ready by the end of the year.
Decent: Freespace
3D Realms has acquired the rights to a new game called Decent: Freespace. This game will be distributed and sold under the 3D Realms label. So you can say that this is a new 3D Realms game for the future. I've read a release date of April 1998.
Details about the publishing deal are sketchy right now, but it sounds like 3D Realms will distribute the shareware version, sell the full version through direct orders, then Interplay will sell through retail after three months.
Here is some information on the company developing the game from a press release:
Volition, Inc., located in Champaign, IL, is wholly owned by Michael Kulas, president of
Parallax. Volition is currently developing Descent: FreeSpace, a new space combat game
for Parallax Software and Interplay Productions, and has recently begun work for Parallax
on a racing game to be published by Interplay.
Descent: FreeSpace is an epic-scale space combat simulator with unprecedented levels of
realism and intensity. It features intricately-detailed fighters and bombers, realistic physics,
advanced dogfighting, rich and flexible missions, action-driven music, and an integrated story
with a branching plotline. Outfit your ship wings for combat, issue orders to wingmen, and
engage with gargantuan capital ships in a struggle to survive. The multiplayer features of
Descent: FreeSpace will provide a new and amazing environment for both cooperative and
Anarchy-style play.
More information:
12-12-97
Joe Siegler released the shareware version about 12:00 PM Eastern Time, and it is now available worldwide. Complete with an easy Windows installer and SciTech Video Drivers, installation should go smooth. Starting now, you can post your High Score in the Dark Side table on the internet! Go to WorldScores to see how you do compared to others and to see a 10 Ten list. I see there is already some competition. If you are wondering, "Dopefish" with the high score is Apogee's Joe Siegler. Troubleshooting/Bugs: Note: Balls of Steels requires a resolution of 800x600. If your video card or monitor does not support it, BOS will not run.
For more on pinball games, visit The Tower of Pin. For more on Balls of Steel, continue on to my BOS page for info on the shareware and registered tables.
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12-11-97
Balls of Steel Shareware Tomorrow --
What's this? A release date? :) It's true, forget Quake II! -- After years in the making, Wildfire's Balls of Steel will be released. This will make Pinball Wizards' first release, and will put something in the Apogee history books (or FAQs).
The shareware version that will be released tomorrow will contain one table called Dark Side. We'll see if Wildfire didn't sneak any Zoo, Park, or Happy Land themes in the game :)
Balls of Steel should be very competitive for the players since users will be able to post their High Score on the internet. Who said you can't have multiple players competing against each other in a Pinball game? This will also be the first Windows game from Apogee/Pinball Wizards.
Where to download? Keep checking PinballWizards.COM for the shareware, it will be there first. Be sure to check out my own Balls of Steel page too! Once the game is out, I'll be adding more content to the page to help all you pinball fans out there.
Other news -- Doug Howell's excellent Xenophage FAQ has been updated once again. I thought he had everything there is to say about the game, but I was wrong. The "Official" Xenophage FAQ v1.2 is now released.
Speaking of all these FAQ updates, where is the Prey FAQ v1.2? Look for that in January.
12-8-97
The ultimate Apogee reference, The Official Apogee FAQ has been brought up to date. The last update was 8 months ago. This release (v6.2) has mostly misc updates and adds a Voice Chart showing who did the voice talent for some of the games. If you want to know who said "Eat Lead!" in ROTT, this is where to look. The major feature of this update is the new HTML version on Sam Stoddard's web site.
Ages in Time, from Mystique has been released, and it is one of the largest TCs ever made for Duke Nukem 3D. It requires the Atomic Edition, and it is like a whole new game, for free!
12-5-97
Balls of Steel update:
A video bug has been found in BOS delaying its release. The Wildfire team is working on this problem right now that only effects some users. It looks like we will still see BOS before xmas.
The registered version that was shipped out to the plant also included this bug. It sounds like the duplication might be put on hold, or they might proceed and later release a patch.
11-30-97
Apparently, the Duke Nukem 3D Kill-A-Ton Collection has been showing up in stores. Rob Brown found a copy for $40 at a local software store in Washington. That's a great deal for the first three games plus all the addons for Duke 3D. Rob also mentioned that it comes on three CDs.
11-27-97
Some good downloads:
11-26-97
The origonal shareware games publisher, Apogee Software is 10 Years old today. It's hard to believe that Apogee has been around that long, since 1987. Joe Sielger decided to write a bit about the aniversery here:
Today is a landmark day in the industry. Today is what has been
decided as the 10 year anniversary of the birth of Apogee.
On November 26, 1987, Scott Miller submitted the first episode
of Kroz to Softdisk. Scott had been doing games for some time,
but this is regarded as the "Birth of Apogee". An awful lot of
what is happening today in this industry, both the Dallas scene,
and the (er) larger people is a direct result of this action
10 years ago.
Personally, I owe a lot to Scott, as he was real nice to me 5
years ago when I moved to Dallas to take this job, and is still
nice to me all these years later (Hell, 5 years anywhere in
this industry is ancient history). My actual 5 year anniversary
here is December 14th.
Balls of Steel Update
Yes, the final code is in the hands of Joe Sielger, and he will release the shareware soon.
I found out that Balls of Steel full version passed the final
QA testing at GT, and it's gone off for mass duplication and
shipment to stores. Yay!
Just some final tweaking to the shareware table (which is
Darkside), and then that will be released. That should still
be out before the full version hits the shelves.
11-19-97
The news we have been waiting for!
Balls of Steel is final. I've been given "final code", and today, I'm shipping off a CD to GT for final QA testing. Assuming it passes that, then it's off to mass duplication, and then we put together and release the shareware episode. There's still a decent chance it will be out before Thanksgiving.
However, as usual, remember to check out the "When it's done" sign hanging on the wall. :)
11-15-97
Scott Miller updated his plan with the status of Balls of Steel:
Balls of Steel is basically done, and has been done for weeks, except for a driver problem that affects about 20% of the machines we tested. Once we get the fix from Sci-Tech we'll send the gold master to GTIS, and we'll upload the shareware version. We've spent the extra time polishing the game even further.
11-3-97
Pinball Wizards' first release, Balls of Steel, is imminent! I've been informed that Wildfire is awaiting updated drivers from Sci Tech for the video portion of the game. Once that is set, a final version will be compiled, possibly playtested, and released in shareware and registered forms. The registered version is continuing with internal testing and documentation writing.
In other news, the 3Dfx Patch for Shadow Warrior has dropped support for the Voodoo Rush due to poor performance. There is a chance we will see the patch this weekend.
10-29-97
I'm back! The reason why I seemed to disappear the last few weeks is, after four years I have upgraded my trusty 486. I bought a P150 (Overclocked it to 166Mhz), 32 MB SDRAM, 4.3 GB Maxtor DMA/33 Hard Drive, and a Diamond Viper V330 (Based on the nVIDIA RIVA 128). It took a while to get everything up and running and installing everything after a format. Then I had to play all the new games that I've been wanting to get my hands on for so long :)
What's been up at Apogee the last few weeks:
Balls of Steel Shareware is near release! Pinball Wizard's first pinball simulator is about ready for the public. Keep checking Pinball Wizard's site.
I have found some great information on BOS from a major pinball site, The Tower of Pin.
The site includes two interviews too! The first interview is with Scott Miller. That interview includes this very intersesting quote of the future of Pinball Wizards:
"We're working on the possibility of licensing several arcade themes currently, and after that deal is done we'll begin to think about the next project. We're not in a big rush here. ;)"
The second interivew is from Joel Finch, a developer from Wildfire! This interview asks mostly the same questions as the first interview.
And if you want to talk to other die hard Pinball fans, go to the IRC server irc.citenet.net, and join #Pinball. There are meetings weekly at 9:00PM EST.
In other news, anyone can now see the "Shareware" version of the Shadow Warrior Novel. The link brings you to Chapter 1 of For Dead Eyes Only.
10-8-97
Six Voodoo Shadow Warrior screenshots can be seen on Apogee's new "News Page"
According to Scott Miller, the first three games in the Duke Nukem series will be re-released in time for Christmas this year. It is titled, "Duke Nukem Kill-o-Ton Collection." I'll have more on this soon.
10-1-97
A first for Apogee, one of their characters making the retail channel as an action figure. The Duke Nukem action figure from Resaurus can now be ordered! The cost is $12.99 U.S.
A porcelain limited edition Duke Nukem Statue can also be preordered now. Only 8500 are being made, and this is a special collectors offer. It costs $100 and can be bought from Moore Creations at 512-219-7297.
Joe Siegler had this Balls of Steel Update in his plan:
We just got another update of BOS from the team in Australia. It's looking real good, and I'm making a final push to get the help file done. This is the first Windows Help file I've ever made, so it's a learning experience. I've been doing the tech files for all of our games since Bio Menace. That was the first game of ours to have one (I thought of the idea).
Anyway, about BOS, it's close, should be out soon, if all goes well, but don't forget to take a good look at the "When it's done" sign on the wall.
There's a bunch of help programs out there, but the one I'm using is "HelpScribble". It's cheap compared to a lot of the other ones out there, and it does the job.
9-28-97
Max Payne: Remedy has started a "development update page" for Max Payne, like the ones Joe Sielger has made for other games. Remedy also posted the first image of Max Payne himself, on the right.
Duke Nukem Action Figure: Resaurus has released some new images of the weapons, including The Devastator The Freeze Thrower.
SW Map Editing FAQ v1.1: For all you Builders and editors, Jonah Bishop's FAQ to get you through all those editing troubles has been released. Download it here.
9-26-97
There is a very well written article about Apogee Software and Scott Miller on Inside Games. It talks about the shareware Apogee Model, brand names, and some of the history of Apogee and Scott Miller.
Lee Jackson updates us on Balls of Steel in his .plan:
Another Balls of Steel recording session is done, and the files are out the door. Just a few final additions to the voices prior to Wildfire finishing up the project.
I've yanked the MIDI file from my .plan to prevent user irritation. It may have sounded cool at first, but trust me - you'll get tired of it if you hear it enough.
9-20-97
- Commander Keen FAQ v2.0
Bill Amon has updated the Keen FAQ to v2.0 after a few years. The FAQ has gone over a major rewrite to include sections on how to run the game under Win 95 and walkthroughs. Please look at it if you have any questions or problems with Commander Keen.
- Balls of Steel Development Update
Scott Miller has posted a long awaited update about the development of BOS. Here it is:
Short update: The game is mostly done. However, we were not happy with the quantity of voices in some of the tables (too many empty places during the action) so we're making another trip to the recording studio to get more voice takes to fill in the holes. This will add another two to three weeks, unfortunately, but at least it'll be done right. We've still not seen a PC pinball game released that matches the fun in ours, so we're not going to rush this thing out.
And here is what Scott added in his finger:
* Balls of Steel is oh so close. We're just going back to the recording studio to get some more voices to fill in some missed gaps, and then this puppy will be set free. There's no doubt in my mind that's it's the best PC pinball package yet, and the Duke Nukem 3D table itself is nothing short of brilliant. Here's one cool thing from the Duke table: collect the scuba gear power-up for the underwater mission, with floating mines to destroy. Each table has great missions, great in-game animations, blood and gore, voice effects galore, and many secrets. Sure it's just pinball, but you've never played it like this. ;)
Finally, Wildfire has posted an interview with Duke Nukem on their web site(Like the one with Lo Wang before Shadow Warrior's release).
- An IRC interview with George Broussard can be viewed here. George answers questions about DN Forever, Prey, and misc. But the highlight was when George gave out the first screenshot of Duke Nukem Forever!
9-15-97
Scott Miller said this in his .plan today correcting what he said before about the patent:
Talked to our attorney about the certified letter we got from Ernest Kettelson, representing the lame video game patent. It was not a law suit, it was a threat that a suit may be coming. I've been advised to go "radio silent" on this from now on. We've got an incredible case against this lawsuit: Our games don't violate it, whether it's valid our not, and if he sues we'll simply request the judge quickly dismiss it based on this fact. Should be an easy and cheap victory if it goes that far.
9-14-97
The patent creator and his attorney are not giving up. Now they are filing a law suit against Apogee Software. This means Apogee and Earnest Kettelson are going to court over the patent that he says Apogee software as violated. "This is war now!" says Scott Miller in his plan update.
Shadow Warrior Registered Shipping! Some better news, there have been reports that Shadow Warrior is showing up in stores around the US.
In other news, the Adrenaline Vault has interviewed Keith Schuler, Matthew Wood, and Stephen Cole in a Level Desgin article. Here are some intersesting portions showing some history of Paganitzu:
AV: What were you doing before you got started designing levels?
Keith: Apogee hired me as an external game developer while I was still in high school. Back then, I was responsible for all aspects of the game, not just levels. I developed Paganitzu and Realms of Chaos almost entirely by myself. Sometime during the development of Realms, it became impossible for a solo developer to be competitive in the games market, so I moved to Garland, Texas, and became a salaried, in-house employee working on level designs full-time.
AV: How did that first job offer come about?
Keith: This is my favorite anecdote. When I was 14 or 15, I created a couple board game programs and released them as shareware. A company called Softdisk took note of one of my games and called me to see if I had anything they might want to publish. As it turned out, I was working on a puzzle game called Chagunitzu, so I sent them an alpha and they agreed to publish it. Once they published the game, I soon received a letter from a young boy asking me the usual fan questions about the game. I had received such letters before, and usually didn't respond, but this time I decided to go ahead and send back a reply. A few days later I got a phone call from Scott Miller, president of Apogee. It turns out he had written the letter under an alias and mailed it to me via Softdisk, and needed my response in order to get my address and phone number. He commissioned me to do a sequel to Chagunitzu, which later came to be known as Paganitzu.
9-11-97
Shadow Warrior Registered: For those of you that preordered, the retail version should be coming to your house in a few days. The retail version will also be in stores next week. Remember, until Oct 1st, there is a special $35 price (including shipping) when you call 1-800-APOGEE1 to order Shadow Warrior. -- More on the SW Development Page
Shadow Warrior VooDoo: 3Dfx Interactive is working on the VooDoo Graphics version of the game. In about two weeks this can be downloaded for those of you with the registered version free of charge.
Shadow Warrior 2: Jim Norwood confirmed in an interview, done by UnrealNation, that there will be a sequel to Shadow Warrior. Jim explained that he would start a new gaming company in Seattle and develop Shadow Warrior 2 with a new engine, character, and ideas. Apogee does not seem interested in any more Shadow Warrior games, so it will not be done under Apogee or 3D Realms. Jim Norwood wants to do the Shadow Warrior he originally wanted to create, and this is his chance. It will be a 1999 game, and will not feature Lo Wang.
Balls of Steel: Not much new in the development of Pinball Wizards' BOS. It's in Beta #4 right now, and is almost final.
Randy Pitchford: A few months ago, Randy Pitchford (A Shadow Warrior mapper) quietly left 3D Realms. Since then he joined some other developers and started a new company called RebelBoatRocker. Randy now talks about what happened in an interview done by Steve Gibson of Ritual. Here is an excerpt with the big question:
Steve:
Why did you leave 3dRealms?
Randy:
Wow, this is a toughie. As many have noticed, Apogee/3dRealms isn't really known for holding onto their talent. I guess my case was no different than that of id software's, Terminal Reality's or even Hipnotic's. If I had a nickel for every $10,000 made by ex-Apogee employee's since they left, I'd have a pretty heavy wallet. I guess I've kind of avoided the question. The bottom line was, I wasn't happy at 3dRealms and it was best that I moved on. As part of a settlement with 3dRealms, though, I've agreed "to keep confidential my respective views regarding the factual basis for the Disagreements." legal stuff, cool.
9-3-97
As expected, the patch for Shareware Shadow Warrior v1.1 -> v1.2 has been released. This upgrade fixes bugs and adds Water/Boss Meters, and more. A complete "What's New" document has yet to be released. sw12swpt.exe (1100k)
9-2-97
Shadow Warrior shareware v1.2 will be released tomorrow. This patch will include all of the bug fixes that are in the registered, and bring the shareware version number up to the registered.
Some Balls of Steel release date news. I have been informed that the registered version of BOS will be completed before the shareware version is put online. Here is the schedule:
- 2 - 3 Weeks: Registered version done and shipped off to GT Interactive
- 3 - 4 Weeks: Shareware version done and released.
- 5 - 6 Weeks: Registered version shipping to stores and direct orders.
As you can see, Pinball Wizards wants the retail version of the game available very soon after the shareware.
9-1-97
Three new developers have been hired by Apogee. Mark Morgan and Chris Hargrove are going to the Duke Nukem Forever team. John Anderson is going to the Prey team. Still waiting on the announcement for the second hire on the Prey team. Read the Press Release from Apogee for more.
There is a new web site in town dedicated to the division on Apogee, 3D Realms Entertainment. It is called 3D Portal, and brings news about the company and their games. It is run by Chris Day (the person who maintains Dukeworld.com) 3D Portal is run by the same people who brought you Elite Games. There is also a press release announcing the site. The press release includes this:
Preyground (http://www.preyground.com), will provide information on 3D Realms' upcoming game, called Prey. Preyground will be run by Lon Matero, a long time follower of 3D Realms, and will be one of the most comprehensive Prey sites on the web.
It looks like my Prey page has found a new home. :) It's not "officially" online yet, but should be soon once I get everything sorted out.
Lastly, Joe Siegler asked me to mention his tribute page to Princess Diana. It can be accessed from Joe Siegler's homepage. Joe set up a guestbook that you can sign you name in. Joe will eventually send this list to the family to Princess Diana.
8-25-97
You may have seen some advertising of Game Gateway, a gaming site from Concentric Network, on Apogee's web site. Game Gateway is also listed under Apogee's partners. I asked Scott Miller what all of this was about, his response was, "They're simply providing us email services in exchange for advertising."
8-22-97
I just got word that the final version of Shadow Warrior has been completed and the master CD has been shipped off to GT Interactive! Almost four years in the making, the game is finally finished, and the Shadow Warrior team is relieved. The only part of the game not finished is the 3Dfx upgrade for the game. This patch should be ready for download by the time the game ships.
What happens next? The master CD will be duplicated (GT Interactive will handle this), packaged, and first shipped to anyone who has preordered. Retail versions will also be shipped to software stores and vendors all over the country and later, world. You will be able to buy the game for around $40 US in a store. Shadow Warrior will enter stores sometime in September.
8-17-97
Shadow Warrior is in Beta #3 and testing is continuing with nothing major found. The Shadow Warrior team is now just fixing bugs and preparing for Duke Nukem Forever. 3Dfx support is still being worked on.
Balls of Steel is in Beta #2 and is also almost completed. BOS will be relased after the full version of SW, so there will be no shareware version on the Shadow Warrior CD.
You may have heard of a person and patent that is threating Apogee Software to stop selling their games that include video of real people/animals. It looks like we don't have to worry much about it, Apogee will not stop the release of games like Shadow Warrior because of this. The legal stuff has to be sorted out. Read Apogee's Press Release.
8-9-97
Sorry for the lack of updates, but I have been busy finishing my new Prey site. I have been working on the complete redesign for a few months (on and off) now, and it is finally online.
Now that the Prey page is finished, I am thinking of doing a Duke Nukem site next covering Duke 1-4, ports, action figures, novels, and the movie. Good idea?
In other news, the BOS Development Page has been updated with this message:
All the tables are basically done now, except for polishing adjustments that come from play testing. The Duke Nukem 3D table was the last to be be completed, and it is an amazing feat with effects (which I won't spoil now by talking about them) that have not been seen on other tables. These effects are activitated when Duke collects the one or more power-ups, such as the scuba gear, night vision goggles, Holoduke and steriods. Along with these power-ups there are many missions and two video panel games. overall, an amazingly fun and varied tables.
The last task to finish is adding in all the voices, which should take less than a week or two, and then all the content will be complete.
Work has also begun on such things like the install program, and the help files...
We're very, very close... :)
8-2-97
Shadow Warrior gets another negitive article, this time in PC World. Amy Ng writes her comments on the game.
8-1-97
Action Figure News - Planet DNF has got a hold of a preliminary sketch of the Duke Nukem Action Figure. It can be viewed here. Planet DNF also has a lot of exclusive information on the figure. I congratulate them for digging all of this up.
7-31-97
George Broussard mentioned that him and Scott Miller wanted to do this some day a few months ago, and it has been done! The History or Apogee has been posted on Apogee's Web Site. Much of what was said in this document was mentioned by Scott Miller in a Real Audio interview two months ago. (Which I can't find right now)
Joe Siegler updated is finger account with a message that he was angry about some people stealing the design of his site. From experience, it's hard to avoid it when you have a popular site. Joe Siegler, would you like to post the URLs to these web sites stealing your design?
7-24-97
George Broussard came on IRC and had this to say about some Duke Nukem Forever questions:
I'd like to address a small issue here: "Why aren't there any Duke Forever shots online?" "Why didn't you show at E3?"
1) There is simply no benefit in our showing shots for the game this early. I DO NOT want to start hyping the game a year before. That dilutes interest over the long haul.
2) We're been focusing on game design and r&d 100% of the time, with little thought or care to art.
3) The artists have been on other projects while we nail down the Duke Forever design.
4) Duke Forever has nothing to prove. I'd prefer to let the other 3D games fight it out in screen shots while we work
The ONLY reason Prey was at E3 was 1) to show people it wasn't dead...and kill that lame rumor and 2) to get press excited in the next generation of technology..which they did. Duke Forever had no business being at E3, as it's not going to be out in the next 6 monthsWe've been working on Duke gameplay, instead of making it purdy ;)
3DRealms has released the first screenshots of registered Shadow Warrior since earlier this year! Five new screenshots show the new levels. Weapons and Enemies pages were added to the Shadow Warrior page also.
The Adrenaline Vault now has an Apogee forum! For talk about any of Apogee's games, be sure to top by and write a message.
Apogee officially announced their upcoming game, Max Payne today in this press release.
7-19-97
This was said in a news update from the Adrenaline Vault:
SciTech Software today announced it has licensed its proprietary SVGA device driver technology to Apogee Software for distribution with Apogee's new game Balls of Steel, expected to be released this month. If you aren't familiar with it, this technology works automatically detecting a user's installed SVGA graphics hardware and upgrading it to the latest industry standards. This will insure that Balls of Steel will run at optimal performance within a variety of different graphics hardware configurations.
7-18-97
New Web Site Look
Apogee1.com and 3DRealms.com had their 2nd major makeover today. This is what Joe Siegler said in today's Site Revisions:
Complete site rewrite put online. The layout is a 100% conversion from the old web site. Every page from the old site was coverted over the last week or so. As of right now, the entire site comprises 559 html pages (The Virtual Tour alone is about 180 of them). The new graphics were done by Brian Cozzens of 3D Realms. Brian did the basic site layout, and Joe Siegler did all the page conversion, as well as doing some of the layout along with George Broussard.
I think the new design looks great! Everything has been improved, including pages on each game.
Max Payne News
3D Realms has their Max Payne page online too today.
Remedy now have their Max Payne page online, and it now has a few screenshots including a picture of the comic showing the story of Max Payne(although you cannot read the text).
Also, I have been saying that Max Payne is using the SurRender 3D Engine. This has changed, Remedy is now using their own inhouse engine for the game.
According to Marketing Director, Samuli Syvahuoko, Remedy has another (3D?) game in development. This game will not be published through 3D Realms.
7-17-97
"ROTT in Hell" - An excellent article by Kevin "Fragmaster" Bowen covers the history, development, and in-depth details about Rise of the Triad. This article brought back a lot of memories about the game for me, and I'm sure it will for anyone who has played the game. This is the best article written describing the game, and how ROTT had countless "firsts" for 3D Action games.
Apogee's new web site should be online sometime today. 100% of the site has been redesigned.
Two Lo Wang novels should be in stores in two or three months. These novels were done by the same people as the doom novels. A shareware version (Chapter 1), could be added to the registered version of Shadow Warrior, or online.
7-16-97
August 1st, the Apogee Forum (Go Apogee), on AOL is closing it's doors. This is because AOL was going to start charging Apogee to have the forum online. Bad news for everyone on AOL. But, the forum on CompuServe is saying!
QuakeCon 97 has started, and a few of the employees at Apogee may stop by. Many employees from other Dallas gaming companies will be going, and people from the Quake community.
The Duke Nukem action figure looks like it will be in stores by Christmas! I heard it is about 6 inches tall and there have been some prototypes made. I don't know the name of the company making the action figure, but it is the same company that made the Lost World line.
A small Max Payne page is up. Describing the game a little.
I have also added the link to the "Beta Bios Page" -- This site holds biographies, like the Bios on Apogee1.com, for the Official Beta Testers for Apogee.
7-13-97
Balls of Steel is getting closer to being finished! Scott Miller will be doing regular updates on the Balls of Steel Development Update page telling us the progress of the game. In the last update, Scott says, "More updates coming in a week or two... We fully expect the shareware version to be released by late August."
Shadow Warrior is also coming along with a goal to freeze the code August 1st. Then beta testing will begin. The game may reach stores by September. One highly awaited feature we will probably see is support for 3Dfx. MMX is another possibility.
In other news, Scott Miller speaks out about Blood and Ruins (Powerslave) in his finger. He explains why these projects were canceled and how Apogee should be involved in games.
3D Realms (knee deep in Duke ports, Shadow Warrior development and Prey development) and Monolith both agreed it'd be better for Blood's success to change the deal and remove 3D Realms out of the creative loop. This allowed them to focus totally on Blood, and allowed us to focus more on the stuff we had going. Basically, the deal became a simple Build engine licensing deal for Monolith. (This is much like what happened with Ruins, another Build engine game, by Lobotomy Software, which became strictly a Lobotomy game and a Build engine license arrangement.)
We've learned here that you shouldn't try to be involved with too many games at a time because you'll lose focus and end up not doing anything really well. That's a big reason why we separated from both the Ruins and the Blood projects, and in the end Blood was a better game because it allowed both companies to really focus without distractions from the other company.
7-8-97
While John Galt, the man who is behind Lo Wang's voice, visited the Apogee offices, Joe Siegler took some pictures of him on the Shadow Warrior Development Update Page.
The pictures include a photo of John Galt and his famous son! :)
This is a picture of John signing a Shadow Warrior poster next to a monitor. The monitor seems to show a pinball table. Pinball Table from Balls of Steel? No, it's just a desktop picture.
Here is something for you Shadow Warrior fans. I found a preview from the now Games Domain of Shadow Warrior in 1994. Read this and see how the game has changed over the years.
7-3-97
Elliott Chin has written a column in Computer Gaming World saying that Shadow Warrior has racism all over it and that Shadow Warrior is a bad game because of it. Although I don't have the article, you can imagine how he goes after the character Lo Wang.
Because of these negative remarks, Apogee and Lo Wang himself are going to respond to it. Scott Miller and George Broussard have written a formal response, seen below. Lo Wang will tell us what he thinks in a few days on Apogee's Web site.
Dear Elliott Chin:
In the just-out August 1997 issue of Computer Gaming World magazine,
in your "Action" column, you attack 3D Realms, writing that "Shadow
Warrior's ignorant stereotypes are too offensive to stomach," and
"Shadow Warrior is a perfect example of a game that is patently
offensive in its racial humor and...shows great ignorance about its
very own subject matter."
You continue berating us, stating, "3D Realms didn't even try to
create an authentic or accurate Japanese, or East Asian, atmosphere.
Ninjas are Japanese, so why would the ninja hero be called Lo Wang,
which at best could be considered a dirty joke on a Chinese-sounding
name? And why would Lo Wang pick up fortune cookies to gain health?"
Our reply to all of your criticisms is simple: We designed the game
this way on purpose. In fact, we thought that our mixing of Asian
cultures was so outright obvious that no one could possibly
mistakenly think it was done from ignorance. As another reviewer of
the game wrote: "It's a slam-bang tribute to the chop-socky movies we
all grew up with." (From the Adrenaline Vault web site.)
I think you simply missed our point with this game. We are having
fun with the whole Asian culture, and we blatantly mixed up all the
elements and cultures to make a fun game. We're not trying to be
National Geographic here. It's not our goal to make an educational
game, nor a game that's necessarily accurate to our world's
conditions--certainly Duke Nukem 3D is not a realistic game!
In fact, we try to be controversial with our games, which is why we
put the mating rabbits in the game. It's why we use R-rated
language. It's why we had Lo Wang speak in dubbed-movie-like
English. (He can speak his native tongue, as well as three other
Asian languages, very fluently, as we discover in the soon-to-come
novels. It's just his English that is not so good.)
As for his name, how do you know that Lo Wang's character is not
Chinese? You wrongly assumed Lo Wang's character is Japanese simply
because the game takes place in our fictitious version of Japan. You
should not judge a person by his name alone. We would certainly not
have made any similar bold assumptions based on your name, and Lo
Wang, if real, would have expected the same from you.
We thoroughly disagree that we're being racist. That's stretching
this way too far. We're being stereotypical by design, but not
racist. Big difference. Does Redneck Rampage bother you, I wonder?
Surely it's just as stereotyped as Shadow Warrior. The same issue of
CGW wrote about Redneck Rampage: "With more gut-quivering belches and
cheek-slapping butt whistles than a good ol' boy bloated on chicken
fried steak..." What about the Superfly Johnson character from Ion
Storm's coming Daikatana? Talk about a stereotypical name for an
African-American! How about Tomb Raider's impossibly proportioned
Lara Croft? Where are your criticisms for these games?
Next time I recommend you take the time to give us a call and see
what our side of the story might be? A little fact checking and
background research never hurt anyone. (By the way, 3D Realms has a
space in it, and Blood is not a 3D Realms game as wrongly stated in
CGWQs review of Blood.)
We purposely design our games to garner the kind of controversy
you've given us. We love to see columns like yours written about
our games--if we don't see them then we've not done our job right.
We're not trying to please everyone with our games, driving the safe
road is not what we're about here.
Anyone we've offended has probably taken this game way too seriously.
If this game offends you or anyone, go play another game. We won't
mind.
Scott Miller
President, Apogee Software, Ltd.
George Brousard
President, 3D Realms Entertainment
Scott Miller had this to say in his .plan today:
* Looks like a Duke toy action figure is coming out for Xmas. We're meeting with the manufacturer next week to review what they've done so far (which is very cool--their whole positioning is based on *quality*, and they did the Lost World action line). We're also going to have them help us design some very unusual characters for Duke Nukem Forever, both for the game and more action figure toys.
6-25-97
A General Update of Apogee's Games
Balls of Steel - Pinball Wizards' first game looks like it will be finished this summer giving us Apogee's first Windows 95 native game, which is a big step for Apogee. Apogee has been doing 100% DOS games for 10 years. BOS was shown at E3, and everyone has been saying that it is the best pinball game they have ever seen.
Shadow Warrior - The registered version is being worked on full time by the Shadow Warrior team. Still looks like an August or September shipping date. I wonder how many pre-orders for Shadow Warrior are coming in.
Max Payne - The word is out on Remedy's game, and it has been getting good words back from previewers. The game was announced at E3, but there are no official web pages on the game yet.
Prey - This is the game that has been getting the most attention the last few days. Check my Prey page for it all.
Duke Nukem Forever - The game is surrounded by mystery, and little is known at this time.
6-24-97
Gameslice has done a preview on Max Payne from what they saw at E3. They have a good description on the game plus some nice screenshots of the demo.
I missed this in the release of Shadow Warrior - Scott Miller was on the Mark Shander Show 5-9-97. Here is the description: "Scott talks about the success and future of Apogee, 3D Realms, Pinball Wizards, Duke Nukem 3D and Prey, and even responds directly to a clip of The Levelord from The Mark Shander Show #112. Exciting stuff!"
Scott Miller updated his .plan about E3. Here he talks about Max Payne and Duke Nukem Forever:
* The news is out about Max Payne, being developed by Remedy
Entertainment (based in Finland--the team who created Death Rally).
Visit www.gamespot.com for a long preview of this game, including
screen shots. We have set our sights sky high with this project
and expect it to be a genre creator. This game is not signed with
a publisher yet, so until that happens we're not going to be saying
too much about it.
* Duke Nukem Forever didn't make a showing. First, it's still at
a stage where a lot of critical decisions are being made about it,
and second we didn't want to let the competition see many of the
incredible new innovations we already have in place. With Duke,
we don't need to build up the hype--it's already there. So we can
afford to keep the game in our back pocket during this stage of
its development. I expect by Xmas we'll crank the Duke hype into
high gear, but until that time news will be slow. Above all we don't
want Duke to be grouped into the current confusion of Quake-engine
games, so we'll let these other games battle it out for several
more months.
6-22-97
New Max Payne screenshots! I stole these from Gamecenter.com :)
Click on the links below to see these great pictures:
6-20-97
Max Payne
Gamecenter first broke the news yesterday at E3 that there will be a new 3D game from 3D Realms called Max Payne.
"It takes place in the
not-too-distant future in New York City. As a do-good cop with a bad attitude, Payne must
clear the streets of murderous mobsters, drug-enhanced killers, and an assorted variety of
other baddies." This was the description from the article on
Gamecenter of the game. The article also says this is a late 1998 game.
Who is making this game? What engine?
With the information given, this looks to be Remedy's 3D game using the SurRender 3D engine. To the right is an actual picture of the game in action. Notice the 3rd person view? That agrees with Remedy's game. A late 1998 game, again agrees. Max Payne will require a 3D card.
Well, that's all we know for now...
6-19-97
GT Interactive now has a Balls of Steel site on the web. An intersesting feature they mentioned was that your scores can be recored on www.highscore.com - saves and compares you to the world's best scores. There is even a Balls of Steel forum here. GT says that the release date for BOS is 08/29/97.
GT also has pages on Duke Nukem 64, Duke Nukem: Total Meltdown, and Shadow Warrrior.
E3 has started, and almost half of Apogee is there! Sneek speeks at Shadow Warrior and Prey will be shown.
6-13-97
Here is a nice little tidbit I found in a Press Release for Remedy's new 3D Benchmark, Final Reality:
"Co-operating with 3D Realms, Remedy is now working on its next title which is planned for release late next year."
Late 1998? This may fall under the same timeframe as Prey. This happened with Shadow Warrior and Blood, and we all know what happened to Blood. Apogee has already sold two 3D games.
6-10-97
Finally something happening with Pinball Wizards' Balls of Steel. AVault put up a preview, including screenshots, of the game today.
A surprise can be seen on 3D Realms' Duke Nukem 3D page showing something from an upcoming game. Go there and scroll to the bottom.
George Broussard also did a large plan update for his finger talking about many games. Click here to read it.
6-3-97
Duke Nukem is everywhere!
Hurry and grab your Sunday comics, because this was seen in it. Its the Fox Trot comic strip, and it features a game called "Duke Quakem" Connection? :)
I also saw this at PCM&E having to do with Duke Nukem:
GT Interactive has authorized Moore Creations, Inc. to produce a limited-edition, fully-painted, cold-cast porcelain figurine of Duke Nukem, the starring character of the 3D Realms hit Duke Nukem 3D. The collectable figurine will be released simultaneously with the Sony Playstation and Nintendo 64 version of Duke Nukem 3D this fall.
Another note. Ruben, who was announced as a new artist for Duke Nukem Forever, has a last name! It's Cabrera. :)
5-31-97
Shadow Warrior v1.1 Shareware Released!
Because of some compatibly problems and bugs, a patch to v1.1 has been released. Download it here. The patch does fix some things, but from my experience, still holds many of the major problems that came up in 1.0. The DOS bugs: loading and saving, game crashing. These still exist.
5-22-97
Scott Miller has updated his finger with some interesting information. Click here to read it. Scott talks about Prey and how Duke Nukem Forever will appear in PC Gamer UK. He also announced that the Duke Nukem Forever team is getting a new artist, Ruben.
Another thing that Scott mentions is an unannounced game to be officially announced in about two months. The game that Scott speaks of is most likely Dark Justice, from Remedy Entertainment, which I announced here April 21st, 1997.
5-13-97
Shadow Warrior v1.0 Shareware Released!
Go to http://www.apogee1.com/catalog/sw for the list of download sites. The game is being downloaded by the thousands by people around the world. The Shareware has 4 levels to try. More updates on my Shadow Warrior page.
Please join the fun at the Shadow Warrior Launch Party(#SWarrior on Undernet), the best place for updates.
5-5-97
Scott Miller announced today that Pocket Books, the people who made the Doom novel, will write and publish books based on characters from Apogee. There will be two books based on Duke Nukem, and two more on Lo Wang. I'm guessing 6 to 9 months before the Lo Wang books are finished. I'll keep you updated.
5-1-97
Fingers
A number of Apogee's employees now have finger addresses that can be accessed like many other companies have done. Apogee now has a fingers page where they can be accessed.
Awards - Duke Nukem 3D has won the "Best Action Game" award at CDGC for the second year in a row! Look at the press release on the award and the reaction by Apogee.
BDP - A large group of people, named BDP, have created the largest Duke Nukem 3D Total Conversion to date called, The Gate. It is 24 level, replacing four episodes and includes some new weapons and enemies. It requires the Atomic Edition of Duke3D and is a 16 MB download. And the best thing is, it's free! For more, see BDP's web site.
4-28-97
Apogee and GT Interactive Officially announce Duke Nukem Forever
As promised, two press releases were posted today announcing the 4th Duke Nukem game, Duke Nukem Forever. Surprisingly, the dropped side scroller was never mentioned as being 'Duke Nukem Forever' previously. The first press release from GT Interactive tells about cooperation of three major companies to bring us the game. The 2nd press release is from 3D Realms telling about why the Quake II engine was chosen instead of the Prey engine.
4-25-97
Duke Nukem Forever using id software's Quake 2 Engine!
George Broussard confirmed today that the next Duke Nukem game will be using the Quake 2 engine. Because the Quake 2 engine was more complete then the Prey engine at the time, it was chosen. Quake has been to many people "The engine without the game," now 3D Realms has their hands on the engine and will create the game around it - with the character we all know. The press release telling all about this is still planned for Monday.
Apogee announced that the new artist, Brian Cozzens, will be joining the Duke Nukem Forever team. Also, in a press release today, we see the official list of team members, which is listed here:
4-24-97
Apogee now has a set in stone date for when the major announcement that I have been talking about for months will happen.
Monday, April 28th, 1997 -- About 8:00 AM Central (Apogee) Time
The press release will tell some details about the game, including what engine the game will use. From what I've been through, I could not find out any details about this game for months, talking to many different sources. This must be something very important if everyone is forced not to say a word about the game. GT Interactive has been working together with Apogee for this announcement, so expect it to be big. Where to look? The Official Duke Nukem Forever page at Apogee is where the press release will be posted Monday. Here is the URL: http://www.3drealms.com/catalog/duke4/
4-22-97
I have something else to add about the future games from Remedy. One of the two games in development is currently called, "Dark Justice." This game will be a 3rd person view game like Tomb Raider. Thanks to David Laprad and Sam Stoddard for this.
Update on the large Duke Nukem Forever announcement. It looks like we will see it Thursday or Friday of this week. Keep your eyes open!
4-21-97
The future of Remedy and Apogee
Two years ago a group of people in Finland joined together to form Remedy Entertainment and to make Death Rally, published by Apogee in 1996. Here is what Joe Siegler had to say when talking about Death Rally: "We're doing some more games with the same guys."
What are these games that Apogee will publish for Remedy? I asked Managing Director, Samuli Syvähuoko, of Remedy. "Two projects are being developed here, and both are looking very good. Estimated release dates are after summer '98."
These two projects are 3D games and Remedy is using a licensed engine from Hybrid Ltd, called SurRender 3D. Hybrid is also a Finnish company. Along with using SurRender 3D, Remedy is developing their own 3D game engine for their future games. Remedy will not be licensing their in-house engine.
By putting this together, it seems that Remedy is currently creating two titles to be published under the 3D Realms label. So far Apogee has said nothing about this other than 'we are working with Remedy.'
New Artist joins Apogee!
Brian Cozzens, formally of Ion Storm, has been hired to work for Apogee as an artist. He will be working on Duke Nukem Forever or Prey.
Duke Nukem Movie
George Broussard has said that a major movie company is close to signing a deal that would put Duke Nukem in the Movie Theaters. It sounds like a movie may be a reality! I do not know the name of the company signing this deal.
4-19-97
The Official Apogee FAQ v6.1 has been released including a list of what companies had to do with each Apogee game and the Stargunner cheats that are in high demand.
Some Duke Nukem news. Novels containing our heroes, Duke Nukem and Lo Wang have been approved. These novels will be written(authors not known yet) about the characters, not the games. Looks for more here when I get it.
Expect a big Duke Nukem Forever announcement soon. 3D Realms is working with GT Interactive for this. Shadow Warrior release date; doesn't look like a very good chance of making April anymore.
4-11-97
Stargunner Registered v1.1 Patch Released!
Today, Apogee released a patch for all you Registered Stargunner users. This patch is mostly minor bug fixes.
Download the Patch: sgr11pt.zip (3MB)
4-9-97
I saw that on GT Interactive's site that they have Balls of Steel listed to be released on June 3rd, 1997. I think that is a reasonable date. But the official date is still, "When it's done."
My Prey FAQ has been officialized and a new, updated version has been released. Check it out on my Prey page.
4-4-97
Duke Nukem Movie?
We might see a Duke Nukem movie in the future. Some people are throwing around ideas and it might go somewhere. If anything happens, I'll report it here.
4-3-97
In PC Gamer magazine, there is some incorrect information having to do with Apogee. April '97 (3DRealms .vs Hipnotic Article) Quote: "The main Duke programmers, Ken Silverman and Todd Replogle, are still with Apogee, working on a Duke sequel."
George Broussard told me that this is false and Ken Silverman is at college full time currently. Ken is not working on the 4th Duke Nukem game.
3-31-97
Currently, Shadow Warrior looks like a "Late April" release, and is currently in beta. For Balls of Steel, look for it this summer. Apparently, the Windows 95 port is causing a lot of problems in the game, delaying it.
Prey's main character's name has been released, it's Talon Brave. Also, I'm proud to say that my Prey page is 1 year old today! Updated Prey FAQ also coming soon. (I'll get you a copy, Joe Siegler.)
3-23-97
Adrenaline Vault interviews George Broussard
Yesterday, George Broussard was in another interview (which I was a part of). George reacts to what Hipnotic has been saying and tells us a little about the upcoming games. One thing from the interview that didn't get posted was this:
AV: How about another company licensing a engine to 3D Realms? (DN Forever hint, hint)
GB: No, we're set on doing our own engines for now...
What does this say? For Duke Nukem Forever, it's safe to say it will use an in-house engine, not something from another company. That narrows down the possibilities for engines that could be used in the game.
3-21-97
The Mark Shander Show -- Richard Gray Interview is here. He talks about himself and Apogee, grab it right here (6 MB). Scott Miller (President of Apogee) also reacts to the interview.
3-19-97
Another Richard Gray Interview coming...
This Friday on The Mark Shander Show, there will be a RealAudio interview tih Richard Gray (Levelord), from Hipnotic. Currently there is a preview with some clips from the full interview. (Unzip, run it in RealAudio)
3-18-97
The never ending Apogee and Hipnotic battle...
I found two interviews, one with Richard Gray and one with Mark Dochtermann, both of Hipnotic Interactive on The New Vore Times. In both interviews they commented about Apogee Software. There are some excerpts from the interviews:
Richard Gray:
FM: How many times did you swear when you saw that line in the first 3DRealms press release that said something kinda like: "Richard Gray was brought in midway to help main level designer, <Forgot who it was>. Richard Gray only contributed one level to the shareware version." They didn't mention that you did a lot of registered levels, especially the real cool ones did they? :)
LL: ...it bums me incredibly! I know that they're pissed for me just picking up and leaving. I wasn't completely happy there and I had a great opportunity to join these dudes here, ...shit happens. I will always be indebted to Apogee for getting me started, but I will never forgive them for not giving me credit for my work. You may not know, and this is obviously *my* side of the story, but there's alot of levelord in the Plutonium Pack, too. "Pig Sty", my favorite level, BTW, is all mine except that the hanging jury near the exit was hanging monks when I left. It's got someone else's name on it, though, and my heart is truly broken. "Stacy's XXX" is mostly mine, and "Shop-n-Drop" was a good level when I left, ...don't like it much now, though. The real heartbreak is that I wish I was still at Apogee; it could be a great company. We had a great time making Duke and it's a real shame that the team, a true pantheon it was, is now mostly split up.
FM: What is your relationship with 3DRealms now?
LL: ...not good.
Mark Dochtermann:
FM: Allright, I'll get to big question right now: What do you think about 3DRealms press release stating "Duke Nukem 3D should not be on their (Hipnotic's) resume, except as a footnote."
MARKD: Go open a Duke Nukem 3D manual, see that picture? Now go look in the credits. DN3D was made by a talented group of individuals which I am proud to say I was part of. My fondest memory of the whole experience was the fact that I was working on DN3D the day before my wedding fixing the last 3 bugs (which weren't mine) in the Duke executable.
FM: Another quote from the press release "The two Hipnotic programmers had minimal involvement with Duke Nukem 3D, contributing several modules such as the setup utility, sound code drivers and external device drivers, mostly code that had previously been written for Rise of the Triad". Well, according to ROTT's credits, you and Jim Dose where two of the four programmers yet they make it sound as if you just ripped the modules out of ROTT and stuffed them in Duke? Comments?
MARKD: When a child whines he is asking for attention. If you ignore the child long enough, eventually he will stop whining.
FM: What are your feelings\relationship with 3Drealms now?
MARKD: I just went over there the other day. Everyone was really friendly and I gave them a copy of our Quake pack. Unfortunately after my visit, I was permanently banned from visiting them again.
What does Apogee say about this? They don't want to talk about it anymore.
3-15-97
Two exclusive Prey screenshots on my Prey Page.
3-14-97
More on Hipnotic and Apogee...the battle continues
Richard Gray(Levelord), of Hipnotic, apparently posted some comments on his finger address, addressed to George Broussard, but later took out George's name. Here it is (sorry for the language):
"Two of the places were playing the Plutonium Pack and I was really bummed because some fucking assholio took my name off my levels therein. "Pig Sty", no matter what that rancid bastard says, is 99 and 44/100's percent Levelord... ...only the Haging Jury sprites at the exit were changed. "Stacy's XXX" is mine and, if the dickweed himself hadn't screwed it up so much, I'd say that "Shop-n-Drop" was mine, too. Ya, let's talk about steeling credit, fuckface."
Where did I get this? George Broussard himself saw this on Richard's finger and relayed it to me. Here is the IRC log of him talking about it.
3-13-97
Mark Dochtermann, of Hipnotic Interactive, and former Apogee employee, has this to say in his finger today:
[03/13/97 10:35 AM]
- A few days ago I went and visited my friends at 3D Realms. It seems
that I upset a few people while I was there. I just wanted to take this
time and tell you how sorry I am for doing this. I know that my
hipnotizing powers are formidable and that sometimes I just can't help
using them in public. This won't happen in the future, since I was
forever banned. Sleep well 3D Realms, I will use my hipnotizing powers
from now on only for good.
- Did I mention I got banned from 3D Realms?
Also check out the exclusive Shadow Warrior screenshots on my SW Page.
3-10-97
The Apogee .vs Activision fray is not over yet! For the second time, Activision claimed to have most of the Duke Nukem 3D team working for Hipnotic. Plus they are saying they core members of the Rise of the Traid and Prey. Apogee responded to this by putting out a lengthy press release with comments directly from the Duke Nukem 3D team. I feel this is not over yet...
It looks like 3D Realms will make an announcement about Duke Nukem Forever in about two weeks. The largest question right now is what engine the game will use, and we will hopefully know in two weeks.
3-9-97
New news about the next Duke Nukem game, called Duke Nukem Forever.
Saw some interesting stuff... this is what George Broussard said, "...the next Duke will be out before Prey." With that said, I don't think the next Duke Nukem game would be using the Prey engine. Prey has had a little head start, and how can another game get started and be finished before Prey? Will DN Forever be using an enhanced Build engine? Expect answers soon...
George Broussard comments on the canceling of the Duke Nukem Sidescroller:
"There is NO market for scrollers in the US. They suck sales wise. A good 3D game like Duke or SW can sell a million copies. No way a side scroller can. Simple economics with the scroller. Plus now we can focus more on new Duke game and Prey. PC players demand more than a scroller (no matter how good). We gave it all the chances we could. We though Duke char would make a difference. Really didn't..." - George Broussard
It looks like it's the end of side scrollers for Apogee Software, always known for them.
3-7-97
Duke Nukem 4 (Side Scroller) Project Canceled!
Bad news for Duke Nukem fans, there will not be a new side scroller of Duke Nukem. Formally known as Duke Nukem Forever, DN4 was a project started in 1996 by an out of house team under the name Apogee. The game will not go on to another company, it is the end of the game. It is unknown of the details why the side scroller was dropped.
What happens next? Since the 4th Duke Nukem game has been dropped, the 5th Duke Nukem game will be taking it's place. Along with now being the 4th Duke game, it will also take the name Duke Nukem Forever(currently). The next 3D Duke Nukem game will be done inhouse by the same team that developed Duke Nukem 3D. This game will use technology similar to Prey.
Take a look at the new updates on the Shadow Warrior page. With the release of Blood, things have been very busy everywhere. There have been some large debates on what game is better, Duke3D or Blood..I've seen mixed stories. George Broussard says "No Comment" about Blood :)
3-5-97
Joe Siegler made a visit to IRC after not visiting in about a month. A Shadow Warrior level designer, Steve Cole, also stopped by IRC yesterday. Nothing much else happening in the world of Apogee Software...
3-2-97
Stephen Cole and Keith Schuler, two Shadow Warrior level designers came to IRC and dropped by #SWarrior this morning at 3:00 AM.
Activision and Hipnotic respond to Apogee:
In an article from PCGamer, they contacted both Activision and Hipnotic. Here is what they had to say:
"It's obvious that both Activision and Hipnotic are both trying to capitalize on the tremendous success of Duke Nukem 3D for their own good," says Miller. "It appears that Hipnotic is claiming a much bigger role in Duke's success to increase their status, value and clout in the industry. It looks like Activision and some of the news media swallowed the bait whole."
Miller offers some clarification on the Hipnotic team: "Five members left Apogee to found Hipnotic, comprised of a level designer, two programmers, and two non-developers (they worked in our graphics layout department, making ads, manuals, flyers and retail boxes)."
2-28-97
First of all, visit my Shadow Warrior and Prey pages for updates on those games. The largest thing that happened this week is Hipnotic's claim to having "core" members of 3D Realms' Duke Nukem team. Five members of Apogee left to Apogee, but in reality, two were advertisers, two more were Prey programmers, and just one was a level designer for Duke 3D. Hipnotic is trying to say that they have most of the Duke3D team and their company, and Apogee is trying to say this is not true. See the Press Release.
Secondly, Undernet's #Duke3D channel has been seeing many more Apogee employees lately. Scott McCabe, the new Prey artist, has been seen a few times. Along with Randy Pitchford, who joined Apogee last fall, now working on Shadow Warrior and Prey designing levels. Stop by and join in!
Finally, two new 3D Model Artists have joined Apogee in the last few days. They will most likely be working with Prey. I have more on my Prey page.
2-24-97
The Official Apogee FAQ v6.0 Released!
Samuel Stoddard got back into the Apogee FAQ after taking over a year off from the outdated document. The Apogee is the ultimate source of information for the history of Apogee Software and all of it's games. If you have a question about one of Apogee's games, look in the FAQ first. The FAQ covers everything thinkable relating to Apogee and it's divisions.
In other news, Shadow Warrior is planned to enter beta sometime this week. I'm guessing a late March release of the shareware.
2-15-97
Terminal Velocity S3 Virge Patch Released!
"Looks 10 times better!" - Rob Brown
Terminal Velocity is now 3D Realms' first game to support a 3D card. This 350K download is worth it for registered Terminal Velocity owners. Thanks to Rob Brown for bugging me to get this up here :)
2-11-97
Stargunner v1.1 Shareware Patch Released!
Today, Apogee released a patch for Shareware Stargunner v1.0 to upgrade to v1.1. The patch is 486K, and you can download it here.
If you look at Apogee's Site, Joe Siegler added a little advertisement for my IRC channel on the Undernet. Take a look, and stop by #Duke3D!
2-9-97
Shadow Warrior page online!
For the last few weeks I have been working this Shadow Warrior site. Brad Wernicke of ELITEGAMES.COM selected me to head up the site. Take a look at it by clicking on the Shadow Warrior logo below.
Elitegames' Shadow Warrior Site
New Apogee Employee!
If you've ever downloaded the addon level pack, Layre for Duke Nukem 3D, the man who made it is now working for Apogee. Scott McCabe has been hired as a Graphic Artist for Prey and will be starting very soon. If you want to see some of his work, download Layre at Elitegames. Better get it fast, it's going to be gone in a week! Thanks to Brad Wernicke for letting me know!
2-4-97
Pinball Wizards Division Officially Announced!
Apogee has put out a Press Release stating that Pinball Wizards is now a part of Apogee Software.
Here is a portion of the press release about Apogee's "branding" idea
"Apogee, the pioneer of shareware games marketing, is now pioneering another games industry first: branding of games.
A brand is a way to focus on a smaller market, and deliver a focused image to consumers. This is exactly the purpose of Apogee's Pinball Wizards and 3D Realms brands (and potentially more to come). When a player hears about a new game from 3D Realms or Pinball Wizards they will know exactly what to expect.
Like our pioneering shareware marketing, we expect many companies to follow along with branded games in the future. "
And here is something interesting about Apogee's future:
"In the future, few if any games will be released under the Apogee name. We will instead funnel all releases through our highly specialized brands, and invent further brands as needed. The goal is for each highly specialized brand to become known as the leader within its particular genre."
If more and more divisions are created, how long is the title to this page going to be? :)
PinballWizards.com is now open! The BOS page that used to be at Apogee1.com has moved to it's new domain, appropriately named pinballwizards.com.
2-2-97
3D Realms is looking for two 3D Modelers/Animators for their upcoming 3D games. Here is the job description:
Creation of both high and low polygon-count models for upcoming 3D games like the "Duke Nukem 3D" sequel or "Prey." Ability to create a model, animate it and texture it as needed. Also, the ability to create cinematic animations for cut scenes during a game. You should also be able to create 2D game textures for 3D games (walls, floors, ceilings etc). The job pays a salary, PLUS royalties (which most game companies do not), as well as medical benefits.
Click here for more.
George Broussard stopped by #Duke3D yesterday, and said that if all goes well, #Duke3D will be advertised on Apogee's site to bring in more people into the channel! I'm excited! George also was looking at peoples reactions of LameDuke, which were mostly positive. Click here for Mike Duncan's log.
1-29-97
LAMEDUKE.ZIP IS OUT!! _____ Download it! ____ See 3D Realms' Page
It's the one year anniversary of Duke Nukem 3D shareware, and to celebrate it, 3D Realms is releasing a very old version of Duke Nukem 3D made in early 1994 called, LameDuke. Click here to see the title screen. So get ready to see some of Duke Nukem history and have fun! I'll get more about LameDuke here after I see it for myself.
Released at exactly 6:00 PM EST!
What I know about LameDuke:
I guess all my begging to Joe and George got through... :)
1-28-97
<D_Nukem> Joe...the morning of the 29th, how about uploading lameduke.zip for the 1 year anniversary of Duke3D?
<Dopefish> D_Nukem: Interesting idea. I'll mention it to george.
Click here for the log of Joe Siegler on IRC today.
<D_Nukem> Hmm....I wonder what should happen for the 1 year anniversary of Duke Nukem 3D...
<D_Nukem> George: I think you need to release something for the 1 year anniversary of Duke Nukem 3D...maybe something lame...
<GeorgB3DR> DN: hmmmm. Something "lame" that has to do with "duke" ??? Hmmmm...
Cick here for the George Broussard log.
If you haven't see it yet, look at Apogee's page! New graphics and design.
1-27-97
One year ago Wednesday, Duke Nukem 3D Shareware v1.0 was released! If I remember correctly, it was out on the net at around 12:45 AM EST, Monday, January 29th, 1996. To the right is a picture of George Broussard pointing to the shareware version being uploaded one year ago.
If you scroll down a bit, you can see a picture of Joe Siegler(left) and Tom
Hall(right) at Joe's wedding last year. Thanks for sending it to me, Joe! It looks like
something that should be in the Live Shot Camera Contest :)
1-26-97
Take a look at the Balls of Steel page! I created seperate pages for each table and added more detail about each table.
1-25-97
In the words of Brad Wernicke, Holy Apogee!
Joe Siegler stopped by #Duke3D today also, and as promised here is the log of the event.
Joe used the nick Dopefish this time, after all he is Mr. Dopefish himself!
<Dopefish>
Fnord.
<RobBrown> George made mention of possible releasing a LameDuke zip of an old aplha of Duke3D. I would like to see it (as others would too I believe) in comaprision. Maybe something to mention for an aniversary item?
<Dopefish> Rob-> Who do you think showed George the LameDuke? I am the company archiver, I have old betas for just about everything. :)
And some useless facts:
I just caught George Broussard on IRC. He had a lot to say. Grab the full log right here.
- <GeorgB3DR> hey DN (dimme your page address dude) :) I lost it.
- Even George Broussard wants to see this page... :)
<GeorgB3DR> We just finished all the SW items and weapons yesterday and started real net play. Lot's of fun. I think Duke is in trouble :)
<GeorgB3DR> Shadow Warrior has much cooler "passive" weaponry than Duke did (like the pipe bombs and laser mines).....
<GeorgB3DR> SW has cool items like gas bombs (poison area for time) , flash bombs (blind players for time), smoke bomb (dissapear) etc
<GeorgB3DR> matt: Yup, and they RULE in DM play. Man, you flash a guy, throw some caltrops on the ground and watch him dance around into death.
<MikeD> When's Shadow Warrior expected to enter beta, George? When, huh? :)
<GeorgB3DR> MikeD: Probably less than a month. It could go in now, but I want it near 100%, so the testers give atrue reaction to all that';s in it
<D_Nukem> George: Do you guys keep very old versions of games? I'd like to see some screenshots of a very old version of Duke3D, it would be nice to see how it's come along through the years. Same thing with Shadow Warrior.
<GeorgB3DR> DN: Man, we got a 1.3 meg zip of a version of Duke from like 4 years ago. I kinda wanna release it to the world, so you can see how bad it sucked then :)
<GeorgB3DR> I keep forgetting about that. We should to a lameduke.zip and upload it...
GeorgB3DR> DN: I think the old Duke ver was from early-mid 1994.
<GeorgB3DR> DN: Yeah, we started Duke 3D originally in a Wolfenstein type clone engine. Had levels and art going, then we got Build from Kena dn dropped the old one
<D_Nukem> George: Is that 1.3MB version with Build or the Wolf3D type engine?
<GeorgB3DR> DN: Build...
<D_Nukem> George: Just forget about Shadow Warrior and focus on getting the old Duke3D version out... ;)
1-24-97
I updated the Stargunner page today to contain mission and item descriptions, also added a neat little button bar on the page.
In other news, in the new PC Gamer and other gaming magazines, there is a Shadow Warrior advertisement fold out! Looks great!
Prey Update! 3D Realms has updated their Prey page replacing the old, false information there. They have announced that the level editor used with Prey is called, Preditor. Go to my Prey Page for more...
1-22-97
IRC has been quite busy the last few days. George Broussard visited yesterday and today, and Joe Siegler (Apogee's Online support manager) made a first time visit.
To see what George had to say about Prey, check out my Prey page.
No luck with getting anything out of George about the selling of Blood, and I don't think we will ever know the full story.
<GeorgB3DR> theMAD: Duke Movie: Only an idea now. Nothing formal.
<GeorgB3DR> tempy: We do not want to spoil all the surprises.[In Shadow Warrior] Telling you everything leaves nothing to be discoverd when you play.
<GeorgB3DR> tempy: Shadow Warrior has RTS files and we are doing something new with them too...
- [I ask about the selling of Blood...]
- <GeorgB3DR> DNukem: The reasons and terms are confidential and we're not discussing them.
<Tempy> George:Surely Blood will now compete heavily with Shadow Warrior in the 3D action stakes?
- <GeorgB3DR> tempy: I guess so...
- [I think Shadow Warrior vs Blood will be one of the largest battles of '97!]
- <GeorgB3DR> Tempy: No. It would have been competition if we were publishing blood too...
- [ Hmm...little hint about why 3D Realms sold the rights?]
<GeorgB3DR> Rob: Build [Engine] is done after Shadow Warrior (for us)
- [Joe Siegler...]
- <ApogeeJS> Fnord.
1-21-97
3D Realms sells the rights to Blood to Monolith Productions
What does this mean? Simply, 3D Realms will have no part in Blood anymore, that includes that 3D Realms will not be distributing the shareware version. Everything is in Monolith's hands now.
Why did 3D Realms do this? Good question :-) I'll have to find out...
Click here for the press release.
Since Blood will no longer be a 3D Realms game, I'm removing my Blood page here.
1-20-97
Out of no where, George Broussard showed up on IRC, #Duke3D on the Undernet. Download the log here. Or, look at some highlights:
<bwernicke> George, how is BLOOD coming along?
<GeorgB3DR> bwer: Blood is coming along fine. Should be ready soon, from what I hear
<MikeDu> George, do you have any contact with the guys at Monolith and Q? Do you know what kind of feedback they're getting from their testers?
<GeorgB3DR> mike: Yes, and the feedback has been fine so far. Haven't seen the specific comments, but I know how beta alwasy runs.
<[NeXuS]> I know what your gunna say but... is SWarrior coming along and will it be out in the next month?
<GeorgB3DR> Nexus: Doubt SW will make Jan/Feb, but it's getting close and we're polishing lotsa cool things now. The voices add a whole new dimension to it
<Vadir> george if im being nosey then np probs just say, but what was the budget for making duke3d? and how much did it cost to make from the staff wages cost to the packaging, and how did it compare to say another game like quake for example?
<GeorgB3DR> Vadir: I'm sure it was similar to Quake. But I also know that id and us make games WAY WAY cheaper than most companies.
1-18-97
Everyone's getting into the Apogee pages! Mike Duncan started his own page called Mike's Apogee/3DRealms Page. Looks like he has a good start, and I expect a lot more from him in the future!
A few hours after I updated my BOS page on the 15th, Apogee's BOS page was updated with the same information, along with the links to Wildfire Studios. Joe Siegler also told me that the Devils table that was originally set to be in the game has been taken out due to delays in it's development.
Also on the BOS page, there is a brief statement about Pinball Wizards:
"Pinball Wizards has teamed with Apogee. Pinball Wizards is focused on pinball games and nothing else. We plan to be the leader in the digital pinball market, and we will get to that position by 100% focus, unlike other developers who make pinball games as a sideline."
Update on Stargunner's shipping status - The full version is on backorder and it looks like they will be shipping at the end of January.
1-15-97
I updated the Balls of Steel page today, check it out for all the new stuff.
I was informed that Stargunner, the full version, will be shipping "any day" now. It should make it's way to stores in a few weeks!
1-13-97
Lots of big news...
Apogee has made a new division, called - Pinball Wizards. Balls of Steel and all future published games will be released under this label. Apogee isn't saying much about it, unlike when they created 3D Realms. Look for more on Pinball Wizards in the coming days.
George Broussard made a visit to IRC today! He confirmed that Balls of Steel will have a Win95 version. Also, Blood is likely to be released before Shadow Warrior. To look at the full log of the visit, get it here: gb01_13.txt.
Exclusive!
The company developing Balls of Steel is Wildfire Studios. Doing a little searching for information on the company, I came upon their homepage! Being the 38th visitor there, it looks like no one knows about it yet. There is a lot of new information on BOS including pictures of every table in the game.
Wildfire Studio's Homepage - http://www.wildfire.com.au
Wildfire's BOS Page - http://www.wildfire.com.au/bos.html
Description of Wildfire, from their page:
"Wildfire Studios Pty Ltd is a computer games development company based in Brisbane, Australia. Established in 1995, Wildfire has been developing for PC-CDROM, as well as producing custom software applications. Wildfire consists of a core of three (not always) like-minded individuals, along with a number of artists, musicians, programmers, and modellers who contribute as needed."
I'll be updating the Balls of Steel homepage soon...
Enjoy!
1-11-96
The Official Shadow Warrior site is now open!
This is a must see! - http://www.ShadowWarrior.com
You can also register for current updates and more.
Looking at GT's Website, I saw that they have a release date for Blood Shareware. It's 3-28-97, just before April. Please note that this is not Official and it will be released "When it's done."
1-3-97
The new year, 1997. After a successful 1996 year, Apogee and 3D Realms will be trying to do a repeat. This year you can look forward to these games:
Blood Shareware has entered beta! Today, it was shipped off to Monolith's 29 members of it's newly formed beta team. They say the shareware is due in at least another month.
I also created an "old news" page, I will keep the news from the last few months there.
12-24-96
Today, I added the Duke Nukem 4, Blood, and Duke Nukem 5 pages. Shadow Warrior? Well, that might be a few days, or a few weeks off.
12-23-96
New Look!
Here it is! For about the last week, I've been working on this, and have been adding more information for all the games. First of all, I changed the colors of the site, added frames, and made seperate pages for each game.
For the games that do not have links, that means those pages are not finished yet, like the Shadow Warrior page.
12-12-96
Duke Nukem 3D: Plutonium Pak v1.5 Released!
Thanks to Rob Brown for this message from Compuserve and the early waring:
DUKE3D PLUTONIUM PAK v1.5 PATCH RELEASED!
Today, 3D Realms has released the Plutonium PAK v1.5 patch. This small update to v1.4 fixes some bugs in the game, as well as corrects an install program problem for people with computers that have 64Mb of memory or more.
Download it right here:
ppack15.zip - 673K
For more information on the fixes this patch made, please look here.
12-11-96
Look for the v1.5 Plutonium Pak Patch this weekend, this was confirmed by George Broussard. This patch fixes many slowdown problems reported from some users along with a few minor bugs. The re-release of Duke Nukem 3D: Atomic Edition will be v1.5 - that is part of the reason why 3D Realms is trying to get v1.5 out as fast as then can.
12-6-96
Xenophage 1.1 Released!
Apogee has changed their Official FTP site for files to Washington University in St. Louis, or the WUArchive. I will be changing all the download links on this page to wuarchive.
Apogee files: ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu/systems/msdos/games/apogee/
3D Realms files: ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu/systems/msdos/games/3dr/
While looking through the FTP site, I noticed a file called, 1xeno11.zip. This means only one thing, version 1.1 to Xenophage is now released! There are no signs of the release on Apogee's page though. Download the full shareware or the 1.1 patch. I also moved Xenophage to the SVGA page.
12-3-96
A fix to the slowdown problem in the Atomic Edition has been added to Apogee's Web page. If 1.4 is running slower than 1.3D for you try this:
12-2-96
George Broussard stopped by IRC three times over the weekend! He mentioned that Joe Siegler would be releasing Xenophage 1.1 this week. He said that the name of Apogee's Duek Nukem side scroller game will have it's name changed. There will also be a Duke Nukem 3D: Atomic Edition v1.5 - mostly to fix some slowdown problems and a hard drive cache bug. This only seems to be happening to a small percentage of users though.
Don't forget to take a look at Stargunner, great shooter game with the best graphics and sound I've seen!
11-19-96
Stargunner 1.0 Shareware released!!
When George Broussard said another few weeks for Stargunner, I wasn't expecting it until then, but I just checked Apogee's site for the heck of it just a few minutes ago, and saw that it had been released! To get it right now, click here! (5.2MB)
If you want the split files, go to the Stargunner area to get the complete list.
11-17-96
George Broussard(president of 3D Realms) stopped by #Duke3D on IRC yesterday night! I have the full log right here. It turned out that I was wrong about the Stargunner release date, George said another 2 weeks.
Here are some highlights from the log:
<GeorgB3DR> StarGunner is done. it's in final compatability testing. Expect it out in 2 weeks.
- <D_Nukem> George: What about Xenophage 1.1?
- <GeorgB3DR> DN: I'll ask Joe....agian
- <D_Nukem>George: How is Balls of Steel coming along? Have anything new to say about it?
- <GeorgB3DR> DN: Balls of Steel is cool!! Table 1 is 90% done. We just added kick ass voices to it like in Duke 3D. All 5 other tables are also coming along fast.
George also was asking us for gameplay ideas, and of course, I gave a few to him!
11-16-96
As I was looking through c|net's Gamecenter, I found a little story on Stargunner and a large preview on Shadow Warrior I must have missed from before. The Shadow Warrior preview has a lot of information and a interview with George Broussard. Check it out!
I've also started work on a Shadow Warrior page! I've been gathering information and putting it together. I hope to provide much more than what I have currenly for the excellent game, Shadow Warrior.
11-15-96
Joe Siegler sure has been busy recently! He put up an all new Shadow Warrior page with new, up todate information screenshots, and graphics from the game. Speaking of Shadow Warrior pages, I have seen a lack of a good Shadow Warrior page on the Web. Should I put up a seperate SW page, like I did for Prey? Give me your opinion.
Estimated Release: We expect the full version to be completed in December.
Hmm...if there is not a shareware date there, then is my guess correct and shareware Stargunner lauching any day now? We'll see...
11-14-96
Joe Siegler put up 13 screenshots, the box cover, and pictures of the new monsters and weapon up on the Atomic Edition page. All screenshots have a 640x480 version for great detail. Take a look, they give a good look at the new episode!
11-10-96
For everyone who pre-ordered Death Rally, it is shipping, and he being shiped to stores.
GameSlice has a preview of Apogee's upcoming shooter called, Stargunner. They have a few screenshots, and a movie of the game in action!
I've been redesigning my Prey Page for weeks now, and it is finally done! Take a look around.
10-28-96
GameSlice talks to Hipnotic Software(The Quake add-on pack makers), and talks to the the two guys who left 3D Realms, and how they feel about it. Hipnotic Software also wants to make a bet that their add-on pack will sell more copies than the Plutonium Pak for Duke Nukem 3D.
GT Interactive latest release dates: (Note: These are subject to change at any time)
10-22-96
Apogee's new redesigned web site is now running! http://www.apogee1.com
Along with the new look, they have added a chat area, yes a Chat Room on their WWW page. When I went into the Chat area, Joe Siegler and George Broussard were there, and planned on coming back a lot. While they were there I asked about the release of Xenophage 1.1, and they said in 2 weeks. Take a look at their new page, and chat to other Apogee fans, and maybe someone at Apogee!
10-21-96
On Undernet's #Duke3D Sunday, George Broussard (president of 3D Realms) stopped by and talked about many of their upcoming games. I also happened to be there.
On release dates, Blood and Shadow Warrior will NOT make this year. Stargunner is finished and will be released in about two weeks.
When asked about a Pentium version of Duke Nukem, George said:
"We are doing a Duke sequel. It will probably be Build, with sector over sector, Pentium/16 meg, and some type of 3D characters in the game. Expect 20-25 levels, maybe more. And summer 1997"
One other thing mentioned by George was that Shadow Warrior would have see through water is a few parts of the game!
Go to my Prey page for information on what George said about Prey.
10-19-96
Former lead designer for MechWarrior 3, Paul Schuteyma, is most likey the person replacing Tom Hall on the Prey Team.
10-17-96
GameSlice interviews Scott Miller and George Broussard of Apogee/3D Realms. They talk about Duke Nukem Forever, Duke Nukem 3D: Pentium Edition, Duke Nukem 3D, Prey (and what cars they drive). :-)
10-16-96
Check out this Titinia interview with Tom Hall and John Romero and their new company called, ION.
10-10-96
3D Realms is now calling the Duke Nukem 3D version with the Plutonium Pak upgrade patch and the re-released version, "Duke Nukem 3D: Atomic Edition." The Plutonium Pak is the $20 upgrade for Duke Nukem 3D Full Version owners. The Atomic Edition is $40 and will be for anyone who has not bought Duke3D before-hand.
TEN has also previewed the Atomic Edition! This preview has a few more screenshots, and infomation. Take a look here also!
12-24-96
Today, I added the Duke Nukem 4, Blood, and Duke Nukem 5 pages. Shadow Warrior? Well, that might be a few days, or a few weeks off.
12-23-96
New Look!
Here it is! For about the last week, I've been working on this, and have been adding more information for all the games. First of all, I changed the colors of the site, added frames, and made seperate pages for each game.
For the games that do not have links, that means those pages are not finished yet, like the Shadow Warrior page.
12-12-96
Duke Nukem 3D: Plutonium Pak v1.5 Released!
Thanks to Rob Brown for this message from Compuserve and the early waring:
DUKE3D PLUTONIUM PAK v1.5 PATCH RELEASED!
Today, 3D Realms has released the Plutonium PAK v1.5 patch. This small update to v1.4 fixes some bugs in the game, as well as corrects an install program problem for people with computers that have 64Mb of memory or more.
Download it right here:
ppack15.zip - 673K
For more information on the fixes this patch made, please look here.
12-11-96
Look for the v1.5 Plutonium Pak Patch this weekend, this was confirmed by George Broussard. This patch fixes many slowdown problems reported from some users along with a few minor bugs. The re-release of Duke Nukem 3D: Atomic Edition will be v1.5 - that is part of the reason why 3D Realms is trying to get v1.5 out as fast as then can.
12-6-96
Xenophage 1.1 Released!
Apogee has changed their Official FTP site for files to Washington University in St. Louis, or the WUArchive. I will be changing all the download links on this page to wuarchive.
Apogee files: ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu/systems/msdos/games/apogee/
3D Realms files: ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu/systems/msdos/games/3dr/
While looking through the FTP site, I noticed a file called, 1xeno11.zip. This means only one thing, version 1.1 to Xenophage is now released! There are no signs of the release on Apogee's page though. Download the full shareware or the 1.1 patch. I also moved Xenophage to the SVGA page.
12-3-96
A fix to the slowdown problem in the Atomic Edition has been added to Apogee's Web page. If 1.4 is running slower than 1.3D for you try this:
12-2-96
George Broussard stopped by IRC three times over the weekend! He mentioned that Joe Siegler would be releasing Xenophage 1.1 this week. He said that the name of Apogee's Duek Nukem side scroller game will have it's name changed. There will also be a Duke Nukem 3D: Atomic Edition v1.5 - mostly to fix some slowdown problems and a hard drive cache bug. This only seems to be happening to a small percentage of users though.
Don't forget to take a look at Stargunner, great shooter game with the best graphics and sound I've seen!
11-19-96
Stargunner 1.0 Shareware released!!
When George Broussard said another few weeks for Stargunner, I wasn't expecting it until then, but I just checked Apogee's site for the heck of it just a few minutes ago, and saw that it had been released! To get it right now, click here! (5.2MB)
If you want the split files, go to the Stargunner area to get the complete list.
11-17-96
George Broussard(president of 3D Realms) stopped by #Duke3D on IRC yesterday night! I have the full log right here. It turned out that I was wrong about the Stargunner release date, George said another 2 weeks.
Here are some highlights from the log:
<GeorgB3DR> StarGunner is done. it's in final compatability testing. Expect it out in 2 weeks.
- <D_Nukem> George: What about Xenophage 1.1?
- <GeorgB3DR> DN: I'll ask Joe....agian
- <D_Nukem>George: How is Balls of Steel coming along? Have anything new to say about it?
- <GeorgB3DR> DN: Balls of Steel is cool!! Table 1 is 90% done. We just added kick ass voices to it like in Duke 3D. All 5 other tables are also coming along fast.
George also was asking us for gameplay ideas, and of course, I gave a few to him!
11-16-96
As I was looking through c|net's Gamecenter, I found a little story on Stargunner and a large preview on Shadow Warrior I must have missed from before. The Shadow Warrior preview has a lot of information and a interview with George Broussard. Check it out!
I've also started work on a Shadow Warrior page! I've been gathering information and putting it together. I hope to provide much more than what I have currenly for the excellent game, Shadow Warrior.
11-15-96
Joe Siegler sure has been busy recently! He put up an all new Shadow Warrior page with new, up todate information screenshots, and graphics from the game. Speaking of Shadow Warrior pages, I have seen a lack of a good Shadow Warrior page on the Web. Should I put up a seperate SW page, like I did for Prey? Give me your opinion.
Estimated Release: We expect the full version to be completed in December.
Hmm...if there is not a shareware date there, then is my guess correct and shareware Stargunner lauching any day now? We'll see...
11-14-96
Joe Siegler put up 13 screenshots, the box cover, and pictures of the new monsters and weapon up on the Atomic Edition page. All screenshots have a 640x480 version for great detail. Take a look, they give a good look at the new episode!
11-10-96
For everyone who pre-ordered Death Rally, it is shipping, and he being shiped to stores.
GameSlice has a preview of Apogee's upcoming shooter called, Stargunner. They have a few screenshots, and a movie of the game in action!
I've been redesigning my Prey Page for weeks now, and it is finally done! Take a look around.
10-28-96
GameSlice talks to Hipnotic Software(The Quake add-on pack makers), and talks to the the two guys who left 3D Realms, and how they feel about it. Hipnotic Software also wants to make a bet that their add-on pack will sell more copies than the Plutonium Pak for Duke Nukem 3D.
GT Interactive latest release dates: (Note: These are subject to change at any time)
10-22-96
Apogee's new redesigned web site is now running! http://www.apogee1.com
Along with the new look, they have added a chat area, yes a Chat Room on their WWW page. When I went into the Chat area, Joe Siegler and George Broussard were there, and planned on coming back a lot. While they were there I asked about the release of Xenophage 1.1, and they said in 2 weeks. Take a look at their new page, and chat to other Apogee fans, and maybe someone at Apogee!
10-21-96
On Undernet's #Duke3D Sunday, George Broussard (president of 3D Realms) stopped by and talked about many of their upcoming games. I also happened to be there.
On release dates, Blood and Shadow Warrior will NOT make this year. Stargunner is finished and will be released in about two weeks.
When asked about a Pentium version of Duke Nukem, George said:
"We are doing a Duke sequel. It will probably be Build, with sector over sector, Pentium/16 meg, and some type of 3D characters in the game. Expect 20-25 levels, maybe more. And summer 1997"
One other thing mentioned by George was that Shadow Warrior would have see through water is a few parts of the game!
Go to my Prey page for information on what George said about Prey.
10-19-96
Former lead designer for MechWarrior 3, Paul Schuteyma, is most likey the person replacing Tom Hall on the Prey Team.
10-17-96
GameSlice interviews Scott Miller and George Broussard of Apogee/3D Realms. They talk about Duke Nukem Forever, Duke Nukem 3D: Pentium Edition, Duke Nukem 3D, Prey (and what cars they drive). :-)
10-16-96
Check out this Titinia interview with Tom Hall and John Romero and their new company called, ION.
10-10-96
3D Realms is now calling the Duke Nukem 3D version with the Plutonium Pak upgrade patch and the re-released version, "Duke Nukem 3D: Atomic Edition." The Plutonium Pak is the $20 upgrade for Duke Nukem 3D Full Version owners. The Atomic Edition is $40 and will be for anyone who has not bought Duke3D before-hand.
TEN has also previewed the Atomic Edition! This preview has a few more screenshots, and infomation. Take a look here also!
