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Team Archon has announced the release of its Ultima 6 Project, a complete remake mod for Dungeon Siege. Version 1.0 allows players to explore the lands of Britannia and engage in combat against a variety of foes.

On this, the 20th anniversary year of the release of Origin Systems Ultima 6, it is with much pleasure that we announce the 1.0 release of Team Archon's Ultima 6 Project, for Dungeon Siege 1 (PC and Mac). Players will find a huge and exciting world waiting to be discovered:

• Travel throughout the lands of Britannia, exploring dark forests with bandits lying in wait, deserts and swamps teeming with monsters, and peaceful towns and villages filled with shops, old friends, and interesting people just waiting to give the player numerous and exciting quests to solve.
  
• Explore deep and dangerous caves and caverns full of treasure and hidden surprises.
  
• Bring your breadcrumbs to mark your trail, or be prepared to be thoroughly and completely lost, with your remains left to be found by future explorers.
  
• Sail the savage seas to explore remote islands, but be vigilant for there are sea monsters lying in wait for the careless traveler.
  
• Discover a hidden new world, far from Britannia.
  
• Encounter strange and exotic races, including the mysterious Gargoyles.
  
• Fight fearsome monsters, find pirate loot, solve a murder, and discover the truth behind the numerous attacks on Britannia's towns.
  
• Learn the commerce of the land for fun and profit.
  
• Learn magical spells, search for magic reagents, and join guilds to gain special benefits.
  
• Those players with proclivities to the dark side can follow an "evil path".
  
• And, last, but not least, ferret out the hidden Easter eggs.

Ultima 6 Project 1.0 Released

MacSoft

Westlake Interactive

Dungeon Siege

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GameZone has posted a new review of Brawsome's Jolly Rover. The high seas point-and-click experience follows the adventures of Gaius James Rover, a dog who just wants to star in the circus like his dear old dad. Gamezebo gave the game a score of 7.5 out of 10.

From the review:

The game stars a happy-go-lucky Dachshund named Gaius James Rover, a sailing merchant who becomes tangled up with pirates. After having his cargo stolen, and himself captured, the pirates still deliver the cargo, but now Gaius (nicknamed Jolly Rover after his father who was a clown), is in debt to the governor for not bringing the cargo himself. This predicament starts a full-on adventure that sends Jolly from the pirate ship to a cannibal island run by man-hating female dogs. There’s even time for a little undead resurrection along the way.

Using the single-click feature from the Monkey Island remakes, it plays like any standard adventure game. You can use items, look, grab and manipulate objects without having to manually switch between cursor functions.

Every scene is infused with absurd humor. One such scene has Jolly Rover stuck in the cargo hold of a pirate ship trying to figure out a way to escape. The room is filled with tools for escape, but of course, you need something to pry open the box of crowbars, skeleton keys are made of brittle bones, and somebody scratched the first two letters off the escape kit. Who needs a cape at a time like that?

Jolly Rover has a few tricks to help you when you’re stuck. Each clickable item is subtitled in blue when Jolly has something new to say about it. Press the space bar and each clickable item brightly lights up. This helps the player see everything they can interact with, just in case they missed something.

GameZone: Jolly Rover Review

Brawsome

Jolly Rover

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Hooked Gamers recently published a new preview of Two Worlds II, the upcoming fantasy RPG from TopWare Interactive and Reality Pump. The game will send players to the unexplored land of Eastern Antaloor and will feature detailed graphics, an active combat system, and a complex storyline.

During my brief time with Two Worlds II, I had the chance to play around with all three classes. The warrior was my least favorite. I futilely chased a lone skeleton around a dungeon for many minutes, unable to land a blow, although that could just be a sad testament on my gaming skills and no fault of Reality Pump or SouthPeak. The ranger was my favorite and felt more powerful than the warrior. I quickly adjusted to the ranger's controls and happily kited enemies through the game's pretty outdoor environs. If you're the type of gamer who hates to kite, however, the ranger might not be for you.

By far, the most interesting character class in Two Worlds II is the mage, thanks to what is being called the DEMONS magic management system. By collecting component cards throughout the game, the player can custom build their own spells. The player can choose what element the spell should be (Earth, Air, Fire, Water), how powerful it is, how long it lasts, whether it's a direct damage spell, an area-of-effect spell, a buff or a summon. The player can choose the have the spell ricochet when it hits objects or seek out enemies like a heat-seeking missile. Spells can even be stacked. For instance, you can shoot a fireball that summons scorpions to assist you in battle whenever it hits something. The more powerful and complicated a spell is the more mana it costs. Still, the amount of combinations available is simply staggering.

Hooked Gamers: Two Worlds II Preview

Two Worlds II

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Gamasutra recently published an interview with Alexey Pajitnov, the creator of Tetris. The addictive puzzle title quickly became one of the most popular puzzle titles ever created. The developer discussed the game's development, it's overwhelming success, and the future of the franchise which includes a multiplayer variant of the block stacking game.

Speaking of multiplayer, obviously the original version of Tetris wasn't multiplayer. Other people came up with ways to make Tetris multiplayer through new versions. Some were good, some were not. Did you ever give that thought yourself?
AP: Oh, absolutely. We are working on multiplayer versions for more than 10 years -- I've been trying to design it. I should admit that we are not quite there yet.

It's interesting because it's such a simple game in terms of its mechanics.
AP: Yeah. It was quite a problem with Tetris that... the game is very intense, you know? If you play on the high level -- and that's where you want to play usually. So, you play on the edge of your abilities, in terms of the speed and reaction, and everything. So, you kind of have no brain resources to observe what the other people are doing.

That's the kind of measured theoretical problem which we need to resolve with multiplayer Tetris. So, if we lower the intensity of personal game playing, we, a little bit, lower the excitement of the game. But if we keep it at the same level, the players don't have resources to really do some kind of multiplayer actions, to observe, to analyze what's going on in the big picture, and adjust their strategy.

So, we have been seated on this problem for a while; that's the brief description of it. But there are still very promising ways to do it, so the version we have now is pretty good. I mean, when you send the garbage in the multiplayer to the other player, it kind of works.

But unfortunately, my dream would be the game, when you could really see what the other people do and take their gameplay and their achievement and their status in the game really in account. That's what the main joy of a multiplayer game is, in my opinion.

Gamasutra: Tetris Discussion

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