Time for a round-up of recent games news.

JASPP to release more classics

Jon Abbott of the JASPP software preservation project has recently announced that they have acquired the rights to distribute games previously developed/published by Artex Software, Eterna, Minerva and Visions of the Impossible.

These games include such classics as: Ballarena, Botkiller, Exodus, Poizone, Prime Solver & SunBurst. The games are being released through the JASPP forum, so keep an eye out for updates there.

No mention was made of Artex Software's later games Ankh and TEK, or the never released for RISC OS Iron Dignity, with its impressive 3D rendering engine.

The announcement does mention that JASPP are looking to update some of the titles by Artex Software and Visions of the Impossible to run natively on 32-bit systems. The first to get such treatment will be VOTI's SunBurst. Whether this news will lead to a 32-bit multitasking desktop WIMP conversion of Super Foul Egg, or Exodus running natively on the Panda Board is unknown at this time.

Star Fighter 3000 released for free

This happened a while back, but the full Star Fighter 3000 game has been released for free. This is the latest souped-up version, which features improved rendering distances, desktop play, and a host of other improvements. It runs on RISC OS machines from the latest dev-board hardware, right back to the old Archimedes systems it originally appeared on. To run it on an old Archimedes system at full frame rate, you'll need to make sure you have the nested WIMP installed, reduce the game's graphics settings and force it to run in fullscreen mode.

New game: Overlord

Anthony Vaughan Bartram of Ambiguous Contrasts Games has produced Overlord, a space shoot-em-up on available PlingStore. The latest version, 1.40, has just been released.

RailPro-like game progressing

In other news, James Shaw has been keeping us informed of his progress on the development of a RailPro-like game.

ANS readers vote HoMM2 best game (25/2/99)

The Acorn News Service today announced the results of their much publicised reader awards. In the 'best game' category, Heroes of Might and Magic was the clear winner, taking 23% of the votes, with Doom+ being it's nearest competitor at 13%. In the other categories, R-Comp Interactive were voted 'best company'; and we were voted 'best non-commercial website'.
 

Heretic patch (22/2/99)

A mistake in the Heretic code lead to many people trying to play the game today only to find that their copy had 'timed out'. Justin Fletcher (the programmer), quickly posted a the code for a patch to the comp.sys.acorn.games newsgroup, so until R-Comp Interactive make the patch formally available, you should do the following:

1. Download the patch and unzip it. Make sure that it's filetype is &FC3.
   
2. Load !Patch, which should have been supplied with your computer
   
3. Double click on the patch
   
4. Drag Heretic to the !Patch icon
   
5. Click the 'Apply' button
   
6. Click MENU over the window and choose 'Patch selected'.

Disclaimer: Acorn Arcade make no guarantee that this patch will work, and you use it at your own risk. If you would prefer to follow Justin's instructions yourself, a copy of his posting is available.
 

Werewolf special offer (21/2/99)

Werewolf Software have decided to extend the special offers that they introduced for the Acorn SouthWest show on Saturday. This means that you can buy either TANKS or Shuggy at the much more sensible price of £10.00, or both for £15.00.
 

This offer will last until Thursday the 25th of February. To order, email info@werewlf.demon.co.uk. Details about all Werewolf's products can be found on their website at www.werewlf.demon.co.uk.
 

New TEK engine demo (14/2/99)

The latest TEK engine demo, given exclusively to media organisations, is now running in a massive 640x480 screen mode, and seems to have some pretty nice graphics to boot. The whole project seems to have come on in leaps and bounds over the past 3 months, so we could well be looking towards a release in the not too distant future. Obviously the final date is not yet clear, but all the signs point towards soon. The engine shows off some of the nice features of the game, with some well animated units and quite a few nice looking static graphics. The way thinks look, we could be in for a really strategical Summer. :-)
 

Heretic and Hexen head to head (14/2/99)

Heretic and Hexen are set for release at the Acorn South West show this weekend. The games now feature serial play between Acorn machines which means that you'll be able to blast away at your friends, in full deathmatch glory. Apparently, once the beta labels are ripped out of the final source code, the games should be available, so watch this space for a review in the near future.

RPM Developing More Games... (10/2/99)

Richard Mackin has announced that RPM software will be developing The Orpheus Wars, a realtime strategy game. Development is to be laid into with full vigour once the ThunderWing project takes off. At this time, release dates are very uncertain, as the project will need a lot of work. However, the textures artist assures me that some very nice metal textures have made their way to RPM, so we know that the graphics have got off to a good start.
 

ThunderWing Announced (3/2/99)

RPM software have announced the production of a vertical scrolling shoot 'em up going by the name of ThunderWing. This seems to be following in the footsteps of Xenocide, and the screenshots look promising. Richard Mackin seems to be taking on a number of projects at the moment including a few utilities to help speed the writing of Inform adventure games on Acorn machines, and an X-wing Vs Tie-Fighter style game called Viper. The release of ThunderWing is now set for May 15th, and there will be a demo available "soon". More to come when we get it.
 

No Disc 0.06 (3/2/99)

Richard Wilson has released an even more potent form of his shareware utility !NoDisc. The utility which controversially removes some 4D games' copy protection so that they can be run on Strong ARM Risc PC's has recieved a small update which allows it to cope far better with certain games. However, unfortunately, despite being able to crack one of the two protection modules used in Stunt Racer, he has been having a few problems with the other, so fans of the game will have to wait a while before they can run it on SA machines (without paying for an upgrade). CJE seem to have stepped down their threats of legal action as they do not seem to have any grounds for a case against the utility, despite it's obvious illegal potential.
 

NoDisc is available from http://www.wilsontigger.demon.co.uk/util.html.