Microsoft announced that they are inviting gamers to take a journey even further into Oddworld with the opening of the official Oddworld Munch's Oddysee site. Flash technology enables players to take an early trip through Oddworld months before they are able to play the actual game. The site also features new screens, storyline details, gameplay information, and an ongoing "Passport to Oddworld" designer diary written by Oddworld Inhabitants Senior Game Designer Paul O'Connor. Oddworld Munch's Oddysee is the highly-anticipated adventure game being developed exclusively for Xbox by Oddworld Inhabitants, and is due to ship in Fall 2001.
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GameSpyDaily has the scoop on a story that reports over 100 volunteer workers of Asheron's Call will be shut out of the game tomorrow, and replaced by 8 paid employees.
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It is "Chill With A Pro" month with Activision, Inc.'s February sweepstakes offer. Consumers now have a chance to win a trip for two to meet the action sports pro of their choice - Tony Hawk, Mat Hoffman, Shaun Palmer or Kelly Slater. Secondary prizes include BMX bikes, skateboards, surfboards, and snowboards, as well as a sampling of Activision console games. Now through March 31, 2001, participants can enter the sweepstakes online at www.activision.com, via official entry forms at participating retailers including Babbages, Best Buy, Comp USA and Electronics Boutique, or by mailing in a 3" x 5" card with name, age, address, phone number to: Activision Sweepstakes, P.O. Box 7308, Newport Beach, CA 92660. Mail-in entries must be postmarked by March 31, 2001 and received by April 15, 2001. As part of the "Chill With A Pro" sweepstakes, Activision is offering a gift-with purchase, door-sized poster featuring all four athletes with the purchase of any platform version of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater or Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2. The poster will be available at Comp USA, Kmart, Babbages, Toys R Us Canada and Electronics Boutique Canada. In addition, a limited edition lithograph signed poster will be available at Best Buy stores nationwide.
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Essential Reality, developer and manufacturer of 3D control glove-like products for interactive gaming, entertainment industry and professional uses, announced today that it has successfully completed the last major milestones in the product’s overall design. P5 will provide the computer user and gamer with an ergonomically designed hand device, which controls the software in 3D through diverse hand gestures.

The C2P design of P5 incorporates an entirely unique, specialized form factor that incorporates a "docking station" and flexible sizing. The docking station stores P5 while not in use and creates a platform for easily putting on and removing P5. The docking station also incorporates the P5 "tracker", enabling ultimate portability of P5, from the computer in the den, to the game console in the living room.

P5 uses the latest in combined bend sensor and tracking technologies to enable full interaction with a 3D environment. No lag time and ‘6-degrees of freedom’ tracking make the experience totally immersive and real. Fully USB compliant, P5 will be compatible with Macs, PCs, and next-generation gaming systems, including PS2 and Xbox. P5, with an expected price of $129, allows virtual reality to become accessible to the average consumer.
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EA.comsm (division of Electronic Arts) unveiled a new online experience called Majestic at The DEMO 2001 Conference. The Internet-based game places players in the center of a powerful suspense thriller where the lines of reality are quickly blurred. It is a groundbreaking form of interactive online entertainment that interacts with players via e-mail, instant messaging, voicemail, fax and the Internet. Unlike any online gaming experience to date, Majestic decides when it is time to engage and summons players to their PCs. Launching in Spring 2001 on EA.com, Majestic will recast online gaming as it is known today.

Majestic deftly presents a suspense thriller with conspiracy sensibilities involving covert government agencies, menacing fugitives and the finest qualities the Internet has developed. The player is placed at the very center of an exhilarating, multi-tiered story that involves a game company whose top new product appears to interfere with the agenda of a mysterious high-powered, top-secret political organization.

Majestic will be part of a subscription-based bundle available on EA.com in Spring 2001.
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Westwood Studios announced that Command & Conquer Renegade will be in your hot little hands by this fall! They have been quite quiet about this title since, but today they have sent out some new details in the form of a Q&A with the Renegade producer, Mike Ward.

1. What's new in Renegade since everyone in the free world saw it at E3 last year?
What was shown last year was a demo level created specifically for E3. Since then, we've been working on expanding that and building the actual game levels. In addition, the AI in the E3 demo was only a representation of what we had planned -- in fact, we've now taken it way beyond that point. We've also done a lot to add C&C atmosphere to the game. For example, now you can see how Tiberium is processed inside the refinery. We've made significant improvements to our animation system, refined the real-world physics, improved the vehicle control and handling, and finalized our weapons and vehicles list. We've also finished up our character structure, where players will pick their character class from one of the Enlisted, Officer, Special Forces or Boss ranks.

A full sky and weather system has been added, complete with lightning, rain and snow effects. We've added a conversation system that provides greater interactivity between the player and other characters in the game. Co-op mode is up and running and we're fine-tuning that as well. Our base technology, which links enemy base buildings together by function, is now working. So, destroying the power plant actually affects the rest of the buildings on the base. All this only reflects a portion of what we've been working on - we've been busy!

2. How have you taken the strategy elements of the C&C games and incorporated them into a first-person shooter?
Enemy bases function as they do in our C&C RTS games harvesters gather tiberium, and destroying those will cripple NOD resources. Power plants generate power for the base, and taking that our will cause all the other buildings to work at a reduced capacity, or not at all. Also, the original C&C missions were designed to let the player decide how best to tackle each objective. Our missions follow that pattern, presenting the player with a few primary objectives and letting him choose the best method to accomplish each. We wanted the player to feel as if he's running around inside a big C&C game, a virtual war if you will.

3. What are some of the multiplayer features you've added so we can shame our buddies over the Internet?
We support all the standard modes of play deathmatch, capture the flag, king of the hill, etc. Some of these modes will have a special C&C flavor to them. For example, we have a "capture the Mobius" mode where Dr. Mobius is used instead of a flag. In addition, the single player missions will have a co-op capability so a friend can help you complete your objectives. Lastly, we're working on a very special multiplayer mode that we're all really excited about. I can't tell you much here, but I will tell you that it is our special salute to C&C and we think everyone is going to be very excited about it. More to come on that later...

4. What are you working on right now?
Finishing the game! Seriously, by the end of this month we will hit "feature lock," which means that all the features we want in the game will be in the game. After that it's just bug-fixing and polishing. The game is very ambitious and we're doing everything at once -- lighting, landscaping, AI, you name it.
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