A company called Adaboy (www.adaboy.com) is trying to convince game developers that showing ads during games is the revenue gaining wave of the future. The technology polls game users for their interests and then inserts appropriate ads into the game, 2D or 3D ads, as they play the game. The software records the number of times an ad is shown to the player and the advertiser is then charged.

The upside for all this is that maybe, just maybe, if we allow this sort of thing, games will become available free of charge like TV, with all revenue gained by advertisements. The downside is that it'll be like cable TV where you have to pay for the entertainment and view the annoying commercials. The other potential downside is best displayed in the following picture donated by reader Jim Hunt of Coregamer.com.

Beach Head was a wacky/fun little shooting game available for the Apple IIe in the mid-eighties (it may have existed on other platforms too). Isn't it nice that Digital Fusion is going to update it into Beach Head 2000 for us? No, actually I don't think it is that nice. As we saw with the actual sales figures from Incoming and Barrage (and soon Daikatana) totally mindless shooting games aren't fun today. They were great back when it was all a computer could do (non-text based that is). The designers apparently claim Beach Head 2000 is the sequel to Beach Head... but real gamers know that game was actually called Raid Over Moscow. Anyway, at least it'll star Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello, right?

Sierra has announced that its unique fully 3D Real Time Strategy game Ground Control is shipping to retail and is probably already available by the time you read this. Ground Control is an innovative new title that does what all the others cannot. It challenges you to build up a futuristic base and build futuristic tanks and fling them at your futuristic enemy while collecting a futuristic resource.

As the Sierra press release gushes (the italics are added): "Ground Control combines classic strategy elements with incredible 3-D technology previously seen for action games. It focuses its gameplay on tactics (build, build, build!), strategy (build quickly!), and the art of battle (rope 'em up and fling 'em out)". The release went on to suggest that "....The end result is greater realism, faster-paced action, and an unparalleled player experience". Uh-huh. "Unparalleled", eh?

Here are a few parallels for you to chew on: Warzone 2100, Earth 2150, Dark Reign 2, Machines, Wargames, Metal Fatigue and Force Commander. Naturally there is a chance that Ground Control will be better than the above. We'll find out soon enough.