I have updated the "Jaguar Mods" section on the left-hand side of this website to include a new mod pack for the free racing game "TrackMania Nations ESWC". Each custom map was designed and compiled by our very own Ranchan! Check out the link to learn more and see the video preview posted on YouTube.com.

Battlefield 2, Quake 4, TOCA Race Driver 3, TrackMania Nations ESWC were mostly played.

I’ve compiled NickMarine’s, Sami’s and my photos from the ShowDown LAN event in San Jose on August 25-27th and posted them HERE for your viewing pleasure! Here, the upper-left thumbnail is us with PC Gamer coordinator and magazine editor Norman Chan (from left to right - JAG, CoolSpot, NickMarine, Sami, and Norman Chan).

Sami won an ABit motherboard and I was fortunate enough to win a Danger Den water cooling kit! Sami won his prize through a raffle from Zalman's booth and I won my prize by being 1 out of 10 to catch a water balloon while were all at the park (see photo). And of course all of us got tons of free swag including T-Shirts! I think NickMarine came away with over 30+ TShirts!! Woot! Woot!

Overall, it was an awesome event and I wish those of you who missed the sign up window could have made it!

Even though we had an exciting change of rooms, we still managed to pull through without any power or networking issues. Due to the fact that our building was accidentally double booked by those we rent from, our group had to use a different smaller room. Internet access was provided thanks to Postal's and Ungadano's unlimited Verizon web access from their phones (around 2Mb). Prey, Quake 4, TOCA Race Driver 3 and Rise Of Legends were mostly played.

It was no April Fools joke! F.E.A.R., Quake 4, Trackmania Nations ESWC and Empire At War were mostly played.

We managed to get some good TOCA Race Driver 2 action in. Also debuted Call Of Duty 2 since it came out soon after the last party in October. We managed to have internet access available Friday night but it went down Saturday morning. Had a great time and thank-you volunteers for all your help!

What a great week in new releases! We got to try out lots of new games including F.E.A.R., Quake 4 and Age Of Empires 3. We had good luck with the 1.03 Battlefield 2 patch and were able to use the VOIP feature. Many of you weren't able to make it out this time but we hope to see you at the next event January 6-7th! And thanks to all the volunteers who helped!

Battlefield 2 rocks! Complications occured though because EA released the latest 1.02 patch on Friday afternoon. Many thanks to all the volunteers who helped and also our sponsors.

Back From Vacation --> Party This Weekend - written by JAG
Well, I've just returned from a two plus week vacation on the east coast (what a blast!). So if you emailed me in the last three weeks I'll be getting back with you ASAP. Please bear with me as I try to catch up... TIA. ;)

Although the website is greatly out of date, the LAN party for next weekend (July 15-16) is still on! There are currently 15 people signed up. I sure hope more of you can make it to our debut of Battlefield 2 since that would make for better team play!

BONUS!!! I've extended the $5 late fee deadline from Monday night to Tuesday night at 11PM to help encourage more attendance. Don't put off signing up. Sign up today!!

We'll be playing Battlefield 2, Trackmania Sunrise, Rise Of Nations, as well as others from our previous events. NOTE: If you are interested in playing Trackmania Sunrise, you MUST bring your original disc copy to the event or you won't be able to participate in that game. It's available at NewEgg for $26.90.

PARTY SIGN UP HERE!!

Don't expect too many prizes this event as that has not been the focus as of late. Do, however, expect a great time gettin' in some BF2 action and chillin' with your friends!!!

Many thanks to all the volunteers who helped and also our sponsors.

Played Half-Life 2 multiplayer for the first time but with some complications thanks to the not-so-wonderful Steam client until we got internet access which just made things easier. Yes, a Backman Hall event had internet access for the first time! Parker Humes from LANAddict.com made it out again and let us use his PCMCIA cell/modem card which gave us a dedicated 56K internet connection. Not too fast but fast enough to get drivers and verify with Steam etc. Many thanks to all the volunteers who helped and also our sponsors.

The release of Doom 3 would be the highlight of this event. A new sponsor, Parker Humes from LANAddict.com, arrived Friday night and was able to hang out with us until late Saturday morning. Many thanks to all the volunteers who helped and also our sponsors. See you in January '05!

New Sponsor LanAddict.com - Friday Night Tourney & Prizes! - written by JAG

We have a new last-minute sponsor! LanAddict.com is going to sponsor a UT2004 tournament Friday night around 9:00PM. Parker Humes from LanAddict.com will be present with us only Friday night so the prizes they are donating will be given away Friday night after the tournament. All other prizes from our other sponsors will be raffled off as usual on Saturday afternoon.


LanAddict.com Prizes for UT2004 Tournament Friday Night
- ABIT AN7 Motherboard with AMD 1600+ CPU (Barton)
- More!


Here is a photo of the rest of the prizes to be raffled off to all attendees Saturday afternoon. Many thanks to sponsors Altec Lansing, Alienware, NVidia, GearGrip, Seasonic & Antec!

List Of Raffled Prizes
- Altec Lansing XA3021 Speakers
- Super Tornado 400W Power Supply
- GearGrip CRT
- Rise Of Nations game
- Antec Green LED Case Fan 120mm
- Alienware & NVidia/Final Fantasy TShirts
- Alienware visor
- NVidia Fan grill
- Posters and stickers
- More!!

Convert Doom 3 CDs to a DVD! - written by Disruptor
You purchased Doom 3 and were angry that they did not release it on DVD, well here is how to make yourself a backup copy on DVD.

I modified the Doom3.msi to not check for the volume label. Follow the below instructions to make Doom 3 a DVD.

1. Copy the contents of CD1 to a temp directory named "Doom3."
2. Then copy the contents of the Setup\Data\base directories on CD2 and CD3 to the Doom3\Setup\Data\base directory on your hard drive.
3. Copy pak000.pk4 and pak001.pk4 from CD 2 to the base directory.
4. Copy pak003.pk4 and pak004.pk4 from CD 3 to the base directory.
5. Download my modified Doom3.msi and replace the old one.
6. Burn to DVD, create an ISO with the volume label DOOM3 and burn to a blank dvd. DO NOT CHANGE THE VOLUME LABEL, IT MUST BE DOOM3 OR IT WILL NOT WORK!
   

Because we had the smallest tournout in years it was easier to play a more varied selection of games. We were able to finally get in some great Rize Of Nations action (two games of four on four) and all of us got into a sweet racing match of ToCa Race Driver 2 late Saturday afternoon. Other games we played were Unreal Tournament 2004, Far Cry, and even Quake 3 Arena. The gang decided to skip the UT2004 tournament until next party since we were having so much fun checking out other stuff. Many thanks to our sponsors!

TeamSpeak - written by Ajax
Yo, Jaguar LAN Fest gamers!!

It is going down THIS FRIDAY! YES!! Is everyone ready to play?

For the upcoming LAN party, we're going to run a TeamSpeak server www.teamspeak.org. For those of you who have never heard of TeamSpeak, here's a quick breakdown of just what the program is from their website:

"TeamSpeak is an application which allows its users to talk to each other over the internet and basically was designed to run in the background of online games. TeamSpeak uses as little latency as
possible, which makes TeamSpeak one of the best online gaming communication programs."

If you don't already have a copy of the TeamSpeak client, you can download it here:
ftp://teamspeak.krawall.de/releases/ts2_client_rc2_2032.exe

I wanted to put together a (really) quick setup guide for those of you that wanted to use the TeamSpeak application at the LAN party but were unfamiliar with the program. What I'll attempt to do in the next few paragraphs is give you the best TS setup for LAN play so that you can hit the ground running come Friday night or Saturday morning.
-----
Once you've installed the TeamSpeak client and you run it for the first time, you'll want to go into "Sound Input/Output Settings" under the "Settings" tab. Under "Voice Send Method", change the setting from "Voice Activated" to "Push to Talk" and bind a key on your keyboard to use as your universal "Talk" key. Be sure that it doesn't overlap with the controls in your other games as that could cause you to broadcast your to your team when you don't necessarily want to. Next, under "Local Test", change the test Codec to the last one, "Speex 25.9 KBit" Since we're playing at a LAN, latency isn't going to be a major issue, and some of the lower settings result in degraded speech playback. Select "Activate Local Test Mode" and test you mic or your headset to make sure that you can hear yourself at an acceptable volume. Once you've got your mic/headset ready to go, close the window.

The next place you'll want to go is back under the "Settings" tab, but this time click on "Options". In the portion of the panel that says, "DirectSound Buffer Size", move the slider over to the right and choose "Better Sound Quality". This will ensure not only that other people on TS sound good to you, but that you sound good to everyone else as well. Next, click on the "Bandwidth" tab and set both the upload and download speeds to "unlimited". Once you're finished there, click "Apply" and then click "OK" to close the window.

The last thing that we're going to set up are the keybinds. You can download the JLF keybind file here:
http://ajax.shackspace.com/JaguarBind.kbn

Go back to "Settings" again and select "Key Settings". Click on the "Import" button and link to the JaguarBind.kbn file. That will automatically map buttons on your keyboard which to allow you to switch back and forth between channels. When you first connect to the TeamSpeak server, you'll start in the "Default" channel. To talk to your individual teammates, you've got to switch channels. Note that you can change which keys switch channels by selecting the key combo bind and clicking "Edit".

The only information that I don't have for you yet is the actual server address. Once we get the network setup on Friday night, I'll fire up the TeamSpeak server and let everyone know the address.

I hope this points people in the right direction! If you have any questions about TeamSpeak, either visit their site at, www.teamspeak.org, or send me an e-mail. I'll also be available to answer TS questions at the party on Friday.

I will see you guys then!

Party Date Set!
July 30-31st is confirmed for our next LAN party date. Sign up here. A full Unreal Tournament 2004 tournament is scheduled for Saturday morning and possibly one for Rise of Nations and ToCA Race Driver 2 as well.

Hope to see you there!

A more laid back event with lots of fun gaming. It was great to rejoin the ranks in a small Unreal Tournament 2004 tournament (see ending tournament stats above). Special thanks to Altec Lansing, Antec, and Bawls for sponsoring us with great prizes. A date has not yet been set for the next event but we'll keep you posted.

Those Who Attended (by seat number):
Tom "Detin8or" Perry --- Luke "Smooth Beaver" Dotta --- *Khoi "Thinkguy" Vu *Paul "Hotnickels" Nguyen --- --- Jackal	Chuck "Grim" Smiley --- --- Zebbie --- Ollie Hirez --- SatansFist	--- Roland "Zahvah" Rush Justin "NoFAcEKiLLA" Klooster --- Matt "McG-KillU" Green --- Chrone Greg "FAngel" Olson --- Lodebeck	Dagg Nabbit --- Sami --- --- --- LiL_J

Sever Tables:

49. Ajax 50. JAG 51. Server console 52. Disruptor

ToCA Downloads - written by Ajax
Since I've been loving ToCA Race Driver 2 so much since I got a hold of it, I wanted to come through and pimp a couple of nifty little TRD2 mods for that make a major difference in the game's immersion level.

First off, ToCA Race Driver 2 Edited Sound Levels
http://ajax.shackspace.com/ToCA_RD2/RD2SoundLevels.zip

This file adjusts the sound volumes for each of the camera views. The sounds are particularly enhanced when using the in-car and bonnet camera views.

And next up, ToCA Race Driver 2 Active Cockpit Utility
http://ajax.shackspace.com/ToCA_RD2/RD2ActiveCockpitCam.zip

From the readme: The "Active Cockpit Camera" ("ACC") option gives the camera a few degrees of motion, allowing the camera to move in response to the vehicle's actions. This essentially makes the cockpit view behave like Live for Speed. It shouldn't have been an addon, IMO - the in-car cam should behave like this by default.

So there you go. Like I said, I've been loving both of these mods since I got a hold of them. I was skeptical at first, but the community came through bigtime on these two. Give these mods a shot and see what you think!

ToCA Race Driver 2 Full Review - written by Ajax - Official Web Page
Okay, I was trying to fight off the rabid fanboyism since the original title was underwhelming, but I'm going to just geek it up here and say that ToCA Race Driver 2 is the best PC racing title on the market right now. Its phenomonal. Now, given the current crop of titles I know that's not saying much, but this game is something special. Its right up there with Porsche Unleashed and Motor City Online in tems of overall enjoyability.

The 4-point physics are very well done, and the adjustments that you can make to your car not only make a difference, but they make a much more realistic difference in the performance of your vehicle, as opposed to an overexaggerated caricature of performance. If anything, one could accuse the vehicles of feeling a bit too light overall - perhaps the only artifact of the physics engine - but even mildly tweaking the downforce settings alleviates this issue.

The difference in the two play styles, Simulation and Pro-Simulation are immediately obvious, with the latter of the two being handled extraordinarily well. I supposed Codemasters paid attention to what SCEA's Gran Turismo 4 was bringing to the table in terms of realism and attempted to counter that. The default Simulation mode is solid, but from the start its pretty obvious that it has been abbreviated a bit to appeal to that less hardcore audience.

What's unfortunate about the title is that as good as the racing is, there is a surprisingly limited number of vehicles to actually race with. For the 48 tracks included in the game (not a true number, as some tracks have longer/short/oval/rally variations), there are only 36 vehicles, and often times a Race Series is limited to one type of vehicle only. However, all of the 36 vehicles included in the game do have their own distinct and realistic feel. Even in the regular Simulation mode you can easily tell the difference between racing a Subaru Impreza and a Mitsubishi Lancer, despite their similarities in size and wheelbase. The same holds true with the DTM, High Performance and V8 Supercar vehicles. They all handle differently, and cater to different driving styles.

Another potential drawback to other race fans may be in the ambitious nature of the title. ToCA Race Driver 2 bills itself the Ultimate Racing Simulator, and to that end it attempts to cover a very broad number of racing styles. For what it attempted to do, it did very well. Each of the classes from the Land Rover Rallycross to the hulking Super Truck Championship all the way up through Ice Racing portrays the vehicles in its respective class very, very well, with physics that fit both the racers and the environment to a tee. Of course, Super Truck racing isn't everyone's cup of tea.

Neither is Rallycross. Or Ford F-150 oval racing. While these particular races are well represented, some players might not care for those particular racing styles at all. Of course, Career Mode will force players through the drudgery of some of these series, so be prepared to take the good with the ASCAR. Also, for an Ultimate Racing Simulator there are several prominent racing styles and Championships notably absent from this release. Drag Racing is very popular, yet there is no drag race type in the game. The GTR series is gaining popularity, yet it to is strangely absent from the game.

There is a distinct possibility that licensing conflicts were the cause of the omissions, since there were some manufacturers whose vehicles could not appear in the game for that reason (*sniff* Porsche you are sorely missed). There is a patch on the way for the PC version (as well as downloadable content for the XBOX version) that looks to make improvements to the game. Due to an overwhelming demand, a rear-view mirror option has been added. I already know what you're saying... "no rear view in a racing game? wtf Ajax?" I said the same thing, but the racing is quite compelling even without a rear-view.

It is nice that Codemasters decided to listen to their fans on this one. There is talk of dedicated server support as well, and given the way that the game handles races and championships it would be a welcome addition.

After having played through the game's Career Mode, I can't tell if there's an retail expansion/DLC on the way, or if the title had some of its corners cut to make the release date. Its a great game, don't get me wrong, but there's something about it feels incomplete to me.

The content that is here is well worth the $29.99 price tag though, and I highly recommend this title to the gearheads and race lovers out there.

ToCA Race Driver 2 Preview - written by Ajax
J-Money and I tested it this past Friday and the netcode is VERY SOLID. No collision issues, no floating opponents, and no sync problems even when you fill the race grid with AI players. Good stuff. After having to suffer through abysmal online racing experience that was last year's Pro Race Driver, its nice to see that Codemasters listened to their fanbase and corrected all the errors on this new title. I picked up the full version on Friday (yeah - taking one for the team) and have slowly been making my way through it. I'll have a full-blown write-up once I've made some significant progress through the game. I'd call the shot and say that this should be the official race title at the next LAN, but you guys give it a whirl and see what you think.

Multiplayer Demo Download Link
http://www.bhmotorsports.com/download/5755

Unreal Tournament 2004 Tips - Part #2 - written by SatansFist
The Element of Surprise - The element of surprise is one of your greatest allies. Make the most out of spotting the enemy before they spot you. The person that gets the first shot in almost always has the advantage in the fight. That first shot usually has a better chance of hitting its target when the element of surprise is in your favor so make the most out of it. If your enemy is being careless and running in a straight line, whip out the lightning gun and fry his head off instead of opening up on him with the rocket launcher or flak cannon.

Also, when you come across two people duking it out and they haven't noticed you (you're above them, for example), try to take out the person with the most skill first. I know I said earlier that you should always gun for the skilled player but it's even more important for this reason. Think about it. Who would you rather deal with when the moment of surprise passes and they start to fight back?

Unreal Tournament 2004 Tips - Part #1 - written by SatansFist
Well one of the guys that showed up for the LAN party asked me how I dominate in UT2k4 and wanted a few tips. I started typing something up but it quickly blew up into this huge page-long write-up that was pretty convoluted so I figured I'd sit down and type something up using a little structure. So I present to you "SatansFist's tips on owning in UT2k4 Deathmatch". It's still a little messy (I typed it up in my spare time at work) but it should have some valuable advice for tearing it up.

Movement:
Movement is key to staying alive in UT2k4. Standing still for even a second can mean your death (especially when people are using the shield gun or sniper rifle). This means that you need to get good at dodging and double jumping. I find that dodging using the up arrow doesn't work too well because you end up stopping for just a second and you lose momentum. I dodge to the side and turn my body towards the direction I dodged in order to keep my momentum.

When in a firefight, always keep moving/dodging/jumping. You want to be on the ground as little as possible (due to RL/Flak splash damage) and you want to move in a way that your opponent won't suspect. Time your dodges to your opponent's shots. As soon as he fires you should be dodging out of the way and returning fire. The key is not to fall into a routine. If you do, you'll be toast.

Weapons:
Here's a list of each weapon and when/how I use them:

Shield Gun - One of my favorite weapons, especially since you start out with it. The real fun with this gun starts on a small level, or a level with a lot of players. Chaos is your best friend with this weapon. I just hold down the primary fire and run around looking for people to dodge into. Once I locate a target, I try to get close enough without them realizing what I'm trying to do. Catching people off-guard with the shield gun is the only way to go. You don't want them backpedaling, launching [explitive] at you (unless they back themselves into a wall, and then its gg). Once you're close enough, use dodge and double jump to close the gap and seal the deal. It takes a bit of practice, since you need to get used to lag/hit detection.Did you know that you can use the shield (alt-fire) to prevent falling damage? Just aim at the ground and keep it on while you're falling (this helps a lot in Onslaught, trust me). Also, you can use the shield gun to reach high places (just don't over-charge it or you'll kill yourself). If you know how to rocket jump from your quake days then you'll get this down pretty quick.

Assault Gun - Probably the best use is to lob grenades down a corridor full of people or into a firefight. I'll also use the gun to finish off someone I just shot with the lightning/sniper rifle. 90% of the time I'll switch to my shield gun rather than use this one though. Just not enough power…

Bio Rifle - Another gun I don't use much… Sometimes charging up the goo will get you a kill or two, but most of the time I end up killing myself with it. The gun has it's uses though… It's quite helpful when you're running away from someone.

Shock Rifle - I've been trying to practice more with this weapon. I see a lot of people own with it online but I still have problems. The best way to get kills is obviously the combo (alt-fire and then shoot the ball with primary fire), which is good to use when there's a firefight near you and you want some free kills. Both fire modes by themselves have their uses as well. The primary fire is good for taking someone out at range (or just disrupting them since it pushes you back) and I like to spam the secondary fire if it gets too frantic to combo. Definitely one of the best weapons in the game, especially if you're good with sniper weapons. Also gets a lot better in low-gravity situations (same with the sniper rifles).

Link Gun - We all know what to use this for in Onslaught, but in DM I use primary fire 90% of the time. It's a good gun to just spam down hallways or to take someone out who's stupid enough to stand still. I'll only use secondary fire if I know my opponent is low on health because the beam is hard to keep on someone.

Minigun - Another one of my favorites… Best way to use this gun is to look for people who are bleeding/on fire and target them aggressively. The gun can do a lot of damage fairly quickly and is pretty easy to hit people with (IMO). I don't really ever use the alt-fire, but it does have it's uses I
suppose (since it does have splash damage, albeit a tiny amount/radius). This gun combos well with the sniper/lightning rifles since one bodyshot puts a person at 30 health (from 100). From there its only a second or two of the minigun to seal the deal.

Flak Cannon - My stats tell me that I'm a flak monkey, and I believe it ;) The flak cannon is my second-most used weapon (close behind the RL) for a reason: It owns. I use both alt-fire and primary fire a lot since each has its own use. Primary fire is great to bounce off walls/shoot down hallways/etc. Its also good for those close-up kills that send gibs everywhere. Secondary fire is good when you want to hurt multiple enemies, or if you need to hit someone with some splash damage. Not much else to say about this gun…

Rocket Launcher - Ah yes, the good ole rocket launcher. Not really much to say about this one other than there are a few different ways of firing rockets. You can fire them individually or two/three at a time, and you can have them home onto your enemy if you want to (I rarely do). You can also have them fire in a different formation (after loading up the RL with 2 or 3 rockets, press alt-fire as you release primary fire to have them shoot in a tight spiral). When I'm running around a level I'll usually load up some rockets right before entering a high-traffic area. That way, if there's any targets I already have 3 times the firepower ready to be unleashed. And if there's no one there, oh well, I just lost 3 rockets. Big deal.

Lightning Gun/Sniper Rifle - I personally prefer the lightning gun, mainly because I can easily tell where my shots land and also because sometimes even though you'll miss your shot, the lightning will bounce off the wall/floor and kill the guy you were shooting at. Like I said above, these weapons are good to use in combination with the minigun. Try to always aim for where a person's head should be when running around a level. Sometimes you'll get some insanely lucky shots.

Phew, so that was an overview of the basic weapons. I'm not going to go into Redeemer/translocator/ONS weapons…

General Gameplay Tips:
-Learn the levels and all of the secrets/item locations in each level. This was the main reason I was able to own so much at the LAN party. Knowing where the health is when you need it is essential, as well as knowing where the "good" weapons are (Redeemer, Flak, RL, etc). You'll also want to know where the shields are as well as the keg o health.

-Know where your enemy is or will be. After playing the same map over and over, you will realize where the "hot-spots" are. This knowledge allows you to prepare for the fight by gettting the right weapon out/loading up rockets/etc.

-Always keep tabs on the big ticket items in each level (redeemer, ion painter, shields, keg o health, double damage). Try to anticipate when they'll respawn and make sure you're around them when they do. Not only do you help yourself by doing this, but you hurt your enemies by keeping them understocked.

-Always try to go after the guy you think has the most skill (this is why I dog Ajax so much!).

-Be unpredictable. I said something like that above, but it's very important. Sometimes when I'm fighting with someone I'll do weird [explitive] like run behind a pillar and then just stand there for a second. Usually the person chasing me will think I won't stop so he'll aim ahead of the pillar and as he takes his shot I'll dodge out and cap him. Even though I said never stand still, sometimes you just need to in order to stir things up. I think that's everything I can think of for now…. I hope that helps you guys out, even a little. Feel free to give me feedback on this write-up. Let me know whether or not it was helpful. Also, shoot any questions you have my way and I'd be glad to answer them.

What a great time! Thanks to Intel for providing the two complete pizza meals (Friday night and Saturday afternoon), drinks, covering the costs for the building space, and the four 3.2 Extreme Edition Pentium 4 CPUs for prizes! Thanks to another sponsor, Seasonic, for providing the Super Silencer 350W power supply. We had a great turnout, JLF's biggest event ever. Many thanks to all those who helped with setup and teardown. Thankfully, there were no power issues with the new facility. Congratulations to all the prize winners and see you at the next one in May!

We're Full!!
Well, we've had an overwhelming response to the upcoming party!! Thanks to those who've spread word. This is going to be a ton of fun! I will email more details regarding the event to all who've signed up as we get closer. If you have any questions feel free to ask.

If you're already on the list and are no longer able to make the event, please let us know ASAP.

Sign Up Form Online!!
To get on the list of attendees for the FREE April 9-10th LAN party sign up here. If you've already emailed me requesting to get on the attendance list please sign up again using this form. My sincere apologies for the inconvenience, I wasn't really sure how soon we'd be able to get the sign up form online.

Also note the new option on the menu bar that will display the results of what games people voted for at the party (labeled "Voting Results")!

FREE LAN Party Thanks to Intel!!!
We're gonna have a free LAN Party April 9-10th all decked out with free food plus really cool prizes!! Does it get better than that?!? Sign ups will be online ASAP.

JLF Tag Line Contest Sponsored By Intel = Three CPU Prizes!!
All of those already on the JLF Yahoo Groups email list have already heard about this but I wanted all the folks on the web to be able to be a part too. Intel is working on a few tag-lines for their upcoming marketing posters and are looking for ideas. For the top three best ideas Intel picks from ideas submitted by anyone from the JLF group will get the following prizes!

The winners will be announced in person at our next LAN party April 9-10th. If you want to submit any "Tag Line" ideas email JAG and he'll pass it on for you. Better hurry while there's still time!

-----Original Message-----
From: Jeff Fick
Sent: Wednesday, March 03, 2004 9:47 AM
To: jaguarlanfest@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [JLF] JLF Gaming Tag Line Contest

JLF Crew,

OK JLF guys, here is the deal.

I’d like to come up with a really cool tag line that will be used on the Posters and Marketing collaterals that we use for the gaming market. So who do I turn to? Fellow gamers of course. :)

The last time Intel developed material like this it was for the CPL event in Texas. However, the tag line they came up with was the following:
“CONQUER, LOL, REPEAT”

I think the JLF crew can come up with something better than that. So I’m going to challenge you guys. Please submit you best tag line to me through email. If I can get it through our marketing, legal, and brand identity cops, I’ll make it worth the winner’s effort.
I think John [JAG] can vouch for us when we deliver the goods. :)

So send me your best 3 to 5 word tag line that you think is a great catch phrase for gaming, and be sure to include your name and contact information so I can get back to you. We’ll announce the winner by having John send an email out to this list. We’ll be picking a winner regardless of the decision to use the tag line or not, so show me what you got.

Best regards everyone!

Jeff Fick
Intel Corporation

Unreal Tournament 2004 Demo


In case you haven’t heard, there’s a new downloadable demo version of Unreal Tournament 2004 available for download here (http://www.unrealtournament.com/ut2004/downloads.php).

The designers of UT2004 seem to be targeting game-play rather then graphics (over UT2003). This is welcomed as the new game adds many great enhancements such as voice over IP (for online chatting) as well as in-game vehicles (driving, tanks, flight, etc.).

Here’s a listing of some enhancements taken from the official web site.

Vehicles
Rev-up and ride out in an array of land-, air-, and space-based vehicles that play critical roles in a successful combat strategy in Assault and Onslaught. With vehicles ranging from single man fighters to five man behemoths, Unreal Tournament 2004 provides players with plenty of choices when shopping for a mechanized implement of destruction.

New Technology

E3 Review - written by Balbados
E3 [explitive] rocked. That about sums up my thoughts on the entire trip ;-).

Seriously though, from the moment I walked into the South Hall I was overwhelmed visually, audibly, and tactilely. Konami’s booth had at least 4 games that immediately grabbed my attention, the choices were daunting. Then I saw Konami’s Metal Gear Solid 3 trailer playing and I was in heaven and hooked. A quick jaunt over to the Midway booth after the amazing MGS3 movie and I saw a booth babe that Teddy was already taking pictures of, looking at her outfit it was difficult to tell which game she was supposed to be a part of, I later found she was supposed to be from Spy Hunter 2. About the only good thing Midway had was the women, so around and around we walked taking in everything we could. There was so much noise and so many places to look at, with people from all the booths almost tauntingly asking you to try out their games.

One, of many, surprise titles was Lineage II, for the PC and from a company I’d never heard of in all my scouring of games. This game took up more of my time when we got separated on other days, as did some more of NCSoft’s games; this company seemingly popped out of nowhere and already they can pretty much be expecting my money for two titles. The other title being Shining Lore, a PC title from the same world of one of my favorite Tactical RPG’s in the past; if you’ve been a console gamer you probably already knew this was coming as I did – but again I had no idea who NCSoft was. Apparently they’re a company from the godfather country of online, Korea, which promptly explained Lineage being a sequel. Exarch Online was another title they were displaying and while fun, it felt a bit shallow in comparison to Lineage II, yet seemed to compete w/ the same genre. After further play testing I found Exarch Online to be more akin to Diablo. Lineage II is similar to Diablo but quite a bit deeper in character development and world, I’m definitely going to be keeping my eye on this one.

After wandering ‘round some more I found that Half-Life 2 wouldn’t be shown on the floor, you had to wait in line; quite depressing really, but I right next to Half Life 2’s area in the ATi booth was yet another of my favorite companies, SquareSoft, now known as Square Enix. I made mental note to return later to try out some of their games I had already been anticipating with caution, Final Fantasy X-2 and Star Ocean III. Final Fantasy XI was being shown as well for the PS2 & PC, it looked interesting but there were so many other MMORPG’s to be had I didn’t even bother. Final Fantasy X-2 is a helluva game indeed, everything enjoyable about FFX was here, but even better. While the opening movie was a bit off-putting the gameplay came through, thank goodness. The new job-system is probably the best execution of jobs classing Final Fantasy has had since the SNES days (yes better than Final Fantasy Tactics). You’re able to change class at anytime during or outside of battle, which makes for some interesting strategy’s to be had w/ only 3 characters to play as. Rikku & Yuna the Summoner return to your control along w/ Paine (pronounced Pine) a definite bad-ass, and the guys as everyone well knows are secondary non-playable characters only to be met in the world instead of used as PCs. The outfits for the different job classes range from outrageous (in a good way) to extremely cool in appearance, and with the change of outfit comes different weapons and means of using the same weapons or magic. Before actually playing the game I was pretty hesitant on the whole idea of there being no guys in the game, thinking that it was going to end up being a lot of fluff and skin for the male driven audience out there. I can safely say that Square is not just trying to pawn the game off on people using a similar name, it really seems that the game will improve the original story and is needed. I can’t wait to find out what happened to Tidus now. Star Ocean 3 was in Japanese so I didn’t understand the story whatsoever, but the battle system is as all Star Oceans have been, Real Time, yet pause-able action only now it’s gorgeous and more entertaining than before. I honestly can’t think of much to talk about since the core of any RPG is story and character development and the build at E3 showed neither off too well, but I’m going to be keeping an eye out for more information about it for sure.

Microsoft’s booth was at the opposite end of the hall, and on the way over I got to see both Namco’s and Ubi-Soft’s booths. Soul Calibur 2 in Namco’s area is going to be THE fighting game of the year. It’s just as flawless to control as before, and a lot better looking. Amazingly the PS2 is so close visually to the X-Box version the only problem in choosing one is going to be which character you want. Link (Gamecube), Heihachi (PS2) or Spawn (X-Box). I’ll probably get them all eventually, but Spawn was the most entertaining of the bunch for me. I played a few rounds w/ a well dressed older than I am man and a well dressed Japanese man who dropped by right after him, the Japanese guy and I were pretty good competition for one another, the other was just a button masher. I was happy to see that the game has retained it’s simple to get into hard to master routine, because it always makes it interesting depending on who you’re playing. If only 3D Fighters would get some X-Box Live! Or PS2 Online access L. R: Racing Evolution wasn’t playable unfortunately, but the movie was quite impressive. This game is the 5th in the Ridge Racer series, and before seeing it in action I was afraid Namco was making a GT-Wannabe game…which the console industry does NOT need, there are too many as is. I didn’t spend too much time in Ubi-Softs booth, but I did get a chance to play XIII, the cell-shaded First Person Shooter and it too was surprisingly more entertaining than I thought it would be. I guess I’m just a bit too pessimistic about some things. It’s not a keeper for me, but at least now I can see why people would enjoy it. Prince of Persia made a surprise entrance at the show for me, I had no idea that they were working on a new one. And this one didn’t look as disappointing to play as the 3D venture on the Dreamcast, here’s to hoping.

Onto Microsoft’s amazingly gigantic booth, wow pretty much covers it. MS seemed to have pulled out all the stops when it came to their booth. They had some beautiful X-Box ladies walking around, and probably 100 kiosks available to play games on. Honestly, the choices were too many, but SW: KoTOR, Amped 2, Starcraft: Ghost (RIP PC) caught my eye on the X-Box along with Mythica, Halo and Rise of Nations on the PC. Let me just say that all of these games were a blast to play and I’ll be getting them all one way or another and because of these games Microsoft had the Booth of E3 for me. I spent a lot of my time in it playing SW: Knights of the Old Republic, StarCraft Ghost and Rise of Nations. Mythica is probably going to be the MMORPG I stick too when it comes, I absolutely love Norse mythology and this games got tons of it, plus the blonde booth babe here was one of the best in the show, right behind the Vampire chicks in Activisions booth for Vampire The Redemption: Bloodlines (oh yes, another Vampire game…I should pre-order this now. If you played the first and love it as much as I did you don’t even need to be convinced of its fun). Capcom across the floor had too many games to play as well, Product No. 3 though was the game I HAD to play because of the less than stellar reviews coming out of japan. This game is going to be accepted like GUNVALKYRIE on the x-box was, not as wanted as I think it should be. Combos are fun to pull off once you actually figure them out (RTFM is something I have to tell myself more often) and the entire time having Vanessa, the main character, moving to the beat makes it my kind of game for sure. The Onimusha 3 video playing here showcasing Samonuske’s return to modern day France and having none other than the Professional himself as a protégé was enough to make many of the people around it gawk the entire time it was running.

If I continue to talk about all these games I’m going to literally have a 3 page essay on my hands, because this is just a few of the booths we got to see. It’s entirely too much for me to write about at the moment, so I’ll leave this bit here for now. Perhaps I’ll write more, perhaps not *shrug*. I’ll leave these impressions to stand as soon as I let you know about Savage: Battle for Newerth. This going to be a game we all have to play as soon as we can at the LAN’s, RTS/FPS = lovely for everyone, it’s part Tribes, part Warcraft, part Sacrifice, part Unreal Tournament. A truly impressive game from a company I’ve never heard of before…I love suprises! The people in the booth (lead programmer amongst others) are very cool people, and I hope for their sake that everyone buys this game. Phu|crum will probably be writing more about the game as he actually got to play it, the booth was far too busy when I got to visit it, but from what I got to watch….wow. You have a commander person which is doing the job that in tribes would have your guild leader at the command station pointing out orders for everybody on your team to adhere to; and to win I think people WILL need to work in teams. This commander is able to build new buildings using the NPC workers that do the menial tasks nobody on the battlefield would want to, so they definitely thought of that (though you can help build if you so choose). The warriors in the game are what the players can be, and basically it’s like any other FPS but w/ the commander there strategizing it gives the game a much deeper sense of teamwork than I’ve seen in any game since Tribes. It’s set in the future so you have many sci-fi weapons, but it seems like there was a fall of technology so it’s rugged and old seeming, while you’re using the new weapons…almost Mad Max or Fallout like, but on a lush green planet much like our own (think Yosemite, as that is the closest thing in reality I can think of as being the map in the game). Buy Savage people, this company needs it and can hopefully deliver what they’re trying to…it’s up to the community with a game like this though if it’s going to float or sink, pricks or good people will make this game. So I hope that we can perhaps have some interesting LAN parties if we can’t have fun online because of the pricks.

Lates

The JFL Crew Is Back From E3!!


Well... Viper, Zero, Blisster, Jan, Francois, Ajax, phU|CrUM, Balbados, and myself have returned from our adventure in Los Angeles at E3!! And let me tell you, it was a BLAST!!! We had a huge of a great time and wish all of you could have been there. Thanks to nVidia for sponsoring us!