This And That: Wednesday News Roundup

Cenega Publishing has announced a pair of titles for the Nokia N-Gage. Roots: Gates of Chaos is an RPG set prior to any other version of The Roots, in which the player fights to help the Lady of Life defeat her nemesis the Demon Lord, with four-player Bluetooth multiplayer support. Shade: Wrath of Angels, on the other hand, is a 3D horror game where players have to solve puzzles and problems of logic "that would stump Einstein". Well so what? The apple stumped him for long enough. Shade does have some good ideas though, like being chased through different times and dimensions, mixing various kinds of weaponry from each of them, and of course it has two-player deathmatch via Bluetooth. Both games are due out "in the latter half of 2004 and early 2005," which seems like a roundabout way of saying "sooner or later".

If for some reason you enjoy killing people on the Internet by skiing down hills with a jetpack on, then you'll be pleased to hear that Vivendi-Universal Games has announced that it's currently taking applications for the Tribes: Vengeance beta programme. The closed beta will apparently begin with a very limited group before expanding over the summer leading up to the game's release in October. So, if you fancy signing up for that, you can do so here. Or, if you'd prefer a game you can definitely play, here's yesterday's link to the full, freely available Tribes 1. Enjoy.