Rampancy

Creation continues its Coming of the Dark series with Banks of the Ire. Ares sent this note:

This addition to the venerable Coming of the Dark series is meant to be nothing more than a small, fast-paced action map. At 4.8 megs, it is a nice change from the huge solos we tend to release. The enemy AI will flank you, surround you, and leave you begging for mercy as many hundreds of enemieswear you down over a grinding assualt that can last half an hour or more. We hope you enjoy it. Visit our website for screenshots.

You can grab your copy at The Mill.

S'phtman informs us of a new set of Xbox game previews at Daily Radar. And of course, Halo is one of the games they gush the most about.

The gameplay seems to be developing as quickly as the graphic improvements. The world is now populated with an interesting and imaginative assortment of alien varmints, many bent on your destruction. The single-player game is awe-inspiring, taking you all around the gigantic artificial ring-shaped world on a quest to defeat an alien race known as The Covenant. You'll engage them in straight-out blasting duels, attack Metal Gear-style in complete stealth, or even commandeer heavily armed vehicles to launch more destructive attacks (those vehicle modes switch to a third-person view).Multiplayer has been clarified somewhat too, and on Xbox, it'll take place on a split screen, with up to four players blasting away for supremacy. But multiplayer won't be confined to simple death-matching. The game will include cooperative modes, allowing you to create an elite team to fight either Alien or human opponents. And you can bet your bottom dollar that capture-the-flag style games will be built in. No word yet on the online capabilities once offered for the PC version.

As you can see, this article takes a less-than-positive approach to the future of PC/Mac multiplayer, while mainly citing a lack of new information on later versions of Halo. Still, the authors don't appear to be particularly depressed about Halo's development... quite the opposite, in fact. Go check it out!

The Shapeshifter went online earlier today. The Shapeshifter is a site dedicated to the use of the shapeshifter cheat (allows you to play as any character in the game). Included are character reviews, how-tos, downloads, and its very own forum. Head over and see what all the hype is all about!

Char alerted us to an interesting post in the IGN forums. A gent named IO-Stream gives his assessment of where Halo is at. In answering replies to his post, he reveals some critical information relating to the perspective issue, and to the PC/Mac compatibility question...

...In the build you could cycle between 1st/3rd person with the black and white camera buttons. I liked 1st person much better though, to my surprise......As for Halo and the fast server issue, Bungie has said that they think the two versions (PC/Xbox) will be compatible with each other. And if they aren't then a Halo Server Program will be available on Linux and Win2k for running just a server on a PC that will definitely be compatible with the Xbox version...

Of course, he also staffs the site Global Xbox, so the opinions expressed in his report may not be taken by some as wholly objective, but if he didn't have an in he wouldn't have been at Gamestock in the first place, would he? You can view Global Xbox's slightly older Halo preview from January here, incidentally.

• Forum: another hands on