ID Software is once again aiming to invade every home and business with an addictive 3-D adventure! Quake, the new title ID is working on, is planned for a December release. Sources informed Game Zero that a release may come much earlier -- since development is progressing faster than anticipated. Following the general trend of computer gaming, it looks like you will need at least a 486-66 to play this one. Good news is that this game is guaranteed to scare the pants off of you-- in the true ID style. In other ID news a new Doom type game should be out on the shelves right now, more on that later though.

News flash! Seemingly everyone here is working on Ultra 64 titles. Spectrum Holobyte is in on the action with a conversion of their new PC title Topgun. Development is just starting so no news on how it looks yet. The long awaited, StarFox II, is now showing-- and it looks great! We are all planning on logging some heavy play on this, and I'll give you a full run down tomorrow. Sony's PSX may be coming to the US! I talked with a former Virgin developer, now with an independent company, and he mentioned US software development. Still unconfirmed, I will get more news on this as time goes on and keep you up to date.

• Day 2 -- First off, lots of Jaguar news. Several exciting new games and much innovative hardware will soon be released.

Doom for the Atari Jaguar is on preview, and it excels both as a single player and multi-player game. The console version is comparable to the PC version running on a 486-25. The game has no slowdown, even in full-screen mode. Hover Hunter is an 8-player combat game from Hyper Image Productions, a new programming group. Although only partially complete, this title looks very promising. You, and up to 8 players on separate machines, must choose your choice of craft and then battle it out on a highly detailed fractal-generated landscape. Hover Hunter is scheduled for release this year -- expect a review from us. Burn-out is a motorcycle race game where you drive formula bikes on closed tracks. This title, as well, is planned for this year. From what we've played of it, it is very promising. Rayman is a new platform title worth watching for. You play a clowny looking character whose main weapon is to throw his hands at the enemy. Artwork in this title is also very pleasing to look at. Several new hardware accessories for the Atari Jaguar are also being previewed at the show. The CD unit and a V.R. headset are on display, as well as a new voice/data communicator. The data communicator not only allows you to talk on the telephone while you are playing, but also support your call waiting; you can pause your game, take the call, then continue back with your game when done. Another new item, CAT Box, allows up to 32 players to connect their Jags together via a standard serial line.

Sega's booth hosts a variety of impressive items. Virtua Fighter II coin-op is faster, texture mapped, and all-round dazzling. The game is ready for arcade placement now. The U.S. Saturn system also premiered at the show. An official announcement will be made this fall regarding a launch date. Price will run between $300- $500 US. Sega confirmed that the U.S. and Japanese systems are not compatible. Apparently Sega arcade and Sega console are working closer together now. Daytona USA and Virtua Fighter II--to name a few--will be ported directly to the Saturn. A demo of Daytona USA was shown at Sega's press conference. The crowd was visibly impressed. In other Sega news, Sega does not plan to drop the 32x when the Saturn is released. They plan to shift the 32x market to the older teen crowd. The Saturn will be aimed at the adults and older teens, and the Genesis will be made the entry level system.

• Day 3 -- Today was an intense information day for the Game Zero team. In-depth meetings with Alias software, Nintendo, Sega, Atari and 3DO started the day off. One of the first meetings of the day was with Alias Software. These are the people behind the eye stunning graphics development kit used in games like Donkey Kong Country. There were several unknowns in this booth. All of the talk revolved around the Nintendo Ultra 64. Alias, the powerhouse behind Killer Instinct, and leader in Ultra 64 technology was really showing off. However, they were not showing off an Ultra 64--instead they were flashing Silicon Graphics Onyx systems. Although we were very impressed with what they were showing, whether this can be done on a home game machine is yet to be seen. They hyped real time raytracing, modeling, and entire 3-D environments. Their key focus was that they were not bitmapped graphics, but rather vector based. Alias had no information on the release of the Ultra 64.

After the news from Alias, we decided that it was time to find Nintendo's plans. Hot at the show this year was not the Ultra 64--but rather a red-black 3-D system named "Virtual Boy." This system is based on a 32 bit RISC processor--and had a very detailed screen. The true feeling of depth that this system provided was unbelievable. An absolute first in the gaming market, this system's potential is amazing. However, this is not the wonderful virtual reality system some may think. The screen is a monochrome red palette, and can be very straining on your eyes. Although the resolution is very high, all color depths are achieved using half-tones. Nintendo has some tough marketing ahead on this one. Nintendo also started to talk about their Ultra 64 system. They believe that this system will absolutely kick the doors off of any other system coming to the market. In reality, only time will tell. With no official announcement, and Sega / Atari / 3DO / and the PSX all running strong, Nintendo will have a battle in front of them. The Ultra-64 is expected to be officially unveiled later this spring at E3.

All of the talk about new systems almost made you forget that the SNES is still Nintendo's strongest system, and will be for some time. After the incredible success of Donkey Kong Country, Nintendo said that the adventures of Donkey and Ditti Kong will continue. They are not sure of a release date yet, but a sequel is already underway. Also announced at the show was Star Fox 2, a fast paced more advanced sequel to the original. Star Fox 2 uses a second generation FX 2 chip, offering faster speed, and more polygon support. This made for a fast playing game. Your ship now has the ability to morph into a land walker in certain stages. The game play was as was clean, and Nintendo expects this title to be a hit as well. Also for the SNES, Nintendo was showing FX Fighter, a polygon based fighting game similar to Sega's Virtua Fighter. Finally, Nintendo officially retired 8-bit NES at the show, although games will be around for some time yet.

On other news fronts, a longer meeting with Sega followed. Sega was very proud to have a working Saturn running Virtua Fighter at the show. This translation was perfect. The machine was very impressive. Sega is gearing up for production of this unit, which raised a big question--What about the new 32X? Sega's responded that their marketing focuses will be changing to accommodate a multi-system platform set. They will still be marketing the Genesis to the younger crowd, moving the 32X to the teen market, and leaving the expensive Saturn for the adult market. Some new news with the 32X included 32X CD games. These games were able to take advantage of the 32X's advanced palette, although this was about it. Sega had a general plethora of new Genesis and 32X games, although there was no one single game that they were trying to push as a market crusher. The fully detailed Virtua Fighter 2 was extremely impressive, and is sure to be the new arcade icon for Sega. There are already rumors of a complete translation of this title for the Saturn system.

3DO Inc. had a very impressive showing at CES this year. With high end titles like Wing Commander 3, the 3DO will be hot in '95. 3DO had no news of their supposed 64-bit upgrade at the show. Some other impressive titles included Novastorm, and The People's Game Show. The 3DO had the most visually stunning graphics of all gaming machines available right now. 3DO hopes their early entry into the market will help them against the releases from Sega and Nintendo.

Atari Corp., and their Jaguar systems were heavy into the CD-ROM market this year. They were showing everything from nearly perfect full screen video, to hot new action games. Atari plans for their CD system to be priced under $200, and be fully upgradable. With a cartridge slot on top, Atari has plans for the future. Although the Lynx system is still considered supported by Atari, only 4 games were being shown for next year.

Game Zero expects to hear more after the show news from our contacts soon, so stay tuned, to find out the hottest news -- Only from Game Zero!! (compliments of www.gamezero.com)

• Jim Krych reports in MICROpendium that he will not be able to produce the assembly language programming series that he’d planned to do with the help of Bruce Harrison, Brad Snyder, Art Green, Joe Delekto, Chris Bobbitt and Charles Good.

• Word reaches the TI Community that Mike Brent of Ottawa, Canada has begun work on a TI-99 Emulator for Commodore Amiga owners.

FEB 1995: CaDD Electronics releases PC99 Stage 3. The full product configuration is the equivalent of a TI-99/4A with Peripheral Expansion Box containing 32K Memory Expansion; TI RS-232 card; and TI p-Code card; three DS/SD disk drives; together with TI Extended BASIC, TI Editor/Assembler and Tombstone City modules.

• The Erie, PA 99ers disband and merge their membership into the Computer Users of Erie, a multi-platform user group. The CUE's address is PO Box 1975 Erie, PA 16507-0975.

• Bill Gaskill announces the release of Mailing List Manager v1.0. The Extended BASIC and assembly language application carries a $15 price tag and sports unlimited file sizes.

• Fest-West ’95 takes place on February 18^th at the Fabulous Inn in San Diego, California. It is hosted by the Southern California Computer Group.

MAR 1995:

APR 1995: TexComp Users Supply owner Jerry Price sells the business on April 1st to Carey Hoffman, who will be assisted by father Larry Hoffman of the West Covina 99ers. The new firm will be known as TexComp LTD.

• The Ottawa TI-99/4A Users Group ceases publication of its newsletter after 14 years.

• Long time Sheboygan (WI) Area 99er Joseph Turk dies on April 7th at age 77.

• On April 27th, Jim Krych announces the impending release of the SUPER AMS card for the TI-99/4A.

• COMMODORE -- A year after Commodore files for bankruptcy in April 1994, rights to the Commodore Amiga and its technology are purchased by the German company Escom AG on April 21st. Escom AG will itself go bankrupt and the rights to the Amiga and Amiga technology will be purchased by U.S. giant Gateway computers.

MAY 1995:

JUN 1995: IBM buys Lotus and Sun Microsystems launches Java.

JUL 1995: Compaq announces the 120Mb LS120 superfloppy which will also read 1.44Mb floppies.

• Microsoft releases NT 3.51 amidst questions about whether Windows 95 would be delayed by legal action over the bundling of a sign-up for Microsoft's new online service, MSN.

AUG 1995: Microsoft officially releases Windows 95 on August 24th, to more fanfare than any software product has ever received.

SEP 1995: The New England Fall TI Faire takes place on September 30th from 10AM to 4PM at the Emanuel Lutheran Church, 200 Greenwood St., Worcester Massachusetts.

OCT 1995:

NOV 1995: William A. Higinbotham dies on November 10th. He is best known as the father of the video game, for his creation of the TENNIS like pong game he wrote while a physicist at Brookhaven National Laboratories in Upton, NY in 1958.

• Cecure Electronics releases TI BARD CODE at the Chicago TI Faire, written by William Dowling.

DEC 1995: The following message is posted on comp.sys.ti on 12/27/95, supposedly by Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates? Right!

Hello!

Microsoft is planning on releasing a group of applications designed for older computers. We will produce downscaled versions of Word, Excel, and Access to run on TI 99/4A's, Commodore 64's and Apple II's. We also plan on re-releasing older programs such as Microsoft Multiplan on these platforms.

Our current project involves the TI 99/4A. We need ccomputers, peripherals, and experienced programmers to accomplish our goal. If any of you are interested, post a reply here. Do not email me as I will probably never see it. (I am currently getting between 250 and 300 messages a day.)

Regards, Bill Gates

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