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Daily News
By Gail Helmer

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Tuesday November 19, 2002

PC News
Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory
Activision, Inc. and id Software have unveiled a new chapter in the Wolfenstein PC series, which is currently in development and scheduled for release in the first-half of 2003. Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory is being developed by Splash Damage, Ltd., and Mad Doc Software, with assistance from Gray Matter Software and is executive produced by id Software.



Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory offers gamers a unique, squad-based single player game, enlisting players as the leader of an elite Allied force throughout a series of mission-based scenarios that range from Western Europe to the deserts of Egypt. Players must tactically command their troops through hostile enemy positions to accomplish specific mission objectives, while also ensuring the survival of key team members. Throughout the game, veteran squad leaders earn additional skills and gain equipment via field promotions that remain persistent across several maps. Armed with devastating weaponry and innovative command and communication functions, gamers must pursue and confront the insidious Third Reich and the products of its experimentation with the Occult and paranormal.

Featuring multiplayer support for as many as 64 players and 2-player co-operative play, Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory challenges gamers to the ultimate test of teamwork and strategy. Each of the five character classes is critical to a team's ultimate victory or defeat on the battlefield. The Covert Operative class allows players to steal uniforms, perform reconnaissance and gain access to enemy positions. While, the Engineer allows the Axis and Allied teams to lay and diffuse mines as well as build battlefield bridges, towers, forward command bases and other improvements in the midst of combat to gain advantages for their team. Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory's Campaign mode combines a series of battles into larger campaigns where teams struggle for successive victories and players are awarded battlefield promotions and additional abilities that persist and accumulate throughout the campaign.

Platoon Ships
Co- publishers Strategy First and Monte Cristo and developer Digital Reality have announced that the tactical strategy adventure game, Platoon, has shipped to retail stores nationwide. Based on the 1986 Oliver Stone film, Platoon covers the period from the early days of the conflict (late 1965) to the height of battle in 1968 and recreates some of the most tragic moments of the Vietnam War including Operation Shiny Bayonet , the Pleiku Campaign and Operation Pershing. Watch for our review coming soon.

NVidia Unveils GeForce FX
nVidia Corp. has finally taken the wraps off its next graphic processing unit (GPU), the GeForce FX which is due for retail release in February 2003. The chip is designed to take full advantage of DirectX 9. The FX will feature AGP 8X support, and will use DDR2 RAM running at an effective speed of 1GHz. The chip will also feature 64 and 128-bit floating point color, 128-bit memory bus width and 125 million transistors. ASUS, BFG Technologies, eVGA, Gainward, Leadtek, MSI and PNY are all on-board with nVidia to manufacture cards using the FX chip.

Military News
F/A-22 Raptor Surpasses Another Key Flight Test Goal
The Lockheed Martin - led F/A-22 Raptor air dominance fighter program surpassed another key flight-test goal on Nov. 13 by successfully completing initial flight- testing necessary for the U.S. Air Force to begin training pilots who will execute the program's upcoming Dedicated Initial Operational Test & Evaluation (DIOT&E) phase.

The F/A-22 Raptor is cleared to fly up to speeds twice the speed of sound (Mach 2); to fly at altitudes above 50,000 feet; and to perform extreme maneuvers such as 9-g turns while flying subsonic (slower than Mach 1) at altitudes above 10,000 feet. Developmental flight-testing continues at the Air Force Flight Test Center, Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., to achieve further flight envelope expansion necessary to start formal DIOT&E flight- testing next year.



This achievement also satisfies one of several Pentagon-mandated criteria that must be achieved prior to the U.S. Air Force awarding the F/A-22 Raptor industry team the Lot 3 production contract. Equally important, this achievement moves the U.S. Air Force closer to begin training pilots who will execute the program's critical Dedicated Initial Operational Test & Evaluation phase. Pilots assigned to the Air Force Operational Test & Evaluation Center detachment at Edwards AFB are scheduled to begin DIOT&E initial flight training early in 2003, while the formal DIOT&E phase itself is expected to begin approximately six months later.

The Raptor will replace the aging F-15 Eagle as America's premier front- line fighter jet starting in 2005. The Raptor has unprecedented fighter and attack capabilities with its balanced design of stealth, supercruise speed and extreme agility, along with advanced integrated avionics and the pilot- friendly cockpit. These attributes make the Raptor truly transformational and will support the goal of quick, decisive victory in future conflicts.


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