April 10th, 1999

Logitech Wingman Gaming Mouse Review at FiringSquad
CalBear at Thresh’s FiringSquad has reviewed the “new” Logitech Wingman Gaming Mouse. Logitech claims that this new mouse is “the first one designed exlusively for gamers.” Well, there are some nice new features to the mouse that I like a lot (USB baby!) but the physical design (shape and dimensions) of the mouse are exactly like the mouse I currently use, and have used and loved since late summer 1997, the good old plain Logitech MouseMan. I was mildly upset with Logitech because they quit making the model of mouse I have, and instead went to really funky shapes with those blasted mousewheels. Now, with the Wingman Gaming Mouse, the mouse shape and feel I know and love is back, and with USB support. This thing is definitely going on my mid-term shopping list. Ironically, the new mouse has a suggested retail price that’s a good bit less than what I paid for my MouseMan.

Glide Underground vs. 3dfx News
Yesterday, there was somewhat of a worry that Glide Underground might have been shut down, as their web server seemed to be inaccessible for a while. Today, I was relieved to discover that they are indeed up and running strong. In fact, Khalid Shaikh has started to speak out once more, and has started a sub-page on the site, entitled 3dfx: the last straw. This page goes into length detailing 3dfx’s legal maneuvering, and is a good read for anyone interested in seeing how 3dfx is conducting things regarding the entire wrapper issue. I learned there that, quite amusingly, 3dfx’s drivers for the Voodoo3 don’t work to well with the UltraHLE emulator, and people are having to run one of the Glide wrappers to get it to work right. *snicker* There’s also a petition on the site that you can read and sign if you wish. There’s over 650 signatures on it in less than 2 days of being up, and there is an option to leave comments on the petition – some of those are interesting reads.

3DGN Tomorrowland Update, Requiem Demo Review
Two new articles went up at 3DGN last night. The first is a semi-regular feature we call Tomorrowland. This latest installment of Tomorrowland takes a look at 3 upcoming games: Oni, Prince of Persia 3D, and Vampire: The Masquerade. Oni looks really cool to me . . . it’s a very anime-style 3D shooter, and not only can the main character, Konoko, do all the usual shooter weaponry stuff, you can also get into martial arts hand-to-hand battles. Any anime-like game has a huge potential to suck me into it, and I hope this one ends up to be cool. Vampire: The Masquerade also has some potential for coolness there, with the entire Vampire mythos behind it. One has to think back to id and DOOM for their demons, since there seem to be a lot of supernatural themes in shooters lately.

The second new article at 3DGN is an updated demo review of Requiem: Avenging Angel. Requiem is a new shooter where you play as an angel, Malachi, out to crack some heads and battle fallen angels and their minions. There’s a lot of standard shooter fare and gun battles, but it adds a fun element with spells that can be used with/in combat as well. One of the ones mentioned in the demo review is a Time Warp spell, where everything goes into slow-motion and you can pull some Matrix-like bullet dodging and other cool stuff.