Haze's Hideout - Jazz Jackrabbit information more daily than the Daily Carrot 2009-01-06T20:15:10Z Niels "Haze" Walta Copyright 2009, Niels "Haze" Walta SPHPBLOG The Hideout - 9 years and still going... somewhat! It's probably not such a good thing that our previous anniversary post is located on the second page of this site. But nevertheless, despite missing all the news from the past few months, we're not dead yet!

And we're coming back, one way or another! But we'll be needing all the help we can get. We're cooking up some plans to determine how people can contribute to the Hideout. Plus you can look forward to another redesign; the current one got stale around November of last year! :p

In the meantime we're glad to know that everyone is still supportive of people like us! ;) Here's to another 9 years at the very least!]]> http://www.dutchfurs.com/~haze/blog/index.php?entry=entry080525-113035 2008-05-25T00:00:00Z 2008-05-25T00:00:00Z Unreal Tournament 3 ships - part two No sooner had we reported that Unreal Tournament 3 was released or Mark Rein steps up to announce that the Sony PLAYSTATION 3 version has gone gold.

We got news last night that Unreal Tournament 3 has been approved by SCEA and has been released to North American manufacturing.


The PS3 version of the fourth game in the Unreal Tournament series is expected to be on North American shelves in the week of December 10th. European gamers will have to wait for the localized versions which should show up early 2008. Those without a PS3 can expect the Microsoft Xbox 360 version to follow soon after.]]> http://www.dutchfurs.com/~haze/blog/index.php?entry=entry071122-134713 2007-11-22T00:00:00Z 2007-11-22T00:00:00Z Unreal Tournament 3 ships It was a long time coming but finally it has happened: Unreal Tournament 3 is available from your local game-retailer. That is if you're living in the United States. European gamers will have to wait a few more days, until the 22nd, before they can get their hands on a shiny copy of the game.

Both a regular- and special edition are once again available for those who like to choose between plain vanilla and custard with chocolate pieces in it. Linux and Mac OS X versions are expected in the near future with a Sony PLAYSTATION 3 version following somewhere later this year. A Microsoft Xbox 360 version is planned in the long run.

So which brave soul will step out, buy the game and then thoroughly sift through it to see if there are any hidden references to green lagomorphs?]]> http://www.dutchfurs.com/~haze/blog/index.php?entry=entry071120-115225 2007-11-20T00:00:00Z 2007-11-20T00:00:00Z EvilMike reviews JJ2 levels One of the things we have missed in our unforeseen hiatus was EvilMike launching a new Jazz Jackrabbit 2 blog. In it he reviews new and classic levels, trying to highlight some of the best (and worst) out there. If you're not reading it yet go over there now and start. Perhaps this snippet from a review of Queen of Board will convince you to do so:

Today there are far better examples of the kind of gameplay and level design that Queen of Board helped pioneer; ones that won't leave you smashing your keyboard on the floor in frustration. The fact that this episode managed to break new ground is enough to save it from a score of 1.0, but not enough to make it worth playing for more than the curiosity of it being the first to do something.


Now we haven't seen any new reviews for a little while but with such quality and controversial statements it's hard not to look forward to new ones hopefully coming soon.]]> http://www.dutchfurs.com/~haze/blog/index.php?entry=entry071104-110022 2007-11-04T00:00:00Z 2007-11-04T00:00:00Z Alexander Brandon releases album Recently veteran Jazz Jackrabbit-composer Alexander Brandon released a new album titled "Era's End", with an accompanying website located at Alexanderbrandon.net of all places. Described by gaming website GameSetWatch as "non-soundtrack catchy synth" and as "really awesome" by commenters on his own site Alex himself puts it this way:

Parts of the music were written in a tracker, of all things. Parts were written in Nuendo, the high end of PC based studio digital audio workstations. It uses ancient 90s samples and more modern Waldorf and Absynth. It is a conglomeration of the old and the new, but the whole thing says "I defy standard albums because I have many different song styles". I truly hope you enjoy it.


You can listen to and buy music from the album over at Alexander Brandon's website.]]> http://www.dutchfurs.com/~haze/blog/index.php?entry=entry071019-224557 2007-10-19T00:00:00Z 2007-10-19T00:00:00Z Under construction As some may have noticed the comments have been disabled for a while now here at the Hideout. This had to do with some insane amount of spamming, which was cluttering the posts with links to... questionable content. In the process of updating the website and the software package which is powering it the decision was taken to temporarily turn off the comments system. Little did we know that updating would take so long. Daily life and most importantly my day job have been taking up most of my time. And with the rest of the team solely responsible for the technical side of things the Hideout got put very low on the priority list.

But now we're back, thanks to everyone's pestering (and support)! Sure the place is still a mess but we'll reorganize things pretty soon. And it's about time we started making good on all those promises we've made in the past. (Organized download section, anyone?)

So, what have we missed?]]> http://www.dutchfurs.com/~haze/blog/index.php?entry=entry071019-221727 2007-10-19T00:00:00Z 2007-10-19T00:00:00Z CliffyB and Arjan Brussee: Professor X versus Magneto While our ever-vigilant Mark Rein is heavily promoting Unreal Tournament 3 on the Sony PLAYSTATION 3 (and boy, is it looking sweet) CliffyB it taking a look at the competition. Or rather: old brethren.

Ben Kuchera of Ars Technica caught up with CliffyB at E3 '07. And after a bit of banter about Gears of War coming to the PC Guerrilla Games' Killzone 2 is brought up. Fishing for some trash-talk about their supposed rivalry everyone is instead treated to some fond reminiscence by CliffyB:

Ben: One last question and then I’ll let you go. What did you think of the Killzone 2 footage shown?

Cliffy-B: I thought it looked hot!

Ben: Did you?

Cliffy-B: Yeah, the funny thing about that game is that the lead programmer (Arjan Brussee, from Guerilla Games) and I, actually, that was the programmer I did Jazz JackRabbit with back in the day.

Ben: Really?

Cliffy-B: Yeah, and that’s always like, you know at E3 a couple years ago that was being compared to Gears and everything, so everything is kind of full circle. It’s like, I’m fucking Professor X, and he’s Magneto.


Of course we all know that Professor X and Magneto have teamed up frequently over time. And I'm sure none of us would complain if Arjan Brussee and CliffyB would follow that example.]]> http://www.dutchfurs.com/~haze/blog/index.php?entry=entry070714-112650 2007-07-14T00:00:00Z 2007-07-14T00:00:00Z Arjan Brussee on the future of Jazz A while ago we reported on the opportunity for Dutch speaking Jazz Jackrabbit fans to ask Arjan Brussee, Hermen Hulst and Michiel van der Leeuw of Guerilla Games some questions. The popular Dutch technology website Tweakers.net was asking their readers for possible questions for an interview. Now this interview has been posted and notably a question about Jazz Jackrabbit got in.

ShadowGPW was kind enough to translate the relevant portion of the article and post it on the Jazz Jackrabbit Community Forums:
T.net: Every tweaker knows Jazz Jackrabbit. Is there a chance that we will ever get to see a new Jazz game, perhaps on the PlayStation 3? Or is there an option to port the 'old' Jazz games to an arcade-like download on the PS3?

Arjan: Just the other day I had a chat about this with CliffyB, who naturally wants to have this on the XBLA. It's a nice idea to port the old Jazz to a live/ps3 surrounding, but there's a lack of time to do something like that. Who knows, I might get some inspiration...."

You can read the full interview over on Tweakers.net or follow the discussion about this snippet of information in this thread on the JCF.]]> http://www.dutchfurs.com/~haze/blog/index.php?entry=entry070606-092114 2007-06-06T00:00:00Z 2007-06-06T00:00:00Z The Hideout - 8 years and still going strong How could an important event like this slip by so easily? Yesterday marked the 8th anniversary of Haze's Hideout. For eight years encounting Jazz Jackrabbit news has been reported (occasionally) and the escapades of the game's developers have been followed.

Though as you may have noticed news and improvements on the site have been lacking a bit. That is why we would like to take this opportunity to announce that, recognizing a potential popularity increase, we will be exclusively covering the game Haze, by Ubisoft and Free Radical Design, from now on.
The step seems logical: it's a game; just like Jazz Jackrabbit. It's got guns; just like Jazz Jackrabbit. And the name of our website already fits perfectly. With the game expected to be a key title for Sony's PLAYSTATION 3 console how could we have not done this earlier?

...

Alright, we'll stick to the mean green hare. Let's see what further adventures await our intrepid bounty-hunter-become-royalty! Now... where's our carrot cake?]]> http://www.dutchfurs.com/~haze/blog/index.php?entry=entry070526-005824 2007-05-25T00:00:00Z 2007-05-25T00:00:00Z Battery Check is now freeware Now we've had the shareware version of Battery Check up here at the Hideout for quite a while already. But now Stijn comes with exciting news, over at Jazz2Online:
Battery Check, a platform game using a slightly modified Jazz Jackrabbit 2 engine, was originally distributed as part of a promotional action and thus not legally available any more. There was still the demo version, but of course having the full game is always better.

Recently, Stibat (the original distributor of Battery Check) have uploaded the full game as freeware to their site. If you own Jazz Jackrabbit 2 version 1.10o, you’re even luckier, as the JCS coming with that version allows you to create your own levels for Battery Check.

So what are you waiting for? Head on over to the website of StiBat now and download your free copy of Battery Check today!]]> http://www.dutchfurs.com/~haze/blog/index.php?entry=entry070425-202050 2007-04-25T00:00:00Z 2007-04-25T00:00:00Z