Playback.dem

It’s our Playback for March 2025.

Frag-Net Status Update

Site updates

We’ve been adding more game pages. You’ll also notice some file sections getting added to. Some of those things aren’t quite done. But to make up for it we’ve updated our magazine racks for various games.

Check out a few game pages! It’s like a time machine, dude.

We missed: Map Center’s Quake 3 25th Anniversary Pack

We completely missed this in February on LvlWorld, but there was a 25th Anniversary Pack for Quake III Arena, released by the Map-Center community (who keep blessing us with levels, more on that in Mod News below).

Levels vary in theme. From the classic themes present in the original game, as well as classic community themes. Go check them out, a server ought to be hosting them somewhere! If you know of a server that does, let us know and we’ll add it.

Here’s the complete list of artists who contributed, taken from the readme (nicknames only):

Screens

Look at these sweet screenshots:

Medal of Honor: Allied Assault community now served by 333networks

As of the beginning of March, our friends at 333networks are now serving the Medal of Honor community:

Another great title now joins the list of games supported by 333networks. After a brief development-and-testing period, our friends at xNull trust 333networks to be a highly robust and reliable masterserver service to be adopted for their community. Our passionate team of retrogamers are committed to providing a reliable online experience for legacy games.

We thank the Medal of Honor community for their trust in 333networks and we will remain dedicated to continue providing the best multiplayer support so you can continue to enjoy the game without interruption. We also thank @ldvc and @Todesengel for their (continued) help in making 333networks ready for Medal of Honor Allied Assault, Spearhead and Breakthrough!

Note to server owners: if your server doesn’t appear in the server list after the update, restart your server so it reconnects with the new master server. This should resolve any visibility issues.

Game News

sc2kfix

We’ve not yet talked about this cool project which will breathe new life into your copy of Sim City 2000 Special Edition.

It is called sc2kfix and it doesn’t just make it run on modern versions of Windows but it also fixes longstanding bugs, improves compatibility when run under Wine, as well as introduces the python-esque language Kuroko into the mix, which will allow you to add scripts to modify your game.

You can find instructions on how to get everything configured on their website.

Unreleased 1984 Demo from 1999

The name was MediaX and they tried to develop this title between 1996-1999, as some avid readers of Computer Gaming World might recall from their memory banks - this demo of a game with the license and endorsement of George Orwell’s estate is a 3D, first person adventure game adaptation/sequel of 1984, the book.

The book as you may know, has since its release become the template for many stories about authoritarianism. This is where we tell you about all the games that are obviously inspired by it. If you really want to know what could have been - then check no further than the Internet Archive page for the disc containing a build plus some sources for it.

Hide your Jams

Here’s what wasn’t on your 2025 bingo card: Acclaim is back!

What will this mean for the Turok videogames? Will they try to re-acquire those from Nightdive?
BMX XXX Remastered when?

Get your jokes and references out of your system people.

We’ll be watching this development closely.

Here’s to hoping that the ASSEMblergames disc dump will get some use!

Bloodlines 2 Delayed Yet Again

Vampire: the Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 has been delayed again. We’ve reported on this before. Let’s see if Paradox can deliver on this very anticipated game.

THPS 3+4, then Bam Margera

Pro Skater fans rejoice, as THPS 3+4 has been announced!

Blues News announcement

What? It doesn’t play like 3 or 4, but instead only has the classic mode with the 2 minute time limit?
Okay, whatever - but considering they’re basing the gameplay on 1+2 - which was practically perfect - How could one complain?

If you’re salty about them being different and not being able to relive the ‘old’ days, don’t:
We actually put pages up for the various THPS games and how to play on-line with the latest patches!

For Pro Skater 3 or Pro Skater 4 respectively you will find that PARTYMAN managed to make those play smooth. Those patches are even available under the MIT License. Sweet!

In related news, Birdman hung out with Bam and was stoked to see how well he’s holding up. Hooked him up with a last minute insert into the game.

We still miss Vicarious Visions. Did you know that they originally had their own version of 3+4 in production?

Kotaku report Video Games Chronicle report

RoboCop - Unfinished Business

Up and coming darling of 80s movie videogame adaptations Teyon Studio dazzled us with a trailer for RoboCop: Rogue City - Unfinished Business, which is a follow-up to their beloved game RoboCop: Rogue City.

It’s a stand-alone game that focuses around you taking on the threads inside OmniTower. A tall housing complex that also happens to be infected with crime of the highest caliber.

It’s store-page is live already, but you’ll have to wait until late Summer to play it.

We’re Head Over Heels

Get a load of this: the store page for Head Over Heels: Deluxe went live and we have yet to get it. It’s a certified classic.

Reality Settles In

Are we making too many games? Perhaps we should be smarter about what kind of games we should be making.

Could the problem be that the industry just doesn’t know what to aim for? Like what happens when there’s nowhere to go. Are there any technological challenges left to solve? Surely, but perhaps it’s easier to chase fads in the era of late-stage capitalism. It appears that big developers are clinging onto any safe bets they have, while of course still punishing the talent when things don’t perform.

At least some try to avoid creating such a mess for themselves in the first place..

Considering the controversies of recent years, it seems not surprising to see some pushback: We saw the first videogame developer unions form last year although it’s far from being established. Especially now in with the state of the current economy, we will only see these issues accelerate.

In other news, UbiSoft was being nibbled on and subsequently sold 25% of a new company that will house their biggest franchises to Tencent. That’s rough.

Modding News

Command & Conquer 3: Alien Prophecies

Requires Kane’s Wrath, but Alien Phrophecies is in Early Access now with a full release scheduled later this year.

Get an overview with the original announcement post and see the latest update post to get dazzled by glowing screenshots.

Dawn of the Tiberium Age for Tiberian Sun update

Now check this out, this stand-alone mod just got a big update that took them about half a year to develop. It mixes Tiberian Dawn and Red Alert together in the engine for Tiberian Sun. While it sports an impressive (70 or so) amount of original missions, all the original Tiberian Dawn campaigns are designed for co-operative multiplayer now too. Sweet!

In Mute Witness Stand - Promising Half-Life mod

We have an update post to a mod on our radar titled In Mute Witness Stand. This mod is a co-operative multiplayer horror game in the trenches of the first world war. Very promising!

Map-Center blesses us with Mine Jam - Quake II

Every month there seems to be another jam release by the folks at Map-Center! This time it’s for the re-release version of Quake II.

However, this isn’t your regular Jam of random levels made by different people, it’s a proper expansion pack, with custom textures, cutscenes and everything.

The release announcement has wonderful screenshots of some very tasy areas.

We’ll keep this short since, you should just read the damn announcement.

Speed Devils is back on-line

Got a fix for UbiSoft’s racing title Speed Devils on Dreamcast this month. Sweet! We can all thank Shuouma and flyinghead.

Tech News

GIMP THREE

The world rejoiced when it was graced with GIMP 3.0, followed up with 3.02.

Finally us users have non-destructive editing, and just better interactions with layers in general. It’s been a boon to everyones productivity. Re-evaluate it now if you’re still stuck on Adobe’s PhotoShop.

Also, obscure bugfix to those who work with palettes (which affects games like Quake and even Half-Life with its 256 color per texture restriction): That pesky bug where random black pixels would turn greenish has finally been fixed. A lot of the palettization has been reworked and should result in higher quality results in general.

I myself have used GIMP 2.X’s palettization features for years and couldn’t tell initially that something was off, but we were able to reproduce it quite easily.

Hyperkin Cleans Up

The news is that Hyperkin is reaching out to discuss their wrongdoings, a rare sight of humility in the industry. They do good stuff every once in a while, the folks at Hyperkin. If you ever produce that Mega-Drive handheld? Hook us up with a review copy.

Wine updates, Wine Mono released

We got blessed with two new releases of Wine: 10.3 and 10.4 released. Noteworthy game fix: It fixes the Tiberium in C&C 3 being invisible when playing the Kane’s Wrath addon.

Over at WineHQ you could also read about the new release of Wine’s Mono - Framework Mono.

This was the first release since the big migration, having shifted hands over from Microsoft.

The release post also includes a refresher on what was going on during the time.

All in All

That’s it. We’re done with March 2025.