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Rock n' Roll Racing is a vehicular combat-based racing video game developed by Silicon & Synapse (now known as Blizzard Entertainment) and published by Interplay Productions for the Mega Drive/Genesis and the Super Nintendo Entertainment System in 1993. The game prominently features a number of po[CENSORED]r heavy metal and rock songs in its soundtrack, hence the game's title. The game was ported to the Game Boy Advance in 2003. Rock n' Roll Racing was initially developed as RPMII, a sequel to the company's SNES game RPM Racing. At the end of the project, Interplay marketing added licensed music and changed the name to Rock n' Roll Racing. It is also similar in gameplay to Racing Destruction Set where it got its logic/AI engine and the NES game R.C. Pro-Am developed by Rare in 1988. The game pits four racers against each other, with up to two of them being player-controlled from a colourful collection of comic book inspired humans and aliens and the rest being AI opponents; 'Rip' and 'Shred' who appear in all races plus a third character unique to each planet/level in one player mode. Each race consists of four laps around tracks viewed from an isometric perspective, which enables players to discern the presence of frequent sloping sections spread throughout the game's various tracks. In addition to navigating the turns, racers must also maneuver hills and dips without falling or jumping over the guard rail at the track's edge. While it is a racing game, there is heavy emphasis on attacking competitor's vehicles; since the cars always reappear with full health just a few seconds after blowing up, the only "harm" done is falling behind in the race. Players are rewarded with a monetary "attack bonus" each time they provide the finishing blow against another car using their forward or rear weapons (and a similar "lapping bonus" when they gain a full one-lap lead on an opponent during the race). In accordance with the continual destruction and restoration of the racing vehicles, the tracks are littered with mines and health power-ups, as well as money power-ups. Other hazards include oil slicks, snow drifts, and lava, depending on the planet hosting the race. Players are updated on the race by commentator "Loudmouth Larry" (Larry "Supermouth" Huffman), who makes comments like "The stage is set, the green flag drops!" (or "Let the carnage begin!"), and "Rip: is about to blow!" in an enthusiastic tone at appropriate moments during the race. (There is a slight pause between a character's name and any given phrase, as each name and each phrase is its own sound effect, which can be heard in the F/X screen.) Between races, players can spend the money they have earned on more advanced equipment for their vehicle (engines, tires, shocks, and shielding) or on increasing their capacity for the frontal weapon (energy blasts or missiles), rear weapon (slip sauce or mines), and turbo boost (jump jets or nitro boosts), each of which can max out at seven. Despite their limited capacity, every vehicle will have its weapon and boost charges replenished at the completion of each lap in a race. Racers can also buy more advanced vehicle models; however, all equipment and weapons upgrades are lost when a new vehicle is purchased. The first three drivers to complete a race are awarded both money and points according to the final standings. Points are required for advancement to the next racing division or the next planet, with two divisions on each planet. A player who has not obtained enough points during a division's racing season must repeat the division, again starting with zero points, but all changes to the player's money and car remain in effect. In two-player mode, when only one player has sufficient points, the character in charge of advancement asks "Leave your loser friend behind?", allowing the leading player to continue alone by removing the other player from the game. The dropped player can continue from that point later by using their most recent password, once the game is reset. Passwords are given out at the beginning of each new "racing season" (each planet has its own definition of how many races make up a season, but early advancement will automatically start a new season), and they are located at the bottom of the F/X screen (accessible from the menu between races). These passwords are a complex code, consisting of three 4-digit sections, and they dictate everything about the players' progress: the character used, the vehicle type and color, weapons and parts upgrades, racing planet and division, difficulty setting, and money. The Game Boy Advance version of the game uses an EEPROM chip to save the player's progress in lieu of the password system. The password codes only allow the player to save a maximum of $999,990 (six digits); if there are more than six figures in the bank account, the password truncates the leftmost digits over six (e.g. if there's $1,002,000 when the player quits, there will be only $2,000 when using the password to continue later). Due to the two-player password function, it's possible to "cheat" by entering the same password for both players or by entering passwords for players who were at entirely different points in the game. The password with the lowest difficulty setting and on the earliest planet and racing division will be used as the basis for play from then on, which allows for a Warrior-skill character with a maxed-out vehicle to race against Rookie-class AIs in the Rookie skill mode. Though a password generator QBASIC program exists, the passwords it creates often result in a glitch, causing the player to race on glitchy planets—that exist only as a bug and can crash the game—after racing on Inferno. In the Rookie skill mode, however, they work perfectly, as long as one doesn't try to take the character beyond the third planet using the password. A second password generator has been written in JavaScript which limits the available planets to reflect the chosen skill mode while retaining the ability to customize any other aspect of the data stored in the password. A 3DO Interactive Multiplayer version of Rock n' Roll Racing was announced to be in development and slated to be published by Interplay during E3 1995, however, this version was never released for unknown reasons. In 2003, Blizzard released an Adobe Shockwave-based demo version of the GBA port featuring one track on its website. In 2014, a demo version of the game featuring three tracks was added to Battle.net, emulated through ZSNES.This version has all rock music tracks changed to simple MIDI music, because the music license expired.

StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm is an expansion pack to the military science fiction real-time strategy game StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty, and the second part of the StarCraft II trilogy developed by Blizzard Entertainment, with the final part being Legacy of the Void.The game was released on March 12, 2013. The expansion includes additional units and multiplayer changes from Wings of Liberty, as well as a continuing campaign focusing on the Zerg race and following Sarah Kerrigan in her effort to regain control of the swarm and exact her revenge on the Terran Dominion's emperor, Arcturus Mengsk. During BlizzCon 2017, Blizzard announced that StarCraft II would be re-branded as a free-to-play game, hence opening the multiplayer mode to everybody and bringing some changes to previously paid features of the game.The Wings of Liberty campaign was made completely free while the campaigns for Heart of the Swarm and Legacy of the Void still required payment. However, those who had already bought Wings of Liberty before the free-to-play announcement were gifted the Heart of the Swarm campaign free of charge. This new free-to-play model and changes to the availability of the campaigns was in line with Blizzard's vision to support the game differently going forward. Micro-transactions such as Skins, Co-op Commanders, Voice Packs, and the War Chests proved to be successful enough to sustain StarCraft II as a story-driven and eSport title. Heart of the Swarm features a single-player campaign with 20 missions (plus seven evolution missions which allow the player to upgrade units), and continues the story from Wings of Liberty.The player plays from the perspective of Sarah Kerrigan, recently returned to her human form by Jim Raynor.Similar to Wings of Liberty, the briefing room allows interactive exploration, this time on the Leviathan, an enormous Zerg breed which functions as a bioship. Kerrigan and her allies are located in the nerve center. She has a personal chamber for altering her abilities, and there is an evolution pit where she can upgrade her units and perform evolution missions with the evolution master Abathur. At BlizzCon 2011, it was revealed that Heart of the Swarm would feature seven new multiplayer units, while removing three units and changing the abilities of existing units and buildings. The exact modifications have since changed. In a blog post, game director Dustin Browder explained the current status of the units. The Terrans were originally expected to feature two new units: the Shredder and Warhound. The Shredder was a mobile, burrowing turret based on the design of the Zerg Spine Crawler, attacking via clouds of toxic gas that were devastating to biological units. Internal testing revealed the Shredder was too flexible and powerful, and it was therefore replaced by the Widow Mine, a mobile burrowing unit that fires missiles, causing splash damage. The Warhound was a bipedal combat walker with an arm-mounted high-calibre cannon; it also possessed a missile for use against mechanical units.During the closed beta testing phase, pro gamers decried the Warhound for failing to function as intended; it was ultimately removed from multiplayer gameplay although it can be fought in the single-player campaign. Several Terran units were modified in Heart of the Swarm. The Hellion, a four-wheeled buggy with a swivel-mounted flamethrower, gains the ability to transform into the Hellbat, a smaller bipedal walker unit relative to the Viking, whose flamethrower strikes in a fan shape instead of in a line. The Hellbat counts as both biological and mechanical, and can therefore be either repaired by SCVs or healed by Medivacs and Medics. The Medivac gains an "Ignite Afterburners" upgrade which acts as a cooldown-based speed boost. The Reaper has undergone extensive changes. It no longer does extra damage to light units, and its grenade, used only on buildings, has been removed entirely. It now has a passive health-regeneration ability that kicks in several seconds after the Reaper last took damage. Additionally, it no longer needs a Tech Lab add-on to be produced, allowing Heart of the Swarm players to train two of them at a time using the Reactor add-on. The Protoss were originally expected to feature the Replicant, a unit which could transform into a clone of any other unit in play, including those controlled by the enemy. This unit was ultimately cut from the game because of its tendency to stifle unit diversity. Three new units made it into the game: the Oracle, Tempest, and Mothership Core. The Oracle is a fast, spellcasting, flying unit; it has no abilities that do not require the consumption of Energy. Its original version focused on slowing down economy by blocking off mineral access for a short period of time. It was decided that the ability was too powerful and that it should cause mining to slow, instead of to stop, and thus was replaced with the powerful Pulsar Beam. A single Oracle can kill worker units very quickly with Pulsar Beam, but will just as swiftly drain its Energy reserves. The Oracle also has two other abilities: Revelation, which reveals enemy units and buildings within an area, and Envision, which grants Oracle the ability to detect invisible or burrowed units. The Tempest is a large, slow flying unit that was originally developed in the Wings of Liberty beta as a replacement for Carriers. (Blizzard have tried to remove Carriers from the game before both StarCraft II releases, only to put them back in due to overwhelming fan demand.) After Wings of Liberty, in which it functioned basically like a Carrier, it was revised in Heart of the Swarm to provide large amounts of aerial splash damage, and then again to do extra damage to Massive units. It is slow and does not fire often, but has very long range, requiring a spotter to make the most of its reach. The Mothership Core is a slow-moving flying unit that has three abilities: Photon Overcharge (previously known as Purify) allows a targeted Nexus to gain a single-target, long-range energy attack, similar to the Photon Cannon; Mass Recall warps Protoss units around Mothership Core, and the Core itself, to any targeted Nexus; finally, Time Warp slows down enemy ground units' movement and refire rate in an area. Once a Protoss building called Fleet Beacon is constructed, the Mothership Core can transform into the Mothership from Wings, trading in its Photon Overcharge for the mass cloaking field. However, the iconic Vortex ability has been removed entirely to make room for Time Warp, as Blizzard felt the ability was too powerful. In addition to the new units, the Void Ray's Prismatic Beam has become an active ability that temporarily increases damage against armored units only, while the original effect of gradually increasing damage over time has been removed. The Zerg gained two new units, the Viper and the Swarm Host. Like the Oracle, the Viper is a flying spellcaster with no integral weapons. It has several abilities: "Blinding Cloud" reduces the range of enemy units to 1; "Abduct" pulls a unit to the Viper's location; "Consume" allows the Viper to steal health from a friendly structure to increase its energy. The Viper is intended to support large Zerg armies, whereas the Oracle is designed for early-game harassment. The Swarm Host also lacks any sort of basic attack. Its strength is revealed when it burrows underground: it then begins to periodically spawn Locusts, insectile creatures with low health, high damage output, and slow movement. This ability allows Swarm Hosts to attack from long range (and underground), and it does not cost any resources or Energy. Swarm Hosts are not very effective in small numbers, but past a certain critical mass, their ongoing waves of Locusts can become overwhelming, winning wars of attrition with free throwaway units. The Locusts are unable to attack air units however, requiring other units or Spore Crawlers to defend the Swarm Hosts. The Hydralisk has regained its speed boost upgrade from Brood War. Additionally, both "Burrow" and the Overlord movement speed boost may be researched at the Hatchery, no longer requiring a Lair to be built. In the single-player campaign mode, each Zerg combat unit may be evolved into either of two possible alternative versions, each with a powerful, characteristic trait (for instance, the Torrasque strain of the Ultralisk has the ability to revive itself upon death). In addition, there are "primal" versions which are elements of the plot and sport a radically different look (the differences are akin to those between regular and mercenary units in Wings of Liberty). Primal zerg may not be produced. There are no mobile Zerg cloak detection units or troop transport units in the campaign mode; as a result, any cloaked units, such as the Protoss Dark Templar and Terran Banshee, are either completely absent (in the case of the former) or do not make use of their cloaking abilities (in the case of the latter and the Ghost). System Requirements Minimum Requirements Operating System :Windows® XP/Windows Vista®/Windows® 7/Windows® 8 (Updated with the latest Service Packs) with DirectX® 9.0c Processor:Intel® Pentium® D or AMD Athlon™ 64 X2 Video:NVIDIA® GeForce® 7600 GT or ATI™ Radeon™ X800 XT or better Memory:1.5 GB RAM Storage: 20 GB available HD space Internet: Broadband Internet connection Media: DVD-ROM drive Resolution: 1024X768 minimum display resolution Recommend Requirements Operating System:Windows® 7/Windows® 8 (latest service pack) Processor:Intel® Core™ 2 Duo E6600 or AMD Athlon™ 64 X2 5000+ or better Video:NVIDIA® GeForce® 8800 GT (512 MB) or ATI™ Radeon™ HD 4850 or better Memory:2 GB RAM Storage:20 GB available HD space Internet: Broadband Internet connection Media: DVD-ROM drive Resolution: 1024X768 minimum display resolution

Growtopia is a server-run MMO sandbox video game where players can chat, farm, add friends, trade, build worlds and PVP.The game was initially released for Android in November 2012, and has since been released for iOS, Android, Microsoft Windows, macOS, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. As of February 28, 2017, an Ubisoft acquirement of Growtopia was announced and was completed during Ubisoft's 2016-17 fourth quarter, with the original developers being design and general advisors to the game's continued development. Growtopia is a 2D MMO sandbox video game in which almost everything in the game can be grown from seeds of trees.There are no goals. However, there is an achievement system, epic quests, and other quests from NPCs. A new player will be sent to a private world called TUTORIAL which teaches the basics of the game with an item called Growpedia for reading tips. The player starts out with two basic tools: a fist for punching and breaking blocks, and a wrench for wrenching items and edit items' properties. After a player finished TUTORIAL, they will be sent to START for learning more about the game. Players can visit other people's worlds or create their own worlds. When a player creates a new world, the world will be procedurally generated. Worlds in Growtopia have the same size, except special worlds (such as TINY). Players can break and build blocks, get seeds or gems from blocks, plant seeds, and harvest trees. Players cannot do these activities if the world or the area they are punching is locked by someone else. Players can lock areas they want by using different sizes of locks: Small Lock, Big Lock, Huge Lock, and World Lock (there are also other types of locks such as Diamond Locks, but works like World Locks). When a player has locked an area with a lock, the player can access other people to the lock or edit properties by wrenching the lock. In 2012, Seth Robinson began thinking about making a new game. At the time, Robinson made six mockup screenshots and sent to Mike Hommel to entice him to help with the project. The game was named Buildo. The game UI started to take shape with Hommel's mockups.On October 22, 2012, Hommel uploaded a video on his YouTube channel showing the development of the game before its release. After three months of development, the game was released on Android as a free beta on November 30, 2012 under the name Growtopia. They moved the game out of beta and release the full version on January 9, 2013.The game has been continuously updated since the release. On February 28, 2017, Ubisoft announced an acquisition of Growtopia, it was completed during Ubisoft's 2016-17 fourth quarter, with the original developers being design and general advisors to the game's continued development. The game can be played on multiple operating systems, including Microsoft Windows, macOS, iOS, and Android. The game can also be played on consoles. The iOS version was released on January 11, 2013, after the Android version on November 30, 2012.Following the mobile releases, the game was later brought to computers; a Windows beta version was released on July 9, 2013, and a macOS version was released on July 27, 2013. The Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One versions of the game have been released digitally on July 18, 2019. Growtopia received "mixed or average" reviews from professional critics according to review aggregator GameRankings. Video gaming website Jay Is Games described the game as "simple and easy enough to work on the mobile platform (and be fun for kids), but with enough room for customization and socialization".148Apps gave the game a 4/5, saying "the crafting mechanic is unique".Pocket Gamer's Peter Willington scored the game 6 out of 10, said he dislikes the crude menus, the UI is bland and cramped and hates the character design.TouchArcade wrote "With online games like this that take place in persistent worlds where everyone can interact, you’ll no doubt get some people trying to destroy things and generally make life tough for everyone else". The first official 'Growtopia' merchandise is a T-shirt. The t-shirt, called "Into The Game" was released on Amazon on October 17, 2018 with various sizes, five colors: black, asphalt, cranberry, kelly green and brown. On November 26, 2018, a premium version of Into The Game T-shirts were released.Ubisoft also released "Emerald Lock Premium" T-shirts on the same day. GrowCon is an official meetup dedicated to Growtopia. The first one was held on April 21, 2019 at Max's Restaurant in Quezon City.It was limited to 30 invited people from Facebook groups and Growtopia forums community. The event included photo booth printing, bingo type game and food with in-game contests. System Requirements Operating System Windows 7, Windows 8.1 or Windows 10 Processor Any 1 GHz processor RAM 2 GB Video card Shared or dedicated graphics Hard drive space 500 MB

System Shock is a 1994 first-person action-adventure video game developed by Looking Glass Technologies and published by Origin Systems. It was directed by Doug Church with Warren Spector serving as producer. The game is set aboard a space station in a cyberpunk vision of the year 2072. Assuming the role of a nameless hacker, the player attempts to hinder the plans of a malevolent artificial intelligence called SHODAN. System Shock's 3D engine, physics simulation and complex gameplay have been cited as both innovative and influential. The developers sought to build on the emergent gameplay and immersive environments of their previous games, Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss and Ultima Underworld II: Labyrinth of Worlds, by streamlining their mechanics into a more "integrated whole". Critics praised System Shock and hailed it as a major breakthrough in its genre. It was later placed on multiple hall of fame lists. The game was a moderate commercial success, with sales exceeding 170,000 copies, but Looking Glass ultimately lost money on the project. A sequel, System Shock 2, was released by Looking Glass Studios and offshoot developer Irrational Games in 1999. The 2000 game Deus Ex (also produced by Spector) and the 2007 game BioShock are spiritual successors to the two games. A remade version of the original game by Night Dive Studios is scheduled for release in 2020. System Shock takes place from a first-person perspective in a three-dimensional (3D) graphical environment.The game is set inside a large, multi-level space station, in which players explore, combat enemies and solve puzzles.Progress is largely non-linear and the game is designed to allow for emergent gameplay. As in Ultima Underworld,the player uses a freely movable mouse cursor to aim weapons, to interact with objects and to mani[CENSORED]te the heads-up display (HUD) interface.View and posture controls on the HUD allow the player to lean left or right, look up or down, crouch, and crawl. Practical uses for these actions include taking cover, retrieving items from beneath the player character and navigating small passages, respectively. The HUD also features three "Multi-Function Displays", which may be configured to display information such as weapon readouts, an automap and an inventory. The player advances the plot by acquiring log discs and e-mails: the game contains no non-player characters with which to converse.Throughout the game, an evil artificial intelligence called SHODAN hinders the player's progress with traps and blocked pathways.Specific computer terminals allow the player to temporarily enter Cyberspace; inside, the player moves weightlessly through a wire frame 3D environment, while collecting data and fighting SHODAN's security programs. Actions in Cyberspace sometimes cause events in the game's physical world; for example, certain locked doors may only be opened in Cyberspace.Outside of Cyberspace, the player uses the game's sixteen weapons, of which a maximum of seven may be carried at one time, to combat robots, cyborgs and mutants controlled by SHODAN. Projectile weapons often have selectable ammunition types with varying effects; for example, the "dart pistol" may fire either explosive needles or tranquilizers. Energy weapons and several types of explosives may also be found, with the latter ranging from concussion grenades to land mines. Along with weapons, the player collects items such as dermal patches and first-aid kits. Dermal patches provide the character with beneficial effects—such as regeneration or increased melee attack power—but can cause detrimental side-effects, such as fatigue and distorted color perception.Attachable "hardware" may also be found, including energy shields and head-mounted lanterns. Increasingly advanced versions of this hardware may be obtained as the game progresses. When activated, most hardware drains from a main energy reserve, which necessitates economization.Certain hardware displays the effectiveness of attacks when active, with messages such as "Normal damage".When an enemy is attacked, the damage is calculated by armor absorption, vulnerabilities, critical hits and a degree of randomness.Weapons and munitions deal specific kinds of damage, and certain enemies are immune, or more vulnerable, to particular types. For example, electromagnetic pulse weapons heavily damage robots, but do not affect mutants. Conversely, gas grenades are effective against mutants, but do not damage robots. Set in the year 2072, the protagonist—a nameless hacker—is caught while attempting to access files concerning Citadel Station, a space station owned by the TriOptimum Corporation. The hacker is taken to Citadel Station and brought before Edward Diego, a TriOptimum executive. Diego offers to drop all charges against the hacker in exchange for a confidential hacking of SHODAN, the artificial intelligence that controls the station. Diego secretly plans to steal an experimental mutagenic virus being tested on Citadel Station, and to sell it on the black market as a biological weapon.To entice cooperation, Diego promises the hacker a valuable military grade neural implant.After hacking SHODAN, removing the AI's ethical constraints, and handing control over to Diego, the protagonist undergoes surgery to implant the promised neural interface.Following the operation, the hacker is put into a six-month healing coma. The game begins as the protagonist awakens from his coma, and finds that SHODAN has commandeered the station. All robots aboard have been reprogrammed for hostility, and the crew have been either mutated, transformed into cyborgs, or killed. Rebecca Lansing, a TriOptimum counter-terrorism consultant, contacts the player and claims that Citadel Station's mining laser is being powered up to attack Earth. SHODAN's plan is to destroy all major cities on the planet, in a bid to establish itself as a god. Rebecca says that a certain crew member knows how to deactivate the laser, and promises to destroy the records of the hacker's incriminating exchange with Diego if the strike is stopped. With information gleaned from log discs, the hacker destroys the laser by firing it into Citadel Station's own shields. Foiled by the hacker's work, SHODAN prepares to seed Earth with the virus Diego planned to steal—the same one responsible for turning the station's crew into mutants.The hacker, while attempting to jettison the chambers used to cultivate the virus, confronts and defeats Diego, who has been transformed into a powerful cyborg by SHODAN. Next, SHODAN begins an attempt to upload itself into Earth's computer networks.Following Rebecca's advice, the hacker prevents the download's completion by destroying the four antennas that SHODAN is using to send data. Soon after, Rebecca contacts the hacker, and says that she has convinced TriOptimum to authorize the station's destruction; she provides him with details on how to do this.After obtaining the necessary codes, the hacker initiates the station's self-destruct sequence and flees to the escape pod bay. There, the hacker defeats Diego a second time, then attempts to disembark. However, SHODAN prevents the pod from launching; it seeks to keep the player aboard the station, while the bridge—which contains SHODAN—is jettisoned to a safe distance.Rebecca tells the hacker that he can still escape if he reaches the bridge; SHODAN then intercepts and jams the transmission.After defeating Diego for the third time and killing him for good, the hacker makes it to the bridge as it is released from the main station, which soon detonates. He is then contacted by a technician who managed to circumvent SHODAN's jamming signal. The technician informs him that SHODAN can only be defeated in cyberspace, due to the powerful shields that protect its mainframe computers.Using a terminal near the mainframe, the hacker enters cyberspace and destroys SHODAN. After his rescue, the hacker is offered a job at TriOptimum, but he declines in favor of continuing his life as a hacker. System Shock was first conceived during the final stages of Ultima Underworld II: Labyrinth of Worlds' development, between December 1992 and January 1993. Designer and programmer Doug Church spent this period at the Texas headquarters of publisher Origin Systems, and discussions about Looking Glass Technologies' next project occurred between him and producer Warren Spector, with input from designer Austin Grossman and company head Paul Neurath in Massachusetts.According to Church, the team believed that they had made "too many dungeon games"; and Neurath later explained that they were experiencing burnout after the rushed development of Ultima Underworld II.As a result, they decided to create another "immersive simulation game", but without a fantasy setting. They briefly considered placing the game in modern day, but Church said that the idea was rejected because "it just beg so many questions: why can't I pick up the phone, why can't I get on the train, and so on". Church returned to Looking Glass in Massachusetts, where he, Neurath and Grossman brainstormed possible science fiction settings for the game.According to Spector, the game was initially titled "Alien Commander" and was a spin-off of the Wing Commander series; however, this idea was soon replaced entirely. Spector said that they enjoyed not being attached to an existing franchise, because it meant that they "could basically do whatever liked". The four collaborated to write numerous "minutes of gameplay" documents, which conveyed how the game would feel. Church later gave the example, "You hear the sound of a security camera swiveling, and then the beep of it acquiring you as a target, so you duck behind the crate and then you hear the door open so you throw a grenade and run out of the way". The documents would "hint" at the gameplay systems involved, and at the emergent possibilities in each situation. Although Neurath was involved in these initial design sessions, he believed that the project "was always Doug Church's vision at heart". Church and Grossman refined several of the team's documents and defined the game's design and direction,and Grossman wrote the game's original design document.Grossman built on ideas that he first explored while writing and designing Ultima Underworld II's tomb dimension, which he later called a "mini-prototype" for System Shock. These concepts included the minimization of dialogue trees and a greater focus on exploration. The team believed that dialogue trees "broke the fiction" of games; Church later commented that the dialogue trees in the Ultima Underworld series were like separate games in themselves, disconnected from main experience of being immersed in the environment. There were also concerns about realism. To eliminate dialogue trees from System Shock, the team prevented the player from ever meeting a living non-player character (NPC): the plot is instead conveyed by e-mail messages and log discs, many of which were recorded by dead NPCs. Here, Grossman took influence from Edgar Lee Masters' Spoon River Anthology, a collection of poems written as the epitaphs of fictional individuals. Grossman later summarized the idea as "a series of short speeches from people, that when put together, gave you a history of a place."The removal of conversations was an attempt by the team to make the game a more "integrated whole" than was Ultima Underworld--one with a greater focus on immersion, atmosphere and "the feeling of 'being there'". They sought to "plunge into the fiction and never provide an opportunity for breaking that fiction" and so they tried to erase the distinction between plot and exploration.Church considered this direction to be an organic progression from Ultima Underworld and he later said, "On some level it's still just a dungeon simulator, and we're still just trying to evolve that idea."Shortly before production began, Tribe bassist Greg LoPiccolo was contracted to work on the game's music He had visited his friend Rex Bradford at the company,and was spontaneously asked by the game's programmers—many of whom were fans of the band—if he would take the roleThe game entered production in February 1993. Although Grossman was heavily involved in the game's early planning, he had little to do with its production, aside from providing assistance with writing and voice acting. System Requirements Minimum Requirements CPU: Intel Core i5-2400/AMD FX-8320 or better CPU SPEED: Info RAM: 8 GB OS: Windows 7/8.1/10 (64-bit versions) VIDEO CARD: NVIDIA GTX 670 2GB/AMD Radeon HD 7870 2GB or better PIXEL SHADER: 5.0 VERTEX SHADER: 5.0 FREE DISK SPACE: 2 GB DEDICATED VIDEO RAM: 2048 MB Re command Requirements CPU: Intel Core i7-3770/AMD FX-8350 or better CPU SPEED: Info RAM: 16 GB OS: Windows 7/8.1/10 (64-bit versions) VIDEO CARD: NVIDIA GTX 970 4GB/AMD Radeon R9 290 4GB or better PIXEL SHADER: 5.1 VERTEX SHADER: 5.1 FREE DISK SPACE: 2 GB DEDICATED VIDEO RAM: 4096 MB

American McGee's Alice is a third-person psychological horror action-adventure platform video game released for PC on December 6, 2000.The game, developed by Rogue Entertainment and published by Electronic Arts, is an unofficial sequel to Lewis Carroll's Alice novels. It was designed by American McGee and features music composed by Chris Vrenna.The game was published in Japan by EA Japan under the title Alice in Nightmare. The game uses the id Tech 3 game engine. A PlayStation 2 port was in development and planned for a release sometime around 2001 but was canceled.Set years after Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, the game features an older, more cynical and macabre incarnation of Alice. As of 22 July 2010, American McGee's Alice has sold over 1.5 million copies. A sequel, Alice: Madness Returns, was released June 14, 2011. Downloadable ports of the game for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 were also made to coincide with the sequel's release. The game's setting presents a more macabre rendition of Wonderland than in Lewis Carroll's original portrayal. Wonderland, being a creation of Alice's mind, has been corrupted. Alice's primary objective is to save Wonderland, and in doing so, save herself. Shortly after Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There, at the age of seven, Alice Liddell witnessed the death of her family in an accidental fire that destroyed her home and killed both her parents, who were trapped and burned alive. Suffering from survivor's guilt, Alice lost her grasp on reality and was ultimately sent to Rutledge Asylum, where she is observed and treated by Dr. Heironymous Wilson for her catatonia. Alice's only possession in Rutledge is a stuffed rabbit. Ten years after Alice was committed to Rutledge, The White Rabbit summons Alice back to Wonderland, which has not only become a corrupted, twisted version of itself due to Alice's broken mind, but has also come under the horrible rule of the Queen of Hearts. The Cheshire Cat serves as Alice's companion throughout the game, frequently appearing to guide her with cryptic comments. When Alice falls down the hole, she finds herself in the Village of the Doomed. This network of tunnels and caves is the home of the Torch Gnomes, and is patrolled by the Queen of Hearts' Card Guards. Beyond the subterranean village is the Fortress of Doors, where the main attraction is a school of insane children. Within the school lies an ancient book of recipes for magic potions, as well as the ingredients for one concoction in particular which will be useful to Alice. Beyond the fortress and across a rough, uncharted landscape lies the Vale of Tears, where Alice's friends Bill McGill and the Mock Turtle reside, along with the Duchess. A giant river runs throughout the gloomy, mist-shrouded landscape, and another aquatic location is accessible through a well inside Bill McGill's house. The well is sealed until the Duchess is slain. On the other side of the Vale of Tears lies Wonderland Woods, one of the largest regions in the game. The woods are initially filled by ponds, cliffs and jump mushrooms, but much deeper into the woods is a region of rock and magma. This section leads to several new regions including the Cave of the Oracle, the Pale Realm, the Jabberwock's Lair, and the Majestic Maze. The Cave of the Oracle is home to a wise entity that is revealed later to be the Caterpillar. The Pale Realm makes a transition to the surface of a chessboard, as delving further into this area leads to the White Castle of Looking Glass Land, which is home to life-size chess pieces; the White pieces join Alice in the fight against the Red pieces, a deviation from her normally unhelpful "allies" from earlier portions of the game. Alice is transformed twice into a chess piece herself to pass certain obstacles. Following this is a distorted version of Rutledge Asylum (where Alice has been incarcerated since her parents' tragic deaths). It is run by Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum and also houses the Mad Hatter's laboratory. The path to the Jabberwock's Lair leads into the Land of Fire and Brimstone, a volcanic region of Wonderland and a reminder of the fire in which her family died. It is here that the terrible Jabberwock—a semi-mechanized servant of the Queen of Hearts and the incarnation of Alice's guilt—resides, in the remains of Alice's old home. The Majestic Maze ends on the road to Queen of Hearts Land, a region heavily guarded by card guards, boojums, and other members of the Queen of Hearts' personal army. Queensland is the final province of Wonderland. In it lies the Heart Palace from which the Queen of Hearts commands. Tentacles and other repulsive appendages are seen protruding from every organic wall in this area, and numerous areas even resemble body parts, giving the impression that Alice is travelling through the Queen's body. Ultimately, Alice confronts the Queen, a manifestation of her insanity, and in defeating her, overcomes her issues. Alice then awakens from her catatonic state, and Wonderland is 'reset' back to its previously-seen cheery, wholesome, and slightly quirky state, with the friends she'd lost along the way coming back to life. The game ends with a sane Alice leaving Rutledge's Asylum. The game's characters are generally based on the inhabitants of Lewis Carroll's original novels, but they do not demonstrate the same identities. Many of them are warped incarnations of their conventional selves. The casebook of Heironymous Q. Wilson (a supplement included with the game and written from the point of view of Alice's doctor) suggests that many of the characters Alice encounters in Wonderland are symbolic of real life people who get through to the catatonic Alice in some way. Other characters within the game are metaphors for Alice's own feelings, and because she is unhappy, they have become twisted. Some people (Cheshire Cat, White Rabbit) help her; others (Mad Hatter, Queen of Hearts) try to cause pain, first by taking away those she loves and then by taking her down with them. System Requirements Minimum Requirements System memory (RAM) 64 MB Hard disk drive (HDD) 600 MB Video card (GPU) 16 MB of VRAM DirectX 7 compatible Re command Requirement System memory (RAM) 128 MB Hard disk drive (HDD) 620 MB Video card (GPU) 32 MB of VRAM

Driver (known as Driver: You Are the Wheelman in North America) is an action driving video game developed by Reflections Interactive and published by GT Interactive Software for the PlayStation. It was released in Europe on 25 June 1999;and in North America on 30 June. It is the first game in the Driver series. Initially, the game was released only for the PlayStation, but later, a Microsoft Windows port of the original PlayStation version was released in North America on 11 October 1999, and in Europe later on.In May 2000, a remake developed by Crawfish Interactive and published by Infogrames was released for the Game Boy Color.This version featured a third person trailing camera view, and fewer missions. A Mac port was released in North America in December 2000 The game was re-released on the PlayStation Network on 14 October 2008,and a remake developed and published by Gameloft, with enhanced voice acting and graphics, was released for iOS on 8 December 2009. The game is played out in four cities: Miami, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York, each of which remain only partially faithful to the actual city layouts. A fifth bonus city, Newcastle Upon Tyne (where Reflections Interactive is based), is unlockable in the PC version through gameplay and in the PlayStation version using a cheat device, but no missions are available and the playable area is small. The game was notable at the time of its original release insofar as the player was able to explore each city as an open world environment. Driver has often been compared to the Grand Theft Auto series. It also bears significant thematic resemblances to the 20th Century Fox movie "The Driver" (1978). NYPD officer and former racing driver John Tanner is sent undercover by his boss Lieutenant McKenzie to discover the intentions of a crime syndicate led by Castaldi. McKenzie instructs Tanner to go to Miami and meet a pimp named Rufus. After arriving in Miami, Tanner uses his driving skills to prove himself to some gangsters in a parking garage, allowing him to become their getaway driver. Tanner carries out jobs for various gangsters before meeting Rufus, who tasks Tanner with rescuing Jean-Paul, one of Rufus's associates. Rufus is later shot by his girlfriend Jesse. Needing more information for his investigation, Tanner apprehends Jesse and takes her to the police station, where she reveals that Jean-Paul is now in San Francisco. Tanner goes to San Francisco, where he meets Castaldi, Jean-Paul's boss, and begins working directly for him. He also meets Rusty Slater, his former racing rival, who also works for Castaldi. Tanner later learns that Castaldi is working with a man named Don Hancock, who is running for president. He later suspects that Slater has been spying on him and wrecks Slater's car during a road chase, resulting in Slater being arrested. The Castaldi family move to Los Angeles, where Castaldi plans to assassinate FBI agent Bill Maddox as part of Castaldi's plan to carry out a more high-profile assassination in New York. Tanner tells Leck, a police associate, to ensure Maddox turns up, otherwise Tanner's cover may be affected. The assassination on Maddox is successful, but the police ambush the gangsters, forcing Tanner to take them to safety. Tanner convinces the suspicious gangsters that Slater likely told the police about the planned assassination while under interrogation. Leck later tells Tanner that McKenzie recently met Marcus Vaughn, a corrupt FBI agent who is working with Castaldi and Hancock. The Castaldi family then move to New York, the location of the planned high-profile assassination. Tanner is told by his police associates that McKenzie wants him to pull out of the undercover operation, as he is worried that Tanner's cover will not hold up much longer, and Leck tells Tanner that Hancock has bribed several members of the FBI. Tanner remains undercover and continues working for Castaldi, intent on discovering what he is planning. Tanner eventually learns that Castaldi plans to assassinate the President of the United States, and Tanner is tasked with driving the President's car. However, he ignores all instructions and takes the President to safety. McKenzie then arrives and tells Tanner that Castaldi and all of his associates, including Hancock and Vaughn, have been arrested. He then tells Tanner to take his badge back, but Tanner refuses, suspecting that the police and FBI are involved in the job, corrupted by bribes due to Vaughn's involvement. Tanner leaves, ignoring McKenzie completely. In 2009, a remastered version of the game was released on the App Store. Developed and published by Gameloft, the original plot and structure were left intact, but the graphics were enhanced, the music was re-done, and voice acting was re-recorded for the cutscenes. System Requirements Minimum Requirements OS: Win Xp 32 Processor: Intel Pentium D 830 3.0GHz / AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4400+ Graphics: AMD Radeon HD 2600 XT or NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GT System Memory: 1 GB RAM Storage: 10 GB Hard drive space DirectX 9 Compatible Graphics Card Recommended Requirements OS: Win Xp 32 Processor: Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4GHz / AMD Athlon II X4 620 Graphics: AMD Radeon HD 3850 or NVIDIA GeForce GT 530 System Memory: 2 GB RAM Storage: 10 GB Hard drive space

The Sims Mobile is a life simulation game based on The Sims 4 and The Sims FreePlay for Android and iOS devices.It was announced on May 9, 2017 in a launch trailer.The game was released on March 6, 2018.It features a multiplayer component and includes story elements.Development has been transferred from Maxis to Firemonkeys Studios. In The Sims Mobile, players are able to create unique Sims with the in-game character creator (Create-a-Sim), build houses, start families and control the lives of their Sims.The game introduces multiplayer elements, as players can 'interact with other players' Sims by attending their parties or rating their Sims as "Cute, Hot or Fabulous" through a sticker system. Similarly to previous mobile games in The Sims franchise, energy is used when players take actions with their Sims. Energy can be restored through SimCash, which is earned through in-game quests and micro-transactions. SimCash can also be used to purchase certain premium clothing and furniture options in the game. Unlike its predecessor The Sims FreePlay, The Sims Mobile offers a closer experience to the PC series of games. There is a focus on telling stories through Sim's actions, chosen by the player as their Sims go through their career or make relationships. As Sims play through these stories, they are able to level up and unlock new cutscenes. Advancing stories may also unlock new furniture or clothing items. This set the tone for my time with The Sims Mobile. It's got potential, I'll give it that. It's a decent mobile adaptation of the beloved sandbox players love to interact with, mod, and spend hours customizing their characters in. The thing is, it could be far less frustrating. But the route EA chose had to be the most penny-pinching, cash grab-laden iteration possible, and for that I am deeply disappointed. I'm not surprised, mind you, but I am disappointed nevertheless. The Sims Mobile starts out innocently enough. You can create your own Sim to start out, customize him or her to your liking, and get to work customizing your home. Much of the beginning actions of the game are similar to that which you'd see in the full version of the game as you get your sea legs, so to speak. You've got your home, which is a "fixer-upper" of the highest caliber, and a wide world ahead of you. You can jump right in and start interacting with the world with little fanfare if you want, but you'll need to know what to do first. There's a tutorial you need to finish before you're let loose on the world after you spend some time with the surprisingly robust character creator. It's a decent beginning sequence that finds you interacting with a Sim named Bella, who welcomes you to town and shows you around a bit. It's fairly standard at first, but the game quickly opens up to more complicated matters. It's a good thing the tutorial is there, because the game can be quite confusing at first. There are multiple kinds of currency, for example, multiple types of furniture, "career" stories, "relationship" stories, and tons of other intricate systems that you need to uncover to really get the most out of the game. The tutorial could have used a little meatier content beyond what was there, but it helped me get up to speed quickly enough. There's plenty for you to do, though. You can explore the world (which isn't an open one, by the way), meet new Sims who pass by your homes and start friendly or romantic relationships or even rivalries, work a part-time job, hone a skill or a hobby, and engage in tons of different activities that further flesh out your time as a newly-made Sim. You can make friends, add them to your contacts, socialize with them, and even hold and attend house parties. The starting Barista career bridges out to several different job positions you can hold, depending on your level, experience, and even the items in your home. If you want to be friendly with a Sim or start talking trash from the moment you meet them, that will color your interactions going forward as you choose a path to take your relationship down. It's entertaining to just start insulting some random person who happens to walk by your house, just as it's funny to start pathways with fellow "geek" friends you start making. I enjoyed taking part in the group events as well, like birthday parties that involve other players. There's experience and goodies to earn by participating in those, and they're a good way to meet new players if that's something you're into or want to spend time doing. Chances are, if you're a mobile game fan, you probably already spend a lot of time doing that, so it's good that there are social elements included. Unfortunately, nearly everything that you can do is based solely on how much tapping you can do and how much money you can spend. If you don't want to spend money, which the game will almost incessantly badger you to do (without coming right out and saying so), it'll be based on how patient you can be. Shackers, I am not a patient woman. When I sit down to play a game for the long haul, I'm going to play the game. I'm not going to open my wallet and be nickel and dimed to death so I can become a barista and make some frenemies in a life simulation game that rewards you for continual clicking. What reason would I have to do that when I have The Sims 4 proper on console and PC? To keep it brief, there are various systems to keep track of. You've got your Simoleons, which are your in-game cash option represented by golden coins, SimCash, Tickets, Boosts, and energy. A Wallet of SimCash starts at $4.99 for 250 cash, and goes all the way up to $99.99 for 7,500 cash. SimCash buys boosts, helps you finish tasks quickly, and lets you purchase special items. Simoleons can be used to help purchase items like home expansions, furniture, and the like as well as unlock new locations. You can buy Simoleons with SimCash, beginning at 800 Simoleons for 50 SimCash and going up to 120,000 Simoleons for 5,000 SimCash. There are boosts too, of course, in the form of Cupcakes. You can buy them with SimCash, from a Plate of Cupcakes (2) for 75 SimCash to a Box of Cupcakes for 1,5000 SimCash. As if that weren't enough, there are also a selection of Tickets you can buy. First off are the Fashion Gems, which cost 225 SimCash to unlock new looks from Izzy's Fashion Shop. There are several different kinds of Tickets in various denominations from Sim Tickets to Heirloom Tickets and more, so many that it's absolutely atrocious to think that you need to keep track of so many forms of currency. Of course, that's all separate from energy. Just like Kim Kardashian: Hollywood, you need to use energy to perform actions. You need to perform actions to earn experience. You need to earn experience to progress. Most actions take a nominal amount of energy when you're starting out, but these totals quickly rise as your level does as well. Your Sim can just perform actions on their own if you want to turn off your phone and let them do their thing, but of course that doesn't mean you're actively playing any longer. Clicking a few icons and waiting for your Sim to perform the action so you can grind out experience and level up does not make for very much fun over a long stretch of time, and if you choose not to pay, which EA will oh-so-generously remind you that you don't have to do, you'll be waiting more than playing. Waiting around isn't very much fun for me. Not when I can jump into a ton of other free games right now with zero microtransaction nudges. As it stands, unless you're really jonesing for a Sims fix while on the go, there isn't much of a reason to let The Sims Mobile insult you by peppering you with its seemingly endless barrage of microtransactions. Unfortunately it doesn't seem that EA has entirely learned its lesson from the recent Star Wars Battlefront II debacle, nor the backlash facing pay-to-win models in recent memory. To be fair, The Sims Mobile isn't approaching the free-to-play genre any differently than other mobile games out there on the market, and I've seen far worse. But to offer a mobile iteration that has even less value than the regular version of the game feels like a nonsensical move. The thing is, it could all be propelled with currency in-game without any option to buy cash with shorter timers (or no timers at all) and it would make a far better experience. As-is, however, as much as I want to see my Sims rise through the ranks, I'm going to have to direct my attention to the console and PC versions to live my virtual life. System Requirements The Sims Mobile was released for mobile devices with Android and iOS systems. In the case of the former, the Android 4.1 version is the minimum requirement. However, when it comes to Apple devices, the iOS 9.0 or a newer version is required. The game requires only 106 MB of free space. Updates, which occur every few days, do not take up much memory either. The production, despite its small size, offers a lot of content. In addition to the starting location, the publisher has prepared 4 city districts for the players. In each of them, there are sets of buildings that the players can enter. These buildings, however, are unlocked by gaining experience levels. Required disc space: approx. 106 MB. Multiplayer mode: Yes. Capability to meet and visit other players. Internet connection: Required. The game will not start if the device is not connected to the Internet.

Warcraft: Orcs & Humans is a real-time strategy game (RTS) developed and published by Blizzard Entertainment, and published by Interplay Productions in Europe. The first version, for MS-DOS, was released in North America on 23 November 1994 and the Classic Mac OS version followed in early 1996. The MS-DOS version was re-released by Sold-Out Software in 2002. Although Warcraft: Orcs & Humans was not the first RTS title to offer multiplayer games, Blizzard's game persuaded a wider audience that multiplayer capabilities were essential for future RTS games. The game introduced innovations in its mission design and gameplay elements, which were adopted by other RTS developers. Blizzard's main emphases in Warcraft games were on: skillful management of relatively small forces, and on development of characterization and storyline within and between games played in the same fictional universe. Sales were fairly high, reviewers were mostly impressed, and the game won three awards, and was a finalist for three others. The game's sequel, Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness, became the main rival to Westwood Studios' Command & Conquer series, and this competition fostered an "RTS boom" in the mid– to late 1990s. Game play Warcraft: Orcs & Humans is a real-time strategy game (RTS).The player takes the role of either the Human inhabitants of Azeroth, or the invading Orcs. In the single player campaign mode the player works through a series of missions, the objective of which varies, but usually involves building a small town, harvesting resources, building an army and then leading it to victory.In multiplayer games, the objective is always to destroy the enemy players' forces. Some scenarios are complicated by the presence of wild monsters, but sometimes these monsters can be used as troops. The game plays in a medieval setting with fantasy elements. Both sides have melee units and ranged units, and also spellcasters. Modes Warcraft: Orcs & Humans's gameplay expands the Dune II "build base, build army, destroy enemy" paradigm to include other modes of game play.These include several new mission types, such as conquering rebels of the player's race, rescuing and rebuilding besieged towns, rescuing friendly forces from an enemy camp and then destroying the main enemy base, and limited-forces missions, in which neither side can make further units, and making efficient use of one's platoon is a key strategy element.In one mission, the player has to kill the Orc chief's daughter. The game also allows two players to compete in multiplayer contests by modem or local networks, and enables gamers with the MS-DOS and Macintosh version to play each other.Multiplayer and AI skirmishes that are not part of campaigns were supported by a random map generator.The game also allowed spawn installations to be made. Economy and Power Warcraft requires players to collect resources, and to produce buildings and units in order to defeat an opponent in combat.Non-combatant builders deliver the resources to the Town Center from mines, from which gold is dug, and forests, where wood is chopped.As both are limited resources which become exhausted during the game, players must collect them efficiently, and also retain forests as defensive walls in the early game when combat forces are small. The lower-level buildings for Humans and Orcs have the same functions, but different sprites.The Town Hall stores resources and produces units that collect resources and construct buildings. Each Farm provides food for up to four units, and additional units cannot be produced until enough Farms are built.The Barracks produces all non-magical combat units, including melee, ranged, mounted, and siege units. However all except the most basic also need assistance from other buildings,some of which can also upgrade units. Each side can construct two types of magical buildings, each of which produces one type of spellcaster and researches more advanced spells for that type.These advanced buildings can be constructed only with assistance from other buildings.The Human Cleric and Orc Necrolyte can both defend themselves by magic and also see distant parts of the territory for short periods.The Cleric's other spells are protective, healing the injured and making troops invisible,while the Necrolyte raises skeletons as troops and can make other units temporarily invulnerable, at the cost of severely damaging them when the spell dissipates.The Human Conjurer and Orc Warlock have energy blasts, wider-range destruction spells and the ability to summon small, venomous monsters. The Conjurer can summon a water elemental, while the Warlock can summon a demonic melee unit. User Interface The main screen has three areas: the largest, to the right, is the part of the territory on which the player is currently operating; the top left is the minimap; and, if a building or unit(s) is selected, the bottom left shows their status and any upgrades and the actions that can be performed.The status details include a building's or unit's health, including its progress if being constructed, and any upgrades the object has completed.The Menu control, at the very bottom on the left, provides access to save game, load game and other menu functions. Initially most of the main map and minimap are blacked out, but the visible area expands as the player's units explore the map. The mini-map shows a summary of the whole territory, with green dots for the player's buildings and units and red dots for enemy ones. The player can click in the main map or the minimap to scroll the main map around the territory. All functions can be invoked by the mouse. Keys can also invoke the game setup, some of the menu options and some gameplay functions including scrolling and pausing the game.Players can select single units by clicking, and groups of up to four by shift-clicking or bandboxing.To move units, players can shift the mouse to select units on the main map, move to the unit menu to select an action, and then back to the main map or minimap to specify the target area; shortcut keys can eliminate the middle mouse action in this cycle. Story line The Orcs originated from another world, Draenor, where the orcs, once a peaceful race, became bloodthirsty from the blood of a pitlord. However, their Warlocks remained aloof, devoting their time to the research of magic. The Warlocks noticed a rift between the dimensions and, after many years, opened a small portal to another world. One Warlock explored and found a region, called Azeroth by its Human inhabitants, from which the Warlock returned with strange plants as evidence of his discovery. The Orcs enlarged the portal until they could transport seven warriors, who massacred a Human village. The raiding party brought back samples of good food and fine worksmanship, and a report that the Humans were defenseless. The Orcs' raiding parties grew larger and bolder, until they assaulted Azeroth's principal castle. However, the Humans had been training warriors of their own, especially the mounted, heavily armed Knights. These, assisted by Human Sorcerers, gradually forced the Orcs to retreat through the portal, which the Humans had not discovered. For the next fifteen years, one faction of Orcs demanded that the portal be closed. However a chief of exceptional cunning realized that the Humans, although out-numbered, had prevailed through the use of superior tactics, organization, and by magic. He united the clans, imposed discipline on their army and sought new magics from the Warlocks and Necromancers. Their combined forces were ready to overthrow the Humans.For the next fifteen years, one faction of Orcs demanded that the portal be closed. However a chief of exceptional cunning realized that the Humans, although out-numbered, had prevailed through the use of superior tactics, organization, and by magic. He united the clans, imposed discipline on their army and sought new magics from the Warlocks and Necromancers. Their combined forces were ready to overthrow the Humans. System Requirements Operating System: MS-DOS 5.0 Processor: Intel 386DX 20 MHz Memory: 4MB RAM Graphics Card: VGA graphics, 256-colors capable, 320 x 240 resolution DirectX: Sound Card: Sound Blaster compatible sound card Hard Drive Space: Drives: 3.5" Disk Drive or 2X CD-ROM Drive Controls: Keyboard & Mouse Multiplayer: 14.4 Kbps modem or IPX network card

A Way Out is an action-adventure game developed by Hazelight Studios and published by Electronic Arts under their EA Originals program. It is the second video game to be directed by Josef Fares after Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons. The game has no single-player option: it is only playable in either online or local split screen co-op between two players. The game was released for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on March 23, 2018, selling over a million copies in two weeks. Game play A Way Out is an action-adventure game played from a third-person perspective. It is specifically designed for split-screen cooperative multiplayer, which means that it must be played with another player through either local or online play.In the game, players control Leo and Vincent, two convicted prisoners who must break out of prison and stay on the run from authorities. As the story of both protagonists is told simultaneously, their progress may not be synchronized, which may result in one player being able to control their character, while another is watching a cuts cene.Players need to cooperate with each other in order to progress, and each situation can be approached differently, with both characters taking different roles. For instance, during an early segment of the game, the player controlling Vincent needs to distract a nurse and guard, so the player controlling Leo can find a chisel needed to aid their escape. These roles are not fixed, so Leo and Vincent can swap their roles in another play through. Players can interact with many non-playable characters, and there are dialogue options for players to choose. The game offers a "play free online" model such that players will be able to join online sessions (hosted by the player's friends) whether or not the joining player owns the actual game. The joining player must be a member of Xbox Live or PlayStation Plus. A Way Out also includes plenty of minigames including an arcade video game titled as Grenade Brothers, arm wrestling, banjo and piano duet, baseball, basketball, bottle shooting, Connect Four, darts, horseshoes, spearfishing, wheelchair wheelies; and exercises such as chin-ups, dips, push-ups, sit-ups and bench presses. Plot In 1972, Vincent Moretti (Eric Krogh) is freshly incarcerated and sent to prison for fraud and murder. In jail, he meets Leo Caruso (Fares Fares), who has now been inside for 6 months for grand theft, assault and armed robbery. While in the cafeteria, a thug sent in by crime boss Harvey tries to murder Leo, but Vincent intervenes, resulting in both of them being sent to the infirmary while the thug is beaten to death after stabbing a prison guard. While in the infirmary, Leo requests Vincent's help to steal a chisel from the office. Vincent complies. After the theft, Vincent senses that Leo is planning on a prison break and offers to help so that he can escape too. Leo initially refuses, but begrudgingly agrees to collaborate when Vincent reveals he also has a grudge with Harvey. Leo and Vincent make progress on their escape plan, stealing sheets to make a rope and smuggling a wrench to open a grating. Using teamwork and gathered tools, the two escape from the jail on a rainy night. After evading the police in the wilderness, the two find an empty camp and fish to make food. Vincent reveals that Harvey had him launder money before murdering his brother as a warning and framing Vincent for the murder. Leo starts telling his story but is interrupted when a police helicopter flies by, causing both to start moving again. They later find an old couple's house, and the two steal new clothes, a shotgun and a truck before evading the pursuing police in the vehicle and, after crashing, a rowboat. After surviving a waterfall, the duo finds civilization, after which Leo reveals Harvey and him had stolen a valuable gem, a Black Orlov, but that when Leo tried selling it, Harvey betrayed him by killing their buyer and escaping with the gem, leading to Leo's arrest. At a trailer park in the city, Leo confirms the safety of his wife Linda and his son Alex, before going to a construction site with Vincent. They find Ray, one of Harvey's underlings who works as a construction foreman, and, after a chase, the two capture and interrogate him to find Harvey's location, which they find out is Mexico. Plotting revenge against Harvey, the duo robs a gas station to buy guns from an arms dealer, Jasmine. When the two leave, Jasmine follows them and betrays them by giving their location to Harvey. Later, at a telephone booth, Vincent calls Emily, a pilot, and convinces her to fly them to Mexico. He then learns from her that his wife, Carol, had just gone through childbirth. The duo agrees to go to the hospital, but a hitman sent by Harvey arrives, attempting to kill them, but in the end failing. They then go to the hospital and Vincent gets to see his newborn daughter, named Julie, but quickly needs to leave as police officers surround the building. Leo is captured but manages to escape thanks to Vincent's help. The next day, Emily flies Leo and Vincent to Mexico, and the two find their way to Harvey's mansion. After a firefight with Harvey's guards and Harvey himself, the two overpower Harvey, force him to return the Black Orlov and, after he attempts to take one of them hostage, kill him. Escaping with the Black Orlov, Vincent and Leo return to the United States on Emily's plane, but are immediately surrounded by police upon landing. An officer takes the Black Orlov from Leo and hands Vincent a gun, revealing that both him and Emily had been undercover police officers. Leo and Harvey's Black Orlov deal had actually been arranged by the police, and the dealer killed was Vincent's brother, Gary. Feeling betrayed, Leo subdues Vincent, takes him hostage and hijacks a police car to escape. While trying to avoid a police roadblock, he crashes the car into water. Both escape the submerged vehicle, Leo stealing a boat while Vincent is picked up by Emily in a police helicopter. After a chase where Vincent tries to destroy the engine of the boat, Leo jumps off before it crashes into explosive tanks and runs into a portside warehouse. Emily lands the helicopter and both her and Vincent chase him inside. Leo manages to ambush Emily, taking her gun away and ordering her to leave as this fight is between him and Vincent. The gunfight ends with both sides injured, unarmed, and exhausted on the top of the roof. Seeing that one of their guns is dropped nearby, both try to reach it, but only one is able to and shoots the other. The two share a final moment of friendship before the person shot dies from their injuries. If Leo survives, he takes Vincent's apology letter and delivers it to Carol, then proceeds to leave town with his family while Vincent's funeral is taking place. If Vincent survives, he informs Linda of Leo's death before returning to Carol, making amends to save their marriage and raise their daughter by revealing he resigned from the police and proclaiming that it's over. Development A Way Out was developed by Hazelight Studios, a small team of developers in Sweden led by film director Josef Fares. Both Fares and several members of his team previously worked on the acclaimed title, Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons from Starbreeze Studios.Production of the game began in the second half of 2014.The design philosophy for the game is that the team wanted to create a cooperative game that is unique and different. As a result, the team opted not use the traditional drop-in and drop-out cooperative format featured dominantly in mainstream cooperative games, and instead, the team decided to create a full game that must be played cooperatively with another player.According to Fares, the game was his passion project and he cancelled an upcoming feature film in order to devote more time to working on the game.The game uses Unreal Engine 4. Despite the game's heavy focus on multiplayer, the game was described as an "emotional adventure".As a result, cutscenes will play out even during online play to ensure that players can understand the story of the other character.The game features a wide variety of gameplay sequences from stealth to driving to ensure that players are often presented with different gameplay situations and generally make the game and its characters more interesting.To make the two protagonists more realistic, the team ensured that Leo and Vincent have distinct personalities and that they have different opinions and responses while interacting with the game's world.Fares Fares, a Swedish-Lebanese actor and Josef Fares' older brother, plays Leo. The title will be part of publisher Electronic Arts' EA Originals program, dedicated to funding small independent games. The partnership came to fruition when Patrick Söderlund, the Executive Vice President of Electronic Arts, approached Fares personally for collaboration after being impressed by Brothers.EA offered $3.7 million for the development of the game and gave Fares and his team complete creative control over the game's development.According to Fares, all revenue from sales of the game will go back to Hazelight.The formation of Hazelight Studios and the partnership between Hazelight and EA was officially unveiled at The Game Awards 2014.The game's title and gameplay was revealed at Electronic Entertainment Expo 2017 during EA's press conference. The game was released for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on March 23, 2018. A Way Out’s revenge-fueled plot is structured around flashbacks to how Vincent and his next-cell-neighbor Leo ended up in this predicament, until the story catches up to them aboard a plane and carries on from there. It ebbs and flows like a movie, and it somewhat feels like one too, despite a runtime about three times longer than your average theater experience. You will spend a lot of its roughly six hours with your controller down, watching cutscenes. But you’re also often free to walk around in many of those moments, with the screen frequently split to accommodate both players’ freedom to move and explore. Leo and Vincent each have believable motivations that become clear as the story unfolds. So, too, do the actors’ performances improve as the plot progresses, with most of the notably wooden dialogue delivery contained in the early scenes. It’s as if they had to get to know each other, just as we needed to get to know them. It’s interesting to talk to the same NPC with Leo and Vincent separately, one right after the other, because while the conversation will usually turn out the same way, the path of those chats will be completely different. Leo is more violent and action-first, while Vincent prefers to talk his way out of sticky situations. So when you’re given the choice to handle a tense moment with a curious police officer Leo’s way or Vincent’s way, Leo wants to knock him out, while Vincent fakes a highly contagious illness. A Way Out is laced with small cooperative moments outside of just dialogue, too, like having to tap X simultaneously to bust through a door, or one person splashing around in a pond to chase the fish toward the other player holding a spear. But even though it’s focused on its story sequences, A Way Out is decidedly not a “walking simulator”-style adventure – in fact, it’s more like a collection of largely enjoyable minigames. Sometimes you’re sneaking around in tall grass like Sam Fisher, choking out bad guys. Sometimes you’re punching people from a 2.5D side-scrolling camera like it’s a Double Dragon remake. Sometimes you’re driving a car, or throwing darts, or playing a banjo, or shooting hoops, or arm wrestling, or fishing, or...you get the idea. All of that variety is a double-edged sword: though this swath of activities often left me smiling, the trade-off is that none of them control and feel as good as games dedicated to those ideas. The baseball segment won’t be unseating MLB The Show 18, is what I’m saying, but even so it put a smile on my face. “Clunky” is probably the best description of the worst A Way Out’s minigames ever get, with the gunplay feeling particularly subpar in this, the age of spectacularly polished shooters. None of those is A Way Out’s specialty, though. Instead, it focuses primarily on its story and the intertwining cooperative gameplay with the characters of Leo and Vincent themselves, and in those key areas it largely succeeds. Does the timing on certain moments seem implausibly convenient? Yes. Do the two men end up escaping unscathed from seemingly impossible scenarios? Uh-huh. (Side note: A Way Out’s police officers make Star Wars’ Stormtroopers look like expert marksmen.) The prison-breaking pair definitely don’t always get along, though, and sometimes they even compete, just like real frienemies would, which creates some fun player-versus-player moments. Neither my co-op partner nor I would give in during our button-mashing arm-wrestling match, even though it had no bearing on the game or the story, and I took a completely unnecessary glee in beating him in Connect Four (twice). At times it felt like we really were inhabiting these characters. A Way Out’s finest moments come when it’s at its most cinematic. The brilliantly choreographed hospital escape scene, for example, maintains one unbroken “camera shot” even as controls are cleverly trading back and forth between Leo and Vincent, while the aforementioned ending blends cinematography and gameplay in clever ways. And a Splinter Cell-esque back-to-back climb up a tall maintenance shaft requires the utmost cooperation and communication and had us laughing at every misstep. It was the peak of the mandatory cooperative gameplay that’s enforced here. And commendably, you get a free download token to give to a friend, so you only have to buy one copy to play online. Verdict If you go into A Way Out thinking its mandatory two-player co-op is a gimmick, you’ll likely come out of it realizing that it couldn’t have been done any other way. Vincent and Leo’s journey will have you and a friend performing tasks together both mundane and dramatic, and the result is a memorable, variety-packed cinematic adventure that feels like what Telltale’s games might’ve evolved into if they’d leaned into game mechanics instead of phasing them out. System Requirement Minimum Requirement MINIMUM PC REQUIREMENTS: 720P 30 FPS AT LOW SETTINGS O/S: Windows 7 64-bit, 8.1 64-bit or Windows 10 64-bit CPU: Intel core i3-2100T @ 2.5GHz/AMD FX 6100, or better RAM: 8GB GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650Ti 2GB, AMD Radeon HD 7750 2GB DirectX: 11 Compatible video card or equivalent Hard Drive: 25GB Input: At least one Xbox-compatible/PlayStation-compatible controller Online connection requirements: 256KBPS or faster Internet connection Recommend Requirement RECOMMENDED PC REQUIREMENTS: 1080P 60 FPS AT HIGH SETTINGS O/S: Windows 7 64-bit, 8.1 64-bit or Windows 10 64-bit RAM: 16GB CPU: Intel Core i5 3570K; AMD Ryzen 3 1300x or equivalent GPU: Nvidia GT 960; AMD R9 290 or equivalent DirectX: 11 Compatible video card or equivalent Hard Drive: 25GB Input: At least one Xbox-compatible/PlayStation-compatible controller Online connection requirements: 256KBPS or faster Internet connection

StarCraft: Brood War is the expansion pack for the military science fiction real-time strategy video game StarCraft. Released in 1998 for Microsoft Windows and 1999 for macOS, it was co-developed by Saffire Corporation and Blizzard Entertainment. The expansion pack introduces new campaigns, map tilesets, music, extra units for each race, and upgrade advancements. The campaigns continue the story from where the original StarCraft ended,with the sequel StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty continuing from the conclusion of Brood War. The expansion was released in the United States on 30 November 1998. Brood War was critically well received, with reviewers praising it for being developed with the care of a full game rather than as an uninspired extra.As of 31 May 2007, StarCraft and Brood War have sold almost ten million copies combined.The game is especially po[CENSORED]r in South Korea, where professional players and teams participated in matches, earned sponsorships, and competed in televised matches. As of April 19, 2017, StarCraft and its Brood War expansion are free to download and play from Blizzard's website.A remastered edition of StarCraft and Brood War was released on August 14, 2017. StarCraft focuses around three distinct interstellar species: the psionic Protoss, the adaptable Terrans, and the insectoid Zerg. The game revolves around players collecting resources to construct a base, upgrade their militaries, and ultimately conquer opponents. Brood War's gameplay remains fundamentally unchanged from that of StarCraft, although it made small alterations to unit costs and some abilities, and added some new units. These changes make rushing tactics—a factor that gained some criticism in the original StarCraft—less practical.The single-player campaign has an increased difficulty; missions are no longer entirely linear, and a greater focus on strategy is needed to complete missions.In addition, the game's artificial intelligence (AI) has been augmented so that AI-controlled players are more intelligent and tend to use tactics more effectively. Brood War introduces seven new units. Each race is given access to a unique ground unit: the Zerg can create a defensive unit that can attack from the concealment of its burrow,while the Terrans can train combat medics.The Protoss are able to produce dark templar units, a powerful cloaked melee unit only given to the player in special missions of StarCraft. Protoss players can merge two of these units to create a special spellcaster unit.Each race is also given access to a dedicated air-to-air attack unit. Brood War takes place in the StarCraft universe, set around the early 26th century. Terran exiles from Earth have colonized a distant area of the Milky Way galaxy called the Koprulu Sector, having established several governments. Eventually, a civil war breaks out and ends with the formation of the Terran Dominion. However, humanity soon becomes caught in a war between the Protoss and the Zerg, which culminates at the end of StarCraft with the death of the Zerg leader, the Overmind, on the Protoss homeworld of Aiur. Without the Overmind to command, the Zerg rampage mindlessly across Aiur, while the cerebrates—the secondary commanders of the Swarm—attempt to regain control. After the discovery of alien life in the Koprulu Sector, the United Earth Directorate (UED)—the international body governing Earth—decides to send an expeditionary force to secure the sector and prevent the aliens from finding Earth. Brood War begins two days after the conclusion of StarCraft. The player assumes the roles of three anonymous characters over the course of the game. In the first campaign, the player assumes the role of a Protoss fleet commander. The player's character is commanded by Zeratul and Aldaris, two adversaries from StarCraft who have since reconciled their differences to lead their people in the face of the rampaging Zerg. They are joined by Jim Raynor, a Terran rebel on the run from the Dominion, Artanis, the previous Executor of the third campaign of StarCraft who has recently been promoted, and Raszagal, the matriarch of the dissident dark templar faction in Protoss society. The second campaign sees the player as a captain in the UED expeditionary force, reporting to the fleet's admiral Gerard DuGalle and his vice-admiral Alexei Stukov. To secure the sector, the UED plans to overthrow the Terran Dominion and its emperor Arcturus Mengsk, and are assisted in this by Samir Duran, a mysterious psionic ghost espionage agent, and his group of anti-Dominion rebels. The final campaign has the player assume the position of a Zerg cerebrate, a commander within the Zerg Swarm. The player is put under the control of Sarah Kerrigan, a Terran who was infested by the Zerg in StarCraft. The story of Brood War is presented through its instruction manual, the briefings to each mission, and conversations within the missions themselves, along with the use of cinematic cut scenes at the end of each campaign.The game itself is split into three new episodes, one centering on each race. In the first episode, Aldaris, Zeratul, and the newly promoted Artanis work to evacuate the surviving Protoss from their devastated homeworld through a warp gate to the dark templar homeworld, Shakuras, where they meet the matriarch of the dark templar, Raszagal. Although the Zerg are able to follow the Protoss to Shakuras, Raszagal informs the survivors of a Xel'Naga temple on the surface of the planet with the power to scour the Zerg from the surface if activated. With Zeratul and Artanis reluctantly partnering with Sarah Kerrigan, who informs them of a new Overmind growing on Char, the player joins them in an operation to recover two key crystals (Khalis and Uraj) necessary to operate the temple. Upon their return, it is revealed that Aldaris has begun an uprising against the dark templar over their alliance with Kerrigan. The uprising is crushed, and Aldaris is killed by Kerrigan, who reveals that her motives are to ensure the destruction of the Zerg cerebrates on Shakuras so she can gain control of the Zerg herself before departing the planet. Despite knowing that activating the temple will accomplish Kerrigan's objectives, Zeratul and Artanis proceed with little other choice, wiping the Zerg off Shakuras' surface. In the second episode, the player leads the United Earth Directorate's initial incursions against the Terran Dominion. Upon meeting Samir Duran, the fleet's vice-admiral Alexei Stukov conscripts Duran as a special advisor. The UED soon discovers a "psi disrupter"—a device capable of disrupting Zerg communications—on the former Confederate capital Tarsonis. Although Duran persuades admiral Gerard DuGalle to have the anti-Zerg device destroyed, Stukov's forces relieve Duran at the last moment. The UED proceeds to the Dominion throne world Korhal IV where the player defeats Arcturus Mengsk's armies, although Mengsk is rescued when a Protoss fleet commanded by Jim Raynor arrives. The UED tracks Raynor and Mengsk to the Protoss homeworld of Aiur, but the two escape the massive UED assault when Duran inexplicably moves his forces out of position and allows the Zerg to interfere with the operation. Having understood that the UED invasion had caused Mengsk, Raynor, and the Protoss to band together against a common foe, Stukov realizes that Duran's actions and the Zerg attack were too much to be a coincidence—the Zerg were also allied with the Terran Dominion and the Protoss, and Duran had been working to undermine the UED. While Stukov takes a contingent of troops and reconstructs the psi disrupter on Braxis, DuGalle is unaware of his intentions and becomes convinced that he is a traitor. The player helps Duran hunt down Stukov inside the psi disrupter, but before he dies, Stukov reveals to DuGalle that Duran is the real enemy. Duran flees after the player foils his attempt to sabotage the psi disrupter. Using the psi disrupter's capabilities, DuGalle and the UED are able to assault the Zerg world Char and take control of the new Overmind growing there. The final section of Brood War sees the player helping Sarah Kerrigan defeat the UED. With the Overmind falling under the United Earth Directorate's command, all operations amongst native factions in the sector are damaged, including Kerrigan's forces. To begin the campaign against the Directorate forces, Kerrigan and Samir Duran form a reluctant alliance with Jim Raynor, Protoss praetor Fenix, and Arcturus Mengsk to destroy the psi disrupter. After destroying the psi disrupter, the player leads Kerrigan's forces in a full-scale assault on Korhal, quickly breaking the UED's hold over the planet. In the aftermath, Kerrigan betrays her allies, destroying a large number of Dominion forces and killing both Fenix as well as Edmund Duke, Mengsk's right-hand man. Angry at Kerrigan's betrayal, Raynor promises that he will kill her one-day and then retreats. Kerrigan travels with Duran to Shakuras and abducts Raszagal, who she uses to blackmail Zeratul into killing the Overmind on Char, thus bringing all Zerg forces under Kerrigan's control. Zeratul attempts to rescue Raszagal, but the player prevents their escape, and Zeratul eventually kills Raszagal when it becomes clear she has been irreversibly brainwashed by Kerrigan. At that moment it becomes clear that Aldaris's uprising in the first episode was an attempt to stop the brainwashed Raszagal from betraying her people any further. Upon leaving Char in search of Artanis, Zeratul stumbles upon a genetics facility run by Duran without Kerrigan's knowledge where a Protoss/Zerg hybrid is being developed. At the same time, Kerrigan is attacked on Char by the Dominion, the UED, and a vengeful fleet commanded by Artanis. Despite being outnumbered, Kerrigan defeats all three fleets and eradicates the surviving UED fleet, leaving her the dominant power in the sector. Before the UED fleet is wiped out, Admiral DuGalle sends a final message back to his family before committing suicide with his pistol. Expectations tend not to run high for add-ons and expansion packs; they're poor-man's sequels, usually thrown together in the wake of the original game's success. But you figure that so long as the expansion offers up more of what you liked about the original, it's good enough. Besides, at half the cost, you can't really ask for much more, can you? According to Blizzard, you can indeed: Brood War, the official expansion to the year's best real-time strategy game, contains all the care, detail, and ingenuity of a true sequel, in spite of its unlikely guise as your typical supplement. While that's not to suggest Brood War is a complete overhaul of the original, by continuing and enriching Starcraft's story, and adding excellent new units and terrain, Brood War completely revitalizes Blizzard's everlasting real-time strategy game. Brood War doesn't look all that much different than the original Starcraft, although there's plenty of new visual content. Fortunately, Starcraft's graphics have aged nicely, and the game still looks great. Brood War's new units fit right in with the returning cast, and although the new snow terrain is too bright, the twilight and desert tile sets are beautifully drawn. Meanwhile, the stylish new intro movie and ending cinematics for each of the three campaigns are emotionally moving and tie in much more closely with the larger story than the original Starcraft's cutscenes. Brood War boldly improves upon Starcraft's unforgettable audio, with new music and sound effects and a lot of new speech. Each of the three races gets a new music track, and all of it is outstanding, particularly the orchestral Terran theme that eclipses the New Agey stuff from the original. With the exception of the Dark Archon who sounds like he has laryngitis, all the new units in Brood War sound every bit as good as the originals, and many of them have very amusing things to say if you keep on clicking. Every surviving character from the original Starcraft returns with many more speaking lines in most cases, and as in the first game, the voice acting in Brood War is first-rate. With rare exceptions, the dialogue during mission briefings and during frequent in-game scripted events is completely convincing and adds up to what's one of the year's best stories in any gaming genre. It picks up right where the first game left off, and much like the original, the three plots are brilliantly written to be both self-contained and deeply connected. As you'd expect, the Brood War campaign is much more difficult than the original Starcraft campaign. Nevertheless, the missions are far superior by design. They're heavily plot driven, with scripted story events frequently punctuating the action. Occasionally your mission objectives will change after you complete what you thought was the extent of your duty. At other times you'll be given a choice of objectives, and your decision will directly affect the course of the following mission. New units are introduced in context, and the scenario will teach you to use them by demanding you take advantage of their particular specialties. It is worth noting, though, that the designers start to run out of steam by the end, as the innovative scenarios that permeate the Protoss and Terran campaigns finally give way to more straightforward against-all-odds Zerg-centric massacres, although the story remains captivating to the end. With Brood War, Blizzard took the opportunity to reevaluate the play balance of an already well-designed real-time strategy game. The results are outstanding; seemingly minor but terribly significant modifications to unit costs, damage rates, hit points, and build times suddenly make the game play very differently, as units that were once ineffective (such as the Protoss Dragoon and the Terran Goliath) are powerless no longer. In the end, almost every single unit in the game has been changed in one way or another. Likewise Blizzard addressed the common complaint that Starcraft catered itself toward rush tactics, where an early attack by basic units would often prove decisive, by augmenting defensive structures to better handle small numbers of weak units. These changes to the original units are included not only in Brood War, but in the Starcraft 1.04 patch. At the same time, the six new units in Brood War demand serious consideration, as each race now has the means to deal with enemy swarm tactics. Now more than ever, the player who just piles up one type of unit will surely lose to he who combines his forces. The end result of all the changes and additions is a game that feels much more strategic than before. The only consequence is that Starcraft's interface, which demands that you carefully micromanage your forces, is ill-equipped to handle the game's newfound complexity, and without some serious practice you'll have trouble putting the specialized new units to good use. Moreover, if you're weary of the real-time strategy formula that culminated in Starcraft, you may be put off that Brood War, when you get right down to it, is fundamentally similar. Nevertheless, if you liked Starcraft in the least, it doesn't take a great deal of thought to understand that Brood War is essential. What with the superb campaign, the new units, the overhauled gameplay, and dozens of new multiplayer maps, you have both a more-than-worthy successor to Starcraft and one of the finest computer game expansion sets of all time. System Requirements Minimum system requirements: CPU: Pentium 90 MHz or higher RAM: 16 MB RAM GPU: DirectX-Compatible SVGA Video Card (DirectX-compatible) OS: Windows 95/98/NThttps://gamesystemrequirements.com/ Store: 80 MB Sound: DirectX-compatible sound card for audio ODD: Double-Speed CD-ROM (Quad Speed for Cinematics) Network: Multiplayer System Requirements: 14.4Kbps Modem or Null Modem Cable 2-8 PLAYERS IPX network or Battle.net (requires low-latency connection with support for 32-bit applications)

RAINBOW SIX QUARANTINE INFECTS CO-OP PLAYERS IN 2020 – E3 2019 Set several years into the future of the Rainbow Six Universe, Rainbow Six Quarantine takes the tactical action that the series is known for and sets it against the backdrop of an entirely new co-op campaign. When a mutated alien parasite starts infecting human hosts, it's up to the Operators of Team Rainbow to stop the deadly threat before time runs out. Created by Ubisoft Montreal, and a dedicated new team comprised of developers from For Honor, Ghost Recon, and more, Rainbow Six Quarantine aims to create a chaotic, intense, and unpredictable co-op, PvE experience. Players will band together with two other teammates in an effort to turn the tide for humanity when Rainbow Six Quarantine releases on Xbox One, Playstation 4, and PC in early 2020. Players interested in learning more can sign up for updates and a chance to play early here. Stay tuned for more information on Rainbow Six Quarantine and keep an eye on Ubisoft News for all the latest news coming from Ubisoft at E3 2019. Rainbow Six Quarantine will fight more alien mutants in co-op Mutant alien beasties will return to trouble the Rainbow 6 gang in new three-player cooperative FPS Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Quarantine, Ubisoft announced today. The two tangled in R6 Siege’s Outbreak event mode in 2018 and now “a totally new breed of mutated alien parasite” is back for a full-on rumble. Ubisoft are pretty vague about this for now, sitting firmly in the “teaser” stage of their marketing plan. That said, the obvious assumption about Quarantine is that it’s an an expansion of ideas in Outbreak and Ubisoft don’t do anything to head off such assumptions. But here, enjoy a vague trailer. “You will see a lot of familiarities when you play, everything related to gunplay and also using your gadget, tactics, and destruction,” lead game designer Bio Jade explained in a chatty video accompanying that vague cinematic. Some characters will also be familiar, with Ela and Vigil, two of the Siegenauts, popping up there. “An operator is not just a weapon, a gadget, an ability, they’re a whole personality. People like them – they already create fan art and fan fic about them. However, using those operators in that new context really makes them different. They feel not the same as you would have them in Rainbow Six Siege because you are in a PvE context, you’re in co-op, you’re in a squad, you want to be tactical and tackle the objectives… you’re going to see it’s going to feel very different even though the operators are familiar.” Due some time in 2020, R6 Quarantine is being made by a new team within Ubisoft Montreal. Testing signups are open on the Quarantine site, for those who fancy a crack at getting to see it early. Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Quarantine beta sign-ups available The beta sign ups are now open for Rainbow Six Quarantine, get in now to get a chance to play early. System Requirements System Requirements (Minimum) CPU: Core i5-2500K/AMD FX-6300 CPU SPEED: Info RAM: 6 GB OS: Windows 7 SP1, Windows 8.1, Windows 10 (64-bit versions only) VIDEO CARD: GeForce GTX 760/Radeon R9 280 PIXEL SHADER: 5.0 VERTEX SHADER: 5.0 DEDICATED VIDEO RAM: 2048 MB Recommended Requirements CPU: Core i7-4770/Ryzen 5 1600X CPU SPEED: Info RAM: 8 GB OS: Windows 10 (64-bit version only) VIDEO CARD: GeForce GTX 1070/Radeon RX Vega 56 PIXEL SHADER: 5.1 VERTEX SHADER: 5.1 DEDICATED VIDEO RAM: 8192 MB

Madden NFL 20 is an American football video game based on the National Football League (NFL), developed by EA Tiburon and published by Electronic Arts. The latest installment in the long-running Madden NFL series, the game was released for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Microsoft Windows on August 2, 2019. It features Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes as the cover athlete. Kansas City Chiefs quarterback and 2018 NFL MVP Patrick Mahomes was unveiled as the cover athlete alongside the game's announcement on April 25, 2019, becoming the first Chiefs player to be the cover athlete. The soundtrack includes 22 original tracks written specifically for the game, a first for the Madden franchise. Featured artists include Sage the Gemini, Denzel Curry, Joey Badass, Jay Park and Saweetie. Madden NFL 20 features a new "personalized career campaign" known as Face of the Franchise: QB1, following the journey of a player-created college quarterback from their participation in the College Football Playoff, to being drafted by an NFL team. Ten licensed college teams (Clemson, Florida State, Miami, Florida, LSU, Oregon, USC, Texas, Oklahoma and Texas Tech) from the ACC, Big 12, Pac-12, and SEC, are available in this mode. The mode acts as an updated version of the "Superstar Mode", where the player would take their custom player and control them throughout a career, which was featured from Madden NFL 06 until its removal in Madden NFL 25. The game was released on August 2, 2019. It was able be accessed three days prior on July 30 by those players who purchased the "Superstar" or "Ultimate Superstar" editions of the game, which included packs and special abilities. According to review aggregator website Metacritic, Madden NFL 20 received "generally favorable" reviews from critics for the console versions and "mixed or average" reviews for the PC despite receiving "overwhelming dislike" ratings from users for all three versions. IGN gave the game an 8.1/10 and wrote: "Madden NFL 20's new superstar players and control refinements make its moment-to-moment gameplay the best the series has seen this console generation, but areas like Franchise have been left behind."In its 8/10 review, GameSpot wrote that "Madden NFL 20 is an improved version of the annualized professional football series that excels in some areas and leaves something to be desired in others." GamesRadar+ praised the updated story mode in comparison to Longshot and the addition of the X-factor players, saying that the game "clears the roster and properly initiates the rebuilding phase for football's first franchise," although noted Franchise mode again felt neglected.Game Revolution, which gave Madden NFL 20 a 3/5, also praised the X-factor addition, saying stars felt "bigger than ever", but was equally disappointed with the lacking in Franchise mode.Game Informer gave the game a 7.5/10, summarizing its review with: "New features can only do so much for a series that needs work in multiple areas." In a scathing review, Shacknews gave the game a 4/10, calling it "the worst major sports league video game out there," criticizing EA for only making marginal improvements to previous installments. I’d initially worried about the implementation of the superstar X-Factors being too overpowered and exploitable, but in my experience thus far, at least, they bring a solid layer of enhancement to Madden and have a truly positive impact. It’s true that not every team has the same amount of star players and not every player has the same traits or X-Factor abilities – but the same is true of real-life football. Additionally, there are ways to counteract X-Factors both on the offensive and defensive sides of the ball, and depending on how many star players a specific team has the effect these player-specific traits can have on each individual game can vary greatly. Being able to negate the ability of each player is what helps keep a realistic balance throughout a game, while still allowing someone to take over “moments” in the game. And We’re Back! Commentators Brandon Gaudin and Charles Davis are back in Madden 20 with mostly the same batch of voiceovers, but this year we get to hear them also call the NCAA playoffs as well as the NFL games. While that is definitely a nice addition, the commentary doesn’t sound much different than it did in Madden NFL 19. The pair still usually does a solid job of calling a game in regards to situational emotions and references to teams’ and players’ previous performances, which adds to the overall flow. It’s a shame EA didn’t take this opportunity to add more diversity to their assortment of canned chatter, though – I’m already hearing repeated lines, and occasionally commentary that flat-out made no sense, like crediting a player with scoring his third touchdown of the day when it was clearly his first of the game. Ultimate Improvements Madden Ultimate Team mode isn’t my favorite way to play (I’m not big on mixed rosters or card-collecting games) but there are some significant changes this year that made it more fun for me. Gone are Solo Challenges; they’ve been replaced with Ultimate Challenges which come with the ability to play at a one, two, or three-star difficulty, and you guessed it, the higher the star number, the more difficult the challenge and the greater the reward(s). Some may consider these just a rehash of previous Solo Challenges with a fresh coat of paint, but I found myself enjoying the quickness of them. I wanted to hit the “next challenge” button as soon as I accomplished the task at hand. Also new to MUT this year is the ability to add the new X-Factor superstars to your team. To keep things from getting out of control you will only be able to add three to each side of the ball, but still, it’s great that MUT gets to benefit from Madden 20’s best new feature. There are also new “missions” intended to guide you toward the best items. For instance, if you can collect 60 stars you’ll receive an NFL Epic Baker Mayfield, rated an 86 overall. Want to acquire the 86-rated Epic Deacon Jones? It will require you to collect 120 stars. Other specific missions will want you to gain a specified amount of yards against certain a defense, and if you do so, the rewards are 500 coins and a GridIron pack. There are multiple missions, and even more will be added throughout the year to help you build your fantasy team into a contender. The rewards can vary greatly depending on the difficulty, but for me, the missions are integrated nicely into MUT and the requirements are reasonable. Face of the Franchise Madden 19’s Devin and Colt are out, and QB1: Face of the Franchise is in. Madden 20’s new career mode puts you in the role of a high school star whose plans didn’t play out exactly as he had hoped… and I’ll leave it at that for fear of spoilers, but suffice it to say you have the chance to play in the NCAA college football playoffs, the NFL combine, and the opportunity to prove yourself worthy for any one of the NFL’s 32 franchises. The open-ended story mode campaign was a lot of fun, in part because I had an impact on my career path through dynamic decisions in each situation. From the school I chose to the type of quarterback I wanted to be to how I performed in the combine and on the field, it all had a direct effect on how the story played out. Plus, it was amazing to play a form of NCAA football again, even if it was for only eight combined quarters. (This opportunity will likely have many fans devoting a lot of time to this mode, and rightfully so.) The cutscenes add a bit of depth to the mode, the choices make sense, and while some of the scenes and dialogue are a little cheesy, in the end, QB1 is a solid effort. Connected Familiarity As a fan of Franchise mode who spends the majority of his time with each Madden iteration taking a favorite team (or a random one) through the gauntlet of a full season, draft, and off-season trying to make it to the top, it’s depressing to see my favorite mode continues to suffer from neglect. That doesn’t mean Franchise is bad in Madden 20, but it has grown somewhat stale over the years because of minimal updates, and there isn’t enough new content here to make this year’s version feel essential. I did appreciate the two minor new features: Having to navigate the revised contract negotiations is a welcomed addition, as players demanding to be compensated at fair market value does add a new layer of realism. If you have played one of the more recent versions of Madden contract renegotiations won’t look a lot different, but unlike previous versions where negotiations could be easily mani[CENSORED]ted and exploited, the players are now more aggressive in trying to secure a new contract or extension that matches those of other players who are similar in talent. For example, in my Bears franchise I had the option to resign my center, Cody Whitehair. In previous versions of Madden I may have worked around his salary request with added years, but this year he understands his value and wants to be compensated both in years and money. It’s not a massive change to the structure of contract negotiations, but can become a big deal as you are forced to deal with the ever-looming salary cap on a season-to-season basis. On top of that, EA has also implemented a few new defensive schemes and a new scenario engine that add a bit of dynamic realism to Franchise mode. For instance, if a player is not getting enough touches during a game, they will make it known. If you, as the coach, decide to ignore his request, you will see a hit in his morale and performance. On the flip side, if you adhere to his request you will see a small performance increase in certain areas. I wish the effects were a bit more impactful, because in my experience, morale drops and gains ranged from only one to six points. I do like how the new system adds a little more depth to Franchise mode, and hope the effects can have a larger impact in the future. Verdict In addition to the usual incremental graphics upgrade and respectable new story campaign, Madden NFL 20 meaningfully improves on a lot of the issues that plagued the previous iteration(s). The running game is noticeably smoother and X-Factor traits make superstar players actually feel like a force to be reckoned with on the field, and while there are still problems that linger with animations, it’s safe to say that EA Tiburon is making large strides in the right direction. That said, I’m running out of patience for the Franchise mode to receive some revitalizing updates – it’s still fun after all these years but Madden 20’s Franchise doesn’t feel substantially different from Madden 19’s. System Requirements MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS OS: 64-bit Windows 7/8.1/10 Processor (AMD): FX-4330 or Equivalent Processor (Intel): i3-4350 or Equivalent Memory: 8 GB Graphics card (AMD): Radeon RX 460 or Equivalent Graphics card (NVIDIA): GeForce GTX 660 or Equivalent DirectX: 11 Compatible video card or equivalent Online Connection Requirements: 512 KBPS or faster Internet connection Hard-drive space: 48.5 GB RECOMMENDED REQUIREMENTS OS: 64-bit Windows 10 Processor (AMD): FX-4330 or Equivalent Processor (Intel): i3-4350 or Equivalent Memory: 8 GB Graphics card (AMD): Radeon R9 270x or Equivalent Graphics card (NVIDIA): GeForce GTX 670 or Equivalent DirectX: 12 Compatible video card or equivalent Online Connection Requirements: Broadband Connection Hard-drive space: 48.5 GB

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Dilin Nair, better known by his stage name Raftaar (stylised RaftaaR), is an Indian rapper, music composer and television personality. He was formerly a member of the urban music group Mafia Mundeer, formed by Yo Yo Honey Singh. After leaving the group, he signed to perform on three records of the Punjabi band RDB. After the split of RDB, he started working with Manj Musik of RDB and also started his solo career. He won the Best Urban Song Of The Year award for Swag Mera Desi at the Brit Asia Awards in 2014. His latest single is Dilliwali Batcheet (Mr.Nair) featuring . The line "Ab yeh karke dikhao" from his song Swag Mera Desi was to Mock Yo Yo Honey Singh. "Ab yeh karke dikhao" was already used in Yo Yo Honey Singh's song Party With The Bhoothnath which led to a dispute between the two rappers.Swag Mera Desi won Best Urban Song at the Britasia Music Awards in 2014. In 2017 Raftaar debuted in the Bengali music industry through the film One which featured singer Vishal Dadlani and Raftaar.He also produced and rapped a song for the Chaamp soundtrack.Raftaar has collaborated with Varun Dhawan for the second edition of Breezer Vivid Shuffle. Raftaar has judged MTV Roadies for two years and also emerged as winner of the show for the first time. Also, he is one of the judges of MTV Hustle. Singles and collaborations Year Track Artist Music Director Notes 2012 Majnu Deep Money Ft. Raftaar The Titans 2013 You Don't Know Me Raftaar Raftaar From - WTF Mixtape:Vol 1 2013 Thappad Raftaar Send It Up (Kanye West) From - WTF Mixtape:Vol 1 2014 Swag Mera Desi Raftaar, Manj Musik Manj Musik Panasonic Mobile MTV Spoken Word 2014 Happy Single B.I.G Dhillon and Raftaar Raftaar 2014 Sniper Sukhe and Raftaar Sukhe 2014 FU - (For You) Raftaar 8 Mile (Bootleg) From - WTF Mixtape:Vol 1 2014 BBM Nindy Kaur and Raftaar Three Records 2014 Gal Mitro Nindy Kaur and Raftaar Three Records 2015 All Black Sukhe and Raftaar Sukhe and Raftaar 2015 Desi Hip Hop Manj Musik, Raxstar, Roach Killa, Humble The Poet, Badshah, BIG Dhillon, Sarb Smooth & Raftaar Manj Musik Panasonic Mobile MTV Spoken Word 2015 Stand Up Manj Musik, Big Dhillon & Raftaar Manj Musik, O2 & SRK Panasonic Mobile MTV Spoken Word 2015 Mombatiye Zohaib Amjad, Raftaar & Manj Musik Manj Musik 2015 Allah Veh Manj Musik, Raftaar & Jashan Singh Manj Musik & Sunny Brown 2015 Billo Hai Sahara, Manj Musik & Raftaar Manj Musik 2016 Nazar Battu Anthem Nazar Battu, Abhi Payla & Raftaar D Chandu 2016 Chandigarh Rehn Waaliye Jenny Johal, Raftaar & Bunty Bains Desi Crew 2016 TVF's CUTE Vol. 1 Raftaar Raftaar Vodafone Promotional 2016 Lak Hilaade Manj Musik, Amy Jackson & Raftaar Manj Musik, O2 & SRK 2016 Do Hazaar Solo Raftaar Raftaar Introductory for Zero To Infinity Album 2016 Saroor Resham Singh Anmol and Raftaar Desi Crew 2016 Instagram Love Raftaar and Kappie Raftaar Vodafone Promotional 2017 Mera Highway Star Tulsi Kumar and Raftaar Sanjay Rajee 2017 Can't Stop The Party Noopsta, Raftaar & Humble The Poet Manj Musik 2017 Baby Marvake Maanegi Raftaar Blackout 2017 Tere Wargi Nai Ae Raftaar Raftaar 2018 Sheikh Chilli Raftaar, Hassu Raftaar & Instine Diss Track on Emiway Bantai 2018 AWEIN HAI Raftaar Frisk Diss Track on Emiway Bantai 2018 Ready For My Vyah Deep Kalsi, Akriti Kakar and Raftaar Deep Kalsi Shaadi Anthem 2019 Nachne Ka Shaunq Raftaar and Brodha V Raftaar and Brodha V Main Wahi Hoon Raftaar and KARMA Raftaar 2019 Dilli Waali Baatcheet Raftaar Raftaar Films Year Film(s) Song(s) Composer(s) Lyrics(s) Co-singer(s) Notes 2013 Bullet Raja "Tamanchey Pe Disco" RDB, Manj Musik Raftaar Nindy Kaur, Manj Musik, RDB Hindi film 2014 Heropanti "Whistle Baja" Manj Musik, Laxmikant Pyarelal Manj Musik, Nindy Kaur "The Puppy Song" Manj Musik Manj Musik Fugly "Dhup Chik" Raftaar Badshah and Astha Gill Dr. Cabbie "Dal Makhni" Manj Musik Manj Musik, Raftaar Manj Musik 2015 Gabbar is Back "Warna Gabbar Aa Jayega" Manj Musik, Raftaar, Big Dhillon Singh Is Bliing "Singh and Kaur" Manj Musik, Nindy Kaur, Raftaar, Big Dhillon Manj Musik, Nindy Kaur 2016 Baaghi "Let's Talk About Love" Raftaar, Shabbir Khan Neha Kakkar A Flying Jatt "A Flying Jatt Title Track" Sachin-Jigar Vayu, Raftaar Mansheel Gujral, Tanishkaa Dishoom "Toh Dishoom" Pritam Mayur Puri Shahid Mallya Dangal "Dhaakad" Amitabh Bhattacharya Beiimaan Love "Mar Gaye" Manj Musik Raftaar Manj Musik, Nindy Kaur Tum Bin II "Ki Kariye Nachna Aaonda Nahin" Ankit Tiwari Manoj Muntashir Hardy Sandhu, Neha Kakkar 2017 One "One (Title Track)" Arindam Chatterjee Prosen Vishal Dadlani Bengali film Chaamp "Dekho Dekho Chaamp" Raftaar Dev Kaabil "Haseeno Ka Deewana" (Remake) Gourov-Roshin, Rajesh Roshan Kumaar, Anjaan Payal Dev Hindi film Commando 2 "Hare Krishna Hare Ram" (Remake) Gourov-Roshin, Pritam Kumaar Armaan Malik, Ritika Jolly LLB 2 "Go Pagal" Manj Musik, Nilesh Patel Manj Musik, Raftaar Nindy Kaur Raabta "Sadda Move" Pritam Amitabh Bhattacharya, Irshad Kamil Diljit Dosanjh, Pradeep Singh Sran Behen Hogi Teri "Jaanu" (Remake) Rishi Rich, R.D. Burman Anand Bakshi, Raftaar Juggy D, Shivi A Gentleman "Bandook Meri Laila" Sachin-Jigar Vayu Ash King, Sachin-Jigar, Sidharth Malhotra The Final Exit "Dum Maro Dum Maro" Amjad-Nadeem Amjad-Nadeem, Raftaar Neha Kakkar, Yasser Desai Lucknow Central "Teen Kabootar" Arjunna Harjaie Kumaar, Raftaar Mohit Chauhan, Divya Kumar Fukrey Returns "Mehbooba" (Remake) Prem-Hardeep Kumaar Neha Kakkar, Yasser Desai, Mohammed Rafi "Tu Mera Bhai Nahi Hai" Sumeet-Bellary Satya Khare, Raftaar Gandharv Sachdev Tiger Zinda Hai "Zinda Hai" Vishal-Shekhar, Julius Packiam Irshad Kamil Sukhwinder Singh 2018 Manto "Mantoiyat" Raftaar Raftaar, Saadat Hasan Manto Nawazuddin Siddiqui Andhadhun "Andhadhun Title Track" Raftaar, Girish Nakod Bhaiaji Superhit "Naam Hai Bhaiaji" Sanjeev-Darshan, Neerraj Pathak Sanjeev Chaturvedi, Neerraj Pathak Amit Mishra "Om Namah Shivay" Raghav Sachar Shabbir Ahmed Sukhwinder Singh, Raghav Sachar, Akanksha Sharma

Mozilla Thunderbird is a free and open-source,cross-platform email client, news client, RSS, and chat client developed by the Mozilla Foundation. The project strategy was modeled after that of the Mozilla Firefox web browser. It is installed by default on Ubuntu desktop systems. On December 7, 2004, version 1.0 was released, and received more than 500,000 downloads in its first three days of release, and 1,000,000 in 10 days. On July 6, 2012, Mozilla announced the company was dropping the priority of Thunderbird development because the continuous effort to extend Thunderbird's feature set was mostly fruitless. The new development model shifted to Mozilla offering only "Extended Support Releases", which deliver security and maintenance updates, while allowing the community to take over the development of new features. On December 1, 2015, Mozilla Executive Chair Mitchell Baker announced in a company-wide memo that Thunderbird development needs to be uncoupled from Firefox. She referred to Thunderbird developers spending large efforts responding to changes to Mozilla technologies, while Firefox was paying a tax to support Thunderbird development. She also said that she does not believe Thunderbird has the potential for "industry-wide impact" that Firefox does.At the same time, it was announced that Mozilla Foundation will provide at least a temporary legal and financial home for the Thunderbird project. Since the memo in 2015, Mozilla has brought Thunderbird back in-house in an announcement on May 9, 2017, and continues to support its development.The Thunderbird development team has also expanded by adding several new members and has undergone an overhaul on security and user-interface. Thunderbird is an email, newsgroup, news feed, and chat (XMPP, IRC, Twitter) client. The vanilla version was not originally a personal information manager (PIM), although the Mozilla Lightning extension, which is now installed by default, adds PIM functionality. Additional features, if needed, are often available via other extensions. Thunderbird can manage multiple email, newsgroup, and news feed accounts and supports multiple identities within accounts. Features such as quick search, saved search folders ("virtual folders"), advanced message filtering, message grouping, and labels help manage and find messages. On Linux-based systems, system mail (movemail) accounts are supported. Thunderbird provides basic support for system-specific new email notifications and can be extended with advanced notification support using an add-on. Thunderbird incorporates a Bayesian spam filter, a whitelist based on the included address book, and can also understand classifications by server-based filters such as SpamAssassin. Extensions allow the addition of features through the installation of XPInstall modules (known as "XPI" or "zippy" installation) via the add-ons website that also features an update functionality to update the extensions. Thunderbird supports a variety of themes for changing its overall look and feel. These packages of CSS and image files can be downloaded via the add-ons website at Mozilla Add-ons. Thunderbird follows industry standards for email: POP. Basic email retrieval protocol. IMAP. Thunderbird has implemented many of the capabilities in IMAP, in addition to adding their own extensions and the de facto standards by Google and Apple. LDAP address completion. S/MIME Provide email encryption and signing using X.509 keys provided by a centralised certificate authority. OpenPGP Supported through extensions such as Enigmail. For web feeds (e.g. news aggregators), there is Atom and RSS. Thunderbird follows internet protocols as they evolve. For example, As of 2018, [https://ircv3.net/software/clients.html they are on IRCv3.1, but do not support IRCv3.2. For usenet news groups they offer the latest NNTPS. Thunderbird provides mailbox format support using plugins, but this feature is not yet enabled due to related work in progress.The mailbox formats supported as of July 2014 are: mbox – Unix mailbox format (one file holding many emails) maildir – known as maildir-lite (one file per email). Disabled by default, "because there are still many bugs". Thunderbird also uses Mork and (since version 3) MozStorage (which is based on SQLite) for its internal database. Mork was due to be replaced with MozStorage in Thunderbird 3.0,[but the 8.0 release still uses the Mork file format. The current version of SeaMonkey, version 2.14.1, also still uses Mork for its indexes for both POP and IMAP mail folders (at least). Thunderbird provides enterprise and government-grade security features such as TLS/SSL connections to IMAP and SMTP servers. It also offers native support for S/MIME secure email (digital signing and message encryption using certificates). Any of these security features can take advantage of smartcards with the installation of additional extensions. Other security features may be added through extensions. For instance, Enigmail offers PGP signing, encryption, and decryption. Optional security protections also include disabling loading of remote images within messages, enabling only specific media types (sanitizer), and disabling JavaScript. The French military uses Thunderbird and contributes to its security features, which are claimed to match the requirements for NATO's closed messaging system.

The UN's human rights chief has criticised the latest US sanctions against Venezuela saying they would intensify the suffering of millions. Michelle Bachelet, a former president of Chile, said the sanctions were "extremely broad" and would hit the most vulnerable sections of society. The unilateral measures freeze all Venezuelan government assets in the US and ban commercial transactions. They are aimed at piling pressure on President Nicolás Maduro to step down. Crisis explained in 300 words How the political situation escalated All you need to know in nine charts The US is one of more than 50 nations that do not recognise Mr Maduro as Venezuela's legitimate president. What did Michelle Bachelet say? "I am deeply worried about the potentially severe impact on the human rights of the people of Venezuela of the new set of unilateral sanctions imposed by the US this week," the UN human rights commissioner said in a statement. "The sanctions are extremely broad and fail to contain sufficient measures to mitigate their impact on the most vulnerable sectors of the po[CENSORED]tion." Despite some exceptions for sales linked to food, clothing and medicine, she said the measures were "still likely to significantly exacerbate the crisis for millions of ordinary Venezuelans".Ms Bachelet has raised concern about the consequences of previous US sanctions against Venezuela. She has also criticised Mr Maduro's government, mainly over its ill-treatment of opponents. In March she singled out Venezuela as an example of how "violations of civil and political rights" can accentuate inequality and worsening economic conditions. What were the US measures? On Monday US President Donald Trump signed an executive order stating that "all property and interests in property of the government of Venezuela that are in the United States... are blocked and may not be transferred, paid, exported, withdrawn, or otherwise dealt in". The order also bars transactions with Venezuelan authorities whose assets are blocked, stating that "the making of any contribution or provision of funds, goods, or services by, to, or for the benefit of any person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to this order".The new measures, he added, would force countries and companies to choose between doing business with the US or with Venezuela. He said America would use "every tool to end Maduro's dictatorship in Venezuela". Venezuela's foreign ministry denounced the new sanctions and accused Washington of "arbitrary economic terrorism against the Venezuelan people". What's the background? The US, along with more than 50 other nations, has given its backing to the head of the National Assembly, Juan Guaidó, who declared himself interim president in January, arguing that Mr Maduro's re-election last year was fraudulent. Mr Guaidó welcomed the new US sanctions arguing that they punish those "who do business with the regime". But international pressure has so far failed to remove Mr Maduro from power. Venezuelans have continued to flee the country's political and economic crisis in huge numbers. More than four million are now living abroad according to UN figures.

As soon as Mohammed Kareef Daniel Abdullah steps out of his front door in Malaysia's capital, it doesn't take long before heads start turning and for his nickname to be shouted. "People say 'Look, look it's Mat Dan!'" his mother says, adding that only some muster the courage to ask for a selfie. Whether it's starring in his own primetime travel programme, hosting his breakfast radio show or appearing on billboards advertising tours to Mecca, Mat Dan is big news in Malaysia. It's not the usual path for an Englishman born Daniel Tyler. Growing up in the middle-class town of Cheltenham in the English Cotswolds, Dan's upbringing was nothing out of the ordinary. He wasn't the biggest fan of school but excelled at cricket, representing Gloucestershire at youth level. But by his mid-teens, cricket had taken a back seat as Dan discovered music and partying. He dropped out of college and could usually be found in the pub or working in a clothes shop.In 2008, Dan had saved enough money for a backpacking trip to South-East Asia with some friends, including myself. Although he came back to the UK after just a couple of months, he decided to return to the region later that year. Little did he know that the decision to return would change his life forever. Dan wound up on the tiny island of [CENSORED]u Kapas on Malaysia's east coast. Rather than just spending his time travelling with Western backpackers, Dan decided to immerse himself among locals on the island. It didn't take long for him to start picking up the local language - what he thought was bahasa Malay, the main language of Malaysia. But on a trip to Kuala Lumpur, a shop assistant couldn't understand him. The penny then dropped that he had actually been learning a local dialect called Terengganu - spoken by about a million natives of Terengganu state. He was initially disheartened. "I was like: 'I'm screwed if I go anywhere else,'" he says. But his accidental mastery of this Malay dialect ended up being the making of him. A buzz had already started to build around Dan in Terengganu state as word spread of a young Englishman who had embraced the local language and way of life. But when a student from Kuala Lumpur secretly filmed Dan speaking Terengganu, the video clocked up hundreds of thousands of views across Malaysia on YouTube. A TV crew from the capital came knocking and asked if he wanted to try his hand in front of the camera. After realising he had a knack for presenting, Dan was offered his own primetime travel series: Haramain Backpackers - Trans Siberian. Once the programme aired, Dan's life changed almost overnight. He is now recognised everywhere he goes and has 838,000 followers on Instagram. After a second series, Dan started branching out. He bagged his own cooking show despite not being able to cook. He began hosting a radio show on Manis FM and is now a regular fixture on Malaysian chat shows."Every shop, every meal, every road crossed you hear an echo of shouts 'Hey Mat Dan, Mat Dan!', which would almost always end with a series of selfies with strangers," says his friend Daniel Beames, who visited him in late 2017. While initially revelling in his friend's new-found fame, Daniel said he started to find it tiring after a few days. "All the attention would be very time consuming and not necessarily ideal when trying to get things done," he said. Tun Faisal, district officer for Marang in Terengganu state, said it wasn't just Dan's use of Terengganese slang that set him apart from other foreigners fluent in Malay. "His understanding of both the Malay language and culture makes him a unique personality in Malaysia," Faisal says. "I think his greatest success is that he has linked himself closely with Terengganu, and whenever people see him, they see Terengganu."While in Malaysia, Dan also converted to Islam and met his Muslim wife Nurnadifa. He won't take on jobs that conflict with his religious beliefs, for example, if he was asked to emcee an event sponsored by an alcohol brand or if an acting job required a romantic scene with another woman. While most of the attention is positive, he has encountered criticism from what he calls Malaysia's "keyboard warriors". "A lot of people say they know hundreds of foreign workers who come over here and speak Malay in two or three months and they don't turn into a celebrity," Dan says. "They say: 'What's the difference between Mat Dan and a Bangladeshi worker who can speak Malay?'" Some of the criticism has come from religious conservatives. While most of his followers in the Muslim-majority country have welcomed his conversion to Islam, some have taken issue with it, or cast doubt on it. "One even emailed my brother saying: 'Your brother's a Jew'"," Dan says. Dan respects his critics' right to an opinion. But those who doubt the sincerity of his religious beliefs? "They get blocked." Although Dan has settled in Malaysia, he makes annual trips back to the UK. While he relishes catching up with his family - who also regularly visit Malaysia - he sometimes feels alienated from the place he was raised. "I don't really feel at home," he says.His mother, Nicola, says it has been "surreal" seeing her son turn into a star on the other side of the world. But despite the major changes in his life, "he's still the same Dan", she says. "I always thought if any of the boys were going to do something different it'd be Dan but I would have never thought he'd have done this," she laughs. "They've really embraced him out there and it's a privilege, really." Now settled with a one-year-old son, Zayne, Dan is having to take a step back from TV projects that are too time consuming. He's now a tourism ambassador for Terengganu, has a new clothing line on the way and is about to star in his first film. Last year he was awarded permanent residency by then-deputy prime minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi on live TV.