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A Space Odyssey It’s hard to talk about Star Control: Origins without talking about Star Control 2. SC2 is a game extremely near and dear to me. I originally played it on the Panasonic 3DO, that system nobody owned that cost an arm and a leg, where it had full voice acting. Star Control: Origins, much like SC2, is a space adventure game similar to Starflight. You explore an open galaxy, plunder resources from planets, and spend a lot of time conversing with and fighting other alien races. For its time, it was insanely innovative. Today, large-scale open-world RPGs are the norm, but in the early nineties, it was very impressive. Star Control: Origins is the first game in the series since the maligned Star Control 3, and its roots are deeply grounded within the mechanics of Star Control 2. Because it is developed by Stardock, and the original creators of Star Control have nothing to do with it, basically none of the story elements, alien races, or ships have made the transition. And really, the biggest appeal apart from the openness of SC2 were its narrative elements -- it told a giant story filled with mystery and humor, and was oozing with personality. I was nervous going into this one. I owned the original Star Control on the Sega Genesis. I pre-ordered the eventually cancelled StarCon for the PlayStation. I suffered through Star Control 3 and its abysmal puppet characters. And time and time again, I have gone back to Star Control 2 on PC in its current form, the excellent source port The Ur-Quan Masters, which remastered the game and brought to it the voice acting and remixes of the 3DO version. It is one of my favorite games of all time, and I was fully prepared to be disappointed by Star Control: Origins. But I wasn’t. Thank God for that. Star Control: Origins starts out in similar fashion to SC2, and this is intentional. Since it has been over twenty years since a proper Star Control game, it initially acts as something of a soft reboot, pushing players gently into the gameplay by allowing them to explore the solar system. Everything takes place in a bird’s eye view, with players navigating their Vindicator ship manually through space. You can scan planets and decide if you want to send a lander down to them simply by bumping your nose against them. When planets are close together, sometimes this can be finicky, and until you upgrade your ship a bit, is also generally quite slow. But initially you are to explore Sol at your leisure, and before long, will run into your first alien race. All 130 square light years of hyperspace, hundreds of systems, and thousands of planets will open up to you. The story of Star Control: Origins sets it around the same time in history as the backstory to SC2, but none of that matters here -- it is for all intents and purposes hinted that it takes place in a sort of alternate universe. Humanity reached a point of technological singularity, and these enlightened humans called Lexites went off to explore the galaxy, and were not heard from again. Our presence was made known to an aggressive, immortal alien race called the Scryve, the primary villains in the story, who have made it their agenda to find our system and wipe us out of existence, along with any other alien race that could potentially threaten them. The big mission here and the crux of the story is to prevent the destruction of humanity by befriending other alien races and forming a powerful alliance, but there are plenty of interesting turns along the way, especially as things wrap up. Considering Star Control has always been somewhat modeled after pulp The real star here is the dialogue. Star Control 2 was lighthearted with many heavy, dark elements in its heart, and Star Control: Origins prefers to stick with the lighter side of things more often than not. The Scryve are not quite as intimidating as the Ur-Quan ever were, but I found there to be more laugh-aloud moments in the game than I was expecting. Some races exist seemingly to be intentionally annoying or vapid at first, but most of them are more interesting than what is initially presented if you dig into their quest lines far enough. The writing is superbly silly, the voice acting excellent for the most part, and this is where the charm resides in the game for me, and what made me want to keep playing. It seems strange to talk about gameplay last in my review, but the story really is on the forefront; this is an adventure game with combat and exploration mechanics meant to make you feel like you are on the bridge of a starship. Of course, your interactions with the aliens of Origins will ultimately lead you to take on many quests for them, which usually involve exploring a specific system to find a planet with some goodies they are looking for, or to resolve some difference between races, so there is always plenty to do besides chatting it up with the locals. The weakest part of Star Control: Origins is planet exploration. It’s a mini-game in place for the player to collect resource units, the currency of the game, and to find quest triggers, equipment, and salvageable ships to be added to the player's fleet. As an SC2 veteran, I was no stranger to it, as it was an issue there too, so it didn't really bug me. But eventually, you will just want to get on with it, which can be tough if you are constantly running out of fuel (precious, precious fuel) or keep getting your fleet ships blown up in random encounters with pirates, Scryve, or whoever else might be wanting to kill you at that particular moment. Luckily, quests provide a major source of income, so if you are not keen on planet hopping, focusing on the story and side quests will alleviate that greatly. That brings us to combat, which is a joy. It’s essentially an upgrade to Space War, pitting you in one-on-one combat in a circular arena where inertia is both your friend and your enemy. With obstacles like asteroids and planets creating massive gravity wells, you can swing yourself around an object to pick up speed, or even catch a wormhole ride across the map to avoid an encroaching enemy. The many unique ships you will both control and fight against add a lot of variety to the combat, and if you are a risk-taker, you can even use your own fleet ship in combat, which will mean a game over if you lose. New to Origins are power-ups that can be picked up to buff energy regeneration, speed, and max crew (health) which adds a bit of randomness to the fight, and can even the scales a bit for the losing side if they are diligent in collecting these buffs. You can also take the fun online or, as is my preference, in local battle. Since everything is top down and takes place on one screen, two-player couch gameplay is an option. You get a set amount of points, construct your own fleet of ships, and go to town. In the main game you will have unique encounters with pirates, bosses, and other ships made with the ship creator tool which you also have access too. And like in Stardock’s other games, it is comprehensive and you can build practically anything with it. Some things are not in place just yet, like the quest and map creation tools Stardock is working on. But the main campaign, if you really rush, is about 20 hours long. There are tons of side quests you can go on, and it’s a pretty big galaxy waiting to be explored. There are some hefty nods to Star Control 2 here, especially within the excellent soundtrack, which contains a few subtle and more direct musical cues and remixes that will be very familiar to fans. Star Control: Origins was an absolute joy for me. Its story and characters were utterly charming and unique. Its combat is a ton of fun. Exploring the galaxy and trekking along the surface of planets, while not much of a challenge once your lander is fully upgraded, does get tedious, but once you are picking up valuable elements and leaving the less rewarding materials behind, it becomes less necessary. Stardock did an extraordinary job reviving a long-dead series, and I am excited to see how the game is updated going forward, and what potential there could be in further expanding its wonderful universe.
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According to po[CENSORED]r culture, being a drug kingpin is a one-way ticket to money, beautiful people, power and hedonism on a scale Roman emperors could only dream of. According to the law as it currently stands, being a drug kingpin is a one-way ticket to spending many years detained at Her Majesty’s pleasure in a concrete room with no internet, on account of drugs generally being illegal. Of course, one of the great things about video games is you can do things that would normally be illegal in a safe virtual environment — whether it’s reckless use of automatic weapons, driving spectacularly dangerously, playing with magic, or selling hallucinogenic drugs to people for fun and profit. The latter is the focus of Weedcraft Inc, developed by Vile Monarch and published by Devolver exclusively on Steam for PC — and it does something few games manage, namely combining an intelligent political discussion on a topical issue with a decent (albeit uncomplicated) tycoon game. The name of the game is to become successful growing and selling marijuana in America, a country where some states have legalised it for recreational use, others have legalised it for medical purposes and other states still have it on the verboten list. At its heart, Weedcraft Inc is a solid tycoon game covering several aspects of running a business. You must grow your product, selecting strains your customers want, making sure it has all the right nutrients and care, then you must find a way to get it to buyers, all while keeping off the police radar (assuming you’re breaking bad and taking the illegal route). It’s not particularly complex — we’re not talking about Victoria II or Master of Orion-levels of number-crunching and spreadsheet simulation here — but there ends up being quite a bit going on, especially later in the game when you can research your own strains of product to create unique-effect combinations to appeal to specific markets. There are two scenarios included at launch “Growing Up” and “Highs and Laws”. The first one casts you as an MBA student who returns home after your dad dies of cancer and discovers your sibling has been growing marijuana illegally as medicine. The two of you decide to turn it into an actual business — legal or otherwise. The second casts you as someone who has just got out of prison after a lengthy sentence for drug-related activities and is getting back into the game — now legally — as a way to make a living and use your skills. One of the surprising aspects of the excellent 2005 book Freakonomics is most drug dealers make approximately no money and are often living with their parents, and this is reflected in some aspects of Weedcraft Inc. Sure, you might have a good crop and make some money selling it, but then the power bills, wages and research costs arrive, and suddenly, you’re hoping that low-effort, low-grade plant matures soon. I was surprised how easily wage costs (even at low levels) caused expenses to skyrocket The game gives you the option to play 100 per cent legally as well — you can buy a licence (medical or recreational, depending on the setting) and be an upstanding businessperson, paying taxes (the government takes a cut of every sale) and having access to new markets including medical patients. It’s even possible to lobby for the law to change so recreational use is legalised, allowing you to work totally openly and above board. You can handle all aspects of growing and selling your product yourself, or you can hire staff to help. Researching new strains helps introduce new effects that will appeal to different customer bases — some want a tropical taste, while others prefer pine, and some want a floral taste, others want something to help them sleep, another group wants more energy, a third wants to be creatively inspired … you get the idea. You can influence the conditions for your plants by acquiring different equipment for your growhouse, which again raises questions of whether you want quantity or quality — each piece of kit occupies the same space as one plant. As your business expands, you set up shop in different cities as well, and by the latter stages of each campaign, you’ve got business in two or three cities, and juggling them all can be quite a challenge. You’re not the only one trying to get into the marijuana sales market either, with competitors also vying for the top spot. What’s frustrating is that your rivals frequently find ways to mess with you (demanding money, increasing their competition, messing with your stuff, damaging your brand etc), but you don’t have a readily available way to retaliate. You can’t refurbish your dispensary to increase price thresholds, you can’t demand they give you money or else, you can’t tell them to back off and stop pushing their product in your market, and you can’t send hired goons around to break their plants and equipment with baseball bats and crowbars. If you network and invest enough time getting on the right side of the police, it’s sometimes possible to ask for a favour and have the police raid one of your opponents, but even if you eventually manage to drive a rival off, someone else shows up eventually, and you’re right back where you were before.
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playing Paradox's newest grand strategy title, Imperator: Rome, at launch was a bit like walking around a Roman ruin turned museum. It was undeniably grand in scope and vision, and was still an excellent way to spend some time, but the world didn’t exactly feel lived-in — a place more of legacy than vitality. Boasting plenty of features inherited from Paradox Development Studio’s other hits, the game was a nice synergy of everything the studio has learned since the release of Victoria II, but it also had a strange, empty quality. After a few dozen hours, Imperator felt like a good, potentially great, strategy title that was lacking some fundamental things: culture-specific events, fleshed our features and mechanics, a lack of competent enemies, and generally a lack of decisions and flavor to add any kind of goal-setting for the player. That is, until now. Patch 1.2, dubbed the “Cicero” update went live on September 24th. If you’re someone who hadn't dipped their toes into the patch’s beta, the scale of the changes will come as a bit of a surprise. Cicero is a dramatic overhaul of the base game, changing some of the most foundational elements that Imperator was built on, as well as a litany of smaller, but much needed, additions that have helped to flesh out some areas that were overlooked at launch. While there’s still areas for improvement, Cicero is a great leap forward, and one that shows that the ship is (thankfully) headed in the right direction. Mana Must be Destroyed The most dramatic change to come to Imperator in Cicero is the abandonment of the Monarch Power system that was previously at the core of just about every mechanic. At launch, the central way by which you would interact with essentially every aspect of the game was through spending either Military, Religious, Oratory, or Civic power — derisively dubbed Helmet, Sun, Scroll, and Laurel mana by the community. The system was a hereditary mechanic passed on from the Europa Universalis series, but was a serious point of contention with some players who chafed at the system’s ahistorical abstraction of many of the era’s most fundamental features. The only remaining remnants of the original mana-like system are the new Political Influence points and a revamped Military Experience system. Political Influence, which attempts to abstractly model a kind of back-room-dealing political capital in your would-be empire, can be used to add province modifiers and boost the building capacity of cities. It’s generated by the loyalty of your cabinet, adding an extra incentive to stack your offices with cronies, rather than disloyal, but high-stat rivals. Military Experience, the other remaining currency, is what is now used in lieu of Military Power to acquire Military Traditions, the doctrinal backbone that largely determines your army composition. It ticks up passively based on your leaders military skill, but also gets a significant boost from your cohort’s experience in combat, adding a logical incentive to increase your military experience by actually engaging in combat. The new system also promotes the use of your own cohorts, as relying on mercenaries now provides a malus towards military experience — adding a bit more value to your own soldier’s blood, sweat, and toil. Organic Systems Other than those two systems, however, the only other currency you can spend to shift and shape your empire is, well, money. All of the other systems that used to rely on Monarch Points now either cost gold or occur organically from your policy decisions. Po[CENSORED]tion migration, conversion, and promotion, for example, which used to (quite ahistorically) be changeable for a slight price in Religious or Oratory points, now happen slowly over time. Different governor policies, buildings, and toggles can promote a shift in migration or conversion, but the changes will happen slowly, rather than instantly. No longer can you convert an entire province to a radically different ethnic or religious group after banking enough points for a few years, changing a province full of scruffy germanic tribesman into happy hellanistic latins at the stroke of your imperial pen. Now, the system operates less like Europa Universalis IV and more like Victoria II where policy decisions, rather than some abstracted currency, have knock-on effects that can produce your desired outcome. For a game that was previously so fundamentally centered around the Monarch Points system, the Cicero update represents a radical break from the past, and a bold statement by the development team that they are willing to go back to the drawing board to meet the expectations of their community. The system’s not perfect, but it’s an excellent leap forward in the right direction. Cities and Settlements The other notable dramatic overhaul the update has brought on is a complete revamp of the city system. Previously, the map would be divided into regions composed of provinces, and provinces composed of cities, with each discrete tile representing an individual city in an area. This system was a useful, albeit ahistorical, abstraction that would allow you to build copies of Imperator's four key buildings in each city, depending on the po[CENSORED]tion. But the limitations inherent in the lack of building variety and the resulting simplification of each individual tile as a “city,” even in areas with extremely light po[CENSORED]tion density resulted in a system that worked, but wasn't very fun to engage with, and didn’t feel particularly right for the era. The new, overhauled system Cicero has ushered in has solved many of these issues. Now, instead of four buildings, there are fifteen possible options with a much wider array of abilities and effects. The added variety makes for a much more thoughtful decision making process, and gives you the option to specialize certain provinces to be a breadbasket (for the newly added food mechanic) or a manpower pool, while also giving the player added options for promoting migration, happiness, or cultural and religious conversion, among a litany of other choices. In order to do this, however, the old all-tiles-are-cities system has been dropped and replaced with a new classification system. Tiles can now be either a settlement, a city, or a metropolis, each having unique features. Settlements, the new basic unit, can only have 1 building, as they are less densely po[CENSORED]ted, and the building options are limited. Most of the tiles in a province will be settlements, but for a bit of gold, you can transform a settlement tile into a city, greatly increasing the tile’s potential po[CENSORED]tion and building capacity, while also unlocking all of the city specific buildings. When one of your cities reaches eighty po[CENSORED]tion, it can be further transformed into a metropolis, a kind of megacity with a much higher po[CENSORED]tion capacity and some additional bonuses. With the addition of these new city and settlement options, tailoring your provinces to serve a specific function is now a much more realistic prospect, allowing the player to engage in some long-term planning that was missing in the game at launch. It also opens up the possibility to 'play tall' as one might do in other Paradox titles — instead of expanding as rapidly as possible across the map, crafting a smaller, highly developed empire that can punch way above its weight class. In a genre so defined by player-directed goals, this is a very welcome addition that starts to open up an entirely new avenue of play. While there has been plenty of other minor improvements, like the fan-demanded introduction of co-consuls for Rome and other Republics, as well as a new war council feature and some other changes to tribal mechanics that have made them far more playable, the last major introduction has been the new, and much needed, food system. Now you will need to exploit the food resources in your provinces or use trade routes to bring in food from abroad. The feature adds a logistical dimension that was lacking at launch, and now also provides a new way for roving armies to avoid the previously punishing attrition, at least for a little while. This feature will hopefully become part of a future trade/logistics overhaul in the next update - 1.3 Livy - but it's good to have even a token bit of realism to a critical concern of the ancient period that was previously just hand-waved away. Cicero has brought Imperator a long way since launch. It’s an extraordinarily impressive leap forward for a game that is not yet even a year old. In its current incarnation, the game is reminiscent of Paradox’s far-future grand strategy title Stellaris in its early incarnations: a fun, well-crafted game that will undeniably come into its own after some TLC to flesh out the parts that still feel a bit empty. One of the key issues that still remains in the game is the lack of notable peer enemies— competent rivals to compete with the player in the late game. (Although famously Rome never officially recognised anyone as a 'peer'-ED) Once the player can get over the strategic tipping point, by either eliminating all possible rivals or militarily outpacing them, the eventual outcome of total regional supremacy becomes something of a fait accompli, preventable only by some self-sabotage or some excessively quick and reckless expansion. This is a problem that plagues many a grand strategy game, including many of Paradox’s other mainline titles, but seems to be excessively damming in the ancient world. The most fun I had with Imperator pre-Cicero was playing as Syracuse, manoeuvring between the two Mediterranean colossi, walking a tight-rope of risk and reward as you navigate one of the most undesirable positions in the Mediterranean. Ultimately, I never saw that run through to conclusion. Not because it was too difficult, but because as soon as I had strangled the nascent Roman Empire in its crib and the Punic menace collapsed into warring vassal states, there was little left to do besides stretch out endlessly across the Mediterranean, with no one left to stop me. 1.2 Cicero has taken some steps towards rectifying this particular issue with the introduction of the Antagonist system. Operating in a similar way to EUIV’s Lucky Nation system, it is designed to give some historically successful states a slight stat boost to prevent them from getting pummelled into obscurity after a single war goes south. While this may irk some people who enjoy seeing a new tapestry of colors on the map every game, it's a necessary evil. Watching someone else rise in the Italian peninsular was amusing pre-1.2, but they were almost never a credible challenge the player. Ultimately, Imperator will need some mechanism to replicate the social decay that unrestrained expansion brought to Rome, as the mid-to-late game still lacks some truly engaging depth. This is a problem that Paradox has resolved before, and I’m confident they will solve again. The overhauls Cicero ushers in are a great sign of what's to come. The scope and scale of the update shows that the dev team is actively looking at the community feedback, and is willing to take bold steps to address the issues Imperator will face as it reinvents itself and grows with future patchs & DLC. A new content update due out in Q4 of 2019, and the future is looking bright.
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Your Nickname:PrO[T]ExX Your Problem:i cant join in ts3 Screenshot:https://prntscr.com/pl1dub
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Back in 2009 Ghostbusters: The Video Game established itself as a rare exception. It was a movie tie-in of uncommon quality; an earnest and affectionately assembled love letter to fans of the legendary film series instead of a low-effort license slap. A decade on, Ghostbusters: The Video Game Remastered is still a wonderfully authentic trip back to early ’90s New York and the haunted heyday of these professional paranormal eliminators, but the list of improvements really begins and ends with a few visual tweaks and a resolution bump. The flaws of the original still cursed my playthrough, which meant that while it’s a joy to let its authentic slime wash over me again this remaster feels like a missed opportunity.Ghostbusters (the game) takes place during Thanksgiving 1991, two years after the events of Ghostbusters II (the film). Prior to confirmation in January this year that a direct sequel to Ghostbusters II would be released in 2020, Dan Aykroyd had previously referred to the game as essentially being the third movie, and it’s easy to see why. It features the likenesses and voices of Bill Murray, Ernie Hudson, Dan Aykroyd, and the late Harold Ramis, and the script was massaged by Aykroyd and Ramis themselves to ensure the dialogue matched the tone of the films. With a fun story linked to the previous exploits of the Ghostbusters – and set in the increasingly distant early ’90s – in terms of story, at least, I’m actually struggling to think of ways this upcoming, long-gestating third film could actually be a better follow-up than the game ultimately was (especially with the painful absence of Ramis). I’m actually struggling to think of ways this upcoming, long-gestating third film could actually be a better follow-up than the game ultimately was. I think it’s very clever that Ghostbusters casts us a rookie recruit, burdened with spending his Thanksgiving weekend learning on the job as he helps Egon, Ray, Winston, and Peter investigate a recent rise in paranormal activity in the city. The on-the-job tutorials and exposition feel much more natural when they’re being imparted upon a junior ’buster; I don’t think learning the basics would’ve quite worked as well playing through as one of the existing pros. Original developer Terminal Reality’s utmost commitment to detail is still vividly evident in the remaster and I enjoyed spotting many of the small touches I appreciated back in 2009 all over again. From opting to kick off proceedings with the old-school Columbia Pictures logo from the ’80s to really seat the game in its time period, to the way Venkman has a distinct, laid-back walking animation that sets him apart from the rest of the team (one that matches the kind of swagger I associate with Murray’s portrayal of the character), Terminal Reality made it abundantly clear that this game was made with genuine passion and respect for Ghostbusters, not by folks who skimmed through a synopsis on Wikipedia. The Ghostbusters firehouse, in particular, is absolutely filled with fan service – from a huge and apparently still-haunted talking portrait of the previously vanquished Vigo the Carpathian, to a cute explanation regarding Tully’s absence from the story. The library level is also still excellent mix of ghost combat and ooky environmental shenanigans, though I won’t spoil any of the particulars here for those of you who haven’t played the 2009 original. I do wish some of the budget for this remaster had been allocated to securing more than a stingy 30 seconds of Ray Parker Jr.’s infectious theme song, though. I’m a big fan of the clean HUD approach, with everything we need to know – health, weapon heat level – displayed on the Rookie’s Proton Pack, à la Dead Space. Occasionally objectives appear as text at the top of the screen but most instructions are verbal, so sometimes I found myself guessing our next move if I missed a piece of dialogue. This was a criticism I had of the original release and it hasn’t been rectified in the remaster. Similarly, Ghostbusters feels a little creaky by modern standards but trapping ghosts is still a highlight, and there hasn’t been anything like it since. After sapping a ghost’s energy with your proton stream you’ll need to wrangle them towards your trap, close enough so it can suck them in. The spectacle of sizzling red proton streams and the cone of intense light drawing in ghosts – which distort and stretch as they’re slurped into the trap – is a brilliant recreation of how it appears in the film. There are other modes to the Proton Pack which emulate more traditional third-person shooter weapons (and they have imaginative, egghead explanations for the energy-based versions of what essentially equates to a shotgun or an LMG) but I really do still love the classic, crackling proton stream. For mine, it’s the part of the game that has dated the least; it’s still a glorious cocktail of impressive lighting and sound effect. What has aged poorly is the occasional cutscene the remaster crew clearly couldn’t find the source material for and had to go with the original version. Aside from the pre-rendered clips, which are a little grainy but decent enough, most of the cutscenes are in-engine ones displayed at up to 4K, so they match the moment-to-moment gameplay. There are a bunch that aren’t, however, so occasionally everything takes a dive for a minute or so as everything reverts to its previous-generation appearance. The result is a bit of a fractured aesthetic overall, which is a shame. The shoddy lip syncing that was a regular occurrence in the 2009 original is again an issue, also. It’s a bit of a warts-and-all remaster, in that regard. I hugely enjoyed Ghostbusters back in 2009 but if you can think of something that bugged you, it’s probably going to bug you again. At about eight hours it’s not exactly a marathon, and it probably could’ve done with slightly shorter levels and more of them, but there’s not a great deal a remaster can do about that. However, the loading times still seem long, getting impeded by half-broken objects is still a moderate annoyance, and the frustrating difficulty spike involving those stone cherubs towards the climax is still present. The original’s multiplayer component hasn’t been included at all, but I don’t recall it being enormously memorable. Verdict Make no mistake, Ghostbusters: The Video Game is a personal favourite purely for its loving attention to detail and will always rank amongst gaming’s most faithful and memorable movie adaptations – more than worthy of being mentioned in the same breath as The Warriors, Alien: Isolation, and The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay in that regard. But this marginally prettier and inconsistent remaster doesn’t really make for a profoundly different or improved experience over the 2009 original, and there was a lot of room for improvements that could’ve made it more enjoyable to play through and appreciate all of that fan service.
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Good storytelling never goes out of style. For proof, check out Dracula: Origin, a point-and-click reimagination of Bram Stoker's classic novel from Frogwares that delivers a gothic tale as atmospheric and chilling as a London fog. While you couldn't ask for a more done-to-death story, the treatment of this legendary material is both respectful and innovative, with familiar characters and scenes being mixed in with all-new escapades set across Europe and the Middle East. Too many pixel hunts and logic puzzles that occasionally stray into "good luck solving this without a walkthrough" territory cause a few problems, although these frustrations aren't enough to ruin a great Victorian spook story. Dracula: Origin keeps the bare bones of the Stoker novel, but adds to it by branching out in a few places and changing the focus from drawing-room horror to something of a detective story. Vamp hunter Van Helsing moves to center stage from his supporting role in the novel, as the dour professor turns sleuth and ventures to London, Cairo, Vienna, and, of course, Transylvania on a one-man quest to save poor Mina Murray and stop Dracula's plans to resurrect the dead. The story unfolds like a mash-up of Stoker's Dracula, any number of Sherlock Holmes short stories, and the less weird tales of HP Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos, with you playing vampire hunter, gumshoe, and intrepid researcher. The script doesn't borrow much from Stoker, although it is excellent in its own right as a modern take on the old Victorian penny dreadfuls that influenced Dracula. Voice acting is generally impressive, as long as you've got a taste for melodrama. Van Helsing in particular gets awfully worked up over the slightest little thing, becoming so uptight over such minor annoyances as running into a locked door that you'll frequently think that Dracula himself has just jumped out of the shadows. Counterbalancing this fresh story is gameplay that feels like something out of a point-and-click adventure made 20 years ago. As Van Helsing, you stroll from one scene to another, carefully scanning the surroundings for anything that can be pocketed and later used to construct some sort of contraption necessary for opening a door or unlocking a safe, for example. You gather and hoard all sorts of items, such as meat hooks, mummy wrappings, and even a jar of flies. There generally isn't any rhyme or reason to all of this scrap collecting, other than that you know you're playing an adventure game, so you're going to need this junk at some point down the road. Van Helsing's entire philosophy of vampire hunting is expressed in one line he repeats over and over: "This might be useful. I'm taking it." Pixel hunting is another issue. Most of the screens are shrouded in gloom as well as cluttered with furniture and other background details, making it nearly impossible to pick out all of the many objects that you need to collect without using the spacebar command to highlight them. Some of the tinier items in the game are all but hidden in the scenery, which speaks well for the wonderfully detailed backdrops like the Egyptian tomb and Dracula's castle in Transylvania, but not for the game's playability. So you're left with the spacebar, and that seems like a cheat as it pretty much spotlights exactly what you have to do in every location. Still, it's absolutely necessary unless you want to tediously scroll over every single pixel in every single scene. A few of the set-piece logic puzzles are geared to cause similar frustration. Dracula: Origin is loaded with braintwisters that range from obvious to maddeningly obtuse. Lack of proper instructions is a big problem with many of them, as you're occasionally plopped in front of a plaque, a checkerboard, or even a chemistry litmus test without any guidance as to what exactly you're supposed to be doing. All you can do much of the time is blindly experiment with whatever you can move in the puzzle in an attempt to figure out what it might be all about, and then take a crack at actually solving it. Yet even though it seems like the puzzles would be better off if they came with FAQs, their inventive design and sheer deviousness outweighs any irritation you might have over the lack of instructions. Many could have served as the linchpins for a Sherlock Holmes mystery, and all are perfectly suited to a quest about slaying a vampire. You move a pentagram to reveal eerie Latin writing, decipher Egyptian hieroglyphs on a cursed tomb, and examine medieval carvings of demons and sinners to open up a crypt. All could certainly be a little more intuitive, but they couldn't be any more imaginative, or more appropriate for this storyline. Creepy atmosphere and an imaginative take on a familiar tale elevate Dracula: Origin above its shortcomings. A freer interpretation of the now decrepit point-and-click formula would have been much appreciated, but this is still a very enjoyable, if deeply traditional, adventure.
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ABOUT THIS GAME Second Galaxy is an open-world science fiction game that combines RPG and SLG elements. Second Galaxy welcomes you to explore a universe of 4,961 galaxies, where you can navigate hundreds of different spaceships through the stars to secure scarce resources, team up with players to form alliances, freely trade with any player on a global server and participate epic intergalactic battles without restrictions with other players around the world. The universe calls, commander. This sea of stars is now yours to conquer. A creative vision of the future human civilization Three thousand years in the future, the interstellar colonization of humanity has expanded to the Kingdom of Origin, known as the Second Galaxy, serving as the base point of Earth's journey to colonize the universe. Five unique nations, each with faint and twisted relationships, cooperate and remain controlled. In the vastness of space, different civilizations and motives have emerged to change the face of history ... Fight for rare resources in galactic battles of 1,000 players Jump into increasingly intense colonial wars with players from all over the world. Resources are scarce, Commander ... Secure the future of your alliance and chosen corporation in a glorious battle with up to a thousand players involved in a simultaneous intergalactic war, and compose an impressive war epic. Design of diversified interstellar ships These five nations have also developed radically different spaceships, due to the great differences in their levels of science and technology, design and military ambitions. Astronomical and hyperrealistic game world Using galaxy mapping technology, the Second Galaxy universe has a whopping diameter of 1,000 light years and contains 4,961 galaxies that contain countless features, such as planets, stars, satellites, gaseous entities, wormholes and other celestial bodies and other men -made. Open world - Random events shape your destiny In Second Galaxy, you can go through wormholes and reach the unknown depths of the universe to find unexpected random events. The actions of each player in the game world cause a "butterfly effect" in cosmic ecology depending on how they approach the different events. Global dynamic trading in real time All interactions in the game occur in real time on a global server. These interactions can range from performing dynamic transactions in real time through neutral commercial planets or underground black markets, or participating in fighting that directly leads to large-scale galactic warfare or cooperation across the server. SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS MINIMUM: SO: Win 7 / Win 8 / Win 10 Processor: Intel E2140 / Athlon 64 x2 4000 @ 2.7 GHz Memory: 2 GB RAM Graphics: 512 MB DirectX 9.0 - card compatible with Shader Model 3.0 or higher DirectX: Version 9.0 c Network: broadband Internet connection Storage: 2 GB available RECOMMENDED: SO: Win 7 / Win 8 / Win 10 Processor: Intel Core i3-2310M / AMD A6-6400K Memory: 4 GB RAM Graphics: DirectX 11 graphics card with 1 GB of video RAM: AMD Radeon HD 5870, nVidia GTX 480 DirectX: Version 11 Network: broadband Internet connection Storage: 2 GB of available space
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Should I buy the The Outer Worlds? The Outer Worlds is essentially trying to appeal to a very specific niche, and you probably know if you’re in it. The good news is, it really seems like it’s going to deliver on what it promises. If I have a hesitation it’s that not much of what I’ve seen so far feels especially new or groundbreaking, but I’m not sure it’s trying to be. This is comfort food for Fallout fans, and that is no bad thing. The Outer Worlds full review. Fallout: New Vegas was the little spin-off that could, and still more po[CENSORED]r in certain circles than its bigger budget follow-up Fallout 4. That’s why there’s so much excitement for developer Obsidian Entertainment taking a turn at its own expansive, anarchic sci-fi RPG shooter in the upcoming The Outer Worlds. This isn’t a Fallout game, but the DNA is clear. Only instead of a post-apocalyptic Earth it takes an arch-capitalistic space colony as its settings, leaning deeper into anti-corporate themes as it lets players build characters that let them navigate the world of Halcyon just about any way they please. The Outer Worlds comes out on 25 October 2019, and will hit PC, PS4, and Xbox One, as you’d probably expect. You can pre-order it now if you’re that way inclined. At its core, this is a very Fallout-esque game. It’s a first-person sci-fi RPG in which you’ll navigate the various planets of the Halcyon from behind the barrel of a gun. Shooting is central, but you can also talk, bribe, hack, and sneak your way through most of the problems that you’ll face, and Obsidian is placing a heavy emphasis on the scope of player choice here. The hands-off E3 demo I watched is a case in point. It saw the player hired by the leader of a 100% legitimate frontier business to take out a rival factory nearby. From the off it was made clear that we had a choice to carry out the mission by either sabotaging the factory or killing its owner. Things only opened up further from there. There was the choice to shoot through the front entrance, use a disguise to sneak past the guards, or hack though the back door. Once on the inside we could use stealth, trickery, or big guns to get past the guards, hack or fight robotic sentries, overload the conveyor lines, and even choose between killing the owner, joining his side, or trying to forge a truce between the two factions. Player choice is hyped up by just about every major modern game, especially in the RPG space, but from what I’ve seen The Outer Worlds does deliver on the promise. Actions and questlines are also locked or unlocked based on the stats you’ve invested in, forcing you to make long-term decisions about the kind of person your character is going to be. It helps that the world itself looks gnarly in the best possible way. There’s always an element of detachment when a multi-million dollar game backed by a major publisher decides to skewer corporate interests, but Obsidian doesn’t seem to be pulling its punches here, but there’s still a light touch, and the setting here is as gritty as it is gross and tongue-in-cheek. That factory that the demo player broke into for example? It produced ‘boarst’, which is revealed to be a meat produced by specially grown cystipigs, developed to produce bacon-flavoured tumours. Mmmmmm.
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