1.
Privately held company
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More ambiguous terms for a privately held company are unquoted company and unlisted company. Though less visible than their publicly traded counterparts, private companies have major importance in the worlds economy. In 2008, the 441 largest private companies in the United States accounted for US$1,800,000,000,000 in revenues and employed 6.2 million people, according to Forbes. In 2004, the Forbes count of privately held U. S. businesses with at least $1 billion in revenue was 305, cargill, Koch Industries, Bechtel, Publix, Pilot Corp. Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, Hearst Corporation, Cox Enterprises, S. C, johnson, McWane, Carlson Companies, and Mars are among the largest privately held companies in the United States. In the broadest sense, the private corporation refers to any business not owned by the state. This usage is found in former communist countries to differentiate from former state-owned enterprises. In the United States, the privately held company is more often used to describe for-profit enterprises whose shares are not traded on the stock market. In countries with public trading markets, a privately held business is taken to mean one whose ownership shares or interests are not publicly traded. Often, privately held companies are owned by the company founders and/or their families, sometimes employees also hold shares of private companies. Most small businesses are privately held, Private companies may be called corporations, limited companies, limited liability companies, unlimited companies, or other names, depending on where and how they are organized and structured. In the United States, but not generally in the United Kingdom, privately held companies generally have fewer or less comprehensive reporting requirements and obligations for transparency, via annual reports, etc. than publicly traded companies do. For example, in the United States, unlike in Europe, in addition, private company executives may steer their ships without shareholder approval, allowing them to take significant action without delays. There is a requirement for large proprietary companies, which are required to lodge Form 388H to the ASIC containing their financial report. In the United States, private companies are held to different accounting auditing standards than are public companies, other companies, like Sageworks, provide aggregated data on privately held companies, segmented by industry code. Privately held companies also sometimes have restrictions on how many shareholders they may have, for example, the U. S. Securities Exchange Act of 1934, section 12, limits a privately held company, generally, to fewer than 2000 shareholders, and the U. S. Investment Company Act of 1940, requires registration of investment companies that have more than 100 holders, in Australia, section 113 of the Corporations Act 2001 limits a privately held company to fifty non-employee shareholders. Private enterprises comprise the sector of an economy
2.
Moscow
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Moscow is the capital and most populous city of Russia, with 13.2 million residents within the city limits and 17.8 million within the urban area. Moscow has the status of a Russian federal city, Moscow is a major political, economic, cultural, and scientific center of Russia and Eastern Europe, as well as the largest city entirely on the European continent. Moscow is the northernmost and coldest megacity and metropolis on Earth and it is home to the Ostankino Tower, the tallest free standing structure in Europe, the Federation Tower, the tallest skyscraper in Europe, and the Moscow International Business Center. Moscow is situated on the Moskva River in the Central Federal District of European Russia, the city is well known for its architecture, particularly its historic buildings such as Saint Basils Cathedral with its brightly colored domes. Moscow is the seat of power of the Government of Russia, being the site of the Moscow Kremlin, the Moscow Kremlin and Red Square are also one of several World Heritage Sites in the city. Both chambers of the Russian parliament also sit in the city and it is recognized as one of the citys landmarks due to the rich architecture of its 200 stations. In old Russian the word also meant a church administrative district. The demonym for a Moscow resident is москвич for male or москвичка for female, the name of the city is thought to be derived from the name of the Moskva River. There have been proposed several theories of the origin of the name of the river and its cognates include Russian, музга, muzga pool, puddle, Lithuanian, mazgoti and Latvian, mazgāt to wash, Sanskrit, majjati to drown, Latin, mergō to dip, immerse. There exist as well similar place names in Poland like Mozgawa, the original Old Russian form of the name is reconstructed as *Москы, *Mosky, hence it was one of a few Slavic ū-stem nouns. From the latter forms came the modern Russian name Москва, Moskva, in a similar manner the Latin name Moscovia has been formed, later it became a colloquial name for Russia used in Western Europe in the 16th–17th centuries. From it as well came English Muscovy, various other theories, having little or no scientific ground, are now largely rejected by contemporary linguists. The surface similarity of the name Russia with Rosh, an obscure biblical tribe or country, the oldest evidence of humans on the territory of Moscow dates from the Neolithic. Within the modern bounds of the city other late evidence was discovered, on the territory of the Kremlin, Sparrow Hills, Setun River and Kuntsevskiy forest park, etc. The earliest East Slavic tribes recorded as having expanded to the upper Volga in the 9th to 10th centuries are the Vyatichi and Krivichi, the Moskva River was incorporated as part of Rostov-Suzdal into the Kievan Rus in the 11th century. By AD1100, a settlement had appeared on the mouth of the Neglinnaya River. The first known reference to Moscow dates from 1147 as a place of Yuri Dolgoruky. At the time it was a town on the western border of Vladimir-Suzdal Principality
3.
Russia
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Russia, also officially the Russian Federation, is a country in Eurasia. The European western part of the country is more populated and urbanised than the eastern. Russias capital Moscow is one of the largest cities in the world, other urban centers include Saint Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg, Nizhny Novgorod. Extending across the entirety of Northern Asia and much of Eastern Europe, Russia spans eleven time zones and incorporates a range of environments. It shares maritime borders with Japan by the Sea of Okhotsk, the East Slavs emerged as a recognizable group in Europe between the 3rd and 8th centuries AD. Founded and ruled by a Varangian warrior elite and their descendants, in 988 it adopted Orthodox Christianity from the Byzantine Empire, beginning the synthesis of Byzantine and Slavic cultures that defined Russian culture for the next millennium. Rus ultimately disintegrated into a number of states, most of the Rus lands were overrun by the Mongol invasion. The Soviet Union played a role in the Allied victory in World War II. The Soviet era saw some of the most significant technological achievements of the 20th century, including the worlds first human-made satellite and the launching of the first humans in space. By the end of 1990, the Soviet Union had the second largest economy, largest standing military in the world. It is governed as a federal semi-presidential republic, the Russian economy ranks as the twelfth largest by nominal GDP and sixth largest by purchasing power parity in 2015. Russias extensive mineral and energy resources are the largest such reserves in the world, making it one of the producers of oil. The country is one of the five recognized nuclear weapons states and possesses the largest stockpile of weapons of mass destruction, Russia is a great power as well as a regional power and has been characterised as a potential superpower. The name Russia is derived from Rus, a state populated mostly by the East Slavs. However, this name became more prominent in the later history, and the country typically was called by its inhabitants Русская Земля. In order to distinguish this state from other states derived from it, it is denoted as Kievan Rus by modern historiography, an old Latin version of the name Rus was Ruthenia, mostly applied to the western and southern regions of Rus that were adjacent to Catholic Europe. The current name of the country, Россия, comes from the Byzantine Greek designation of the Kievan Rus, the standard way to refer to citizens of Russia is Russians in English and rossiyane in Russian. There are two Russian words which are translated into English as Russians
4.
Video game industry
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The video game industry is the economic sector involved in the development, marketing and Monetizing of video games. It encompasses dozens of job disciplines and employs thousands of people worldwide, the computer and video game industry has grown from focused markets to mainstream. They took in about US$9.5 billion in the US in 2007,11.7 billion in 2008, sound cards were developed for addition of digital-quality sound to games and only later improved for music and audiophiles. Early on, graphics cards were developed for more colors, later, graphic cards were developed for graphical user interfaces and games, GUIs drove the need for high resolution, and games began using 3D acceleration. They also are one of the pieces of hardware to allow multiple hookups. Product and talent layer, includes developers, designers and artists, production and tools layer, generates content production tools, game development middleware, customizable game engines, and production management tools. Distribution layer, or the industry, involved in generating and marketing catalogs of games for retail. Hardware layer, or the providers of the platform, which may be console-based, accessed through online media. This layer now includes network infrastructure and non-hardware platforms such as machines, or software platforms such as browsers or even further Facebook. End-users layer, or the users/players of the games, the game industry employs those experienced in other traditional businesses, but some have experience tailored to the game industry. Some of the specific to the game industry include, game programmer, game designer, level designer, game producer, game artist. Most of these professionals are employed by video game developers or video game publishers, however, many hobbyists also produce computer games and sell them commercially. Recently, game developers have begun to employ those with extensive or long-term experience within the modding communities, prior to the 1970s, there was no significant commercial aspect of the video game industry, but many advances in computing would set the stage for the birth of the industry. In 1947 Thomas T. Goldsmith Jr. and Estle Ray Mann filed a patent for a cathode ray tube amusement device and their game, which uses a cathode ray tube hooked to an oscilloscope display, challenges players to fire a gun at target. One of the first known examples is Spacewar, developed by Harvard and MIT employees Martin Graetz, Steve Russell, and Wayne Wiitanen. The introduction of easy-to-program languages like BASIC for mainframes allowed for more games to be developed. In 1971 the arcade game, Computer Space was released, the following year, Atari, Inc. released the first commercially successful video game, Pong, the original arcade version of which sold over 19,000 arcade cabinets. That same year saw the introduction of video games to the market with the release of the early video game console
5.
Software developer
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A software developer is a person concerned with facets of the software development process, including the research, design, programming, and testing of computer software. Other job titles which are used with similar meanings are programmer, software analyst. According to developer Eric Sink, the differences between system design, software development, and programming are more apparent, even more so that developers become systems architects, those who design the multi-leveled architecture or component interactions of a large software system. In a large company, there may be employees whose sole responsibility consists of one of the phases above. In smaller development environments, a few people or even an individual might handle the complete process. The word software was coined as a prank as early as 1953, before this time, computers were programmed either by customers, or the few commercial computer vendors of the time, such as UNIVAC and IBM. The first company founded to provide products and services was Computer Usage Company in 1955. The software industry expanded in the early 1960s, almost immediately after computers were first sold in mass-produced quantities, universities, government, and business customers created a demand for software. Many of these programs were written in-house by full-time staff programmers, some were distributed freely between users of a particular machine for no charge. Others were done on a basis, and other firms such as Computer Sciences Corporation started to grow. The computer/hardware makers started bundling operating systems, systems software and programming environments with their machines, new software was built for microcomputers, so other manufacturers including IBM, followed DECs example quickly, resulting in the IBM AS/400 amongst others. The industry expanded greatly with the rise of the computer in the mid-1970s. In the following years, it created a growing market for games, applications. DOS, Microsofts first operating system product, was the dominant operating system at the time, by 2014 the role of cloud developer had been defined, in this context, one definition of a developer in general was published, Developers make software for the world to use. The job of a developer is to crank out code -- fresh code for new products, code fixes for maintenance, code for business logic, bus factor Software Developer description from the US Department of Labor
6.
Publishing
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Publishing is the dissemination of literature, music, or information—the activity of making information available to the general public. In some cases, authors may be their own publishers, meaning originators and developers of content also provide media to deliver, also, the word publisher can refer to the individual who leads a publishing company or an imprint or to a person who owns/heads a magazine. Traditionally, the term refers to the distribution of printed works such as books, Publishing includes the following stages of development, acquisition, copy editing, production, printing, and marketing and distribution. There are two categories of book publisher, Non-paid publishers, A non-paid publisher is a house that does not charge authors at all to publish their books. Paid publishers, The author has to meet with the expense to get the book published. This is also known as vanity publishing, at a small press, it is possible to survive by relying entirely on commissioned material. But as activity increases, the need for works may outstrip the publishers established circle of writers, for works written independently of the publisher, writers often first submit a query letter or proposal directly to a literary agent or to a publisher. Submissions sent directly to a publisher are referred to as unsolicited submissions, the acquisitions editors send their choices to the editorial staff. Unsolicited submissions have a low rate of acceptance, with some sources estimating that publishers ultimately choose about three out of every ten thousand unsolicited manuscripts they receive. Many book publishers around the world maintain a strict no unsolicited submissions policy and this policy shifts the burden of assessing and developing writers out of the publisher and onto the literary agents. At these publishers, unsolicited manuscripts are thrown out, or sometimes returned, established authors may be represented by a literary agent to market their work to publishers and negotiate contracts. Literary agents take a percentage of earnings to pay for their services. Some writers follow a route to publication. Such books often employ the services of a ghostwriter, for a submission to reach publication, it must be championed by an editor or publisher who must work to convince other staff of the need to publish a particular title. An editor who discovers or champions a book that becomes a best-seller may find their reputation enhanced as a result of their success. Once a work is accepted, commissioning editors negotiate the purchase of property rights. The authors of traditional printed materials typically sell exclusive territorial intellectual property rights that match the list of countries in which distribution is proposed. In the case of books, the publisher and writer must also agree on the formats of publication —mass-market paperback
7.
Russian Game Developers Conference
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The Russian Game Developers Conference, or KRI, is an annual event for industry professionals devoted to game development, publishing and distribution in Russia and surrounding territories. The show also features the presentation of the annual KRI awards, KRI has attracted industry representatives not only from ex-USSR countries, but also from abroad. Every annual KRI has been attended by renowned game developers that are known across the planet
8.
Xbox
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Xbox is a video gaming brand created and owned by Microsoft. It represents a series of game consoles developed by Microsoft. The brand also represents applications, streaming services, and a service by the name of Xbox Live. The brand was first introduced on November 15,2001 in the United States and that original device was the first video game console offered by an American company after the Atari Jaguar stopped sales in 1996. It reached over 24 million units sold as of May 10,2006, Microsofts second console, the Xbox 360, was released in 2005 and has sold over 77.2 million consoles worldwide as of April 18,2013. The successor to the Xbox 360 and Microsofts most recent console, the Xbox One has been released in 21 markets in total, with a Chinese release on September 29,2014. The head of Xbox is Phil Spencer, who succeeded former head Marc Whitten in late March 2014. The original Xbox was released on November 15,2001, in North America, February 22,2002, in Japan and it was Microsofts first foray into the gaming console market. As part of the sixth-generation of gaming, the Xbox competed with Sonys PlayStation 2, Segas Dreamcast, the Xbox was the first console offered by an American company after the Atari Jaguar stopped sales in 1996. The name Xbox was derived from a contraction of DirectX Box, the integrated Xbox Live service launched in November 2002 allowed players to play games online with or without a broadband connection. It first competed with Dreamcasts online service but later competed with PlayStation 2s online service. The Xbox 360 was released as the successor of the original Xbox in November 2005, competing with Sonys PlayStation 3, as of June 30,2013,78.2 million Xbox 360 consoles have been sold worldwide. The Xbox 360 was officially unveiled on MTV on May 12,2005, with detailed launch, the console sold out completely upon release in all regions except in Japan. Microsoft also released Kinect, a control system for the Xbox 360 which uses an advanced sensor system. At their E3 presentation on June 14,2010, Microsoft announced a redesigned Xbox 360 that would ship on the same day, older models of the Xbox 360 have since been discontinued. The first new console to be released features a 250 GB hard drive, the Xbox One was released on November 22,2013 in North America, as the successor of the Xbox 360. The Xbox One competes with Sonys PlayStation 4 and Nintendos Wii U as part of the generation of video game consoles. After an overwhelmingly negative response from critics and consumers, Microsoft announced that these restrictions would be dropped, as a gesture toward showing a commitment to user privacy, Microsoft decided to allow the console to function without Kinect
9.
Video game
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A video game is an electronic game that involves interaction with a user interface to generate visual feedback on a video device such as a TV screen or computer monitor. The word video in video game referred to a raster display device. Some theorists categorize video games as an art form, but this designation is controversial, the electronic systems used to play video games are known as platforms, examples of these are personal computers and video game consoles. These platforms range from large mainframe computers to small handheld computing devices, the input device used for games, the game controller, varies across platforms. Common controllers include gamepads, joysticks, mouse devices, keyboards, the touchscreens of mobile devices, and buttons, or even, with the Kinect sensor, a persons hands and body. Players typically view the game on a screen or television or computer monitor, or sometimes on virtual reality head-mounted display goggles. There are often game sound effects, music and, in the 2010s, some games in the 2000s include haptic, vibration-creating effects, force feedback peripherals and virtual reality headsets. In the 2010s, the game industry is of increasing commercial importance, with growth driven particularly by the emerging Asian markets and mobile games. As of 2015, video games generated sales of USD74 billion annually worldwide, early games used interactive electronic devices with various display formats. The earliest example is from 1947—a Cathode ray tube Amusement Device was filed for a patent on 25 January 1947, by Thomas T. Goldsmith Jr. and Estle Ray Mann, and issued on 14 December 1948, as U. S. Written by MIT students Martin Graetz, Steve Russell, and Wayne Wiitanens on a DEC PDP-1 computer in 1961, and the hit ping pong-style Pong, used the DEC PDP-1s vector display to have two spaceships battle each other. In 1971, Computer Space, created by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney, was the first commercially sold and it used a black-and-white television for its display, and the computer system was made of 74 series TTL chips. The game was featured in the 1973 science fiction film Soylent Green, Computer Space was followed in 1972 by the Magnavox Odyssey, the first home console. Modeled after a late 1960s prototype console developed by Ralph H. Baer called the Brown Box and these were followed by two versions of Ataris Pong, an arcade version in 1972 and a home version in 1975 that dramatically increased video game popularity. The commercial success of Pong led numerous other companies to develop Pong clones and their own systems, the game inspired arcade machines to become prevalent in mainstream locations such as shopping malls, traditional storefronts, restaurants, and convenience stores. The game also became the subject of articles and stories on television and in newspapers and magazines. Space Invaders was soon licensed for the Atari VCS, becoming the first killer app, the term platform refers to the specific combination of electronic components or computer hardware which, in conjunction with software, allows a video game to operate. The term system is commonly used
10.
E3 2007
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This is a history of the Electronic Entertainment Expo. Though it was only the first year for E3, the proved to be the premier event for gaming in the US. The event continued to grow and become a place for the unveiling of new products. In 1997, E3 was held in Atlanta, Georgia, where some of what would become the most popular first-person shooter games were unveiled, one of the worlds first offline esports competitions, the Red Annihilation Quake tournament was held at E31997. The event was held in Atlanta, Georgia. The expo received 70,000 attendees, a 75% increase over the years event. The event from here on ran usually in Los Angeles, California and it was held in Los Angeles. The expo received 62,000 attendees, a 37. 78% increase over the years event. The expo received 65,000 attendees, an 8. 33% increase over the years event. This was the first time the E3 convention was aired on television, E32005 attracted 70,000 attendees, a 7. 69% increase over the previous years event. E32006 saw 60,000 attendees, a 14. 29% decline over the years event. On July 31,2006, the ESA announced that the expo would be downsized and restructured due to the demand from the exhibitors. On October 13,2006, the new format of the show was detailed, many of these persons were excluded from the revised event, as the ESA announced that the new E3 would be by invitation only. It was originally speculated that because of changes, independent developers may have been excluded. But the ESA ultimately provided invitations for independent developers with The Indie Games Showcase booth and this was made possible through industry supporters, IndieCade and the International Game Developers Association. The move was criticized by those both within and outside the gaming industry, including by game designer Will Wright. Attendance to E32007, the 13th annual E3 summit attracted only 10,000 attendees due to the scaled back nature of this show. Attendance to E32008, the 14th annual E3 summit had a reduced attendance once more of only 5,000, Electronic Entertainment Expos beginning from 2009 reverted to the shows previous format before its 2007 restructuring
11.
Electronic Arts
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Electronic Arts Inc. is an American video game company headquartered in Redwood City, California. Currently, EA develops and publishes games under several labels including EA Sports titles FIFA, Madden NFL, NHL, NCAA Football, NBA Live, and SSX. EA also owns and operates major gaming studios, EA Tiburon in Orlando, EA Canada in Burnaby, BioWare in Edmonton as well as Montreal, the company began developing games in-house and supported consoles by the early 1990s. EA later grew via acquisition of several successful developers, by the early 2000s, EA had become one of the worlds largest third-party publishers. In a note to employees, EA CEO John Riccitiello called this an important milestone for the company. EA began to move toward direct distribution of games and services with the acquisition of the popular online gaming site Pogo. com in 2001. In 2009, EA acquired the London-based social gaming startup Playfish, and in June 2011, EA launched Origin, there is also a On The House feature in Origin that lets you download full versions of EA games for free, it is updated regularly. In July 2011, EA announced that it had acquired PopCap Games, in February 1982, Trip Hawkins arranged a meeting with Don Valentine of Sequoia Capital to discuss financing his new venture, Amazin Software. Valentine encouraged Hawkins to leave Apple Inc. in which Hawkins served as Director of Product Marketing, on May 28,1982, Trip Hawkins incorporated and established the company with a personal investment of an estimated US$200,000. The company was not named Amazin Software, but instead Electronic Arts, seven months later in December 1982, Hawkins secured US$2 million of venture capital from Sequoia Capital, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, and Sevin Rosen Funds. For more than seven months, Hawkins refined his Electronic Arts business plan, with aid from his first employee, Rich Melmon, the original plan was written, mostly by Hawkins, on an Apple II in Sequoia Capitals office in August 1982. The business plan was refined in September and reissued on October 8,1982. By November, employee headcount rose to 11, including Tim Mott, Bing Gordon, David Maynard, having outgrown the office space provided by Sequoia Capital, the company relocated to a San Mateo office that overlooked the San Francisco Airport landing path. Headcount rose rapidly in 1983, including Don Daglow, Richard Hilleman, Stewart Bonn, David Gardner and he recruited his original employees from Apple, Atari, Xerox PARC, and VisiCorp, and got Steve Wozniak to agree to sit on the board of directors. Hawkins was determined to sell directly to buyers, combined with the fact that Hawkins was pioneering new game brands, this made sales growth more challenging. Retailers wanted to buy known brands from existing distribution partners, after more flyers were handed out, former CEO Larry Probst arrived as VP of Sales in late 1984 and helped the company sustain growth into US$18 million in its third full year. This policy of dealing directly with retailers gave EA higher margins and better market awareness, in December 1986, David Gardner and Mark Lewkaspais moved to the UK to open a European headquarters. Up until that point publishing of Electronic Arts Games, and the conversion of many of their games to compact cassette versions in Europe was handled by Ariolasoft
12.
Gamecock Media Group
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Gamecock Media Group was an American video game publisher based in Austin, Texas. It was founded in February 2007 by video game industry veterans Mike Wilson, Harry A. Miller IV and they used a more hands-off approach and allowed developers creative freedom with their work, as well as letting them keep their own intellectual property. On October 14,2008, SouthPeak Games acquired Gamecock Media Group, using the microphone for self-promotion, the interruption resulted in Levine being unable to talk before he was ushered offstage. Gamecock Media Group chief executive officer Mike Wilson later apologized
13.
Fat client
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A fat client is a computer in client–server architecture or networks that typically provides rich functionality independent of the central server. Originally known as just a client or thick client the name is contrasted to thin client, a fat client still requires at least periodic connection to a network or central server, but is often characterised by the ability to perform many functions without that connection. In contrast, a thin client generally does as little processing as possible, in designing a client–server application, a decision is to be made as to which parts of the task should be executed on the client, and which on the server. This decision can crucially affect the cost of clients and servers, the robustness and security of the application as a whole, the characteristics of the user interface often force the decision on a designer. For instance, a drawing package could choose to download an image from a server and allow all edits to be made locally. This would require a client and might be characterised by a long time to start and stop. Conversely, a client could download just the visible parts of the drawing at the beginning. This might be characterised by a short time, but a tediously slow editing process. The original server clients were simple text display terminals including Wyse VDUs, as PC prices decreased, combined with a drop in software licensing costs, thick client–server architectures became more attractive. For users, the client device provided a more-responsive platform. In more recent years, the Internet has tended to drive the thin client model despite the prodigious processing power that a modern PC has available, a thick client server does not require as high a level of performance as a thin client server. This results in drastically cheaper servers, thick clients have advantages in that a constant connection to the central server is often not required. Thick clients have advantages in multimedia-rich applications that would be bandwidth intensive if fully served, for example, thick clients are well suited for video gaming. On some operating systems software products are designed for computers that have their own local resources. Running this software in a thin client environment can be difficult, as many people now have very fast local PCs, they already have the infrastructure to run thick clients at no extra cost. The more work that is carried out by the client, the less the server needs to do, diskless node Rich user interaction Rich client platform Thin client
14.
Thin client
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A thin client is a lightweight computer that is purpose-built for remoting into a server. It depends heavily on another computer to fulfill its computational roles and this is different from a conventional desktop PC, which is a computer designed to take on these roles by itself. Thin clients occur as components of a computing infrastructure, where many clients share their computations with a server or server farm. The server-side infrastructure makes use of cloud computing such as application virtualization. This combination forms what is today as a cloud based system where desktop resources are centralized into one or more data centers. The benefits of centralization are hardware resource optimization, reduced software maintenance, example of hardware resource optimization, Cabling, bussing and I/O can be minimized while idle memory and processing power can be applied to users sessions that most need it. Example of improved security, Software assets are centralized and easily fire-walled, monitored and protected, sensitive data is uncompromised in cases of desktop loss or theft. Some thin clients include legacy serial and/or parallel ports to support older devices such as printers, scales, time clocks. Thin client software typically consists of a GUI, cloud access agents, a web browser, terminal emulations. In using cloud based architecture, the takes on the processing load of several client sessions. The client software is narrowly purposed and lightweight, therefore, only the host server or server farm needs to be secured, one of the trade-offs of using cloud architecture and thin clients is that the host becomes a single point of failure. If the hosting server crashes, for example, all lose their session unless a fail-over process is predefined. This risk can be mitigated by building redundancies into the host environment, redundancy provides reliable host availability but adds cost to the cloud computing model. Redundancy can be provided in the form of networked servers, clustered file systems, load balancing, NOTE, infrastructure costs can be spread out by choosing a subscription based cloud model known as Desktop as a Service or DaaS. DaaS allows IT organizations to outsource the cloud infrastructure to a third party, thin client computing is known to simplify the desktop endpoints by reducing the client-side software footprint. With a lightweight, read-only OS, client-side setup and administration is greatly reduced, cloud access is the primary role of a thin client which eliminates the need for a large suite of local user applications, data storage and utilities. This architecture shifts most of software execution burden from the endpoint to the data center, user assets are centralized for greater visibility and control. Data recovery and desktop repurposing tasks are centralized for faster service
15.
Web browser
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A web browser is a software application for retrieving, presenting and traversing information resources on the World Wide Web. An information resource is identified by a Uniform Resource Identifier that may be a web page, image, hyperlinks present in resources enable users easily to navigate their browsers to related resources. Although browsers are primarily intended to use the World Wide Web, the most popular web browsers are Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Safari, Opera and Firefox. The first web browser was invented in 1990 by Sir Tim Berners-Lee, Berners-Lee is the director of the World Wide Web Consortium, which oversees the Webs continued development, and is also the founder of the World Wide Web Foundation. His browser was called WorldWideWeb and later renamed Nexus, the first commonly available web browser with a graphical user interface was Erwise. The development of Erwise was initiated by Robert Cailliau, andreesens browser sparked the internet boom of the 1990s. The introduction of Mosaic in 1993 – one of the first graphical web browsers – led to an explosion in web use, Microsoft responded with its Internet Explorer in 1995, also heavily influenced by Mosaic, initiating the industrys first browser war. Bundled with Windows, Internet Explorer gained dominance in the web browser market, Internet Explorer usage share peaked at over 95% by 2002. Opera debuted in 1996, it has never achieved widespread use and it is also available on several other embedded systems, including Nintendos Wii video game console. In 1998, Netscape launched what was to become the Mozilla Foundation in an attempt to produce a competitive browser using the open source software model, as of August 2011, Firefox has a 28% usage share. Apples Safari had its first beta release in January 2003, as of April 2011, the most recent major entrant to the browser market is Chrome, first released in September 2008. Chromes take-up has increased year by year, by doubling its usage share from 8% to 16% by August 2011. This increase seems largely to be at the expense of Internet Explorer, in December 2011, Chrome overtook Internet Explorer 8 as the most widely used web browser but still had lower usage than all versions of Internet Explorer combined. Chromes user-base continued to grow and in May 2012, Chromes usage passed the usage of all versions of Internet Explorer combined, by April 2014, Chromes usage had hit 45%. Internet Explorer was deprecated in Windows 10, with Microsoft Edge replacing it as the web browser. The ways that web browser makers fund their development costs has changed over time, the first web browser, WorldWideWeb, was a research project. In addition to being freeware, Netscape Navigator and Opera were also sold commercially, Internet Explorer, on the other hand, was bundled free with the Windows operating system, and therefore it was funded partly by the sales of Windows to computer manufacturers and direct to users. Internet Explorer also used to be available for the Mac, in this respect, IE may have contributed to Windows and Microsoft applications sales in another way, through lock-in to Microsofts browser
16.
Simulation video game
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A simulation video game describes a diverse super-category of video games, generally designed to closely simulate real world activities. A simulation game attempts to copy various activities from real life in the form of a game for purposes such as training, analysis. Usually there are no strictly defined goals in the game, with players allowed to freely control a character. Well-known examples are war games, business games, and role play simulation, comparisons of the merits of simulation games versus other teaching techniques have been carried out by many researchers and a number of comprehensive reviews have been published. While many credit simulation games beginning with Will Wright and SimCity in 1989, certain games such as SimLife and SimEarth were subsequently created and are capable of teaching players the basics of genetics and global ecosystems. In a study where adolescents played SimCity 2000, the found that those participants who played the game had a greater appreciation and expectation of their government officials after playing. Construction and management simulation is a type of game in which players build. Strategy games sometimes incorporate CMS aspects into their economy, as players must manage resources while expanding their project. But pure CMS games differ from games in that the players goal is not to defeat an enemy. Games in this category are also called management games. Life simulation games is a subgenre of video games in which the player lives or controls one or more artificial lifeforms. A life simulation game can revolve around individuals and relationships, or it could be a simulation of an ecosystem, a sports game is a video game that simulates the playing of sports. Most sports have been recreated with a game, including sports, athletics. Some games emphasize playing the sport, whilst others emphasize strategy, some, such as Arch Rivals, satirize the sport for comic effect. This genre has been throughout the history of video games and is competitive. A number of game series feature the names and characteristics of real teams and players, dating sims focuses on dating as the principal theme. In medical simulation games, players take the role of a surgeon and this includes the Trauma Center and LifeSigns series. In photography simulation games, players take photographs of animals or people and this includes games such as Pokémon Snap and Afrika
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Strategy video game
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Strategy video games are a video game genre that focuses on skillful thinking and planning to achieve victory. It emphasizes strategic, tactical, and sometimes logistical challenges, many games also offer economic challenges and exploration. They are generally categorized into four sub-types, depending on whether the game is turn-based or real-time, Strategy video games are a genre of video game that emphasize skillful thinking and planning to achieve victory. Specifically, a player must plan a series of actions against one or more opponents, victory is achieved through superior planning, and the element of chance takes a smaller role. In most strategy games, the player is given a godlike view of the game world. Thus, most strategy games involve elements of warfare to varying degrees, in addition to combat, these games often challenge the players ability to explore, or manage an economy. Even though there are action games that involve strategic thinking. A strategy game is larger in scope, and their main emphasis is on the players ability to outthink their opponent. Strategy games rarely involve a challenge, and tend to annoy strategically minded players when they do. Compared to other such as action or adventure games where one player takes on many enemies. Each side generally has access to resources and actions, with the strengths. Although strategy games involve strategic, tactical, and sometimes logistical challenges, a strategy game calls for planning around a conflict between players, whereas puzzle games call for planning in isolation. Strategy games are distinct from construction and management simulations, which include economic challenges without any fighting. These games may incorporate some amount of conflict, but are different from strategy games because they do not emphasize the need for direct action upon an opponent, Conflict in strategy games takes place between groups or singular combatants, usually called units. Games vary in how many types of units a player can use, units vary in their movement and speed, as well as the amount of health or damage they can withstand. Units may also have different levels of strength or range. Although units are used for combat, they may also be used for other purposes such as transport. Units that cannot move such as fixed turrets are still treated as units
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World War II
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World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945, although related conflicts began earlier. It involved the vast majority of the worlds countries—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing alliances, the Allies and the Axis. It was the most widespread war in history, and directly involved more than 100 million people from over 30 countries. Marked by mass deaths of civilians, including the Holocaust and the bombing of industrial and population centres. These made World War II the deadliest conflict in human history, from late 1939 to early 1941, in a series of campaigns and treaties, Germany conquered or controlled much of continental Europe, and formed the Axis alliance with Italy and Japan. Under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union partitioned and annexed territories of their European neighbours, Poland, Finland, Romania and the Baltic states. In December 1941, Japan attacked the United States and European colonies in the Pacific Ocean, and quickly conquered much of the Western Pacific. The Axis advance halted in 1942 when Japan lost the critical Battle of Midway, near Hawaii, in 1944, the Western Allies invaded German-occupied France, while the Soviet Union regained all of its territorial losses and invaded Germany and its allies. During 1944 and 1945 the Japanese suffered major reverses in mainland Asia in South Central China and Burma, while the Allies crippled the Japanese Navy, thus ended the war in Asia, cementing the total victory of the Allies. World War II altered the political alignment and social structure of the world, the United Nations was established to foster international co-operation and prevent future conflicts. The victorious great powers—the United States, the Soviet Union, China, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and the United States emerged as rival superpowers, setting the stage for the Cold War, which lasted for the next 46 years. Meanwhile, the influence of European great powers waned, while the decolonisation of Asia, most countries whose industries had been damaged moved towards economic recovery. Political integration, especially in Europe, emerged as an effort to end pre-war enmities, the start of the war in Europe is generally held to be 1 September 1939, beginning with the German invasion of Poland, Britain and France declared war on Germany two days later. The dates for the beginning of war in the Pacific include the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War on 7 July 1937, or even the Japanese invasion of Manchuria on 19 September 1931. Others follow the British historian A. J. P. Taylor, who held that the Sino-Japanese War and war in Europe and its colonies occurred simultaneously and this article uses the conventional dating. Other starting dates sometimes used for World War II include the Italian invasion of Abyssinia on 3 October 1935. The British historian Antony Beevor views the beginning of World War II as the Battles of Khalkhin Gol fought between Japan and the forces of Mongolia and the Soviet Union from May to September 1939, the exact date of the wars end is also not universally agreed upon. It was generally accepted at the time that the war ended with the armistice of 14 August 1945, rather than the formal surrender of Japan
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IL-2 Sturmovik (video game)
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IL-2 Sturmovik is a 2001 World War II combat flight simulator video game and is the first installment in the IL-2 Sturmovik series. The release focused on the air battles of the Eastern Front and it was named after the Soviet Ilyushin Il-2 ground-attack fighter, which played a prominent role in this theatre and is the single most produced military aircraft design to date. Along with its sequels, IL-2 Sturmovik is considered one of the leading World War II flight simulators, the game features 31 flyable planes and additional 40 non-flyable planes. One can play as Australia, France, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the USSR. The game includes a feature which supports up to 100 players online over the internet. Free internet services such as Xfire, Hyperlobby, and The All-Seeing Eye, are used for setting up online game sessions. The game was developed by 1C, Maddox Games and published by 1C in Russia and Ubisoft in the rest of the world, for Windows on November 18,2001. The game saw the release of a number of add-ons and sequels since its initial release, the game is currently distributed as the IL-2 Sturmovik,1946 pack. The latest edition includes all sequels and patches is version 4.12, which brings the number of available flyable aircraft up to 79*. Recently patches 4.12,4.12.1, the first games in the series not using the original 2001 game engine were IL-2 Sturmovik, Cliffs of Dover and IL-2 Sturmovik, Battle of Stalingrad. IL-2 Sturmovik and subsequent games in the series have been critically acclaimed, the review aggregator Metacritic gave IL-2 Sturmovik a score of 91 out of 100, while GameRankings, another review aggregator, gave it 90. 65%. IL-2 Sturmovik at Ubisoft IL-2 Sturmovik at MobyGames
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IL-2 Sturmovik: Forgotten Battles
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Unlike the first installment, Forgotten Battles focuses on the Soviet-Finnish Continuation War of 1941-1944. The Career mode allows the player to become a pilot of the Luftwaffe, Soviet Air Force, Finnish Air Force, each campaign consists of approximately 30 missions, and a career includes 4-8 campaigns or 100 to 250 missions. The game features 129 flyable aircraft, all of which are available as AI controlled elements in missions,80 of these planes can be flown by the player. 30 of the planes and 21 of the AI planes were new in the series. The flyable aircraft have a full 3D cockpit with working instruments, planes with crew allow switching to most positions. Released in 2004, 1C, Maddox Games and Ubisoft Entertainment released the expansion pack entitled Forgotten Battles. It offers players a more in depth simulation experience by allowing them to control of 11 new aircraft. It also includes 2 new maps, one depicting the Finnish Front, both a Finnish and Hungarian campaign which uses these maps are also playable and allows the player to progress in rank and earn awards. Forgotten Battles was met with positive reception, GameRankings gave it a score of 87. 39%, the Ace Expansion Pack was also met with positive reception, GameRankings gave it a score of 82. 57%, while Metacritic gave it 85 out of 100. IL-2 Sturmovik Pacific Fighters Official site Ace Expansion Pack official site IL-2 Sturmovik, Forgotten Battles at MobyGames IL-2 Sturmovik, Forgotten Battles - Ace Expansion Pack at MobyGames
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Pacific Fighters
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Pacific Fighters, known in Russia as Pearl Harbor, is a World War II combat flight simulator for Microsoft Windows, released in 2004. It is played online by using a standard IP address or a client server such as hyperlobby regularly. The latest version corresponds to the IL-2 Sturmovik,1946 compilation, developed by 1C, Maddox Games, the game gives the player 74 flyable aircraft, including variants. It was created by Maddox Games, as a Pacific War expansion of IL-2 Sturmovik, Forgotten Battles and it has two types of missions that can be flown, dogfights or cooperative campaign modes. In either type, the player can play as either Allied or Axis forces, the game also features a mission editor, allowing the player to make their own missions. Pacific Fighters was met with positive reception upon release, as GameRankings gave it a score of 78. 35%, Pacific Fighters at Ubisoft Pacific Fighters at MobyGames
22.
IL-2 Sturmovik: Birds of Prey
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IL-2 Sturmovik, Birds of Prey, or Wings of Prey on the PC, is a combat flight simulator video game. As with previous installments of the PC series IL-2 Sturmovik, it depicts combat aircraft from World War II, although with less focus on realistic simulation than other entries in the series. The game has a mode in which players are able to fly the Allies against the Axis. A demo of the launched on the PSN and Xbox 360s Xbox Live on 29 July 2009. Birds of Prey is based around the large-scale aerial combat and ground operations of World War II. Players can participate in some of the war’s most famous battles, piloting fighters, attack aircraft and heavy bombers across a range of missions. There are six theatres of war to engage in, Battle of Britain, Stalingrad, Berlin, Sicily, Korsun, Birds of Prey has a new damage effects engine. Players can see real-time damage to the such as holes in the wings. IL-2 Sturmovik, Birds of Prey features hundreds of aircraft taking part in air battles, the environmental engine also produces high-detail, realistic landscapes that allow players to easily see ground support actions. The game was developed by Gaijin Entertainment, who subsequently developed Birds of Steel, Birds of Steel shares many traits with Birds of Prey but differentiates itself by concentrating primarily on US–Japanese aerial battles of the Pacific theater. On the release, home console and PC versions were met with positive reception, official website Gaijin Entertainment homepage IL-2 Sturmovik, Birds of Prey at MobyGames Wings of Prey at MobyGames
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IL-2 Sturmovik: Cliffs of Dover
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IL-2 Sturmovik, Cliffs of Dover is a World War II combat flight simulator developed by the Russian software house 1C, Maddox Games. During development the game was originally called Storm of War, Battle of Britain, in January 2011 Ubisoft revealed the current name for the game and release date of 31 March 2011. Upon Russian and EU release, the developers acknowledged a number of serious bugs and these were somewhat corrected via patches from 1C Maddox and further stabilized and enhanced by community patches from Team Fusion. In October 2012, it was revealed on the 1C forums that development had fallen short of the original goals, the game was met with very mixed reception upon release, as GameRankings gave it a score of 51. 40%, while Metacritic gave it 60 out of 100. On 11 December 2012, a IL-2 Sturmovik sequel titled IL-2 Sturmovik, the sequel is developed by 1C Company and 777 Studios which is the developer of the WWI flight simulator, Rise of Flight, The First Great Air War. Official website Ubisoft game info IL-2 Sturmovik, Cliffs of Dover at MobyGames Games official blog 1C Company, official distributors website
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IL-2 Sturmovik: Battle of Stalingrad
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IL-2 Sturmovik, Battle of Stalingrad is a World War II combat flight simulator released in 2013. The game is a simulation set during the Battle of Stalingrad. After 1C Game Studios halted development for IL-2 Sturmovik, Cliffs of Dover, they officially announced development for IL-2 Sturmovik, access to an early alpha was made available for Premium Edition owners on November 19,2013. The release date was planned for the first quarter of 2014. The full release date has been marked as October 20,2014 in the Steam -platform, series has received next part IL-2 Sturmovik, Battle of Moscow in 2016. This expands Battle of Stalingrad with new areas and aircraft keeping most of technology the same, development of IL-2 Sturmovik, Battle of Kuban has been announced, including plans for graphics support for DirectX11 and virtual reality. Detail of aircraft models received generally good reviews and praise IL-2 Sturmovik, Battle of Stalingrad official website Developer 1C Game Studios official website
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Rig 'n' Roll
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RignRoll, acronymed RnR or R&R, is a sandbox-style truck driving simulation and racing video game released on 27 November 2009 in Russia and during 2010 in the rest of the world. It simulates truck driving and management along with associated business strategic activities, the game takes place in California and Nevada, in the year 2014. The game was published by 1C and developed by SoftLab-Nsks Igor Belago, RignRoll also includes a program for the creation of skins for trucks, license plates, and trailers. Gameplay modes include racing, single-player missions, regular truck driving and this game is also called Hard Truck 3, RigNRoll but the name Hard Truck was removed after the prequel Hard Truck 2, King of the Road. The story in the game begins with the protagonist, Nick Armstrong, in order for his dreams to come true, he has to earn more money and compete with the rest of Californias import/export trucking companies. Later on, he will be able to meet new friends, however, shortly after the beginning of the story, Nicks friend Matthew Tearson goes missing. It is later revealed that Matthew is killed by Crane, a trucker from Matthews company, who also frames Nick for murder by killing a trucker from Storm Express using a wrench he borrowed from Nick. In the end, Crane tries to kill Nick by running him in a truck. Unlike most sandbox games, ignoring a story mission for too long will end the game abruptly. After completing the missions, Nick can focus on expanding his trucking company. If he succeeds, he receives a cash reward. Failure to do so results in a Game Over screen although the player can continue playing the game with no penalties, RignRoll offers a lot of road exploration based on real-life locations, with multiple missions to be completed and places to visit in non-linear environments. Management in this game is done by using sliders, and much of the game is focused around cargo/truck selection, to start missions, the player drives into a warehouse and chooses either a normal delivery to another warehouse or a race with other truck drivers. Every delivery has a limit, and the payment will be deducted if the players truck hits anything while delivering fragile goods. While on the roads, players can interact with NPCs and take on sidequests, changing the AI behavior may increase the amount of money the driver earns for the company per day but it may sometimes cause his or her loyalty to drop. Although there are no speed limits on any of the in-game roads, committing an offence will usually trigger a pursuit by a police car even if there are none around at the time when the offence took place. Before release, it was featured at E32005, Gamescom, as well as several other Russian gaming exhibitions. A demo was announced for 2009 and then for 2010, all cheats were taken out of the game prior to release
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Space Rangers (video game)
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Space Rangers is a multi-genre computer game by the Russian company Elemental Games, released by 1C Company in 2002. It is critically acclaimed and popular in its country, Finland and parts of Eastern Europe. In 2004, 1C Company published a sequel, Space Rangers 2, the game is dynamic and open-ended in a fashion that has been compared to Elite and Star Control 2. Trade prices on planets follow supply and demand, the wars are ongoing non-scripted conflicts, computer-controlled ships have individual capabilities, goals and relations, there are even several ways to complete the storyline. The games have turn-based space travel and combat, optional shoot em up sequences and this game was not released in America in its own box, but in some special edition containers of Space Rangers 2, Rise of the Dominators. In Space Rangers, a relatively peaceful interstellar coalition is invaded by a powerful enemy, the player is a Ranger, one of a group of non-military volunteers who are given small ships, free rein and the task of helping to battle, understand and ultimately defeat the menace. Long ago, the now wise and peaceful Gaal race was very aggressive and was creating a number of colonies. Due to large distances it created a hyperjumper which could make holes in the galaxy. Soon one of the met with the Klissan fleet. Although Gaal colony ships tried to communicate with these Klissan ships they failed to do so and were destroyed, soon Makhpella, the mothership of all Klissans and Klissan fleet, invaded all outer Gaal colonies. Not very long ago, everything was started by a Peleng captain called Rachekhan and he was thrown out of the fleet and became a pirate. Since he had access to documents and weaponry he stole a hyperjumper. While travelling with it he met Makhpella and it considered Rachekhans pirate fleet an enemy and started chasing it. Space Rangers features 6 races in total, the Interstellar Coalition races, the Interstellar Coalition consists of 5 races, Maloqs, Pelengs, Humans, Faeyans and Gaals. The Klissans are the new and unresearched form of life, Maloq The Maloq race is very strong physically, but mentally weak. They are physically very big and eat a lot of food and their equipment is the cheapest but it is also the most delicate, and deteriorates much quicker than other races. The race is named after the C standard library function malloc, Peleng The four handed Pelengs are usually very artful and Peleng criminals are the most successful. Also Pelengs have the strongest intelligence agency called Dzuhallag, Peleng equipment is the 2nd cheapest and the 2nd most delicate
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Soldiers: Heroes of World War II
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Soldiers, Heroes of World War II is the first in a series of real-time tactics video games set in World War II, developed by or under the supervision of Ukrainian company Best Way. While the most widely distributed edition by Codemasters bears the name Soldiers, Heroes of World War II, the player can take control of American, British, Soviet, or German forces to play out battles that are set in World War II. The game is primarily a game, but the player can take control of his forces and direct them with the keyboard. Game scenario writers include Alexander Zorich, in the single player missions, players are generally allotted a very small amount of soldiers, and losing just one soldier can be a huge loss. Thus, the game is about conserving your soldiers and keeping them safe for most of the time, there are many types of vehicles, ranging from tanks to anti-aircraft vehicles to simple jeeps. Any soldier can drive or man any position in a gun, even vehicles have ammunition, which players can scavenge from disabled vehicles. Another interesting side effect to using vehicles under direct control is that allows the user to aim at specific points on enemy vehicles. A player can aim for an enemy tanks treads for example, which would prevent it from moving, thus, by doing this, a player can stop a tank from harassing him, while creating a dead zone that he cant move in without getting attacked. Aside from realistic locational damage on vehicles, the game offers a virtually completely destructible environment and this is especially taken advantage of when using a vehicle in direct control, in which a player can aim the turret and literally blow buildings apart. Originally, the way a player could play this game multiplayer was to play a cooperative game mode which took up to four players through any mission from the single player mode. The soldiers in each map were divided between the players, but otherwise this mode was exactly the same as single player, however, there was no server browser, and players were forced to directly connect by IP Address to play. In a more recent patch, players are able to play different multiplayer modes, including escort missions, no in-game server browser was created, but a player could use GameSpy Arcade as a server browser. The game received favorable reviews according to game review aggregator Metacritic. Outfront, Saboteurs was released by 1C in 2005, development was outsourced to studio Dark Fox, using Best Ways Heroes engine. Paradox Interactive acquired international rights from 1C in 2006 and renamed it Silent Heroes, Elite Troops of World War II, Outfront, Saboteurs 2, developed by Dark Fox, followed in 2006. This product is unreleased outside of Eastern Europe, Outfront, Saboteurs 3, developed by Realore Studios, followed in 2008. This product is unreleased outside of Eastern Europe, the first fully fledged sequel, Faces of War, appeared in 2006. Its intended international title was Outfront II, but that moniker was scrapped after a deal was struck with Ubisoft
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Faces of War
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Faces of War is a real-time strategy and real-time tactics computer wargame developed by Ukrainian developer Best Way and published by Russian publisher 1C Company. The game is a sequel to 2004s Soldiers, Heroes of World War II, the game features a full 3D engine allowing the player to have much greater control over the camera compared to Soldiers. The engine also allows nearly full environmental destruction, the developers have also improved the multiplayer options from the last game, with many more modes and options. The game was released in Russia on September 8,2006, Game scenario writers include Alexander Zorich. The game was developed using the GEM Engine, allowing more destructible items, ubisoft released a single player demo of the game in July 2006. A multiplayer demo was released a few days before the release in September. Two patches were released for the game over December 2006 and January 2007, Faces of Wars sequel Men of War was released in 2009 by 1C Company. The game received mixed or average according to video game review aggregator Metacritic. It won Best of Show at the 2006 Russian Game Developers Conference, official Faces of War site Faces of War at MobyGames
29.
Perimeter (video game)
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Perimeter is a real-time strategy video game developed by K-D Lab for Microsoft Windows. It is published by 1C Company and Codemasters, and was released in 2004, humanity has undergone radical changes in society. Scientists and spiritual leaders became one and the same, calling themselves Spirits, the Spirits, foreseeing the inevitable destruction of Earth due to the ravages of our time, directed scientific efforts into the discovery of a new plane of existence, the Psychosphere. The Psychosphere acted as a conduit, providing means to another, untouched world. The Psychosphere is appropriately named, as the various worlds resemble the thoughts, the Spirits then embarked upon the construction of massive floating city-ships called Frames, which could house hundreds of thousands of people for an indefinite period of time. With the Frames completed, the Spirits sent them forth into the Psychosphere with the intent to lead their people to the Promised Land, within each of the Frames, the Spirits formed Spirit Councils which exercised absolute authority in all matters relating to the Frame. As the game progresses, the various factions come into contact, Exodus continues to move through the Chain of Worlds to its very end, Harkback move to the Root Worlds at the very beginning of the Chain, and the Empire tries to dominate both sides. Ultimately Exodus destroys the primary Imperial Frame near a portal to the Promised Land, meanwhile, the Harkback find the Root Worlds and a portal back to Earth, also moving through. However, both end up near one another on the Promised Land, which appears to be Earth as it was millions of years ago. This sets the scene for the games sequel, the game received favorable reviews according to video game review aggregator Metacritic. A stand-alone expansion pack titled Perimeter, Emperors Testament was published by Paradox Interactive, the expansion pack received average reviews according to video game review aggregator Metacritic. On July 4,2008, K-D Lab announced Perimeter 2, maelstrom Vangers Perimeter at MobyGames Perimeter, Emperors Testament at MobyGames
30.
Fantasy Wars
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Fantasy Wars is a fantasy turn-based tactical video game developed by Ino-Co and published by 1C Company. The game was released through GamersGate on October 2,2007, Fantasy Wars features four playable races. The single-player story includes three campaigns, taking place over a series of tactical hex maps, the game uses a 3D game engine and includes role-playing video game gameplay features such as experience points and skills. Fantasy Wars is distributed electronically by GamersGate and GOG and is published in Europe by Nobilis France, the game is distributed in Scandinavia by Paradox Interactive and in North America by Atari. In April 2008, Paradox Interactive announced a sequel to Fantasy Wars entitled Elven Legacy, Elven Legacy is developed by 1C, Ino-Co and was released in April 2009. Fantasy Wars Кодекс Войны Fantasy Wars
31.
Death to Spies
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Death to Spies is a stealth third-person shooter PC game set in World War II and produced by 1C Company and Haggard Games. The game was released on October 17,2007 on PC and then later to Valves digital distribution system, Steam, Death to Spies takes place from a third-person perspective. The player controls Semion Strogov, a captain in a Soviet counterintelligence agency named SMERSH, Strogov is able to run, jump, crouch, crawl and climb over obstacles, and he is also able to drive vehicles. Taking place in World War II, the player is required to complete tasks in enemy territory, such as killing targets. Emphasis is placed on stealth, as the player is greatly outnumbered by enemy personnel, the games missions are connected by cutscenes, taking place in 1951. The Heads-up display shows the level of awareness and suspicion of enemies, a vector map can be displayed on the screen, showing characters locations and their fields of vision, in which the player will be detected either instantly or gradually, depending on the distance. The vector map also shows the radius of noises made by the player, if someone is within the radius of the noise, they may investigate the noise or become alerted, disguises can be used to avoid alerting enemies when seen. When a character is knocked unconscious or killed without damaging the uniform, before starting a mission, the player is usually able to select equipment to bring to the mission. Strogov has a capacity limited to one handgun, one long gun and 18 slots for small items such as ammunition and knives. A variety of firearms and explosives are available to choose from, other weapons include chloroform, knives, a garrote and poison. German equipment can also be chosen to avoid suspicion from enemy personnel when in disguise and/or to make use of ammunition taken from enemies bodies, several missions take place in allied areas. The player is forced to begin these missions lightly armed and they select their equipment. However, weapons and ammunition can be found in the level, Death to Spies mostly received above average reviews. The game has a score of 70% on GameRankings and 69% on Metacritic. GameSpot gave it a 7.0, praising its level design variation and challenging missions. IGN gave it an 8.0, saying it was difficult at times and not without its peculiarities, Death to Spies is nevertheless always interesting. On March 23,2009, 1C Company announced a sequel, Death to Spies and it was released on August 10,2009. A third installment was announced in 2010 under the title Death to Spies 3, after years of development issues and various crowdfunding campaigns, the game later resurfaced as Alekhines Gun and was launched on March 1,2016 for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Microsoft Windows
32.
King's Bounty: The Legend
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Kings Bounty, The Legend is a 2008 video game, based on the Kings Bounty property that was developed 18 years earlier by New World Computing. Blending elements of the game with a modernized interface and gameplay elements. In Kings Bounty, The Legend, the plays as a hero in the world of Endoria. After a brief final exam tutorial at the School of Knights, the king provides the main story quests, but there are numerous side quests which can be completed as well, in virtually any order. The players character cannot directly fight in battles, but rather employs up to five squadrons of allies to do so and these range from the mundane to creatures from high fantasy, and can vary in size from just a single unit all the way up into the hundreds. Troops are recruited from locations in the game, with a limit on the maximum size of each unit determined by the characters Leadership statistic. In combat, troops are assisted by the players character through the use of magic, Spirits of Rage. While not in combat or visiting a location, players move on the overworld map in real-time. Hence, enemy groups shown on the map will move towards the player if close enough, otherwise, players are free to move throughout the various game locations while day and night slowly cycle, without any concept of turn-based play. Kings Bounty, The Legend allows players to play as one of three different character classes, from the choices of warrior, paladin, and mage, each class specializes in one of the three skill trees in the game, although players are allowed to cross-specialize. By allocating runes received as treasure or after gaining a level, the main gameplay challenge in Kings Bounty, The Legend is one of finite resource management, with the main resources being gold, troops and magic crystals. If the player does not die, being defeated means a loss of all troops travelling with the player and these can only be replaced by spending significant amounts of gold in order to hire a new army. Due to the use of randomly generated enemies and treasures, in each there are often a few very powerful enemy groups. This confused some players and reviewers, as the assumption was that gameplay would be more linear, the different character classes will generally handle resource problems in different ways, The Warrior, due to his combat abilities, fights effectively with almost any army, minimizing casualties. He also has more freedom in using the Spirits of Rage, for a Mage, the type of troops he commands is less relevant, as he relies mainly on his magical power and spells. He can minimize casualties, make any unit more useful, or destroy enemies with magic directly. The Paladin excels in Mind skills and thus receives greater quantities of leadership, gold, and experience and this makes the Paladin less constrained by most resource problems. He can also upgrade priests into inquisitors, who can help reduce casualties, the Spirits of Rage are a group of four powerful creatures trapped in the magical Rage Casket eons ago by ancient sorcerers
33.
King's Bounty: Armored Princess
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Kings Bounty, Armored Princess is a 2009 strategy video game developed for Microsoft Windows by Katauri Interactive and published in most regions by 1C Company. It is the sequel to the strategy game Kings Bounty, The Legend, while the mechanics of the game do not differ significantly from that of the previous years release, it features a new heroine and other minor new elements. An expansion pack, Kings Bounty, Crossworlds, was released in 2010, with a rebalanced and extended campaign, Kings Bounty, Armored Princess begins 10 years after the previous title, with the world of Darion being almost completely overrun by hordes of demons. In a last-ditch effort to obtain assistance for a kingdom, a powerful spell is cast which opens a portal to another world. Playing as Princess Amelie, the player ventures through this portal in search of the legendary knight Sir Bill Gilbert, Armored Princess maintains many of the same game conventions used in The Legend. The player again chooses from one of three different classes and recruits up to five different squadrons of troops at any time in order to fight battles. Troops are recruited from locations in the game, with a limit on the maximum size of each unit determined by the characters Leadership statistic. In combat, troops are assisted by the players character through the use of magic, passive bonuses. The world map is broken up into a number of different islands which can be navigated between via ship, each island generally has troops of certain types and foes of a certain level range, giving each island a distinctive identity. At some point during play, the players mount gains the ability to fly, making dodging enemies, upon first reaching the world of Teana, Princess Amelie obtains a pet baby dragon. The player chooses the dragons color and base abilities, and it travels with the princess for the remainder of the game. During combat, the dragon can be summoned to attack foes or otherwise influence the battle using the players accumulated rage and this mechanic replaces the Spirits of Rage from the previous title, and like the Spirits, the dragon cannot be attacked or harmed by enemies. After each use of an ability, the dragon must sleep for at least one turn, possibly longer. In addition, the player can choose from among several companions met over the course of the game to travel with, a companion can carry additional pieces of equipment, and each companion has a unique ability. Companions take the place of wives from The Legend, although they act in much the same way, the title was first announced in November 2008, with the first release being the Russian version on April 10,2009. The Polish version was released on October 23,2009, while the North American version was released on November 20,2009, serving as an alternate publisher, Focus Multimedia published the title in the UK on March 19,2010. Dtp entertainment published on April 2010 the German-language edition of Armored Princess, the game holds a score of 83/100 on Metacritic and an aggregate score of 80. 83% on GameRankings. The game was awarded a score of 8/10 by Alec Meer of Eurogamer