1.
First-person shooter
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The first-person shooter shares common traits with other shooter games, which in turn fall under the heading action game. From the genres inception, advanced 3D or pseudo-3D graphics have challenged hardware development, the first-person shooter has since been traced as far back as Maze War, development of which began in 1973, and 1974s Spasim. 1998s Half-Life—along with its 2004 sequel Half-Life 2—enhanced the narrative and puzzle elements, in 1999, Half-Lifes mod Counter-Strike was released and, together with Doom, is perhaps one of the most influential first-person shooters. GoldenEye 007 was a landmark first-person shooter for home consoles, while the Halo series heightened the consoles commercial and critical appeal as a platform for first-person shooter titles. In the 21st century, the shooter is the most commercially viable video game genre. Several first-person shooters have been popular games for eSports and competitive gaming competitions as well, first-person shooters are a type of three-dimensional shooter game, featuring a first-person point of view with which the player sees the action through the eyes of the player character. They are unlike third-person shooters, in which the player can see the character they are controlling, the primary design element is combat, mainly involving firearms. A more important key difference is that first-person light-gun shooters like Virtua Cop often feature on-rails movement, the first-person shooter may be considered a distinct genre in itself, or a type of shooter game, in turn a subgenre of the wider action game genre. Following the release of Doom in 1993, games in this style were commonly termed Doom clones, in time this term has largely been replaced by first-person shooter. Wolfenstein 3D, released in 1992, the year before Doom, has credited with inventing the genre. There are occasional disagreements regarding the design elements which constitute a first-person shooter. For example, Deus Ex or BioShock may be considered as first-person shooters, some commentators extend the definition to include combat flight simulators where the cockpit or vehicle takes place of the hands and weapons. Like most shooter games, first-person shooters involve an avatar, one or more ranged weapons, and a varying number of enemies. Because they take place in a 3D environment, these tend to be somewhat more realistic than 2D shooter games. First-person shooters played on computers are most often controlled with a combination of a keyboard. This system has claimed as superior to that found in console games. It is common to display the characters hands and weaponry in the view, with a head-up display showing health. Often, it is possible to overlay a map of the surrounding area, first-person shooters often focus on action gameplay, with fast-paced and bloody firefights, though some place a greater emphasis on narrative, problem-solving and logic puzzles
2.
Stealth game
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A stealth game is a type of video game that tasks the player with using stealth to avoid or overcome antagonists. Games in the genre typically allow the player to remain undetected by hiding, using disguises or avoiding noise, some games allow the player to choose between a stealthy approach or directly attacking antagonists, perhaps rewarding the player for greater levels of stealth. The genre has employed espionage, counter-terrorism and rogue themes, with protagonists who have identified as special forces operatives, spies, thieves, ninjas. Some games have also combined stealth elements with other genres, such as first-person shooters, some of the early games emphasizing stealth include Manbiki Shounen, Lupin III,005, Castle Wolfenstein, Infiltrator, Metal Gear, and Metal Gear 2, Solid Snake. The genre became popular in 1998, with the success of Metal Gear Solid as well as Tenchu, Stealth Assassins and Thief. These games were followed by other series, such as Hitman. Later games in the genre have allowed the player to choose between, or combine, stealth tactics and direct confrontation, unlike most action games, stealth games challenge the player to avoid alerting enemies altogether. The core gameplay elements of the stealth game are to avoid combat, minimize noise. Completing objectives without being detected by any enemy, sometimes referred to as ghosting is an approach to stealth games. Avoiding detection may be the way to successfully complete a game. Players can hide behind objects or in shadows, and can strike or run past an enemy when the enemy is facing the other way, if the player attracts the attention of enemies, they usually must hide and wait until the enemies abandon their search. Thus, planning becomes important, as does trial-and-error, however, some stealth games put more emphasis on physical combat skill when the player is spotted. Some games offer a choice between killing or merely knocking out an enemy, when ghosting is optional, or even not well-supported by a game, players may still attempt to avoid combat for moral reasons or as a demonstration of skill. When hiding in the dark is an element, light. Usually the player is able to disable certain light sources, players who move recklessly will make more noise and attract more attention. In order for a game to include stealth gameplay, the knowledge of the artificial intelligence must be restricted to make it ignorant to parts of the game world. Enemies typically have a line of sight which the player can avoid by hiding behind objects, enemies can also typically detect when the player touches them or moves within a small, fixed distance. Overall, stealth games vary in what player actions the AI will perceive and react to, often, the AIs movements are predictable and regular, allowing the player to devise a strategy to overcome his adversaries
3.
Rare (company)
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Rare is a British video game developer located in Twycross, Leicestershire. The company was established in 1985 by Tim and Chris Stamper, during its early years, Rare was backed by an unlimited budget from Nintendo, primarily concentrated on Nintendo Entertainment System games. During this time they created successful titles such as Wizards & Warriors, Battletoads, Rare became a prominent second-party developer for Nintendo, who came to own a large minority stake of the company. During this period, Rare received international recognition and critical acclaim for such as Donkey Kong Country, GoldenEye 007, Banjo-Kazooie, Perfect Dark. In 2002, Microsoft acquired Rare, who retained their original brand, logo and it has since focused on developing games exclusively for Microsoft Studios video game consoles. Notable releases include Kameo, Elements of Power, Perfect Dark Zero, in 2015, Rare released Rare Replay, a compilation of 30 games produced by the company to celebrate their 30th anniversary. Rare is currently working on Sea of Thieves, an adventure game. Several key employees left Rare to form their own companies, such as Free Radical Design, Rare was widely recognised by the gaming industry and received numerous accolades from critics and journalists. The company has often described as secretive and seclusive. As a result, a new subdivision named Rare Ltd was established by Ashby Computers and its main goal was to reverse-engineer the console and investigate the codes for Famicoms games to learn more about the consoles programming. With successful results, the decided to sell the Ultimate brand to U. S. Gold. Famicoms owner, Nintendo, once claimed that it would be impossible for their console to be decoded, using the information the Ashby Computers and Graphics team learnt from the Rare division, the team prepared several tech demos and showed them to the Nintendo executive Minoru Arakawa in Kyoto. Impressed with their efforts, Nintendo decided to grant the Ashby team an unlimited budget for them to work on games for the Famicom platform. After they returned to England, they moved from Ashby-de-la-Zouch to Twycross and they set their headquarters in a Manor Farmhouse. Rare also set up another company known as Rare Inc. in Miami, headed by Joel Hochberg, the American company was involved in maintaining Rares operation in the US and contacting major US publishers. Famicom was eventually released in the UK under the name Nintendo Entertainment System, with the unlimited budget, the Rare studio could work a large variety of different games. The first project Rare worked on was Slalom, an ice-skiing title and they helped in creating new and original intellectual properties, including R. C. Pro-Am, a game with vehicular combat elements, and Snake Rattle n Roll
4.
Microsoft Studios
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They were established in 2002 as Microsoft Game Studios to coincide with the already released Xbox, before being re-branded in 2011. The subsidiary had also known as Microsoft Game Division and simply Microsoft Games before 2002. Microsoft Studios develops and publishes games in conjunction with first and third party development studios under their publishing label, in 2007, Microsoft Studios announced the opening of a European office in Reading, England, headed by general manager Phil Spencer. It disbanded FASA Studio, best known for their work on the MechWarrior series, former Halo developer Bungie announced that they would split from Microsoft Studios in order to become a privately held independent company. In 2008, Microsoft Studios disbanded casual games studio Carbonated Games and it also began to recruit for 343 Industries to take over development of the Halo franchise after the former developer, Bungie, regained independent status. 343 Industries was first officially revealed as steward of the Halo series in mid-2009 with the announcement of the animated project, in 2009, Microsoft Studios disbanded both Ensemble Studios and Aces Studio due to the effects of the late-2000s financial crisis and the restructuring of their game development studios. Phil Spencer was promoted to Corporate Vice President of Microsoft Studios in order to replace the retiring Shane Kim, in 2010, Microsoft Studios forms a Mobile Gaming studio focused on developing gaming and entertainment multimedia for Windows Phone. It also expanded Rare Ltd. to a second additional 90+ person in Digbeth, formed new internal studios named Microsoft Game Studios - Vancouver and Microsoft Flight Development Team, to bring Microsoft Flight to PC. In October 2010, Don Mattrick is promoted to President of the Interactive Entertainment Business, in 2011, Microsoft Studios opened new development studios in Soho London, Redmond, Washington and Victoria, British Columbia. In 2012, Phil Harrison, the former Sony worldwide studios head, joins Microsoft as head of Microsoft Studios Europe, Microsoft Studios recruited for new development studios in Redmond, including Playful Learning and The Connected Experiences. Microsoft Studios acquired developer Press Play, known for developing Tentacles and they aimed to create Microsoft Studios next big IP to rival their most successful series, Halo. Microsoft also recruited for a new development studio in Los Angeles, in 2013, Microsoft established a new European studio Lift London, a studio that would create digital cloud games for tablets, mobiles and TVs and officially reveals the Xbox One on May 21,2013. Later, Microsoft recruited for EMEA Publishing to manage relations with third party developers making Microsoft Published games in EMEA regions, Microsoft Studios announced that they would publish fifteen Xbox One exclusives within 12 months of launch,8 of which would be new franchises. On December 6, Microsoft decided to close the Victoria Studio with explanation to focus on Vancouver based studio, however Victoria didnt develop any games. On January 11,2014, Microsoft Studios announced they had signed multi-year, multi-title publishing contract with Undead Labs, on January 27, it acquired the rights to the Gears of War franchise and announced that the series will continue under Black Tusk Studios. On February 13, Jason Holtman left Microsoft Studios just 6 months after he joined the company, and Phil Spencer was appointed as the new head and boss of Microsoft Studios. On April 5, Phil Spencer announced that a couple of internal development studios that had not been publicly revealed are currently working on exclusive titles for the Xbox One platform. On May 31, it was revealed that Microsoft has acquired the rights of Rise of IP, on July 17, the head of Microsoft Studios, Phil Spencer, confirmed that Xbox Entertainment Studios would close in the coming months
5.
Nintendo 64
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The Nintendo 64, stylized as the NINTENDO64 and often referred to as the N64, is Nintendos third home video game console for the international market. It was the last major home console to use the cartridge as its primary storage format until Nintendos seventh console, while the Nintendo 64 was succeeded by Nintendos MiniDVD-based GameCube in September 2001, the consoles remained available until the system was retired in late 2003. Codenamed Project Reality, the the N64 design was complete by mid-1995, but its launch was delayed until 1996. It launched with three games, Super Mario 64 and Pilotwings 64, released worldwide, and Saikyō Habu Shōgi, as part of the fifth generation of gaming, the system competed primarily with the Sony PlayStation and the Sega Saturn. The suggested retail price at its United States launch was US$199.99, the console was released in a range of colors and designs over its lifetime. In 2015, IGN named it the 9th greatest video game console of all time, as of 2016, the system remains a popular retro console in North America. At the beginning of the 1990s, Nintendo led the game industry with its Nintendo Entertainment System. Although the NES follow-up console, the Super NES, was successful, competition from long-time rival Sega, and relative newcomer Sony, emphasized Nintendos need to develop a successor for the SNES, or risk losing market dominance to its competitors. Further complicating matters, Nintendo also faced a backlash from third-party developers unhappy with Nintendos strict licensing policies, the company created a design proposal for a video game system, seeking an already well established partner in that market. James H. Clark, founder of SGI, initially offered the proposal to Tom Kalinske, the historical details of these preliminary negotiations were controversial between the two competing suitors. Tom Kalinske said that he and Joe Miller of Sega of America were quite impressed with SGIs prototype, the engineers from Sega Enterprises claimed that their evaluation of the early prototype had uncovered several unresolved hardware issues and deficiencies. Those were subsequently resolved, but Sega had already decided against SGIs design, Nintendo resisted that summary conclusion, arguing that the reason for SGIs ultimate choice of partner is due to Nintendo having been a more appealing business partner than Sega. While Sega demanded exclusive rights to the chip, Nintendo was willing to license the technology on a non-exclusive basis, michael Slater, publisher of Microprocessor Report said, The mere fact of a business relationship there is significant because of Nintendos phenomenal ability to drive volume. If it works at all, it could bring MIPS to levels of volume never dreamed of, james Clark met with Nintendo CEO Hiroshi Yamauchi in early 1993, thus initiating Project Reality. This announcement coincided with Nintendos August 1993 Shoshinkai trade show, as with most of the computing industry, Nintendo had limited experience with 3D graphics, and worked with several outside companies to develop the technology comprising the console. Some chip technology was provided by NEC, Toshiba, and Sharp, SGI had recently acquired MIPS Computer Systems, and the two worked together toward a low-cost realtime 3D graphics hardware system. SGI and its subsidiary MIPS Technologies were responsible for the R4300i microprocessor and that software-based console prototype platform was later supplanted by a workstation-hosted console simulation board, representing the finalized console hardware. SGIs performance estimates based upon their RealityEngine supercomputing platform were ultimately reported to be accurate to the final consumer console product
6.
Game Boy Color
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It is the successor of the Game Boy. The Game Boy Color, as suggested by the name, features a color screen and it is slightly thicker and taller than the Game Boy Pocket, which is a redesigned Game Boy released in 1996. As with the original Game Boy, it has a custom 8-bit processor somewhat related to a Zilog Z80 central processing unit, the original name - with its American English spelling of color - remained unchanged even in markets where colour was the accepted English spelling. The Game Boy and Game Boy Color combined have sold 118.69 million units worldwide and it was discontinued in 2003, shortly after the release of the Game Boy Advance SP. The resultant product was backward compatible, a first for a handheld system and this became a major feature of the Game Boy line, since it allowed each new launch to begin with a significantly larger library than any of its competitors. The Game Boy Color also has three times as much memory as the original, the screen resolution was the same as the original Game Boy, which is 160x144 pixels. The Game Boy Color also featured an infrared port for wireless linking. A few games used Hi-Color mode to increase the number of colors available on-screen and this is a mode used most notably by the Italian company 7th Sense s. r. l. and can display more than 2000 different colors on the screen. Some examples of using this method are The Fish Files, The New Addams Family Series and Alone in the Dark. When playing an original Game Boy game on a later system and this is achieved by pressing certain button combinations, namely either A or B and a direction key while the Game Boy logo is displayed on the screen. These palettes each contain up to ten colors, the grayscale palette produces an appearance identical to that experienced on the original Game Boy, the inverted colors palette inverts the colors from the Game Boy Colors color palettes. In addition, some Game Boy games have a palette that is enabled when no buttons are pressed. Any game that not have a special palette will default to the dark green palette. The default palettes are stored in a database within the internal boot ROM of the system, titles that have color palettes on Super Game Boy will usually default to a similar palette when played on a Game Boy Color. These games would display a message and refuse to play if used in older Game Boy models. Pokémon Gold and Silver are also examples of Game Boy Color games that work on an original Game Boy system, the clear-colored Game Boy Color cartridges will function correctly only when used in a Game Boy Color or a later model. The logo for Game Boy Color spelled out the word COLOR in the five colors in which the unit was manufactured. Other colors were sold as limited editions or in specific countries, the last Game Boy Color game released in Japan was From TV Animation – One Piece, Maboroshi no Grand Line Boukenhen
7.
Xbox 360
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The Xbox 360 is a home video game console developed by Microsoft. As the successor to the original Xbox, it is the console in the Xbox series. The Xbox 360 competed with Sonys PlayStation 3 and Nintendos Wii as part of the generation of video game consoles. The Xbox 360 was officially unveiled on MTV on May 12,2005, with detailed launch, the Xbox 360 features an online service, Xbox Live, which was expanded from its previous iteration on the original Xbox and received regular updates during the consoles lifetime. In addition to multimedia features, the Xbox 360 allows users to stream media from local PCs. Several peripherals have been released, including controllers, expanded hard drive storage. The release of additional services and peripherals helped the Xbox brand grow from gaming-only to encompassing all multimedia. Launched worldwide across 2005–2006, the Xbox 360 was initially in short supply in many regions, including North America, the earliest versions of the console suffered from a high failure rate, indicated by the so-called Red Ring of Death, necessitating an extension of the devices warranty period. Microsoft released two redesigned models of the console, the Xbox 360 S in 2010, and the Xbox 360 E in 2013. As of June 2014,84 million Xbox 360 consoles have sold worldwide, making it the sixth-highest-selling video game console in history. The Xbox 360s successor, the Xbox One, was released on November 22,2013, on April 20,2016, Microsoft announced that it would end the production of new Xbox 360 hardware, although the company will continue to support the platform. Known during development as Xbox Next, Xenon, Xbox 2, Xbox FS or NextBox, in February 2003, planning for the Xenon software platform began, and was headed by Microsofts Vice President J Allard. That month, Microsoft held an event for 400 developers in Bellevue, also that month, Peter Moore, former president of Sega of America, joined Microsoft. On August 12,2003, ATI signed on to produce the graphic processing unit for the new console, before the launch of the Xbox 360, several Alpha development kits were spotted using Apples Power Mac G5 hardware. This was because the systems PowerPC970 processor running the same PowerPC architecture that the Xbox 360 would eventually run under IBMs Xenon processor, the cores of the Xenon processor were developed using a slightly modified version of the PlayStation 3s Cell Processor PPE architecture. According to David Shippy and Mickie Phipps, the IBM employees were hiding their work from Sony and Toshiba, jeff Minter created the music visualization program Neon which is included with the Xbox 360. The Xbox 360 was released on November 22,2005, in the United States and Canada, December 2,2005, in Europe and December 10,2005, in Japan. It was later launched in Mexico, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, India, and Russia
8.
Software release life cycle
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Usage of the alpha/beta test terminology originated at IBM. As long ago as the 1950s, IBM used similar terminology for their hardware development, a test was the verification of a new product before public announcement. B test was the verification before releasing the product to be manufactured, C test was the final test before general availability of the product. Martin Belsky, a manager on some of IBMs earlier software projects claimed to have invented the terminology, IBM dropped the alpha/beta terminology during the 1960s, but by then it had received fairly wide notice. The usage of beta test to refer to testing done by customers was not done in IBM, rather, IBM used the term field test. Pre-alpha refers to all activities performed during the project before formal testing. These activities can include requirements analysis, software design, software development, in typical open source development, there are several types of pre-alpha versions. Milestone versions include specific sets of functions and are released as soon as the functionality is complete, the alpha phase of the release life cycle is the first phase to begin software testing. In this phase, developers generally test the software using white-box techniques, additional validation is then performed using black-box or gray-box techniques, by another testing team. Moving to black-box testing inside the organization is known as alpha release, alpha software can be unstable and could cause crashes or data loss. Alpha software may not contain all of the features that are planned for the final version, in general, external availability of alpha software is uncommon in proprietary software, while open source software often has publicly available alpha versions. The alpha phase usually ends with a freeze, indicating that no more features will be added to the software. At this time, the software is said to be feature complete, Beta, named after the second letter of the Greek alphabet, is the software development phase following alpha. Software in the stage is also known as betaware. Beta phase generally begins when the software is complete but likely to contain a number of known or unknown bugs. Software in the phase will generally have many more bugs in it than completed software, as well as speed/performance issues. The focus of beta testing is reducing impacts to users, often incorporating usability testing, the process of delivering a beta version to the users is called beta release and this is typically the first time that the software is available outside of the organization that developed it. Beta version software is useful for demonstrations and previews within an organization
9.
Perfect Dark
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Perfect Dark is a first-person shooter video game developed and published by Rare for the Nintendo 64 video game console. It is considered the successor to Rares earlier first-person shooter GoldenEye 007. Perfect Dark was first released in North America on 22 May 2000, PAL and it also features a range of multiplayer options, including a co-operative mode and traditional deathmatch settings. Technically, it is one of the most advanced games developed for the Nintendo 64, with a high resolution graphics mode, widescreen support. A Nintendo 64 Expansion Pak is required to access the games campaign, Perfect Dark was developed over the course of three years and uses an upgraded version of the GoldenEye 007 engine. The game met with acclaim and commercial success upon release. Critics widely praised its multiplayer modes and replay value. The games success has led to the development of the Perfect Dark series, a remaster, also titled Perfect Dark, with enhanced graphics and online multiplayer, was exclusively released as an Xbox Live Arcade game for the Xbox 360 in 2010. Perfect Dark is a shooter in which players control Carrington Institute agent Joanna Dark through a series of levels collected together into missions. The general gameplay is similar to that of its predecessor GoldenEye 007, with such as stealth sections. Players can crouch, duck, lean, and drop from most ledges, a number of tutorials and training activities can be taken at the Carrington Institute, which acts as the games central hub. Further weapons are unlocked during the activities in the hub. Players can carry a number of weapons, and certain guns can be used in duplicate. Most weapons have a magazine and must be reloaded after a certain number of shots. Interaction with objects in the environment is via a single Use command, enemies and players can disarm each other at close range, and the player can use this feature to steal weapons or knock foes unconscious. Damage taken during combat for the player and enemy units is location-based, in each level, the player must complete certain objectives and then exit the stage. The requirements are varied, with many levels requiring the recovery, If Joanna is killed or fails an objective, the player must start the level again. If all the levels are completed on the highest difficulty, a setting becomes available
10.
Perfect Dark (2010 video game)
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Perfect Dark is a remastered release of the first-person shooter video game by the same name. It was released for the Xbox 360 video game console in March 2010, the story of the game follows Joanna Dark, an agent of the Carrington Institute organization, as she attempts to stop a conspiracy by rival corporation dataDyne. Perfect Dark was under development for nearly a year and its engine was completely re-written from scratch to support several Xbox 360 features. Therefore, although the game exactly the same as the original. The game received favorable reviews. Some critics considered the relatively unchanged game to be outdated, as of the end of 2011, the game had sold nearly 410,000 units. It also features a range of options, including a co-operative mode. Combat Simulater matches can be customised and can include bots. The remaster changes little from the gameplay of the original game. In the remaster, any of the modes can be played in either splitscreen or through the Xbox Live online service. An online leaderboard system was added, and players can earn achievements. Although Combat Simulator matches are still capped at 12 entities, the remaster can comprise eight players online simultaneously, players may also play against more than eight bots as long as there are enough slots available in a match. For example, a player can play against 11 bots. The remaster also includes two new control set-ups, entitled Spartan and Duty Calls, which are based on the Halo and Call of Duty first-person shooter franchises, respectively. Perfect Dark was ported by 4J Studios, the studio that previously developed the Xbox Live Arcade versions of Rares platform games Banjo-Kazooie and Banjo-Tooie. According to Microsoft Game Studios creative director Ken Lobb, the development team took the code, ported it to the Xbox 360. The game was developed over a course of approximately 11 months after the creation of a working prototype, as the Xbox Live functionality had to be written from scratch, the developers opted to completely rewrite the game engine rather than do a port through emulation. As a result, although the game exactly the same
11.
Science fiction
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Science fiction often explores the potential consequences of scientific and other innovations, and has been called a literature of ideas. Science fiction is difficult to define, as it includes a range of subgenres and themes. Author and editor Damon Knight summed up the difficulty, saying science fiction is what we point to when we say it, a definition echoed by author Mark C. Glassy, who argues that the definition of science fiction is like the definition of pornography, you do not know what it is, in 1970 or 1971William Atheling Jr. According to science fiction writer Robert A, rod Serlings definition is fantasy is the impossible made probable. Science fiction is the improbable made possible, Science fiction is largely based on writing rationally about alternative possible worlds or futures. Science fiction elements include, A time setting in the future, in alternative timelines, a spatial setting or scenes in outer space, on other worlds, or on subterranean earth. Characters that include aliens, mutants, androids, or humanoid robots, futuristic or plausible technology such as ray guns, teleportation machines, and humanoid computers. Scientific principles that are new or that contradict accepted physical laws, for time travel, wormholes. New and different political or social systems, e. g. utopian, dystopian, post-scarcity, paranormal abilities such as mind control, telepathy, telekinesis Other universes or dimensions and travel between them. A product of the budding Age of Reason and the development of science itself. Isaac Asimov and Carl Sagan considered Keplers work the first science fiction story and it depicts a journey to the Moon and how the Earths motion is seen from there. Later, Edgar Allan Poe wrote a story about a flight to the moon, more examples appeared throughout the 19th century. Wells The War of the Worlds describes an invasion of late Victorian England by Martians using tripod fighting machines equipped with advanced weaponry and it is a seminal depiction of an alien invasion of Earth. In the late 19th century, the scientific romance was used in Britain to describe much of this fiction. This produced additional offshoots, such as the 1884 novella Flatland, the term would continue to be used into the early 20th century for writers such as Olaf Stapledon. In the early 20th century, pulp magazines helped develop a new generation of mainly American SF writers, influenced by Hugo Gernsback, the founder of Amazing Stories magazine. In 1912 Edgar Rice Burroughs published A Princess of Mars, the first of his series of Barsoom novels, situated on Mars
12.
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
13.
Joanna Dark
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Joanna Dark is a fictional character and main protagonist of the Perfect Dark fictional universe, created by Rare. She made her debut in the Nintendo 64 first-person shooter Perfect Dark and is a character in all the games of the series. Outside of video games, Joanna also appears as the character in all the Perfect Dark novels. Joanna is an operative for the fictional Carrington Institute, where she was given the code name Perfect Dark in honor of her flawless performance in training tests and her Perfect Dark Zero model was redesigned by manga artist Wil Overton. Joanna Dark is among Rares most well known characters and is featured in several top lists by the gaming media. The character of Joanna Dark was originally devised by Martin Hollis and he also felt that there should be more games with female leads. According to him, Having just made a game starring a man it seemed logical to create one around a woman, the name Joanna Dark was taken from the French pronunciation of Joan of Arc as Jeanne dArc. Hollis also revealed that they wanted her to be normal, not with supermodel looks. In Perfect Dark, she was voiced by Eveline Fischer, during the development of Perfect Dark Zero, Joanna was redesigned by manga artist Wil Overton. Overton added more elements, including a star tattoo on the left side of her neck, a blonde streak in her hair. Her hair was changed from short and red to shoulder-length. Hollis stated that while he liked the new work, he could not imagine why she would wear the orange. According to him, It is uncharacteristic, quite apart from the practical problem of being a beacon for bullets—Secret Agents don’t wear orange for good reason. Process for her character went through several alterations. Images of the concept were met with much derision among the fans who criticized Joannas new manga-like appearance. In response, the developers chose to tone down some of the more stylized aspects of the design, in Perfect Dark Zero, she was voiced by Laurence Bouvard. For the cancelled sequel Perfect Dark Core, Dark was altered to fit the games realistic atmosphere, Joanna is described as a highly skilled marksman, a lethal hand-to-hand combat fighter, and an expert pilot and driver. She has incredible reflexes and an ability to sniff out trouble and her technical skills includes wiring up a charge, picking a lock or hacking a basic system
14.
Video game console
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A video game console is an electronic, digital or computer device that outputs a video signal or visual image to display a video game that one or more people can play. The term video game console is used to distinguish a console machine primarily designed for consumers to use for playing video games. An arcade machine consists of a video game computer, display, game controller, a home computer is a personal computer designed for home use for a variety of purposes, such as bookkeeping, accessing the Internet and playing video games. There are various types of game consoles, including home video game consoles, handheld game consoles, microconsoles. Although Ralph Baer had built working game consoles by 1966, it was nearly a decade before the Pong game made them commonplace in regular peoples living rooms. Through evolution over the 1990s and 2000s, game consoles have expanded to additional functions such as CD players, DVD players, Blu-ray disc players, web browsers, set-top boxes. The first video appeared in the 1960s. They were played on massive computers connected to vector displays, not analog televisions, Ralph H. Baer conceived the idea of a home video game in 1951. In the late 1960s, while working for Sanders Associates, Baer created a series of game console designs. In 1972, Magnavox released the Magnavox Odyssey, the first home game console which could be connected to a TV set. Magnavox replaced the switch design with separate cartridges for each game, by autumn 1975, Magnavox, bowing to the popularity of Pong, cancelled the Odyssey and released a scaled-down version that played only Pong and hockey, the Odyssey 100. A second, higher end console, the Odyssey 200, was released with the 100 and added on-screen scoring, up to four players, almost simultaneously released with Ataris own home Pong console through Sears, these consoles jump-started the consumer market. All three of the new consoles used simpler designs than the original Odyssey did with no board game pieces or extra cartridges, in the years that followed, the market saw many companies rushing similar consoles to market. Most of the consoles from this era were dedicated consoles playing only the games came with the console. These video game consoles were often just called video games, because there was reason to distinguish the two yet. While a few companies like Atari, Magnavox, and newcomer Coleco pushed the envelope, Fairchild released the Fairchild Video Entertainment System in 1976. The VES, however, contained a programmable microprocessor so its cartridges only needed a single ROM chip to store microprocessor instructions, RCA and Atari soon released their own cartridge-based consoles, the RCA Studio II and the Atari 2600, respectively. The first handheld console with interchangeable cartridges was the Microvision designed by Smith Engineering
15.
Novel
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A novel is any relatively long piece of written narrative fiction, normally in prose, and typically published as a book. The genre has also described as possessing, a continuous. This view sees the novels origins in Classical Greece and Rome, medieval, early modern romance, the latter, an Italian word used to describe short stories, supplied the present generic English term in the 18th century. The romance is a closely related long prose narrative, Romance, as defined here, should not be confused with the genre fiction love romance or romance novel. Other European languages do not distinguish between romance and novel, a novel is le roman, der Roman, il romanzo, a novel is a long, fictional narrative which describes intimate human experiences. Most European languages use the word romance for extended narratives, fictionality is most commonly cited as distinguishing novels from historiography. However this can be a problematic criterion, historians would also invent and compose speeches for didactic purposes. Novels can, on the hand, depict the social, political and personal realities of a place and period with clarity. Even in the 19th century, fictional narratives in verse, such as Lord Byrons Don Juan, Alexander Pushkins Yevgeniy Onegin, vikram Seths The Golden Gate, composed of 590 Onegin stanzas, is a more recent example of the verse novel. Both in 12th-century Japan and 15th-century Europe, prose fiction created intimate reading situations, on the other hand, verse epics, including the Odyssey and Aeneid, had been recited to a select audiences, though this was a more intimate experience than the performance of plays in theaters. A new world of Individualistic fashion, personal views, intimate feelings, secret anxieties, conduct and gallantry spread with novels, the novel is today the longest genre of narrative prose fiction, followed by the novella, short story, and flash fiction. However, in the 17th century critics saw the romance as of epic length, the length of a novel can still be important because most literary awards use length as a criterion in the ranking system. Urbanization and the spread of printed books in Song Dynasty China led to the evolution of oral storytelling into consciously fictional novels by the Ming dynasty, parallel European developments did not occur for centuries, and awaited the time when the availability of paper allowed for similar opportunities. By contrast, Ibn Tufails Hayy ibn Yaqdhan and Ibn al-Nafis Theologus Autodidactus are works of didactic philosophy, in this sense, Hayy ibn Yaqdhan would be considered an early example of a philosophical novel, while Theologus Autodidactus would be considered an early theological novel. Epic poetry exhibits some similarities with the novel, and the Western tradition of the novel back into the field of verse epics. Then at the beginning of the 18th century, French prose translations brought Homers works to a wider public, longus is the author of the famous Greek novel, Daphnis and Chloe. Romance or chivalric romance is a type of narrative in prose or verse popular in the circles of High Medieval. In later romances, particularly those of French origin, there is a tendency to emphasize themes of courtly love
16.
American comic book
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An American comic book is a thin periodical, typically 32-pages, containing primarily comics content. While the form originated in 1933, American comic books first gained popularity after the 1938 publication of Action Comics and this was followed by a superhero boom that lasted until the end of World War II. After the war, while superheroes were marginalized, the book industry rapidly expanded, and genres such as horror, crime. The 1950s saw a decline, due to a shift away from print media in the wake of television. The late 1950s and the 1960s saw a revival. Since the later 20th century, comic books have gained note as collectable items, Comic shops cater to fans, and particularly valuable issues have fetched in excess of a million dollars. Systems of grading comic books have emerged with plastic sleeves and cardboard backing available to maintain the condition of comic books, standard comics are 6.625 inches ×10.25 inches and about 32 pages long. While comics can be the work of a creator, the labour of making them is frequently divided between a number of specialists. There may be a writer and artist, or there may be separate artists for the characters. The process begins with the coming up with an idea or concept, then working it into a plot and story. After the art production, letters are placed on the page, the creative team, the writers and artists, may work with a comic book publisher for help with marketing, advertising, and other logistics. A distributor like Diamond Comic Distributors, the largest in the U. S. helps to distribute the product to retailers. Another part of the involved in successful comics is the interaction between the readers/fans and the creator. Fan art and letters to the editor were printed in the back of the book until the early 21st century. Comic specialty stores did help encourage several waves of independently-produced comics, the development of the modern American comic book happened in stages. The G. W. Dillingham Company published the first known proto-comic-book magazine in the U. S, the Yellow Kid in McFaddens Flats, in 1897. The 196-page, square-bound, black-and-white publication, which also includes text by E. W. Townsend, measured 5×7 inches. The neologism comic book appears on the back cover, despite the publication of a series of related Hearst comics soon afterward, the first monthly proto-comic book, Embee Distributing Companys Comic Monthly, did not appear until 1922
17.
Fictional universe
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A fictional universe is a self-consistent imaginary setting with events, and often other elements, that differ from the real world. It may also be called an imagined, constructed or fictional realm, fictional universes may appear in novels, comics, films, television shows, video games and other creative works. What distinguishes a fictional universe from a setting is the level of detail. A fictional universe has a continuity and internal logic that must be adhered to throughout the work. So, for instance, many books may be set in conflicting fictional versions of Victorian London, however, the various film series based on Sherlock Holmes follow their own separate continuities, and so do not take place in the same fictional universe. The history and geography of a universe are well-defined, and maps. When subsequent works are written within the universe, care is usually taken to ensure that established facts of the canon are not violated. Even if the fictional universe involves concepts such as magic that dont exist in the real world, a famous example of a detailed fictional universe is Arda, of J. R. R. Tolkiens books The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion. He created first its languages and then the world itself, which he states was primarily linguistic in inspiration and was begun in order to provide the history for the Elvish tongues. Another, more recent, famous fictional universe is that of the Avatar film series, as James Cameron has invented an entire ecosystem, also, he commissioned a linguistics expert to invent the Navi language. Virtually every successful fictional TV series or comic book develops its own universe to keep track of the episodes or issues. Writers for that series must follow the story bible, which becomes the series canon. This creates a universe that future authors can write about. These stories about the universe or universes that existed before the retcon are usually not canonical, Crisis on Infinite Earths was an especially sweeping example. Some writers choose to introduce elements or characters from one work into another, for example, the character of Ursula Buffay from American sitcom Mad About You was also a recurring guest star in Friends, despite the two series having little else in common. Fellow NBC series Seinfeld also contained references to Mad About You. L. Frank Baum introduced the characters of Capn Bill and Trot, the two characters made a number of subsequent appearances in later Oz books. Sir Thomas Mores Utopia is one of the earliest examples of a fictional world with its own rules and functional concepts
18.
Research and development
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Research and development, also known in Europe as research and technical development, is a general term for activities in connection with corporate or governmental innovation. Research and development is situated at the front end of the life cycle. R&D differs from the vast majority of activities in that it is not intended to yield immediate profit, and generally carries greater risk. New product design and development is more often not a crucial factor in the survival of a company. In an industry that is changing fast, firms must continually revise their design and this is necessary due to continuous technology change and development as well as other competitors and the changing preference of customers. Without an R&D program, a firm must rely on strategic alliances, acquisitions, a system driven by marketing is one that puts the customer needs first, and produces goods that are known to sell. Market research is carried out, which establishes what is needed, if the development is technology driven R&D is directed toward developing products to meet the unmet need. Statistics on organizations devoted to R&D may express the state of an industry, some common measures include, budgets, numbers of patents or on rates of peer-reviewed publications. Bank ratios are one of the best measures, because they are maintained, public. In the United States, a ratio of research and development for an industrial company is about 3. 5% of revenues. A high technolog company, such as a manufacturer, might spend 7% or a pharmaceutical companies such as Merck & Co.14. 1% or Novartis 15. 1%. That is, gross profits will be as much as 90% of the sales cost, with manufacturing costing only 10% of the product price, most industrial companies get 40% revenues only. On a technical level, high tech organizations explore ways to re-purpose and they often reuse advanced manufacturing processes, expensive safety certifications, specialized embedded software, computer-aided design software, electronic designs and mechanical subsystems. Research from 2000 has shown that firms with a persistent R&D strategy outperform those with an irregular or no R&D investment program. Research and development are very difficult to manage, since the feature of research is that the researchers do not know in advance exactly how to accomplish the desired result. As a result, higher R&D spending does not guarantee more creativity, research is the most risky financing area because both the development of an invention and its successful realization carries uncertainty including the profitability of the invention. One way of reducing the uncertainty of researching know-hows is to obtain already researched know-hows, president Barack Obama requested $147.696 billion for research & development in FY2012. Much of this spending was devoted to research on the mechanisms of disease
19.
Arms industry
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The arms industry, also known as the defense industry or the arms trade, is a global industry responsible for the manufacturing and sales of weapons and military technology. It consists of a commercial industry involved in the research and development, engineering, production, and servicing of military material, equipment, and facilities. Arms-producing companies, also referred to as arms dealers, defense contractors, or as the industry, produce arms for the armed forces of states. Departments of government also operate in the industry, buying and selling weapons, munitions. An arsenal is a place where arms and ammunition are made, maintained and repaired, stored, or issued, in any combination, the arms industry also provides other logistical and operational support. Stockholm International Peace Research Institute estimated in 2012 that 2012 military expenditures were roughly 1.8 trillion United States dollars and this represents a relative decline from 1990 when military expenditures made up 4% of world GDP. Part of the money goes to the procurement of military hardware, the combined arms sales of the top 100 largest arms-producing companies amounted to an estimated $395 billion in 2012 according to SIPRI. In 2004 over $30 billion were spent in the arms trade. According to SIPRI, the volume of transfers of major weapons in 2010–14 was 16 per cent higher than in 2005–2009. The five biggest exporters in 2010–2014 were the United States, Russia, China, Germany and France, and the five biggest importers were India, Saudi Arabia, China, many industrialized countries have a domestic arms-industry to supply their own military forces. Some countries also have a legal or illegal domestic trade in weapons for use by its citizens, primarily for self-defense. Illegal trade in small arms occurs in countries and regions affected by political instability. The Small Arms Survey estimates that 875 million small arms circulate worldwide, contracts to supply a given countrys military are awarded by governments, making arms contracts of substantial political importance. Various corporations, some publicly held, others private, bid for these contracts, other times, no bidding or competition takes place. The modern arms industry emerged in the half of the nineteenth century as a product of the creation and expansion of the first large military-industrial companies. In 1854, the British government awarded a contract to the Elswick Ordnance Company of industrialist William Armstrong for the supply of his latest breech loading rifled artillery pieces and this galvanised the private sector into weapons production, with the surplus being increasingly exported to foreign countries. Armstrong became one of the first international arms dealers, selling his weapon systems to governments across the world from Brazil to Japan. In 1884, he opened a shipyard at Elswick to specialise in warship production—at the time, it was the factory in the world that could build a battleship
20.
China
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China, officially the Peoples Republic of China, is a unitary sovereign state in East Asia and the worlds most populous country, with a population of over 1.381 billion. The state is governed by the Communist Party of China and its capital is Beijing, the countrys major urban areas include Shanghai, Guangzhou, Beijing, Chongqing, Shenzhen, Tianjin and Hong Kong. China is a power and a major regional power within Asia. Chinas landscape is vast and diverse, ranging from forest steppes, the Himalaya, Karakoram, Pamir and Tian Shan mountain ranges separate China from much of South and Central Asia. The Yangtze and Yellow Rivers, the third and sixth longest in the world, respectively, Chinas coastline along the Pacific Ocean is 14,500 kilometers long and is bounded by the Bohai, Yellow, East China and South China seas. China emerged as one of the worlds earliest civilizations in the basin of the Yellow River in the North China Plain. For millennia, Chinas political system was based on hereditary monarchies known as dynasties, in 1912, the Republic of China replaced the last dynasty and ruled the Chinese mainland until 1949, when it was defeated by the communist Peoples Liberation Army in the Chinese Civil War. The Communist Party established the Peoples Republic of China in Beijing on 1 October 1949, both the ROC and PRC continue to claim to be the legitimate government of all China, though the latter has more recognition in the world and controls more territory. China had the largest economy in the world for much of the last two years, during which it has seen cycles of prosperity and decline. Since the introduction of reforms in 1978, China has become one of the worlds fastest-growing major economies. As of 2016, it is the worlds second-largest economy by nominal GDP, China is also the worlds largest exporter and second-largest importer of goods. China is a nuclear weapons state and has the worlds largest standing army. The PRC is a member of the United Nations, as it replaced the ROC as a permanent member of the U. N. Security Council in 1971. China is also a member of numerous formal and informal multilateral organizations, including the WTO, APEC, BRICS, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the BCIM, the English name China is first attested in Richard Edens 1555 translation of the 1516 journal of the Portuguese explorer Duarte Barbosa. The demonym, that is, the name for the people, Portuguese China is thought to derive from Persian Chīn, and perhaps ultimately from Sanskrit Cīna. Cīna was first used in early Hindu scripture, including the Mahābhārata, there are, however, other suggestions for the derivation of China. The official name of the state is the Peoples Republic of China. The shorter form is China Zhōngguó, from zhōng and guó and it was then applied to the area around Luoyi during the Eastern Zhou and then to Chinas Central Plain before being used as an occasional synonym for the state under the Qing
21.
Bounty hunter
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A bounty hunter is a person who captures fugitives and criminals for a monetary reward. The term bounty hunting is now not often used or liked by many in the due to its historical context. While bounty hunters may be skiptracers as well, bounty hunting is a civil matter, when undertaking arrest warrants, agents may wear bullet-resistant vests, badges and other clothing branded with BAIL ENFORCEMENT AGENT, or similar titles. Many agents also use two-way radios to communicate each other. Many agents arm themselves with firearms, or, sometimes, with lethal weapons, such as tasers, batons. In the United States, the National Association of Fugitive Recovery Agents is the association representing this industry. If the fugitive eludes bail, the bondsman, not the bounty hunter, is responsible for 100% of the bail amount. This is a way of ensuring clients arrive at trial, as of 2003, bounty hunters claimed to catch 31,500 bail jumpers per year, about 90% of people who jump bail. Bounty hunters have varying levels of authority in their duties with regard to their targets depending on which states they operate in, barring restrictions applicable state by state, a bounty hunter may enter the fugitives private property without a warrant in order to execute a re-arrest. A bounty hunter cannot, however, enter the property of other than the fugitive without a warrant or the owners permission. In some states, bounty hunters do not undergo any formal training, in other states, however, they are held to varying standards of training and license. This may have been accurate at the time the decision was reached, as of 2012 Nebraska and Maine in addition to the aforementioned Illinois, Kentucky, Oregon and Wisconsin prohibited surety bail bonds. Another three states, Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, as well as the District of Columbia heavily restrict bounty hunting, some of the more advanced schools offer specialized training in the area of tactical firearms to prepare BEAs for conducting dangerous recovery operations. Illinois abolished commercial bail, so it has no bail bondsmen, Kentucky prohibits bounty hunting in any form. Only a peace officer may make an arrest on a warrant that is issued in NCIC and this is because the state does not have a system of bail bondsmen. Earlier in state history, it was allowed, louisiana requires bounty hunters to wear clothing identifying them as one. As of 2012 Maine prohibited surety bail bonds, as of 2012 Nebraska prohibited commercial bail bonds. A Nevada bounty hunter is referred to as an enforcement agent or bail enforcement solicitor
22.
Perfect Dark (Game Boy Color)
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Perfect Dark is an action video game developed and published by Rare. It was exclusively released for the Game Boy Color handheld game console in August 2000, the gameplay revolves around shooting opponents and completing objectives such as rescuing hostages or recovering items. It also features a mode where two players may compete in several deathmatch modes. Perfect Dark includes a built-in rumble functionality into the cartridge and supports the Game Boy Printer, Game Link Cable. The Transfer Pak allows certain features within the Nintendo 64 game to alternatively be unlocked, Perfect Dark received generally a mixed reaction from video game critics, who criticized its superficial stealth mechanics and unoriginal mini-games, but praised its graphics and audio. Perfect Dark is a game that is presented from an overhead perspective where the player can move and shoot in eight directions, similar to Metal Gear. The player assumes the role of Joanna Dark, who must initially complete a training mode where she will be provided a fixed sequence of challenges so that the player learns the game mechanics. The campaign is divided into missions that the player has to complete while fighting enemies. Objectives range from rescuing hostages to exploring areas and recovering items such as keycards, explosives or laptop computers, the player can pick up new weapons, health and ammunition dropped by enemies if necessary. The game also features several mini-games, including a driving level, by beating any of these mini-games, the player can access them in the games extras menu. In addition to the campaign, Perfect Dark features a multiplayer mode. Various multiplayer maps are unlocked as the player progresses through the single player mode, additionally, with the use of the optional Transfer Pak, players can use the games cartridge to alternatively unlock some cheats in its Nintendo 64 counterpart. Players may also use the Game Boy Printer to print out character profiles, Perfect Dark is set in early 2022, predating the storyline of the Nintendo 64 game by one year. Joanna Dark is a student at the Carrington Institute and she is eager to complete the stages of her training. After completing her training successfully, Carrington Institute leader Daniel Carrington sends her on a mission to destroy an illegal cyborg manufacturing facility in the South American jungle, the facility is headed by Mink Hunter, a highly dangerous terrorist whose purpose is to produce high-tech weaponry for terrorist operations. Joanna manages to complete her mission by eliminating Hunter and destroying the entire facility, when Carrington contacts Joanna, she reports that, during her landing in the jungle, she witnessed an aircraft being shot down and made a note of the co-ordinates. Carrington soon learns that there is a UFO in the area at the time and that dataDyne, Joanna is then ordered to snoop around and investigate the crash site. In the process, she is captured and taken to the Pelagic I ship, nevertheless, a mysterious alien rescues her and convinces her to sink the Pelagic I with the wreckage and escape
23.
Perfect Dark Zero
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Perfect Dark Zero is a first-person shooter video game developed by Rare and published by Microsoft Game Studios. It was exclusively released as a title for the Xbox 360 video game console on November 22,2005 in North America. The game is part of the Perfect Dark series and a prequel to the original Perfect Dark, both the co-operative and multiplayer modes support split-screen, system link, and the Xbox Live online service. The game was under development for five years and was intended to be released for the Nintendo GameCube. During development, several intended features were canceled so that the game could meet the Xbox 360 launch, the games numerous multiplayer modes singled out as strong features. However, some felt that the game did not meet the expectations, criticising single-player aspects such as its story. In 2015, the game was included in the Rare Replay video game compilation for Xbox One, Perfect Dark Zero is a first-person shooter where players control the player character mostly from a first-person perspective. Players cannot jump but have the ability to climb obstacles as long as they can reasonably reach them. It is also possible to climb ladders, by doing so, the camera shifts into a third-person perspective. The player has an amount of health which decreases when attacked by enemies. The health can recharge a bit if the steps out of the line of fire for a few seconds. The players movement speed is altered by the weight of the weapon the player is currently holding. Besides the primary function, all of the weapons in Perfect Dark Zero have one or two additional modes that generally grant the player with special abilities. Some weapons also feature more unorthodox secondary functions, for instance, the Laptop Gun can be deployed as a sentry gun, while the SuperDragon assault rifle can launch bouncing grenades. The campaign is divided into 14 missions in which the plays as Joanna Dark. Each mission provides a number of objectives that the player has to complete to progress, to successfully clear a mission, the player must complete all primary objectives, and if Joanna is killed or fails an objective, the player will have to start the level again. The missions also feature optional objectives that are not critical but add to the overall completion score. Some objectives require the player to use numerous high-tech gadgets, for example, a device called Datathief allows the player to hack into electronic devices, while another called Loctopus can be used to open locked doors
24.
Remaster
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Remaster refers to enhancing the quality of the sound or of the image, or both, of previously created recordings, either audiophonic, cinematic, or videographic. For example, sound effects might have been added from copies of sound effect similar to modern sampling to make a radio play for broadcast. A master is the recording which experts state will be the copy that is duplicated for the end user usually into other formats i. e. LP records. Problematically, several different levels of masters often exist for any one audio release, as an example, examine the way a typical music album from the 1960s was created. Musicians and vocalists were recorded on multi-track tape and this tape was mixed to create a stereo or mono master. More master recordings would be duplicated from the master for regional copying purposes. Pressing masters for vinyl recordings would be created, often these interim recordings were referred to as Mother Tapes. All vinyl records would derive from one of the master recordings, thus, mastering refers to the process of creating a master. This might be as simple as copying a tape for further duplication purposes, or might include the actual equalization, the latter example usually requires the work of mastering engineers. With the advent of recording in the late 1970s, many mastering ideas changed. Previously, creating new masters meant incurring an analogue generational loss, in other words and this means how much of the original intended good information is recorded against faults added to the recording as a result of the technical limitations of the equipment used. Although noise reduction techniques exist, they also increase other audio distortions such as shift, wow and flutter, print-through. With digital recording, masters could be created and duplicated without incurring the usual generational loss, as CDs were a digital format, digital masters created from original analog recordings became a necessity. Remastering is the process of making a new master for an album, film and it tends to refer to the process of porting a recording from an analogue medium to a digital one, but this is not always the case. All CDs created from analogue sources are technically digitally remastered, the process of creating a digital transfer of an analogue tape remasters the material in the digital domain, even if no equalization, compression, or other processing is done to the material. Ideally, because of their resolution, a CD or DVD release should come from the best source possible. Additionally, the earliest days of the CD era found digital technology in its infancy, the earliest days of the DVD era were not much different, with early DVD copies of films frequently being produced from worn prints, with low bitrates and muffled audio. When the first CD remasters turned out to be bestsellers, companies soon realized that new editions of back-catalogue items could compete with new releases as a source of revenue, back-catalogue values skyrocketed, and today it is not unusual to see expanded and remastered editions of fairly modern albums
25.
Xbox Live Arcade
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Xbox Live Arcade is a digital video game download service available through the Xbox Games Store, Microsofts digital distribution network for the Xbox 360. It focuses on smaller downloadable games from major publishers and independent game developers. Titles range from classic console and arcade games, to new games designed from the ground up for the service. Games available through the XBLA service range from $5–20 in price, prior to the Xbox 360, Xbox Live Arcade was the name for an online distribution network on the original Xbox, which was replaced by the Xbox Live Marketplace. The Xbox Live Arcade service was announced on May 12,2004, at Microsofts E3 press conference by Bill Gates and launched on December 3,2004. The XBLA software was obtained by ordering it on Microsofts website and it was sent by mail on a disc that also contained a free version of the Ms. Pac-Man video game. Once connected to Xbox Live, customers could purchase additional titles by using a credit card, prices for the games range from $4.99 to $14.99. On November 22,2005, XBLA was relaunched on the Xbox 360, the service was integrated into the main Dashboard user interface, and the Xbox 360 hard drives were bundled with a free copy of Hexic HD. Every Arcade title on the Xbox 360 supports leaderboards, has 200 Achievement points and they also have a trial version available for free download. These demos are playable and most of them only a fraction of the levels, modes. A full version of the game must be purchased to allow the user to upload scores to the leaderboards, unlock achievements, play online multiplayer, and download bonus content. The original size limit imposed by Microsoft for Xbox Live Arcade games was 50MB, the limit has since been changed to 150MB, then 350MB, and now 2GB, the latter of which is a technical limitation of the system. On September 12,2012 the 2GB limit was raised to a number with two titles, Red Johnsons Chronicles and Double Dragon Neon weighing at 2. 68GB and 2. 24GB. On July 12,2006, Microsoft launched the Xbox Live Arcade Wednesdays program, when that summer ended, Microsoft announced that new titles for XBLA would also be released on Wednesdays. In order to promote the service in retail, Microsoft released Xbox Live Arcade Unplugged Volume 1 as a disc of six games. On October 18,2007, Microsoft announced the Xbox 360 Arcade console SKU which includes versions of Boom Boom Rocket, Feeding Frenzy, Luxor 2, Pac-Man Championship Edition. Furthermore, Microsoft created an internal games studio to create high quality digital content for XBLA, on July 30,2008, Microsoft announced the XBLA Summer of Arcade. Another Summer of Arcade began the year on July 22,2009
26.
GoldenEye 007 (1997 video game)
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GoldenEye 007 is a first-person shooter video game developed by Rare and based on the 1995 James Bond film GoldenEye. It was released for the Nintendo 64 video game console in August 1997, the game includes a split-screen multiplayer mode in which two, three, or four players can compete in different types of deathmatch games. GoldenEye 007 was developed over a period of two and a half years by an inexperienced team and it was originally conceived as an on-rails shooter inspired by Segas Virtua Cop, before being redesigned as a free-roaming shooter. The game was acclaimed by the gaming media and sold over eight million copies worldwide. It pioneered features such as atmospheric single-player missions, stealth elements, the game is frequently cited as one of the greatest video games of all time. A spiritual successor, Perfect Dark, was released in 2000, while a reimagining of the game, GoldenEye 007 is a first-person shooter that features both single and multiplayer modes. In the single-player mode, the player takes the role of James Bond through a series of free-roaming 3D levels, the arsenal of weapons includes pistols, submachine guns, assault rifles, grenades, and throwing knives, among others. Guns have a magazine and must be reloaded after a certain number of shots. The players initial weapon in most missions is James Bonds Walther PPK, Most of the games firearms are modelled on real-life counterparts, while others are based on fictitious devices featured in the Bond films, such as the Golden Gun and Moonraker laser. The weapons vary in such as rate of fire, degree of penetration, and type of ammunition used. Stealth is a significant element of the gameplay, frequent gunfire can alert distant guards, therefore, to avoid gunfights with numerous opponents, it is advantageous to eliminate soldiers and security cameras before they spot or hear the player. Certain weapons incorporate suppressor or telescopic sight attachments to aid the player in killing enemies discreetly, there are no health-recovery items in the game, although armour vests can be acquired to provide a secondary health bar. Four save files are available to track the players progress through the games twenty missions, each of which may be played on Agent, Secret Agent, once a mission is completed, the player may either continue progressing through the story or choose to replay a previously completed level. Completing certain missions within particular target times enables the player to unlock bonus cheat options which make various changes to the gameplay, normal is a basic deathmatch mode in which the main objective is to kill opponents as many times as possible. It can be played as a game or in teams. In You Only Live Twice, players only have two lives before they are eliminated from the game, and Licence to Kill is a mode in which players die from a hit with any weapon. The player with the Golden Gun is unable to pick up body armour while opponents can, in The Living Daylights, a flag is placed in a fixed location on the map, and the player who holds it the longest wins. The flag-carrier cannot use weapons but can collect them to keep opponents from stocking ammunition
27.
Martin Hollis (video game designer)
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Martin Hollis is a computer and video game designer. He has worked in the computer and video game industry since 1996 and was Head of Software at Rare and he was director and producer of the critically acclaimed first-person shooters GoldenEye 007 and Perfect Dark. He left Rare in 1998,14 months into the development of Perfect Dark, in 2000, he founded Zoonami in Cambridge. ^ Desert Island Disks, David Doak, Retro Gamer issue 6, pp. 41–45. ISSN 1742-3155 ^ The Legacy of Perfect Dark, Martin Hollis Q&A Retro Gamer issue 19 pp.79, ISSN 1742-3155 Martin Hollis on Twitter Interview with Martin Hollis, Gamasutra. com
28.
GoldenEye
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GoldenEye is the seventeenth spy film in the James Bond series, and the first to star Pierce Brosnan as the fictional MI6 officer James Bond. The film was directed by Martin Campbell and is the first in the not to take story elements from the works of novelist Ian Fleming. The story was conceived and written by Michael France, with collaboration by other writers. In the film, Bond fights to prevent an ex-MI6 agent, gone rogue, GoldenEye was released in 1995 after a six-year hiatus in the series caused by legal disputes, during which Timothy Dalton resigned from the role of James Bond and was replaced by Pierce Brosnan. M was also recast, with actress Judi Dench becoming the first woman to portray the character, the role of Miss Moneypenny was also recast, with Caroline Bliss being replaced by Samantha Bond, Desmond Llewelyn was the only actor to reprise his role as Q. GoldenEye was the first Bond film made after the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, the film accumulated a worldwide gross of US$350.7 million, considerably better than Daltons films, without taking inflation into account. The film received positive reviews, with critics viewing Brosnan as an improvement over his predecessor. The film also received nominations for Best Achievement in Special Effects and Best Sound from the British Academy of Film. The name GoldenEye pays homage to James Bonds creator, Ian Fleming, Fleming used the name of his operation for his estate in Oracabessa, Jamaica. In 1986, at Arkhangelsk, MI6 agents James Bond and Alec Trevelyan infiltrate a Soviet chemical weapons facility, Trevelyan is captured and gunned down by Colonel Arkady Grigorovich Ourumov, but Bond flees as the facility explodes. Nine years later, in Monte Carlo, Bond follows Xenia Onatopp, a member of the Janus crime syndicate, who has formed a relationship with Charles Farrel. They program the GoldenEye to destroy the complex, and escape with programmer Boris Grishenko, Natalya Simonova, the lone survivor, contacts Boris and arranges to meet him in Saint Petersburg, where he betrays her to Janus. In London, M assigns Bond to investigate the attack and he flies to Saint Petersburg to meet CIA operative Jack Wade, who suggests that Bond meet with Valentin Zukovsky, a former KGB agent and business rival of Janus. Zukovsky arranges a meeting between Bond and Janus, Onatopp surprises Bond at the Grand Hotel Europe and attempts to kill him, but he overpowers her. She takes Bond to Janus, who himself as Trevelyan. Just as Bond is about to shoot Trevelyan, Bond is shot with a tranquilizer dart, Bond awakens, tied up with Natalya in the helicopter, which has been programmed to self-destruct. They escape but are captured and transported to the Russian military archives, just as Natalya reveals the existence of a second satellite and Ourumovs involvement in the Siberian massacre, Ourumov arrives and kills Mishkin. Intending to frame Bond for the murder, he calls the guards, in the ensuing firefight, Natalya is captured
29.
Tomorrow Never Dies
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Tomorrow Never Dies is the eighteenth spy film in the James Bond series, and the second to star Pierce Brosnan as the fictional MI6 agent James Bond. Filming locations included France, Thailand, Germany, Mexico and the United Kingdom, Tomorrow Never Dies performed well at the box office and earned a Golden Globe nomination despite mixed reviews. MI6 sends James Bond, agent 007, into the field to spy on a terrorist arms bazaar on the Russian border, despite Ms insistence to let 007 finish his reconnaissance, British Admiral Roebuck orders the frigate HMS Chester to launch a missile attack on the arms bazaar. Bond then discovers two nuclear torpedoes mounted on an L-39 Albatros, and as the missile is too far along to be aborted,007 hijacks the L-39 and flies away seconds before the bazaar is destroyed. The British Minister of Defence orders Roebuck to deploy the British Fleet to recover the frigate, M sends Bond to investigate Carver after he releases news articles about the crisis hours before MI6 had learned of it. Bond travels to Hamburg and seduces Carvers wife, Paris, who is also Bonds ex-girlfriend and he also knocks out three of Stampers men and cuts Carver off the air while he is giving a speech during the inaugural broadcast of his satellite network. After Bond steals back the GPS encoder, Carver orders Paris, Paris is murdered by Carvers personal assassin Dr. Kaufman, but Bond kills Kaufman and escapes, protecting the encoder. Bond learns that the encoder had been tampered with, and goes to the South China Sea to investigate the wreck. He and Wai Lin, a Chinese agent on the case, explore the sunken ship and discover one of its cruise missiles missing. They soon escape and decide to collaborate on the investigation and they find Carvers stealth ship, which had been built with stolen stealth material, in Ha Long Bay, and board it to prevent him from firing the stolen British cruise missile at Beijing. During the attempt, Wai Lin is captured, forcing Bond to devise a second plan, Bond captures Gupta to use as his own hostage, but Carver kills Gupta, claiming he has outlived his contract. While Wai Lin disables the engines, and is captured by Stamper, after killing Carver with his own sea drill, Bond attempts to destroy the warhead with detonators, but Stamper appears and attacks him after sending Wai Lin into the waters to drown. Bond traps Stamper in the firing mechanism and dives to save Wai Lin as the missile explodes, destroying the ship. Later, Bond and Wai Lin share a romantic moment amidst the wreckage as the Bedford searches for them, Pierce Brosnan as James Bond, MI6 agent 007. Michelle Yeoh as Colonel Wai Lin, a skilled Chinese spy, Jonathan Pryce as Elliot Carver, a psychopathic media mogul who plans to provoke global war to boost sales and ratings of his news divisions. Teri Hatcher as Paris Carver, a girlfriend of Bond who is now Carvers trophy wife. Götz Otto as Richard Stamper, Carvers henchman, who is skilled in the art of Chakra torture, ricky Jay as Henry Gupta, an American Techno-terrorist in the employ of Carver. Bruce Feirstein said he named this character after a Gupta Bakery, joe Don Baker as Jack Wade, CIA liaison, reprising his role from GoldenEye
30.
Electronic Entertainment Expo
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The Electronic Entertainment Expo, commonly referred to as E3, is an annual trade fair for the video game industry presented by the Entertainment Software Association. It is used by video game publishers and accessory manufacturers to introduce and advertise upcoming games. E3 used to be an event, individuals who wished to attend were required by the ESA to verify a professional connection to the video-game industry. E3 is usually held in late May or early June at the Los Angeles Convention Center in Los Angeles, the show in 2017 will be held from June 13–15,2017. Before E3, game publishers went to trade shows to display new or upcoming products, these include the Consumer Electronics Show. As the game industry grew rapidly during the early 1990s, industry professionals felt that it had outgrown the older trade shows, according to Tom Kalinske, CEO of Sega America, The CES organizers used to put the video games industry way, way in the back. In 1991 they put us in a tent, and you had to walk past all the vendors to find us. That particular year it was pouring rain, and the rain leaked right over our new Genesis system, I was just furious with the way CES treated the video games industry, and I felt we were a more important industry than they were giving us credit for. Sega did not return to the CES the following year, the first E3 was conceived by IDGs Infotainment World and co-founded by the Interactive Digital Software Association. It coincided with a new generation of consoles, the release of the Sega Saturn, although specifications for the Nintendo Ultra 64 were released, no hardware was displayed. Although the IDSA asked the CES for private meeting space for game developers, patrick Ferrell, CEO of IDGs Infotainment World, sent his vice president of marketing to the meeting, when Ferrell received the CES reply, Infotainment World management announced E3. Needing full industry support, Ferrell negotiated an agreement between IDG and the IDSA and they co-produced the show for several years, the first event was held from May 11–13,1995 in Los Angeles. Keynote speakers included Sega of America president and CEO Thomas Kalinske, Sony Electronic Publishing president Olaf Olafsson and it was one of the largest trade-show debuts in history, with 700,000 square feet of exhibit space and over 48,900 attendees. In its current form, the Expo primarily features presentations from major hardware and software publishers, traditionally including Microsoft, Sony, Activision, Ubisoft, Nintendo and this often includes reveals of new hardware and software products. Following these presentations, the exhibition halls open, allowing attendees to speak to various company representations to get more information on upcoming titles. Here, many developers and publishers will have booths for their products. E3 has traditionally been a closed event expect to members of the game industry. In 2015, ESA distributed 5,000 tickets to the exhibitors to give to their fans, E32016 featured a separate but free E3 Live event at the nearby L. A
31.
GameCube
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The GameCube is a home video game console released by Nintendo in Japan on September 14,2001, in North America on November 18,2001, in Europe on May 3,2002, and in Australia on May 17,2002. The sixth-generation console is the successor to the Nintendo 64 and competed with Sony Computer Entertainments PlayStation 2, the GameCube is the first Nintendo console to use optical discs as its primary storage medium. The discs are similar to the format, as a result of their smaller size and the consoles small disc compartment. Contemporary reception of the GameCube was generally positive, the console was praised for its controller, extensive software library and high-quality games, but was criticized for its exterior design and lack of features. Nintendo sold 21.74 million GameCube units worldwide before it was discontinued in 2007 and its successor, the Wii, which is backwards-compatible with most GameCube software, was released in November 2006. In 1997, a hardware design company called ArtX was launched, staffed by twenty engineers who had previously worked at SGI on the design of the Nintendo 64s graphics hardware. The team was led by Dr. Wei Yen, who had been SGIs head of Nintendo Operations, at Nintendos press conference in May 1999, the console was first publicly announced as Project Dolphin, the successor to the Nintendo 64. At the conference, Nintendos Howard Lincoln said of ArtX, This company is headed up by Dr. Wei Yen, Dr. Yen has assembled at ArtX one of the best teams of 3D graphics engineers on the planet. Subsequently, Nintendo began providing development kits to game developers, Nintendo also formed a strategic partnership with IBM for the production of Dolphins CPU, code-named Gekko. ArtX was acquired by ATI in April 2000, whereupon the Flipper graphics processor design had already mostly completed by ArtX and was not overtly influenced by ATI. In total, ArtX team cofounder Greg Buchner recalled that their portion of the hardware design timeline had arced from inception in 1998 to completion in 2000. Of ATIs acquisition of ArtX, an ATI spokesperson said, ATI now becomes a major supplier to the console market via Nintendo. The Dolphin platform is reputed to be king of the hill in terms of graphics, the console was announced as the Nintendo GameCube at a press conference in Japan on August 24,2000, abbreviated as NGC in Japan and GCN in North America. Nintendo unveiled its software lineup for the console at E32001, focusing on fifteen launch titles, including Luigis Mansion and Star Wars Rogue Squadron II. Several titles that were scheduled to launch with the console were delayed. It is also the first console in the history not to accompany a Mario platform title at launch. Long prior to the launch, Nintendo had developed and patented an early prototype of motion controls for the GameCube. These motion control concepts would not be deployed to consumers for several years, prior to the Nintendo GameCubes release, Nintendo focused resources on the launch of the Game Boy Advance, a handheld game console and successor to the original Game Boy and Game Boy Color
32.
Killer Instinct (1994 video game)
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Killer Instinct is a fighting video game developed by Rare and published by Midway and Nintendo. It was released as a game in the fall of 1994 and, the following year, ported to the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. The games plot involves an all-powerful corporation organising a fighting tournament, the story was adapted in a limited comic book series published under the short-lived Acclaim Comics imprint. Killer Instinct features several elements unique to fighting games of the time. Instead of fighting enemies in best-of-three rounds bouts, each player has two life bars, the player that depletes the other players life bars first wins the match. The game also introduced auto-doubles, a feature allows players to press a certain sequence of buttons to make characters automatically perform combos on opponents. Also featured in the game are combo breakers, special moves that can interrupt combos. A port of the game is included with the 2013 game under the title Killer Instinct Classic. Retrospective lists by various publications included it among the best fighting games of all time, Killer Instinct plays like many other fighting games, in which the player controls a character to beat an opponent in a one-on-one encounter. The game borrows the attack set of Street Fighter and is inspired by the finishing moves from Mortal Kombat. There are also features that distinguish it from other franchises, A double energy bar. The player who depletes his or her opponents life bar wins the bout. Automatic combos, In Killer Instinct, many combos are automated, rather than requiring the player to press a button for every attack within a combo, the computer will perform certain attacks within a sequence after key buttons are inputted. Finishing moves, Bearing resemblance to Mortal Kombats Fatalities, each character has at least two known as No Mercy to finish the opponent. One of these No Mercy moves can be executed at the end of a combo, another finisher is the Humiliation, that forces the opponent to dance, but this can only be used if the player has his or her first life bar. Killer Instincts finishing moves, while brutal, do not feature the level of violence typical of Mortal Kombats Fatalities. Combo Breaker, The player who is being caught in a combo may break out of it by performing a combo breaker move, the combo breaker is a designated special move of the players character. A combo can be broken at either the auto-double or linker stage, to successfully break an auto-double, the player must use the breaker move at a strength lower than the auto-double itself
33.
Microsoft
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Its best known software products are the Microsoft Windows line of operating systems, Microsoft Office office suite, and Internet Explorer and Edge web browsers. Its flagship hardware products are the Xbox video game consoles and the Microsoft Surface tablet lineup, as of 2016, it was the worlds largest software maker by revenue, and one of the worlds most valuable companies. Microsoft was founded by Paul Allen and Bill Gates on April 4,1975, to develop and it rose to dominate the personal computer operating system market with MS-DOS in the mid-1980s, followed by Microsoft Windows. The companys 1986 initial public offering, and subsequent rise in its share price, since the 1990s, it has increasingly diversified from the operating system market and has made a number of corporate acquisitions. In May 2011, Microsoft acquired Skype Technologies for $8.5 billion, in June 2012, Microsoft entered the personal computer production market for the first time, with the launch of the Microsoft Surface, a line of tablet computers. The word Microsoft is a portmanteau of microcomputer and software, Paul Allen and Bill Gates, childhood friends with a passion for computer programming, sought to make a successful business utilizing their shared skills. In 1972 they founded their first company, named Traf-O-Data, which offered a computer that tracked and analyzed automobile traffic data. Allen went on to pursue a degree in science at Washington State University. The January 1975 issue of Popular Electronics featured Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systemss Altair 8800 microcomputer, Allen suggested that they could program a BASIC interpreter for the device, after a call from Gates claiming to have a working interpreter, MITS requested a demonstration. Since they didnt actually have one, Allen worked on a simulator for the Altair while Gates developed the interpreter and they officially established Microsoft on April 4,1975, with Gates as the CEO. Allen came up with the name of Micro-Soft, as recounted in a 1995 Fortune magazine article. In August 1977 the company formed an agreement with ASCII Magazine in Japan, resulting in its first international office, the company moved to a new home in Bellevue, Washington in January 1979. Microsoft entered the OS business in 1980 with its own version of Unix, however, it was MS-DOS that solidified the companys dominance. For this deal, Microsoft purchased a CP/M clone called 86-DOS from Seattle Computer Products, branding it as MS-DOS, following the release of the IBM PC in August 1981, Microsoft retained ownership of MS-DOS. Since IBM copyrighted the IBM PC BIOS, other companies had to engineer it in order for non-IBM hardware to run as IBM PC compatibles. Due to various factors, such as MS-DOSs available software selection, the company expanded into new markets with the release of the Microsoft Mouse in 1983, as well as with a publishing division named Microsoft Press. Paul Allen resigned from Microsoft in 1983 after developing Hodgkins disease, while jointly developing a new OS with IBM in 1984, OS/2, Microsoft released Microsoft Windows, a graphical extension for MS-DOS, on November 20,1985. Once Microsoft informed IBM of NT, the OS/2 partnership deteriorated, in 1990, Microsoft introduced its office suite, Microsoft Office
34.
Xbox (console)
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The Xbox is a home video game console and the first installment in the Xbox series of consoles manufactured by Microsoft. It was released on November 15,2001, in North America, followed by Australia, Europe and it was Microsofts first foray into the gaming console market. The sixth-generation console competed with Sonys PlayStation 2 and the Nintendo GameCube and it was also the first console produced by an American company since the Atari Jaguar ceased production in 1996. Announced in 2000, The Xbox, graphically powerful compared to its rivals and it was also noted for its PC-like size and weight, and was the first console to feature a built-in hard disk. In November 2002, Microsoft launched Xbox Live, an online gaming service that enabled subscribers to download new content. Unlike other online services from Sega and Sony, Xbox Live had support in the console design through an integrated Ethernet port. The service gave Microsoft an early foothold in online gaming and would help the Xbox become a relevant competitor to other sixth-generation consoles, the popularity of blockbuster titles such as Halo 2 contributed to the popularity of online console gaming, and in particular first-person shooters. Despite this and being in position, ahead of Nintendos GameCube. Xboxs successor, the Xbox 360, was launched in November 2005, the Xbox was soon discontinued beginning with Microsofts worst-performing market, Japan, in 2005. Other countries would follow suit in 2006, the last Xbox game in Europe was Xiaolin Showdown released in June 2007, and the last game in North America was Madden NFL09 released in August 2008. Support for out-of-warranty Xbox consoles was discontinued on March 2,2009, support for Xbox Live on the console ended on April 15,2010. The team hoped to create a console to compete with Sonys upcoming PlayStation 2, the team approached Ed Fries, the leader of Microsofts game publishing business at the time, and pitched their DirectX Box console based on the DirectX graphics technology developed by Berkes team. Fries decided to support the idea of creating a Windows DirectX based console. During development, the original DirectXbox name was shortened to Xbox, Microsofts marketing department did not like the Xbox name, and suggested many alternatives. During focus testing, the Xbox name was left on the list of names to demonstrate how unpopular the Xbox name would be with consumers. However, consumer testing revealed that Xbox was preferred by far over the suggested names. It was Microsofts first video game console after collaborating with Sega to port Windows CE to the Dreamcast console, Microsoft repeatedly delayed the console, which was first mentioned publicly in late 1999 during interviews with Microsofts then-CEO Bill Gates. Gates stated that “we want Xbox to be the platform of choice for the best and most creative game developers in the world. ”The Xbox was officially announced at the Game Developers Conference on March 10,2000, audiences were impressed by the consoles technology
35.
Cutscene
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A cutscene or event scene is a sequence in a video game that is not interactive, breaking up the gameplay. Cutscenes often feature on the fly rendering, using the graphics to create scripted events. Cutscenes can also be pre-rendered computer graphics streamed from a video file, pre-made videos used in video games are referred to as full motion videos or FMVs. Cutscenes can also appear in forms, such as a series of images or as plain text. The 1984 game Karateka helped introduce the use of cut scenes to home computers, since then, cutscenes have been part of many video games, especially in action-adventure and role-playing video games. The term cutscene was first coined by Ron Gilbert, when describing events in Maniac Mansion that the player has no control over, live-action cutscenes have many similarities to films. For example, the cutscenes in Wing Commander IV used both fully constructed sets, and well known such as Mark Hamill and Malcolm McDowell for the portrayal of characters. Some movie tie-in games, such as Electronic Arts The Lord of the Rings and Star Wars games, have extensively used film footage. Another movie tie-in, Enter the Matrix, used footage shot concurrently with The Matrix Reloaded that was also directed by the films directors. Pre-rendered cutscenes are animated and rendered by the developers, and take advantage of the full array of techniques of CGI. Like live-action shoots, pre-rendered cutscenes are presented in full motion video. Real time cutscenes are rendered using the same game engine as the graphics during gameplay. This technique is known as Machinima. Real time cutscenes are generally of much detail and visual quality than pre-rendered cutscenes. For example, some allow the player character to wear several different outfits. It is also possible to give the control over camera movement during real time cutscenes, as seen in Dungeon Siege, Metal Gear Solid 2, Sons of Liberty, Halo, Reach. Many games use both pre-rendered and real time cutscenes as the developer feels is appropriate for each scene, during the 1990s in particular, it was common for the techniques of live action, pre-rendering, and real time rendering to be combined in a single cutscene. For example, popular games such as Myst, Wing Commander III, though Final Fantasy VII primarily uses real-time cutscenes, it has several scenes in which real-time graphics are combined with pre-rendered full motion video
36.
Conker (series)
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Conker is a series of platform video games created by Rare. It chronicles the events of Conker the Squirrel, a red squirrel that made his debut as a playable character in Diddy Kong Racing. Conkers Pocket Tales, a game released for the Game Boy Color in 1999. Conkers Bad Fur Day, a game released for the Nintendo 64 in 2001. Conker, Live & Reloaded, a game released for the Xbox in 2005. Conkers Big Reunion, a released as a digital add-on for Microsofts Project Spark in 2015 for Xbox One & Windows. Young Conker,2017, a game that will be developed for the Microsoft HoloLens, Conker was introduced to the world for the first time at the Electronic Entertainment Expo in 1997. His game Conkers Quest was presented by Rare as another 3D platformer aimed at an audience for the Nintendo 64. Later the same year, this fact was confirmed with Conkers inclusion in Diddy Kong Racing for the Nintendo 64, in the spring of 1998, Conkers Quest was renamed Twelve Tales, Conker 64. In 1999, Conker made his first solo debut in Conkers Pocket Tales for the Game Boy Color, the redesigned game was geared towards a mature audience and featured sexual content, foul language, drug and alcohol usage, and excessive violence. According to Rare co-founder Chris Stamper, When people grow up on games, there arent games for people who grew up on the early systems, explaining the change. The game suffered from poor sales, but received a cult following with its unique brand of humor. After the release of Conkers Bad Fur Day, Rare began development of a new Conker game referred to as Conkers Other Bad Day, designer Chris Seavor said that it was to be a direct sequel dealing with Conkers somewhat unsuccessful tenure as King. He spends all the money on beer, parties and hookers. Thrown into prison, Conker is faced with the prospect of execution, in 2002, Microsoft purchased Rare from Nintendo, so instead of finishing and releasing the game, Rare remade Conkers Bad Fur Day for the Xbox in 2005, renaming it Conker, Live & Reloaded. It features improved graphics and minor alterations to gameplay, also included was a new multiplayer adaptation that was available for use over Xbox Live. After Live & Reloaded, Rare started development on Conker, Gettin Medieval, an online multiplayer shooter game. At E32014, Conker was announced as a character in Project Spark, in 2015, it was announced that Conker will return in a new episodic campaign for Project Spark
37.
Deus Ex (video game)
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Deus Ex is a 2000 action role-playing video game developed by Ion Storm and published by Eidos Interactive. His missions entangle him in a conspiracy that brings him into conflict with the Triad, Majestic 12, the game was first released for Microsoft Windows in June 2000, with a Mac OS port following the next month. A modified version of the game was released later for the PlayStation 2 in 2002, in the years following its release, Deus Ex has received additional improvements and content from its fan community. The game received acclaim, including repeatedly being named Best PC Game of All Time in PC Gamers Top 100 PC Games in 2011. It was a frequent candidate for and winner of Game of the Year awards, drawing praise for its designs in player choice. It has sold more than 1 million copies, as of April 23,2009, for example, the game uses a first-person camera during gameplay and includes exploration and character interaction as primary features. The player assumes the role of JC Denton, an operative of the United Nations Anti-Terrorist Coalition. This nanotechnology is a central mechanism and allows players to perform superhuman feats. As the player accomplishes objectives, the character is rewarded with skill points. There are four different levels of proficiency in each skill, with the point cost increasing for each successive level. Weapons may be customized through weapon modifications, which can be found or purchased throughout the game. The player might add scopes, silencers, or laser sights, increase the range, accuracy, or magazine size, or decrease its recoil and reload time. Players are further encouraged to customize their characters through nano-augmentations—cybernetic devices that grant characters superhuman powers and this forces the player to choose carefully between the benefits offered by each augmentation. For example, the arm augmentation requires the player to decide between boosting their characters skill in combat or his ability to lift heavy objects. Interaction with non-player characters was a design focus. When the player interacts with a character, the game will enter a cutscene-like conversation mode where the player advances the conversation by selecting from a list of dialogue options. The players choices often have an effect on both gameplay and plot, as non-player characters will react in different ways depending on the selected answer. Deus Ex features combat similar to first-person shooters, with action, a first-person perspective
38.
Call of Duty
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Call of Duty is a first-person shooter video game franchise. The series began on Microsoft Windows, and later expanded to consoles, several spin-off games have been released. The earlier games in the series are set primarily in World War II, including Call of Duty, Call of Duty 2, beginning with Call of Duty 4, Modern Warfare, which is set in modern times, the series has shifted focus away from World War II. Modern Warfare, released November 2007, was followed by World at War, Black Ops, released November 2010, takes place in the Cold War, while Modern Warfare 3, released November 2011, takes place in a near-future setting. Black Ops II, released November 2012, takes place mainly in the year 2025, Call of Duty, Ghosts was released in November 2013. In May 2014, Advanced Warfare was announced, in November 6,2015, Black Ops III. The most recent game, Infinite Warfare was released on November 4,2016, the Call of Duty games are published and owned by Activision. While Infinity Ward is still a developer, Treyarch and Sledgehammer Games also develop several of the titles with the release of the games alternating with each other. The games use a variety of engines, including the id Tech 3, the Treyarch NGL, as of February 2016, the Call of Duty series has sold over 250 million copies. Sales of all Call of Duty games topped US$15 billion, Call of Duty is a video game based on the Quake III Arena engine, and was released on October 29,2003. The game was developed by Infinity Ward and published by Activision, the game simulates the infantry and combined arms warfare of World War II. An expansion pack, Call of Duty, United Offensive, was developed by Gray Matter Interactive with contributions from Pi Studios, the game follows American and British paratroopers and the Red Army. The Mac OS X version of the game was ported by Aspyr Media, in late 2004, the N-Gage version was developed by Nokia and published by Activision. Other versions were released for PC, including Collectors Edition, Game of the Year Edition, on September 22,2006, Call of Duty, United Offensive, and Call of Duty 2 were released together as Call of Duty, War Chest for PC. Since November 12,2007, Call of Duty games have been available for purchase via Valves content delivery platform Steam, Call of Duty 2 is a first-person shooter video game and the sequel to Call of Duty. It was developed by Infinity Ward and published by Activision, the game is set during World War II and is experienced through the perspectives of soldiers in the Red Army, British Army, and United States Army. It was released on October 25,2005 for Microsoft Windows, November 15,2005 for the Xbox 360, other versions were made for mobile phones, Pocket PCs, and smartphones. Call of Duty 3 is a World War II first-person shooter, released on November 7,2006, the game was developed by Treyarch, and was the first major installment in the Call of Duty series not to be developed by Infinity Ward
39.
Parkour
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Parkour is a training discipline using movement that developed from military obstacle course training. Practitioners aim to get one point to another in a complex environment, without assistive equipment. Parkour includes running, climbing, swinging, vaulting, jumping, rolling, quadrupedal movement, parkours development from military training gives it some aspects of a non-combative martial art. Parkour is an activity that can be practised alone or with others and is usually—but not exclusively—carried out in urban spaces. Parkour involves seeing ones environment in a new way, and imagining the potential for navigating it by movement around, across, through, over and under its features. Parkour was developed in France, primarily by Raymond Belle, and further by his son David and the group of friends. The discipline was popularised in the late 1990s and 2000s through films, documentaries, the word parkour derives from parcours du combattant, the classic obstacle course method of military training proposed by Georges Hébert. Raymond Belle used the term le parcours to encompass all of his training including climbing, jumping, running, balancing, and the other methods he undertook in his personal athletic advancement. His son, David, further developed his fathers methods and achieved success as a stuntman, Koundé suggested he change the c of parcours to a k because it was stronger and more dynamic, and to remove the silent s for the same reason, forming parkour. A practitioner of parkour is called a traceur, with the form being traceuse. They are nouns derived from the French verb tracer, which means to trace, as in tracing a path. The verb tracer used familiarly means, to buck up, the term traceur was originally the name of a parkour group headed by David Belle which included Sébastien Foucan and Stéphane Vigroux. A jam refers to a meeting of traceurs, involving training lasting anywhere from hours to several days, the first parkour jam was organised in July 2002 by Romain Drouet, with a dozen people including Sébastien Foucan and Stéphane Vigroux. In Western Europe, a forerunner of parkour was French naval officer Georges Hébert and he noted, their bodies were splendid, flexible, nimble, skillful, enduring, and resistant but yet they had no other tutor in gymnastics but their lives in nature. His rescue efforts during the 1902 eruption of Mount Pelée on Saint-Pierre, Martinique, reinforced his belief that athletic skill must be combined with courage, Hébert became a physical education tutor at the college of Reims in France. Hébert set up a méthode naturelle session consisting of ten groups, walking, running, jumping, quadrupedal movement, climbing, balancing, throwing, lifting, self-defence. These were intended to develop the three forces, energetic, moral and physical. During World War I and World War II, teaching continued to expand, becoming the system of French military education
40.
Halo (series)
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Halo is a military science fiction first-person shooter video game franchise created by Bungie and now managed and developed by 343 Industries, a subsidiary of Microsoft Studios. The series centers on a war between humanity and a theocratic alliance of aliens known as the Covenant. The Covenant, led by their religious leaders called the Prophets, worship an ancient civilization known as the Forerunners, who perished in combat with the parasitic Flood. The central focus of the franchise builds off the experiences of Master Chief John-117, one of a group of supersoldiers codenamed Spartans, other characters, such as Noble Six from Halo, Reach, are also introduced in the series. The term Halo refers to the Halo rings, large, habitable superweapons that were created to destroy the parasitic Flood and they are similar to the Orbitals in Iain M. Banks Culture novels, and less so to author Larry Nivens Ringworld concept. The games in the series have been praised as being among the best first-person shooters on a game console. This led to the term Halo killer being used to console games that aspire, or are considered. Fueled by the success of Halo, Combat Evolved, and by marketing campaigns from publisher Microsoft. The games have sold over 65 million copies worldwide, with the games alone grossing almost $3.4 billion, strong sales of the games led to the franchises expansion to other media, there are multiple best-selling novels, graphic novels, and other licensed products. Halo Wars took the franchise into new video game genre territory, as a strategy game. Beyond the original trilogy, Bungie developed the expansion Halo 3, ODST, a high-definition remake of the first game, entitled Halo, Combat Evolved Anniversary, was released on November 15,2011, exactly ten years after the release of the original. A new installment in a series of games, Halo 4, was released on November 6,2012. Halo, The Master Chief Collection, a compilation of the four primary Halo titles, was released for the Xbox One on November 11,2014. In October 2015, Halo 5, Guardians was released, the collective group of fans of the series is referred to as the Halo Nation. In the distant past, a race called the Forerunners fought an alien parasite known as the Flood. The Flood, which spread through infestation of sentient life, overran much of the Milky Way Galaxy, One of the races affected was humanity, who came into conflict with the Forerunners as a result. Exhausted by their war and after having explored all other options, using an installation known as the Ark, they built large ring-shaped megastructures known as Halos. The Halo Array, when activated, would destroy all sentient life in the galaxy – depriving the Flood of their food, delaying as long as they could, the Forerunners activated the rings and disappeared
41.
4J Studios
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4J Studios is a Scottish video game development studio based in Dundee and East Linton. The company has worked with a range of publishers including ZeniMax Media, Mojang. The staff include many key personnel from defunct studio VIS Entertainment. 4J Studios also helped develop Minecraft, since 2010, 4J Studios have been working on the console editions of Minecraft with Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo and Mojang. They have received awards for these ports. In 2012, 4J Studios was awarded a Golden Joystick Award for the Best Selling Game, and their console port of Minecraft is also available for Xbox One, PS3, PS4, PS Vita, and Wii U
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Platform game
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A platform game is a video game which involves guiding an avatar to jump between suspended platforms and/or over obstacles to advance the game. The player controls the jumps to avoid letting the avatar fall from platforms or miss necessary jumps, the most common unifying element of games of this genre is the jump button, but now there are other alternative like swiping in touchscreen. Jumping, in genre, may include swinging from extendable arms, as in Ristar or Bionic Commando, or bouncing from springboards or trampolines. These mechanics, even in the context of genres, are commonly called platforming. Games where jumping is automated completely, such as 3D games in The Legend of Zelda series, Platform games originated in the early 1980s, with 3D successors popularized in the mid-1990s. The term itself describes games where jumping on platforms is an part of the gameplay and came into use after the genre had been established. While commonly associated with gaming, there have been many important platform games released to video arcades, as well as for handheld game consoles. North America, Europe and Japan have played major parts in the genres evolution, Platform themes range from cartoon-like games to science fiction and fantasy epics. At one point, platform games were the most popular genre of video game, at the peak of their popularity, it is estimated that between one-quarter and one-third of console games were platformers. No genre either before or since has been able to achieve a market share. Since 2010, a variety of endless running platformers for mobile devices have brought renewed popularity to the genre, Platform games originated in the early 1980s. Because of the limitations of the day, early examples were confined to a static playing field. Space Panic, a 1980 arcade release by Universal, is credited as being the first platform game. While the player had the ability to fall, there was no ability to jump, swing, or bounce, however, it clearly influenced the genre, with gameplay centered on climbing ladders between different floors, a common element in many early platform games. Another precursor to the genre released that year was Nichibutsus Crazy Climber. Donkey Kong, a game created by Nintendo and released in July 1981, was the first game that allowed players to jump over obstacles and across gaps. Donkey Kong had an amount of platforming in its first two screens, but its last two screens had a more pronounced platform jumping component. This game also introduced Mario, an icon of the genre
