Elite Dangerous
Elite Dangerous is a space-flight simulation game developed and published by Frontier Developments. Piloting a spaceship, the player explores a realistic 1:1 scale open-world representation of the Milky Way galaxy, with the gameplay being open-ended; the game is the first in the series to attempt to feature massively multiplayer gameplay, with players' actions affecting the narrative story of the game's persistent universe, while retaining single-player options. Elite Dangerous is the fourth game in the Elite video game series, it is the sequel to Frontier: First Encounters, released in 1995. Having been unable to agree to a funding deal with a publisher for many years, the developer began its Kickstarter campaign in November 2012. Pre-release test versions of the game had been available to backers since December 2013, the final game was released for Windows in December 2014, with the OS X version released in May 2015. A "preview" version of the game for Xbox One was released via the Xbox Game Preview Program in June 2015 during Microsoft's briefing at the Electronic Entertainment Expo 2015, was released in October 2015, while a PlayStation 4 version was released on 27 June 2017.
Elite Dangerous supports virtual reality devices, including the HTC Oculus Rift. By the end of April 2015, Elite Dangerous had sold over 500,000 copies, with Frontier Developments expected to generate £22 million from sales. Beginning in the year 3300 upon its release in 2014, Elite Dangerous has now run to the year 3305 and has been running in sync with UTC, albeit 1286 years in the future; the game is set around 45 years after Frontier: the previous game in the series. Elite Dangerous retains the basic premise of previous games – players start with a spaceship and a small amount of money and have to make their own way in an open galaxy, furthering themselves either or illegally, through trading, exploration, bounty-hunting and assassination; the game is the first in the series to feature online multiplayer, with players having access to a massively multiplayer persistent world, as well as an online-only single player mode. Open Play gameplay is similar to Eve Online in that many actions which would be considered griefing in other multiplayer games are permitted here, so long as a valid roleplaying reason is attached.
Examples include stealing from other players and blocking off star systems via blockade or similar means. However, some actions, such as "mob mentality" persecution of players, exploiting mechanics of the game, cursing are still not allowed, could result in a ban from the main server; the player is able to explore the game's galaxy of some 400 billion star systems, complete with planets and moons that rotate and orbit in real time, resulting in dynamic day/night cycles. Around 150,000 of the game's star systems are taken from real-world astronomical data, while a few systems' fictional planetary systems as established in Frontier and First Encounters before significant numbers of exoplanets were discovered are carried over, a handful of fictional systems named in the original Elite and featured in games are included. Throughout the galaxy, the player is able to dock with space stations and outposts to trade goods, purchase new spacecraft, re-arm their ship, effect repairs and to seek or complete missions from text-based station "Mission boards".
The player may find cargo or encounter other ships while in flight by investigating'Unidentified Signal Sources'. There are three major factions, the Empire of Achenar, the Galactic Federation, the Alliance of Independent Systems. Patch 1.3, which launched in June 2015, featured the Power Play extension, for competitive galaxy-wide faction challenges. Players can now pick from various in-game factions and contribute by completing mission goals and earn various rewards; the outcome determines faction powers, territorial control, what each faction does next. Each one of these respective factions has specific ships which can be obtained through navy ranks with the respective faction, excluding Alliance ships which are not locked behind ranks; the Federation has a series of 4 faction specific ships made by an in-game federal corporation, Core Dynamics. The Empire has a series of 4 ships manufactured by an Imperial corporation called Gutamaya; the Alliance has 3 ships, none of which require a faction specific rank, are manufactured by the in-game corporation Lakon Spaceways.
There are four player status levels, for combat, CQC Championship and trading, depending on accomplishments. On 15 March 2015, the first player reached triple elite status, the highest status, won £10,000. A certain status or rank with a faction can grant access to a number of systems which require a permit. Benefits of some systems include ship discount prices. Starting in 2012, Elite Dangerous was developed using Frontier Development's own in-house COBRA game development engine. Frontier had been working on the game as a skunk-works background activity for some time prior to its Kickstarter launch, with other projects being prioritised. On 14 November 2014, one month before launch, David Braben announced the removal of the game's offline single player mode, the developers having decided that they could not deliver an acceptable offline-only experience based on the original design; the Windows version of the game w
Just Cause (video game)
Just Cause is an action-adventure video game set in an open world environment. It is developed by Swedish developer Avalanche Studios and published by Eidos Interactive, is the first game in the Just Cause series, it was released for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 2, Xbox 360. The area explored during the game is described as being over 250,000 acres in size, with 21 story missions and over 300 side missions to complete; as of 23 April 2009, it has sold more than one million copies. A sequel to the game developed by Avalanche Studios, published by Eidos Interactive and distributed by Square Enix, titled Just Cause 2, was released on 23 March 2010. Just Cause 3 was revealed on 11 November 2014 and released on 1 December 2015. Just Cause 4 was released for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, Xbox One on December 4, 2018. From October 2018, five weeks before the Just Cause 4 release, Just Cause was made Backwards Compatible with Xbox One, as a result making it available for the first time on the Xbox Marketplace, 12 years since its initial release.
Besides Microsoft Windows, this makes it the only other platform where all the Just Cause franchise can be owned. Just Cause begins with Rico Rodriguez, an operative for an organization known as the Agency, being dropped into a Caribbean tropical island called San Esperito, after being called there by his commanding officer, Tom Sheldon, to help overthrow San Esperito's dictator, Salvador Mendoza, whom the Agency believes to be in possession of weapons of mass destruction. After his arrival, Rico meets up with Sheldon and fellow agent Maria Kane, they ally themselves with a guerrilla group staging a rebellion against the regime and the Rioja drug cartel, another enemy of the government. Rico assists them in their civil war against Mendoza's corrupt officials. Rico can assist in the liberation of various territories to further destabilize the government's rule over the island. Sheldon discovers that Mendoza does, have control of WMDs, with San Esperito so politically unstable and with the guerrillas having the upper hand, the president is forced to retreat to his private presidential island just off the mainland.
Sheldon and Kane fly Rico to the island to kill Mendoza. However, Rico boards the jet and kills Mendoza and his remaining bodyguards, ending his reign over the islands; the core gameplay consists of elements of a third-person shooter and a driving game, with a large, open world environment in which to move. On foot, the player's character is capable of walking and jumping, as well as utilizing weapons and basic hand-to-hand combat. Players can take control of a variety of vehicles, including cars, fixed wing aircraft and motorcycles. Players can perform stunts with their cars in which they can stand on the roof and jump to another car, or choose to open their parachute while still in motion on the roof. Other key features of the game include skydiving, base jumping, parasailing; the open, non-linear environment allows players to explore and choose how they wish to play the game. Although storyline missions are necessary to progress through the game, players can complete them at their own leisure.
When not taking on a storyline mission, players can roam freely. However, doing so can attract unwanted and fatal attention from the authorities; the player can partake in a variety of optional side missions, for example, liberating a village or taking over a drug cartel hideout. These are necessary to gain points with certain factions; the PC version of Just Cause received "generally favourable reviews", while the rest of the console versions received "average" reviews, according to the review aggregation website Metacritic. In Japan, where the Xbox 360 version was ported for release under the name Just Cause: Viva Revolution and published by Electronic Arts on 8 November 2007, Famitsu gave it a score of 31 out of 40, while Famitsu Xbox 360 gave it a score of one seven, one eight, one nine, one eight for a total of 32 out of 40. IGN noted that the gameplay of the same console version lacked depth and that the side quests are boring and repetitive; the game suffers from its share of bug-related issues though, as noted by many reviewers, who felt the game may have been "rushed" to market without sufficient time to fix certain problems.
The PlayStation 2 version, in particular, suffers from a number of'game-killing' bugs that render certain missions impossible to complete, or the entire game unplayable until it is reset. Eidos had not released Xbox 360 versions of the game; the Times gave the game all five stars and said, "Fans of the Nintendo SNES classic Pilotwings will jump at the chance to parachute from any of the aircraft for spectacular views of the vast landscape below. There is bound to be a sequel, because this original is so good." Edge gave the Xbox 360 version seven out of ten and said, "For all its quirks, the overriding impression of Just Cause is favourable. There's an childish enthusiasm at work here – and an unparalleled sense of freedom that can be enjoyed just as as it can be criticised." However, 411Mania gave the same console version 6.5 out of 10 and called it "a fun game but only a must-own by a wide stretch of the imagination." The Sydney Morning Herald gave the game three stars out of five and said, "Sloppy vehicle handling, some bugs in the design of the missions and the endless travel means it doesn't hit the same high notes as Grand Theft Auto and others, but the mindless action is still good dumb fun."The Xbox 360 version
Roguelike
Roguelike is a subgenre of role-playing video game characterized by a dungeon crawl through procedurally generated levels, turn-based gameplay, tile-based graphics, permanent death of the player character. Most roguelikes are based on a high fantasy narrative, reflecting their influence from tabletop role playing games such as Dungeons & Dragons. Though the roguelikes Beneath Apple Manor and Sword of Fargoal predate it, the 1980 game Rogue, an ASCII based game that runs in terminal or terminal emulator, is considered the forerunner and the namesake of the genre, with derivative games mirroring Rogue's character- or sprite-based graphics; these games were popularized among college students and computer programmers of the 1980s and 1990s, leading to a large number of variants but adhering to these common gameplay elements titled the "Berlin Interpretation". Some of the better-known variants include Hack, NetHack, Ancient Domains of Mystery, Angband, Tales of Maj'Eyal, Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup.
The Japanese series of Mystery Dungeon games by Chunsoft, inspired by Rogue fall within the concept of roguelike games. More with more powerful home computers and gaming systems, new games mislabelling the term roguelike incorporating other gameplay genres, thematic elements and graphical styles have become popular retaining the notion of procedural generation and permanent death of the player-character. Indie games like Weird Worlds: Return to Infinite Space, The Binding of Isaac, FTL: Faster Than Light, Rogue Legacy helped to establish the use of roguelike elements in other genres; these titles are labeled as "roguelike-like", "rogue-lite", or "procedural death labyrinths" to reflect the variation from titles which mimic the gameplay of traditional roguelikes more faithfully. Other games, like Diablo and UnReal World, key titles in the action role-playing and the survival game genres took inspiration from roguelikes; the origin of the term "roguelike" came from USENET newsgroups around 1993, as this was the principal channel the players of roguelike games of that period were using to discuss these games, as well as what the developers used to announce new releases and distribute the game's source code in some cases.
With several individual groups for each game, it was suggested that with rising popularity of Rogue, Hack and Angband, all which shared common elements, that the groups be consolidated under an umbrella term to facilitate cross-game discussion. Debate among users of these groups ensued to try to find an encapsulating term that described the common elements, starting with rec.games.dungeon.*, but after three weeks of discussion, rec.games.roguelike.*, based on Rogue being the oldest of these types of games, was picked as "the least of all available evils". By the time it was suggested that a group was created to discuss the development of these kind of games in 1998, the "roguelike" term was established within the community; this usage parallels that of "Doom clone", a term used in 1990s that evolved into more generic "first-person shooter". Deriving from the concepts of tabletop role-playing games such as Dungeons & Dragons, nearly all roguelikes give the player control of a character, which they may customize by selecting a class and gender, adjusting attributes points and skills.
At the start of the game, the character is placed at the top-most level of a dungeon, with basic equipment such as a simple weapon, armor and food. Following along the role-playing concept of a dungeon crawl, the player moves the character through the dungeon, collecting treasure which can include new weapons, magical devices, scrolls, in-game money, while having to fight monsters that roam the dungeon. Most combat is performed by attempting to move the character into the same space as the monster; the game calculates the damage that the character and monster deal. Other types of attacks, such as firing an arrow or performing an offensive magic spell, can be performed as well. Defeating monsters earns the character experience points, after earning enough points, the character will gain an experience level, improving their hit points, magic capability, other attributes. Monsters may drop treasure to be looted; the character dies. As most roguelikes feature the concept of permadeath, this represents the end of the game, the player will need to restart the game with a newly made character.
Roguelikes are nearly always turn-based, with the game only reacting when the player makes an action with the character. This allows players to evaluate a difficult situation, such as being cornered by several monsters, at their own pace and determine the best strategy; the player has to explore the dungeon to reveal its contents, similar to a fog of war. Many roguelikes include visibility elements, such as a torch to provide illumination to see monsters in nearby squares, or line of sight to limit which monsters are visible from the player's position. Dungeons tend to be connected by stairs. Dungeon levels and the population of monsters and treasure within them are generated randomly using procedural generation, so no game is the same on subsequent playthroughs. Most roguelikes have an ultimate goal of either claiming an item located at the deepest level of the dungeon, or defeating a specific monster that lives on that level. Typical roguelikes assess the player's performance at the end of the game through a score based on the amount of treasure and experience earned, how fast the player finished the game, if they managed to do so.
The sco
Tunnels & Trolls
Tunnels & Trolls is a fantasy role-playing game designed by Ken St. Andre and first published in 1975 by Flying Buffalo; the second modern role-playing game published, it was written by Ken St. Andre to be a more accessible alternative to Dungeons & Dragons and is suitable for solitaire and play-by-mail gameplay. St. Andre, a public librarian in Phoenix, liked the idea of fantasy role-playing after reading a friend's D&D rule books but found the actual rules confusing, so he wrote his own; the first edition of Tunnels & Trolls was self-published in April 1975. In June 1975, publisher Flying Buffalo Inc. released a second edition of the game, Tunnels & Trolls became D&D's biggest competitor. Tunnels & Trolls had similar statistics and adventures to Dungeons & Dragons, but introduced a points-based magic system and used six-sided dice exclusively. According to Michael Tresca, Tunnels & Trolls presented a better overall explanation of its rules, "brought a sense of impish fun to the genre"; the game underwent several modifications between the original release and when the 5th edition of the rules was published in 1979.
This edition was translated and published abroad in the United Kingdom, France, Finland, it entered these markets before Dungeons & Dragons did in most cases. In 1999 Pyramid magazine named Trolls as one of The Millennium's Most Underrated Games. Editor Scott Haring said of the game "everybody knows this was the second fantasy roleplaying game... But to dismiss it as just an opportunistic ripoff would be grossly unfair. Flying Buffalo's T&T had its own zany feel – it was much less serious than D&D – and a less-complicated game system."In 2005, Flying Buffalo updated the 5th edition rules with a "5.5" publication that added about 40 pages of extra material. That same year, Fiery Dragon Productions produced a 30th Anniversary Edition under license in a tin box complete with CD, monster counters, two new versions of the rules. Ken St. Andre used the opportunity to extensively update the style of play and introduce new role-playing concepts, such as character level determined by character attribute statistics instead of arbitrary numbers of experience points.
The 30th Anniversary rules are known as the 7th edition. One of the most significant innovations of 7th edition is the introduction of a skills system; the 7.5 edition was released in 2008 by Fiery Dragon, being an update and clarification on the 30th Anniversary Edition. In 2012, Tunnels & Trolls was re-introduced in French-speaking markets by Grimtooth under license by Flying Buffalo; the French rulebook, the 8th edition, is based on the 7th edition, but includes elements taken from the 5.5 edition as well as clarifications by Ken St. Andre; the interior artwork includes new inks by Liz Danforth. Several other products have been released via Lulu.com and others have been announced. The production work for the 8th edition prompted Flying Buffalo to start working on a Deluxe Edition of the rulebook; as Rick Loomis, head of Flying Buffalo Inc. put it, "The French edition came out so beautiful that now that I have run out of 5.5, I am not satisfied to just reprint 5.5. I wanted to have a deluxe edition better than the French one.".
Deluxe Tunnels & Trolls, written by St. Andre with additional design input and editing from longtime players Liz Danforth and James "Bear" Peters, was published in August 2015; the 5th edition Tunnels & Trolls core ruleset does not detail a specific setting, saying only that gameplay occurs in "a world somewhat but not similar to Tolkien's Middle Earth." In an interview in 1986, Ken St. Andre stated that "my conception of the T&T world was based on The Lord of The Rings as it would have been done by Marvel Comics in 1974 with Conan, the Gray Mouser and a host of badguys thrown in."The current Deluxe Edition includes Ken St. Andre's house campaign setting, Trollworld. Along with additional material by early players Jim "Bear" Peters and Liz Danforth. Eight prime attributes define characters in Tunnels & Trolls: Strength determines which weapons the character can use and how much the character can carry, it serves as magic points in 5th and earlier editions. Intelligence measures the character's ability to remember facts.
Luck affects. Constitution measures how healthy the character is and how much damage the character can take before being killed. Dexterity represents agility and affects marksmanship. Charisma represents leadership ability. Editions add the following prime attributes: Wizardry replaces Strength for powering magic points. Called Power in the 5.5 Edition. Speed represents reaction speed and, in some editions, movement rate. A new character begins with a randomly generated score for each attribute, determined by rolling three six-side dice; the rules recommend that novice players create human characters, but offer the options of elves and hobbits. Other races, like leprechauns and fairies, serve as additional character options. A character's race affects her attributes. A player may choose to play as a "monster race" such as a zombie or vampire. Players choose a character class for their character; the two base classes are Wizards. Wizards have combat limitations. While Warriors cannot cast magic, they are allowed the full use of weapons and armor is twice as effective in blocking damage.
Rogues and Warrior-Wizards are available as character classes. These two classes both combine the
Soldier of Fortune II: Double Helix
Soldier of Fortune II: Double Helix is a first-person shooter video game developed by Raven Software as a sequel to Soldier of Fortune. It was developed using the id Tech 3 engine as opposed to the original's id Tech 2, published in 2002. Once again, Raven hired John Mullins to act as a consultant on the game. Based on criticisms of the original game, Raven Software developed Soldier of Fortune II to be a more "realistic" game, with more modern tactical shooters like Operation Flashpoint: Cold War Crisis and Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six serving as inspirations, rather than Quake. Like the first game in the series, Double Helix pushed the boundaries of depictions of gore and violence, is considered more graphic and realistic than most in the FPS genre; this time around, the theme was germ warfare rather than nuclear weapons plotting. The multiplayer mode had five different gametypes, playing through the single-player story, a player could choose from four different levels of difficulty. A unrelated sequel titled Soldier of Fortune: Payback, made by Cauldron HQ, was released for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in 2007.
The theme of the Doublie Helix is germ warfare, as the mercenary Mullins and his new partner Madeline Taylor travel to Colombia to investigate a viral outbreak in a small town, only to link it to a shadowy organization called Prometheus. The virus, called Romulus, is followed by a computer virus called Remus, programmed to delete files on any computer in the world, in this case, files relating to Prometheus and Romulus, so an anti-virus cannot be formulated. Prometheus plans to blackmail the G8 countries at a summit in Switzerland for billions of dollars, it is revealed throughout the course of the game that a mole inside The Shop may be feeding information to the terrorists. Soldier of Fortune II is a shooter game played from the first-person perspective. In the campaign, the player must complete a series of levels that encompass Soldier of Fortune II's storyline, reprising their role as special operative John Mullins from the first installment, its campaign can be experienced through four levels of difficulty: Amateur, Gun for Hire and Soldier of Fortune.
Alternatively, players can select the Random Missions Generator to create levels with unique parameters. Following the gameplay formula of its predecessor, Soldier of Fortune II revolves around run and gun tactics, but includes segments focused on stealth and vehicular combat; the status of Mullins' health is indicated by the heads-up display. Health packs and armor can be found at different parts of the game or on downed enemies, allowing the player to sustain more damage. Gunfights are a major mechanic of Soldier of Fortune II; as players progress through the story, they earn access to various new weapons and equipment, some dropped by downed enemies. Players may customize most of their weapons with special firearm modifications; such modifications alter the rate of fire or add attachments like silencers and grenade launchers. Mullins carries a toolkit and can use it to interact with the environment—disabling trip wires, picking locks, cutting power lines among other actions. In multiplayer mode, there are five gametypes: Capture the Flag, Team Deathmatch and Elimination.
The Gold Edition of the game adds an extra gametype: Demolition, bringing the number of gametypes in the game to six. In Capture the Flag, all players are divided into two teams: a blue team; the objective is for one team to get the flag of the other team, located in the enemies base, bring it back to their own base. Once a team hits the number of flags captured the team win the game or once the time limit has been reached, the team with the biggest number of flags captured wins the game. Killed players will respawn after a few seconds. In Infiltration, all players are divided into two teams: a blue team. A suitcase is placed in a neutral location on the map. Both teams have different objectives: the blue team has to carry the suitcase to a rendezvous point, while the red team is to protect the suitcase at all costs, to prevent the blue team from taking the suitcase to the rendezvous point; the round ends when either the blue team brings the suitcase to the rendezvous point, the blue team eliminates every member of the red team, or if the red teams eliminates every member of the blue team.
Unlike Team Deathmatch and Deathmatch, killed players do not respawn, staying dead until the end of the round. In Team Deathmatch, all players are divided into two teams: a blue team; the objective of Team Deathmatch is to be the first team to hit the frag limit, which can be achieved by killing opposing players, by avoiding death from opposing players. Once a team hits the frag limit, they win the round finishes. Depending on the admin/creator's choice, friendly fire may not be allowed. Killed players will respawn after a few seconds. In Deathmatch, players play with the same rules as Team Deathmatch, except that the players will now be playing by themselves; the objective of Deathmatch is to be the first player to hit the frag limit, or to have the highest amount of kills once gametime expires. This can be achieved by killing other players while avoiding death from other players. Once a player hits the frag limit, the player wins the round finishes. Killed players will respawn after a few seconds.
In Elimination, players play with the same rules as Team Deathmatch, except with one major difference - killed players do not respawn. To objective of the game is to hunt down and kill members of the opposing team player
Brian Eno
Brian Peter George St John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno, RDI is an English musician, record producer, visual artist best known for his pioneering work in ambient music and contributions to rock, pop and generative music. A self-described "non-musician", Eno has helped introduce a variety of conceptual approaches and recording techniques to contemporary music, advocating a methodology of "theory over practice, serendipity over forethought, texture over craft" according to AllMusic, he has been described as one of popular music's most innovative figures. Born in Suffolk, Eno studied painting and experimental music at the art school of Ipswich Civic College in the mid 1960s, at Winchester School of Art, he joined glam rock group Roxy Music as synthesiser player in 1971. After recording two albums with Roxy Music, he departed in 1973 to record a number of solo albums, coining the term "ambient music" to describe his work on releases such as Another Green World, Discreet Music, Music for Airports.
He collaborated with artists such as Robert Fripp, Harold Budd, David Bowie on his "Berlin Trilogy", David Byrne, produced albums by artists including John Cale, Jon Hassell, Talking Heads and Devo, the no wave compilation No New York. Eno has continued to record solo albums and work with artists including U2, Laurie Anderson, Grace Jones, Coldplay, James Blake, Damon Albarn. Dating back to his time as a student, he has worked in media including sound installations and his mid-70s co-development of Oblique Strategies, a deck of cards featuring cryptic aphorisms intended to spur creative thinking. From the 1970s onwards, Eno's installations have included the sails of the Sydney Opera House in 2009 and the Lovell Telescope at Jodrell Bank in 2016. An advocate of a range of humanitarian causes, Eno writes on a variety of subjects and is a founding member of the Long Now Foundation. In 2019, Eno was inducted into the Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Roxy Music. Eno was born on 15 May 1948 at Phyllis Memorial Hospital in Melton, the son of Catholic parents William Arnold Eno, who followed his father and grandfather into the postal service, his Belgian wife Maria Alphonsine Eno, whom William had met during his service in World War II.
The unusual surname Eno, long established in Suffolk, is thought to derive from the French Huguenot surname Hainault. Maria had a daughter, together William and Maria would have two further children: Roger and Arlette. Eno was educated at St Joseph's College, founded by the De La Salle Brothers order of Catholic brothers. Subsequently, Eno studied with cybernetic theorist Roy Ascott on the Groundcourse at the art school at Ipswich Civic College before going onto Winchester School of Art, from which he graduated in 1969. At Winchester School of Art, Eno attended a lecture by Pete Townshend of The Who and cites that lecture as the moment he realised he could make music though he was not a musician at that point. Whilst at school, Eno used a tape recorder as a musical instrument and experimented with his first, sometimes improvisational, bands. St. Joseph's College teacher and painter Tom Phillips encouraged him, recalling "Piano Tennis" with Eno, in which, after collecting pianos, they stripped and aligned them in a hall, striking them with tennis balls.
From that collaboration, he became involved in Cornelius Cardew's Scratch Orchestra. The first released recording in which Eno appears is the Deutsche Grammophon edition of Cardew's The Great Learning, as one of the voices in the recital of Paragraph 7 of The Great Learning. Another early recording was the Berlin Horse soundtrack, by Malcom Le Grice, a nine-minute, 2 × 16mm-double-projection, released in 1970 and presented in 1971. Eno's professional music career began in London when he became a founder member of the glam/art rock band Roxy Music. Eno did not appear on stage at their live shows, but operated the mixing desk, processing the band's sound with a VCS3 synthesiser and tape recorders, singing backing vocals, he did, however appear on stage as a performing member of the group flamboyantly costumed. He quit the band on completing the promotional tour for the band's second album, For Your Pleasure, because of disagreements with lead singer Bryan Ferry and boredom with the rock star life.
In 1992, he described his Roxy Music tenure as important to his career: "As a result of going into a subway station and meeting, I joined Roxy Music, and, as a result of that, I have a career in music. If I'd walked ten yards further on the platform, or missed that train, or been in the next carriage, I would have been an art teacher now". During his period with Roxy Music, for his first three solo albums, he was credited on records only as'Eno'. Eno embarked on a solo career immediately. Between 1973 and 1977, he created four albums of electronically inflected art pop: Here Come the Warm Jets, Taking Tiger Mountain, Another Green World, Before and After Science. Tiger Mountain contains the galloping "Third Uncle", one of Eno's best-known songs, owing in part to its being covered by Bauhaus and 801. Critic Dave Thompson writes that the song is "a near punk attack of riffing guitars and clattering percussion,'Third Uncle' could, in other hands, be a heavy metal anthem, albeit one whose lyrical content would tongue-tie the most slavish air guitarist."T
RoboBlitz
RoboBlitz is an indie puzzle action video game for Microsoft Windows through Steam and the Xbox 360 through Xbox Live Arcade. The game was developed by Naked Sky Entertainment and released on November 7, 2006, it was the first Unreal Engine 3 game alongside Gears of War to be released. The player controls Blitz, a technician robot who must navigate through six three part sectors to power up an orbital space cannon and stop a new looming NEOD threat; each sector has a multitude of enemies and a singular physics based puzzle per stage, as well as'upgradium' pickups that can be used to expand Blitz' utilities and weaponry. RoboBlitz uses a middleware tool developed by Allegorithmic to store its textures procedurally; this technique is used to make the game file size smaller, the actual game is less than 50 megabytes on Xbox Live. RoboBlitz has received several awards and honors; the game was nominated for the 2007 Independent Games Festival for both the Seumas McNally Grand Prize and Excellence in Visual Art awards.
The game was the Grand Prize winner for the 2007 Indie Games Showcase, a winner of the GameTap Indie Award, "Best Digital Download Game of the Year" by Play Magazine. RoboBlitz official website Postmortem: Naked Sky Entertainment's RoboBlitz
