Star Wars: Droid Works
Star Wars: DroidWorks is a 1998 edutainment computer game and the premiere title from LucasArts subsidiary Lucas Learning. It uses the same engine as LucasArts' previous title Star Wars: Jedi Knight; the creators aimed to create a game that would be both nonviolent. The game's original release date was moved up by months, which resulted in the development team cutting some planned game features; the game's plot involves the player saving the galaxy by manufacturing droids with specific abilities, such as the ability to see in the dark or jump, to complete missions. The educational portions of these missions teach players about concepts such as energy, motion, simple machines and magnetism. Star Wars: DroidWorks received high praise from critics, sold well, won numerous awards and accolades. C-3PO, R2-D2, the player are sent by the Rebellion to Tatooine to stop production at an Imperial droid factory. In the tutorial, the player must complete eight training missions and four secret missions, each requiring droids with specific abilities, before proceeding to the droid factory.
In the Jawa Droid Workshop, players can paint and name their creations and get a full 360-degree view of other works in progress. Overall, the player can choose from 87 droid parts, which can be combined in 25 million different combinations. Through experiential learning, players learn about the scientific principles of energy, motion, simple machines and magnetism. Players are encouraged to utilize mathematics and critical thinking. An in-game'InDex' provides explanations on various scientific concepts through internet links; the game was developed by Lucas Learning, been created to produce consumer products, but was re-imagined as a developer of direct-to-school products in the fall of 1998. Star Wars: DroidWorks was the first title from Lucas Learning and became one of a series of Star Wars games to be released as edutainment titles; this game marked George Lucas' first foray into the edutainment market. Lucas' directive to the company was to design a game that would allow players to explore and create in a manner similar to playing with Erector Sets and Legos.
DroidWorks was only one out of a total of 175 titles created by third-party software developers for the newly launched iMac. Susan Schilling, the general manager of Lucas Learning, Clent Richardson, the senior director of worldwide developer relations at Apple Computer, agreed that the Apple Mac was the best platform for the game; the game was conceived by project leader Collette Michaud, who pitched a game where players could design their own Star Wars droid and watch them move. Susan Schilling said that DroidWorks did not require the player to use bombs or guns, noting that the only weapon required is the player's mind; the team made a concerted effort to make the game appealing to all children. It would be the player's decisions and curiosity that would lead to his or her success. In a press release, Lucas Learning described DroidWorks as a "unique combination of construction set and strategy game." The development team consulted with both a Kid Advisory Group and Subject Matter Experts to make the game appealing to young players and scientifically accurate.
The game uses audio tracks similar to those from the film series and includes clips from the original Star Wars trilogy. It uses the same first-person shooter engine as many other contemporary LucasArts' titles; the game was built using a modified version of the engine from LucasArts' Star Wars: Jedi Knight, with changes to ensure that the physics engine would be realistic. While the Star Wars universe was known for its combative atmosphere, the design team tried to incorporate minimal violence; this approach is visible in the ways players progress—rather than pitting the player's droid against enemies, the landscape itself becomes an obstacle passable to only certain droid types. This prevents those who have not yet acquired the parts necessary to complete a level from doing so. One of the removed features would have allowed players to place droid parts in locations other than where they were intended, for instance an arm could be attached to a droid's head. While the developers planned a "luxurious" development schedule which would have culminated in the game's release in Christmas 1998, the marketing department thought the game should be released on Labor Day instead.
This new deadline meant. A demo of the game premiered at the 1998 Macworld Expo. In June 1998, The Washington Times reported that the game was scheduled for release in September of that year; the game missed the Labour Day deadline and was released on October 21, 1998. The game was directly made available to schools, along with other edutainment titles from Lucas Learning; the game was marketed and packaged as an entertainment title, was advertised in gaming magazines and Family PC. The developers' original claim that the game blurred the line between entertainment and education presented difficulties for marketers as they had to decide whether to place the game on "game" or "education" shelves. In March 1999, the game was "currently available wherever software is sold." By June, the game was noted as being sold at two-store specialty groups. Lucas Arts' previous successes and association with the Star Wars title enabled DroidWorks to be distributed at retail stores, such as Walmart and Costco.
Sandra Vogel of The Scotsman noted that, while part of the game's success was due to its associati
Video game genre
A video game genre is a classification assigned to a video game based on its gameplay interaction rather than visual or narrative differences. A video game genre is defined by a set of gameplay challenges and are classified independently of their setting or game-world content, unlike other works of fiction such as films or books. For example, a shooter game is still a shooter game, regardless of when it takes place; as with nearly all varieties of genre classification, the matter of any individual video game's specific genre is open to personal interpretation. Moreover, each individual game may belong to several genres at once; the first attempt to classify different genres of video games was made by Chris Crawford in his book The Art of Computer Game Design in 1984. In this book, Crawford focused on the player's experience and activities required for gameplay. Here, he stated that "the state of computer game design is changing quickly. We would therefore expect the taxonomy presented to become obsolete or inadequate in a short time."
Since among other genres, the platformer and 3D shooter genres, which hardly existed at the time, have gained a lot of popularity. As hardware capabilities have increased, new genres have become possible, with examples being increased memory, the move from 2D to 3D, new peripherals and location. Though genres were just interesting for game studies in the 1980s, the business of video games expanded in the 1990s and both smaller and independent publishers had little chance of surviving; because of this, games settled more into set genres that larger publishers and retailers could use for marketing. Due to "direct and active participation" of the player, video game genres differ from literary and film genres. Though one could state that Space Invaders is a science-fiction video game, such a classification "ignores the differences and similarities which are to be found in the player's experience of the game." In contrast to the visual aesthetics of games, which can vary it is argued that it is interactivity characteristics that are common to all games.
Descriptive names of genres take into account the goals of the game, the protagonist and the perspective offered to the player. For example, a first-person shooter is a game, played from a first-person perspective and involves the practice of shooting; the term "subgenre" may be used to refer to a category within a genre to further specify the genre of the game under discussion. Whereas "shooter game" is a genre name, "first-person shooter" and "third-person shooter" are common subgenres of the shooter genre. Other examples of such prefixes are real-time, turn based, side-scrolling; the target audience, underlying theme or purpose of a game are sometimes used as a genre identifier, such as with "games for girls," games for cats,"Christian game" and "Serious game" respectively. However, because these terms do not indicate anything about the gameplay of a video game, these are not considered genres. Video game genres vary in specificity, with popular video game reviews using genre names varying from "action" to "baseball."
In this practice, basic themes and more fundamental characteristics are used alongside each other. A game may combine aspects of multiple genres in such a way that it becomes hard to classify under existing genres. For example, because Grand Theft Auto III combined shooting and roleplaying in an unusual way, it was hard to classify using existing terms. Since the term Grand Theft Auto clone has been used to describe games mechanically similar to Grand Theft Auto III; the term roguelike has been developed for games that share similarities with Rogue. Elements of the role-playing genre, which focuses on storytelling and character growth, have been implemented in many different genres of video games; this is because the addition of a story and character enhancement to an action, strategy or puzzle video game does not take away from its core gameplay, but adds an incentive other than survival to the experience. According to some analysts, the count of each broad genre in the best selling physical games worldwide is broken down as follows.
The most popular genres are Shooter, Role-playing and Sports, with Platformer and Racing having both declined in the last decade. Puzzle games have declined when measured by sales, however, on mobile, where the majority of games are free-to-play, this genre remains the most popular worldwide. List of video game genres
Star Wars: Rebel Assault
Star Wars: Rebel Assault is a rail shooter video game developed and published by LucasArts for DOS, Apple Macintosh, Sega CD and 3DO Interactive Multiplayer systems, set in the Star Wars universe. Released in 1993, it is the first CD-ROM-only game to be published by LucasArts; the game's story focuses on a young pilot called Rookie One as He or She is trained by, subsequently fights for, the Rebel Alliance in the Galactic Civil War. The game features digitized footage and music from the original movies, full speech. Rebel Assault is one of the oldest titles to make use of extensive full motion video on the PC; the video was used to display pre-rendered 3D graphics that were far ahead of what a contemporary PC could render in real-time. Developers pre-rendered various environments and battles and the player flew through these environments; the game consists of four mission types: three spaceflight types, one on foot. The three spaceflight mission types are third person, overhead view, first person.
In all three types, the ship follows the same cursor which aims its gunfire. If the player moves the targeting cursor after firing, the shots that were fired will follow the cursor. 9 of the 15 levels are first person. As such, enemy fire cannot be dodged in this mode. Only level 9 falls into the on foot mission type; this level puts the player in a series of three stationary settings, though the player character can be maneuvered horizontally in order to avoid enemy fire. In a few stages, there are branching points, much like those in Panzer Dragoon II. Bonus points whether secondary objectives are accomplished. In some cases, original footage was filmed for the game with actors, a Star Destroyer model was digitized for a certain mission. Most of the graphics were prerendered in 3D; the game follows the adventures of a young pilot known as Rookie One, a farmer from Tatooine in the style of Luke Skywalker. The game takes place during the events of Episode IV: A New Hope; the game begins with Rookie One's training, followed by an attack on the Star Destroyer Devastator, after its capture of the Tantive IV in the events of the film.
The rebel squad defends the Rebel Base on Hoth from the attack shown in the Empire Strikes Back, launches an assault on the Death Star, with the player taking the place of Luke Skywalker in destroying the battle station. Each of the 15 chapters features its own brief "alternate ending" clip which plays if the player runs out of lives. All of the original characters are replaced by new characters and voices, in some cases, new situations. For example, Han Solo and the Millennium Falcon are replaced by Commander Jake Farrell in an A-Wing who saves "Rookie One" just before he has to take the final shot on the Death Star; the game was followed by Star Wars: Rebel Assault II: The Hidden Empire. The Sega CD version is missing Chapter 7 and skips straight to Chapter 8, renumbering all subsequent chapters accordingly; the Sega CD version's graphics are considerably less sharp and detailed than those of the PC and 3DO versions. Star Wars: Rebel Assault was a commercial hit. LucasArts shipped 110,000 units to retailers in the game's first day, global sales reached 400,000 units by mid-1994.
By summer 1994, this number rose to 500,000 units. The game sold 1.5 million copies. Computer Gaming World in February 1994 said of the DOS version that "In some ways, Rebel Assault is a breathtaking game, yet it comes up a few light sabers short in some key areas". While praising the graphics as "the best yet delivered in a PC action game", the reviewer complained that the story "essentially replays several scenes from the movie" though the plot "required a knowledge of the movies to make sense of it". Gameplay was "an odd mix of challenging and mindless levels", with enemies attacking in the same memorizable patterns; the magazine concluded that "Rebel Assault is a gorgeous, fast-paced shooter, a lot of fun to play. The problem is. In April 1994 the magazine said that Rebel Assault "seems to have split gamers into two camps—those that love it, those that don't", with some criticizing the "very limited and repetitive" game play despite "incredible" graphics; the magazine concluded "Come to this one expecting a good show, but be sure your trigger finger knows what your eyes and ears are getting it into".
GamePro gave the Sega CD version a negative review. Though they praised the music, they described the graphics as "grainy and pixelated" and said that the controls are poor enough to all but eliminate the fun factor in the game. Electronic Gaming Monthly scored it a 5.75 out of 10, commenting that the music is excellent but that the graphics suffer from an limited color palette, which interferes with the gameplay, making it difficult to tell when the player's ship is going to crash into something. GamePro gave a somewhat more positive review of the 3DO version, praising the audio and the "awesome graphics", but again concluded that the controls all but ruin the game, they remarked that the directional movements are twitchy and that the need to push the cursor to the edge of the screen in order to maneuver the ship in first person is a major problem. A r
Star Wars: TIE Fighter
Star Wars: TIE Fighter is a 1994 Star Wars space flight simulator and space combat video game, a sequel in the Star Wars: X-Wing series. It places the player in the role of an Imperial starfighter pilot during events that occur between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi; the game was produced by Lawrence Edward Kilham's Totally Games studio. Based on X-Wing's game engine, TIE Fighter supports Gouraud shading and adds gameplay features and craft not available in X-Wing. TIE Fighter was updated and re-released several times, it was a critical success, it is considered by some critics to be among the greatest video games of all time. The game's plot begins; as with X-Wing, the player's character is unnamed in the game. In addition to fighting Rebel Alliance forces, the player flies against pirates, combatants in a civil war, traitorous Imperial forces; the original game ends with the player preventing a coup against Emperor Palpatine and being rewarded during a large ceremony. Subsequent expansions focus on Admiral Thrawn's efforts to stop an Imperial traitor.
Though playing on the side of the Star Wars saga's villain, the game presents Imperial forces as maintainers of peace and order in a tumultuous galaxy, reinforced as the player character serves under the tactical genius Thrawn rather than the terrifying Darth Vader. The storyline is divided across thirteen tours of duty, seven in the original, three in each of the expansion packs, each of which has four to eight missions. Although some of the tours can be played out of order, individual missions within each battle are played linearly. Mission briefings and debriefings, in-flight communication advance the story. After selecting a pilot file, the player views the "concourse", a hub with doors to different features of the game. While the main focus of gameplay is completing battles, the concourse offers several other areas; the training simulator lets the player fly each of the pilotable Imperial craft through a complex obstacle course. The combat chamber offers four extra missions for each craft, ranging from training scenarios to historical reenactments of important missions.
There is a room to view mission recordings, a tech room to view information about every spacecraft that appears in the game. When the player selects a mission, he or she is given a briefing, consisting of a dialog describing the mission and an animated map illustrating vessel positions and basic flight patterns; the player may optionally read a list answers about the mission. In addition to the standard mission briefing covering primary objectives, there is another briefing given by a mysterious figure who belongs to the Emperor's Inner Circle; this person informs the pilot of optional secondary objectives and provides additional plot information. Completing the primary objectives allows the player to progress to the next mission and earn Imperial military promotion. In-flight gameplay is similar to X-Wing, played in first-person but with the option to switch to third-person. All flight takes place in space. Mission roles including dogfighting, escorting or disabling other craft, inspecting vehicles, attacking capital ships and space stations.
Initial missions place the player in unshielded TIE fighter variants. Laser cannons and ion cannons serve as short range weapons, damaging or disabling targets respectively; some starfighters carry limited number of torpedoes for additional range/firepower. As with X-Wing, the player needs to balance power allocation between weapons and shields; the player can change the firing modes of his or her fighter's weapons. If the ship possesses shields, the player chooses the shield balance between rear. Shields are rechargeable; when the player's craft is unshielded, enemy fire will damage the player's hull. Hull damage can disable systems, such as targeting computer. Disabled systems will be repaired. Hull damage may cause cockpit displays to break, rendering them useless for the remainder of the mission. Heavy hull damage will destroy the player's spacecraft; when the player's craft is destroyed before completing a mission, or the mission is otherwise a failure, the player can attempt the mission again.
However, the mission is still successful if the player's craft is destroyed after all primary mission objectives are completed. While based upon X-Wing, TIE Fighter does introduce several gameplay additions that made it less difficult than its predecessor; the targeting system allows players to target capital ships' and space stations' components, such as shield generators and weapons. Additionally, the targeting display shows a 3D model and relative orientation of the player's target. Mission
Future US
Future US, Inc. is an American media corporation specializing in targeted magazines and websites in the video games and technology markets. Future US is headquartered in New York City with small offices in Minneapolis. Future US is owned by parent company, Future plc, a specialist media company based in the United Kingdom, its magazines and websites include: PC Gamer Official Xbox Magazine TechRadar Maximum PC Electronic Musician Guitar Player Guitar World Multichannel News Broadcasting & Cable TWICE Founded in 1985 in the UK by Chris Anderson Future Publishing was the fastest growing UK publisher of the nineties. From a start in computer and video games magazines, Future diversified into sports, entertainment and general interest magazines becoming the UK's fourth largest publisher. Anderson wanted to expand Future into the United States, bought struggling Greensboro video game magazine publisher GP Publications, publisher of Game Players magazine in 1993; the company launched a number of titles including PC Gamer, relocated from North Carolina to the Bay area, occupying various properties in Burlingame and South San Francisco.
When Anderson sold Future to Pearson PLC he retained GP, renamed Imagine Media, Inc. in June 1995, operated it as his sole company for a few years. However, when Future bought itself out from Pearson in an MBO, Anderson came back on board, when Future floated on the stock exchange in 1999 Imagine's print magazines were merged with Future Publishing to form the Future Network PLC, a company floated on the London Stock Exchange; the on-line properties, including IGN, were put into a separate company snowball.com. Buoyed by the Internet economy and the success of Business 2.0 in the US, Future rode the boom of the late nineties. During this period the company won the exclusive worldwide rights to produce the official magazine for Microsoft's Xbox video game console and cemented its position as a leader in the games market. In the spring of 2001, buffeted by economic factors and the market downturn, Future Network USA went through a strategic reset of its business that included the closure of some titles and Internet operations and the sale of Business 2.0 to AOL/Time Warner.
By early fall 2002, Imagine Media had refocused on its core business, publishing five games and technology magazines: Official Xbox Magazine, PC Gamer, PSM: 100% Independent PlayStation 2 Magazine, Maximum PC and MacAddict. It was that Imagine became Future Network USA, adopting the name of its parent company, Future plc. Future used this strong portfolio and its strength in creating media for young men as a platform for growth into the action sports and music markets. In December 2005, after three years of organic growth and strategic acquisition, Future Network USA became Future US, to reflect its diversification into markets beyond games and technology. In 2005, Future US made its first venture into the women's market with the launch of Scrapbook Answers and with the addition of Women's Health & Fitness and Decorating Spaces, to its portfolio of titles with the Future plc acquisition of Highbury House plc. On September 19, 2007, Nintendo and Future announced that Future US would obtain the publishing rights to Nintendo Power magazine.
This came into effect with the creation of issue #222. On October 1, 2007, it was announced that Future US would be making PlayStation: The Official Magazine, which ended up replacing PSM and first hit newsstands in November 2007. With this launch, Future US is the publisher of the official magazines of all three major console manufacturers in the US. In 2012, NewBay Media bought the Music division of Future US. In 2018, Future reacquired majority of the assets sold to NewBay by buying NewBay outright for US13.8 million. Future used this acquisition to expand its US footprint in B2B segment. CD-ROM Today Daily Radar Games Radar Decorating Spaces Do! Future Music Future Snowboarding Magazine Game Players Guitar One Guitar World Acoustic Guitar World Legends Guitar World's Bass Guitar Maximum Linux Men's Edge Mobile PC netPOWER Next Generation Magazine Nintendo Power Official Dreamcast Magazine PC Accelerator PlayStation: The Official Magazine Revolution Scrapbook Answers Skateboard Trade News Snowboard Trade News T3 The Net Total Movie Women's Health & Fitness Official website
Return of the Jedi: Death Star Battle
Return of the Jedi: Death Star Battle is a shoot'em up video game published by Parker Brothers in 1983 for the Atari 2600, Atari 5200, Atari 8-bit family. In 1984 it was published for the Sinclair ZX Spectrum, it was one of the earliest Star Wars-related video games, following Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back in 1982 and alongside Atari's 1983 Star Wars arcade game. It was first video game based on Return of the Jedi. In the game, the player controls the Millennium Falcon with the aim of destroying the second Death Star; the game is split into two stages. In the first, the player must shoot enemy TIE fighters while waiting for an opportunity to pass through an energy shield. In the second stage, the player must shoot at parts of the Death Star until there is a clear path to the reactor. Once the reactor has been destroyed, the player must survive the resultant explosion. Once these objectives are completed, the game begins again in a new round with greater difficulty; the cover art depicts the Millennium Falcon in flight away from the constructed Death Star, pursued by four TIE interceptors.
It was produced by John Berkey, the noted science fiction artist who designed some of the earliest poster art for the original 1977 film, Star Wars. Return of the Jedi, a 1984 arcade game from Atari Return of the Jedi: Death Star Battle at Atari Mania Return of the Jedi: Death Star Battle at Atari Mania Return of the Jedi: Death Star Battle at SpectrumComputing.co.uk Star Wars: Return of the Jedi: Death Star Battle on Wookieepedia, a Star Wars wiki
