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Albion DEVELOPER: Blue Byte Studio GmbH PUBLISHER: Blue Byte Studio GmbH FIRST RELEASE: 1996 PLATFORM: PC/DOS; CD ALTERNATIVE RELEASES: n/a MINIMAL HARDWARE REQUIREMENTS: DOS, 486 compatible CPU, 8MB RAM RELATED GAMES: None Screenshots (courtesy of mobygames.com): From Blue Byte Software (acquired by UBI Soft in February, 2001), producers of such titles as Archimedean Dynasty and Settlers, and designers of AmberStar, comes one of the most underrated CRPG gems in history. Some have loved it, some still hate it. A traditional RPG formula transplanted into ingeniously crafted world of imagination, but not lacking the realism of the true science-fiction. A compilation of most brilliant ideas, forms and solutions of it's times rather than great leap in itself - a negative feature many will point out. But a unique compilation is that... Not so long ago, in the year 2227, humanity devised the faster-than-light travel mechanism. The discovery made quite a stir in our overpopulated Solar System, taken as a possible solution to the raw materials shortages. However initial enthusiasm was soon gone, as it became clear that the FTL drive cannot be used near any larger source of gravity, meaning anywhere inside a solar system. This effectively meant that an FTL ship that would extract and transport raw materials from across the vast space would still have to use conventional propulsion to enter or leave the vicinity of any planets. The costs to build, fuel and crew such a ship demanded the colossal size of the ship and that it would be send only to the planets containing the highest value and amount of raw materials it offered. Only the richest, multi-national corporations could afford such investments but eventually several groups of AI-controlled survey probes were sent out and the production of the colossal ships was started. Years passed as Mother Earth seemed to be slowly sinking into a catatonic state. The great FTL ships were ready but the corporations' greedy executives were still not able to designate the ships' destinations. It was in 2229 when one of the probes, property of DDT corporation, stumbled upon a great discovery - a mid-sized planet almost completely filled with raw materials just waiting to be taken. It was like nothing ever seen before. First scans revealed that it is an uninhabited planet with desert-type surface covered with thick layer of clouds. Humanity again fell in euphoria and the FTL ship, Toronto - property of DDT, was sent. After the journey and arrival at the "Nugget", as the planet was called, it was again confirmed by the ship's great AI that the planet is uninhabited and that a scouting party should be organised. And so two men were chosen: a DDT employee, a young but able pilot that would steer the small scouting craft onto the planet's surface, and an Earth's government representative that would monitor all of DDT actions on the site. Your name is Tom Driscoll and you are that pilot. It is the mission day, you have been preparing to for the last few weeks. You are about to wake up from a sleep. Wake up, just to hear the bad news... This is where the fun starts. What can be seen first are the beautiful graphics and a perfectly crafted sound illustration. It soon becomes clear that the Nugget is far from being uninhabited. We are welcomed with unusually colourful and extremely detailed environments and sound so realistic that you will often catch yourself stopping your character beside a stream just to hear the water flowing by. You animate him from a top down perspective or, when he enters a maze, a city street, or a fight, it turns into a basic sprite-based 3D first person perspective. Though both quite different theoretically, here they nicely replace each other in different parts of the game. As in any good RPG the mechanics of the game are quite advanced and detailed. What's obvious, the game world is absolutely huge. Huge and diverse. Although you will have to make several great journeys, there will be no time when you get bored. Of course you won't have to travel alone. You can gather a party and the world of Albion is full of interesting people. Each with his own life, story, needs and goals, strengths and weaknesses. Each of the characters you can enlist into your team will have a long list of attributes he can advance in while he gains experience or is trained appropriately. You can further customise your squad by equipping it with hundreds of different items, from guns and swords, through armour and shields, to forks, knifes and ceramic plates - just whatever your characters can find, steal, barter for, or devise themselves. And you will need those, as most of the planet is inhabited, if not with sentient species then with some kind of flora and fauna, quite much of it rather aggressive. In your long journeys you will meet many friends but even more enemies. Although it is possible to avoid fights, which is sometimes necessary if you care for your life, most of the time you will ruch into action in a true experience-gathering character. The battles are played on a small squared board and are dealt with in turns. As it is a S-F game after all, developers wanted to introduce as much realism as possible. They did it quite nicely minimising the "fantasy" elements to the absolute minimum while making some quite interesting additions. The existence of in-game time and day-night cycle influencing the lives of Nugget's inhabitants, for example. This counts in all the natural consequences, on of them being that certain meetings or other phenomena (may) occur only at some exact times. Another feature are the psychological states of your characters. They can be tired, dizzy, unusually happy, and whatever else you can think of. They also have to sleep at regular intervals. There are more details that make the whole image even more fun: if you will fund your characters a peaceful night in a tavern's cosy bed, they will regenerate more health points then when sleeping on a cold ground somewhere in dark woods. Kind of obvious, huh? But when did you see that the last time? Another neat idea is that although you can take or steal most of the things that are not nailed to the ground, the majority of them will be of little value to shopkeepers or to the crew themselves. And it does matter what you carry as, being mainly an RPG game, the engine does recognise weight attributes so you can get your team overburdened really quickly. Of course you also have to account for shopkeeper's limited storage space. Unfortunately among all those bells and whistles there are several little bugs that spoil some of the fun. Most of them are a result of rather poor design ideas rather than programming glitches. To name a few: the ability to ask any character in the game a question about anything, when you can even write the word yourself. Although such a move adds additional level of depth to the gameplay, as you will never find some information if you don't ask about a specific subject yourself, the problem with this approach is that you will soon find out that majority of minor characters say exactly the same thing about most of the subjects. Only those playing major roles in the plot have a large set of lines specifically designed for them. This quickly spoils the warm feeling of diversity when you get seeing a bunch of people living our their lives at almost any in-game location, which was supposed to create an effect of a living world. Quite a nice try for a 1996-production, however a bug when a local historian, asked about history of the city he lives in, sends you to... himself, already became famous. Also, travels take you take you so far through the various lands of the Nugget that one has to question the sense of visiting certain in-game locations. Of course, exploration is always welcome in a quest to understand the world you have found yourself in, however no advancement in plot gives little reward and one easily gets the feeling of time lost while the atmosphere of large and live world goes out the window. Another thing is that the game was originally made in German. And it can be seen in the way it was translated. Although a huge amount of text is shown throughout the game, there cannot be any excuse for many lines to sound unusually stiff or unnatural, with a few shorter ones making no sense at all. However all those little problems quickly dissapear when exposed to the ingenious plot itself. An epic S-F story crafted in one hundred fifty thousand words with many sub-plots and all the tiny details an adventure lover always asks for... A must. For everyone. ------- OPS: great story original but comfortable interface neat graphics lots of weapons and other items big, diverse and very rich in-game world CONS: few plain bad design choices translation bugs a world unnecessarily big in several places ------- Summarizing: Because the game is a very good and unique compilation of some great elements. However few bad ideas are thrown in as well.

System Shock DEVELOPER: Looking Glass Technologies, Inc. PUBLISHER: Electronic Arts Inc., ORIGIN Systems, Inc. FIRST RELEASE: 1994 PLATFORM: PC/DOS; FDD ALTERNATIVE RELEASES: CD (enhanced graphics engine, textures and movies; added audio to crew logs) RELATED GAMES: System Shock 2 Screenshots: The first System Shock (successful sequel released in 1999) is an astonishing and innovative composition of adventure, basic RPG, and first-person-perspective shooter elements - sadly underestimated due to the overwhelming hype accompanying ID Software's release of technically inferior DOOM in the late 1993. If you have ever experienced the gameplay of Deus Ex (developed by Ion Storm and released in 2000) you will be surprised how much of that gameplay was based on the System Shock series, reasons of which will be explained later on. Let's start with the most important element - the plot: It is year 2026. Of the largest corporations on Earth, Tri-Optimum, completes the long-term construction of Citadel. This first mining space station in human history is equipped with a massive mining laser and due to it's own size and complexity - with a set of ground-breaking technologies never applied before. One of these is the revolutionary computer system with an artificial intelligence pattern: SHODAN (Sentient Hyper-Optimised Data Access Network), which replaces the need for a number of technical staff that would otherwise demand living space beyond the available conditions, even on such an enormous structure. On 2nd January 2027 the AI circuits are implemented into the main on-board computer network in the goal of taking over the majority of basic and automatic space station's functions. You are an experienced and well respected individual in the computer hacking scene. The news of the first AI in history being created and successfully implemented arises your personal need to examine the AI's code so much, that on 7th April you attempt to hack your way through the Tri-Optimum network. Unfortunately for you, you are caught. The Corporation's security personnel arrests you a few seconds after your first glance at SHODAN's code. While you are detained Edward Diego, the Tri-Optimum's vice-president, contacts you personally. He proposes an offer: if you hack SHODAN again and remove it's ethical constraints you will be rewarded with, apart from getting your account cleaned, a military-grade neural-enhancement interface that will enable you to enhance your brain's capabilities through installation of external electronic expansions and will allow direct connection to any computer network supporting it - a device that even most of the Corporation's scientists can only dream of. You agree without hesitation. With A-class security access to Tri-Optimum network you succeed in your task. To maintain the whole affair confidential the neural interface implantation takes place at the Citadel space station. Then you are put to a six-month recuperation sleep. Meanwhile certain difficulties arise at the station... 9 September: Reports of aberrant behaviour with the computer network on-board Citadel station accumulate. The computer system administrator files a request to replace the SHODAN security system. 10 September: The computer system administrator is transferred off-station and the replacement order is rescinded. 26 September: An experiment in the biolabs involving a viral mutation agent displays unfortunate side effects. Flawed control software appears to be at fault. The science computer system is scheduled to go down for inspection. 27 September: Researchers, complaining of a strange illness, are found to be contaminated with the experimental virus mutagen. 30 September: Maintenance is flooded with repair orders for defective robots and systems station-wide. Technicians cannot explain the speed loss in computer systems. 2 October: Security detains crewmembers as the number of violent incidents aboard the station begins to rise. Psychological evaluations report mental derangement in the mutagen-contaminated researchers. 6 October: Other crew members complain of an inexplicable illness. The mutagen-contaminated researchers are listed in critical condition. Medical imposes quarantine measures. 7 October: Mutagen-contaminated experimenters are missing. Five medical staffers are found mutilated. Security reports that the armoury has been ransacked. 9 October: A riot erupts in Research. Some members of the crew barricade themselves in a laboratory. TriOptimum sends a military transport. Reports are hushed to prevent public embarrassment. 10 October: The transport is shot and destroyed by station defences due to a bizarre software malfunction. No shuttles are allowed to enter or leave the flight deck pending software diagnostics and hardware inspections. 13 October: SHODAN announces its intention to control all life aboard the station. Communications from Citadel are cut off. 1 November: A brief transmission IS received from survivors aboard the station, describing a massacre by SHODAN-controlled robot forces, and warning of danger to Earth populations. People who broadcasted that last message are probably dead now. The Tri-Optimum Terrorism Division is already aware of you and that you will wake up in a few days, being their only way of explaining the bizarre events. The Corporation understands that your presence on-board the station is illegal and is investigating the matter. However, not being a registered crew-member actually saved your life, as SHODAN is not aware of your presence or capabilities... for the time being. As you can see this piece is far from any other "save the world" crap. There is even more in the game's manual which I honestly advice to find and read before launching the actual game. The science-fiction world and the plot we witness is evidently cyberpunk-influenced, and quickly evolving throughout the game. Spiced by horror elements, it creates the unforgettable dark and heavy atmosphere surpassed only by the game's own sequel. How does it look like? Marvellous. The first thing that should be noted is that the game first appeared in 1994 as a floppy disk edition - even then it's fully three-dimensional engine and space over which the player could act was truly revolutionary. Soon after, as a natural step during these years' CD-ROM popularisation, a CD version of the game was launched and the perfect became even more beautiful. Where the FDD edition gave us 256-colour graphics with a maximum of 320x200 resolution, sporting 64x64 textures - the update enchanted everyone with resolutions up to 640x480, 128x128 textures, enhanced geometry and shadow casting. All video-clips were recreated in SVGA standard, all game bugs repaired, basic VR helmet support added, and last but not least - the crew logs found throughout Citadel got themselves full digitised audio recordings which added a new level of drama to the gameplay. All this however, not without a cost as the CD edition demanded whole 8MB of RAM as opposed to 4MB for the previous release (both version were bundled on the CD however). The world the player acts in is not separated into a number of continuous, linear "levels" where starting the next usually meant reaching the end of the previous one - as other games at those times got used to. Here, gameplay is obstructed only by in-game plot-mechanics. The player explores a vast space station and only it's walls, corridors, or more likely closed doors and traps,or simply lack of proper equipment or ammunition will hold further progress into yet unsurveyed areas. In fact it is necessary to come back to some locations later in the game as access to some rooms or specific objects might not be possible while some SHODAN systems are not first disabled or before a puzzle is solved elsewhere on the station. Citadel itself consists of ten decks plus four grooves - external leisure hubs. It doesn't sound impressive but the first contact with the ingenious level-design almost instantly blows any doubts away. There are no repeating patterns in the corridor layouts to be found. Each deck, or even separated areas on certain decks, bear their own graphical style. Each square meter is carefully designed so the exploration of the station as a structure is a lot of fun in itself. The addition of detailed automap with the possibility of creating player's described markers cannot be underestimated in such a complicated and realistic environment. Although the action is witnessed from a familiar first-person perspective, the gameplay features a number of major differences to the shooters genre commonly known in 1994. For example - the stance really matters. There is a separate window in the interface devised specifically for control over character's posture, enabling free body positioning in the given space. This, for the first time, gave the gameplay a new depth: now it is possible to silently tread through a corridor unnoticed and it is noticeably harder for the enemy to shoot or even spot the player if he is leaning from behind a corner. It is even harder if he is crouching at the same time. In fact there are some areas, like service shafts or robot storage facilities, to which access is possible only after some intense manoeuvring and several, quite a novelty in itself, jumps. A very interesting addition are the basic RPG elements, in the form of characters' capabilities evolution and equipment handling. Throughout the whole game Hacker finds various items: medkits, batteries, tools, syringes with (various) drugs, mines, bombs etc. Unlike what could be seen before it is possible to store those for future use at the player's whim. Beyond that, the main protagonist is able to retrieve a number of electronic enhancements for his neural interface which, when switched on, temporarily expand some particular physical abilities of his, or add some handy, defensive or otherwise, mechanisms. All this of course at the price of valuable energy stored within Hacker's own body, an additional stat to control aside from simple and well known health bar. This gets even more spicy if you remember that energy weapons are taking their power supply from the same source. Another new and realistic element added, is that the player is only able to carry six weapons at the same time, six toys from an enormous arsenal available. From bladed weapons, through all kinds of projectile weaponry including some serious rocket-launchers, ending on aforementioned energy fed ray guns like laser or plasma carbines, each of those having several types of ammo or different modes of fire. Rest assured that Tri-Optimum science division had it's share of experiments not only in the biology field. Be smart however as, unlike before, each weapon is best used against some particular type of target. It should be noted that whatever RPG elements have been incorporated into the game, there is still only one way of getting the enemies disposed of and it is by shooting them. It is still not the type of game that would give the player the possibility of using elements of environment to trap or destroy his targets, or enable him to evade the fight altogether with choosing an alternative path. Of course, such solutions are yet to be witnessed only in the future game productions, so it could have not been summed up as a disappointment when the game was released. Still System Shock is one of the first games, if not THE first, to sport a fully three-dimensional terrain. The game does not employ a simple trick where the world is just vertically differentiated - here, if a player sees a gang-way he can not only go over it but under it as well. Sounds trivial but this single breakthrough allowed for most of the innovations described above. Unfortunately, unlike the beautiful environment the enemies and any items within are just two-dimensional sprites. Although designed well with lots of detail, when compared to the high-resolution surroundings they look quite odd. Still with the unbelievable amount of various enemy types one cannot get bored even if they all look a little plain, especially if we consider the time that will pass before the introduction of the first three-dimensional enemy models. Mostly curious is the introduction of a "secondary world". Not without a reason the main character is a hacker and so some of the tasks and puzzles can be solved only by connecting to the on-board cybernetic network through any of the neural data sockets found on each level. This cyberspace has been also well thought out. It is a wireframe representation of some abstract rooms and passages symbolising the memory space of the on-board computer with items in the form of different geometrical shapes symbolising various pieces of data. You can find door codes, unlocking mechanisms, Tri-Optimum messages and hints, and the crew's notes. Those and the crew's personal logs, usually found with their bodies, create the axis of the plot. Of course the cyberspace is also the home of SHODAN so heavy resistance is to be expected. Not only will the AI send his minions to neutralise the player in the digital world, but it will be constantly trying to track the hacker down and when it finally reaches him, he will get kicked-out with his brain fried. Of course, there are some countermeasures. Some programs to be found inside the network, and in many versions, allow the player to defend himself of the guarding dogs, break the ICE encryptions at some of the other programs, or finally launch some proxies that would mislead the ever-watching SHODAN. The audio department remains in the 1st league as well. The music, although in simple MIDI format, is very rich and perfectly suited for the particular deck, as every major area has it's own tune. Also, as it is common for the games of the science-fiction genre, mostly electronic instruments are used. The sounds are of high quality, original but still believable, what only adds to the cold and dark atmosphere player is subjected to. The interface used is relatively complex, what is not surprising considering the amount of information available to the player. Some of the more important elements, like stance-control, health bar, energy bar, or buttons responsible for launching and displaying the status of neural implants are available right at the top and the sides of the screen. However there is much more. To give the player an efficient way of controlling all the new and advanced features of his character - two separate multi-function displays are used at the bottom corners of the screen. Each of them can display a number of predefined sets of information such as an automap, detailed information about any weapon, item we have, or any other special object in the game's world. Data about a weapon or an item in the Hacker's possession is usually displayed along with some usage options, i.e. the aforementioned weapon firing-mode control. Of course there is an additional panel, located between the smaller displays, that is designed for managing the inventory and any information the Hacker has gathered like e-mails, logs or notes, and as other panels this one can also be switched-off. Everything is swiftly controlled though mouse but the keyboard comes really handy when it comes to efficient character control. Even with all this, one will find it the best way to control such type of game only after a moment spent on familiarising with such an interface. The game is unusually configurable as well. Difficulty of combat in the "real" world, combat in cyberspace, complexity of locks to crack, and even the depth of the plot. All this and more can be set up. Some of the inner game elements are randomly chosen when a new gameplay is started. Empty, dark corridors, flashing lights, signs of battle here and there, mutilated bodies, sometimes blood on the shiny metal walls... It is never known what lies beyond the next turn... Only the logs you find depict the incredible horror that happened on that station. And what can still happen. Among the distant howls and electronic hum... Summarizing: Very innovative for it's times. Many unique and high-quality elements melted together creating an unforgettable experience.

I disagree. I don't understand why encryption software cannot be efficient and user-friendly at the same time. I would choose a software which:a) enables you to access the files transparently (of course after providing ID of some sort, whether it's a password or a digital certificate) does not have to be installed with admin privileges c) grants you the possibility of moving the encrypted files to a different computer and decrypting them over there That's not paranoia. I'm sure most of us keep private stuff at our work, even though we are not suppose to. IT guys usually have full access to our computers, with root accounts obviously, so that's nothing strange that we want to cover our tracks. Could you tell us a bit more about it? Why do you think Full Disk Encryption is better than other available solutions (as in better than creating a password-protected archive)? Remember we're talking about non-private computers so you can't really install software on your own, at least not that which hooks into the OS.

Hardline captcha.php DEVELOPER: Cryo Interactive Entertainment PUBLISHER: Virgin Interactive Entertainment (Europe) Ltd. FIRST RELEASE: 1997 PLATFORM: PC/DOS (Europe), PC/Windows '95 (USA); 3 CD ALTERNATIVE RELEASES: n/a MINIMAL HARDWARE REQUIREMENTS: IBM PC or 100% compatible, 486 66Mhz CPU, DOS 5.0 or Windows '95, 8MB RAM, 14MB hard-drive space free, x2 speed CD-ROM drive, VGA compatible video card, soundcard, 100% Microsoft-compatible mouse, keyboard RECOMMENDED HARDWARE REQUIREMENTS: Intel Pentium class CPU, x4 speed CD-ROM drive, SVGA video card compatible with VESA 2.0 or UNIVBE for 640x400 resolution RELATED GAMES: n/a Screenshots: It is year 1998. For the last months a previously unknown sect whose members are nicknamed 'Sectoids' has been ravaging the country. Every day becoming more and more powerful the sect has already crushed any police or army forces it encountered. Nobody knows how did it all began and where their incredible strength comes from. Like a disease they grow in numbers incredibly fast and with extreme violence they spread to major clusters of population. Chicago, Washington, New York - flooded with chaos nobody is able to stop. Death tolls are catastrophic. These days only two things are certain: that the sect worships a strange kind of technological god - 'Deck' - whom no one has seen and lived long enough to tell about it; the other being that when Sectoids come - nothing remains. You are Ted Irving. Helicopters are your hobby... At least were - before the Sectoids came. In the chaos that have arisen, you managed to get yourself one of those machines you always dreamed of. You were lucky - it brought you closer to what is less available with every new day - food. You've became a mercenary pilot - every time someone needs a safe transport not bothered by the Sectoids' patrols - you are the man, in exchange for those little supplies you need. However you have a very bad habit. You tend to help people. You have responded to emergency calls from lost Rebel patrols before. Rebels... Poorly organized, outnumbered and outgunned. It is kind of funny that only such a group is rumored to be the only one who can help defending humanity against the Sectoids... But for now - it is they who need your help. You have just received another distress call from a stranded rebel. Of course you are going to respond to that call. What is not so obvious is what will happen when you get there. All your beliefs are going to be tested hard... What we have here is a nice backstory to another entry in the rail-shooters genre - players spend most of the game shooting, through a first person perspective, to moving targets, while their characters remain still or move beyond player's control. However this time that well known genre made another step forward. Until now we have been witnessing only pure shoot-out action accompanied by semi-realistic graphics, average plot and total lack of any interactivity. It was not a surprise to find another game that focuses on action, but a completely different approach to delivering those tons of virtual action-extravaganza was a nice and unusual treat. The first thing you will see in this Full Motion Video action game shall be poor acting and painfully simple dialogs. Yet it seems that Virgin/Cryo duo, being the big names in the gaming industry at the time, had done their homework well and where they had saved on the scriptwriters, they spent a lot on the technology and the design team. For the first time in a title that is basically a rail-shooter we can see some large chunks of adventure-gaming elements. First of all, the gameplay is not made up of only pure action sequences separated by a bunch of short movies. Although both elements are present here and are a strong part of the gameplay, there are a great many situations where player has direct control over Ted's actions and it is him who has to lead Ted to fighting. And that "control" reaches much farther than usual action-choice as in the other well known genre of interactive movies. During such adventure sequences we can explore the places (interiors and exteriors) Ted will visit. Of course, all Ted actions during such time are pictured with FMV sequences however we can still gather equipment or search for secret passages that will lead us to more powerful weapons, or let us avoid some of the shootout altogether. Of course this is not an adventure title so the whole space Ted can move in is just a set of rooms that will eventually lead to a major action sequence this way or another. However the ability of the player to actually choose the way that has an impact on later gameplay makes that game far more entertaining. We can use our inventory at any time. By implementing a variety-of-weapons-but-little-ammunition scheme designers put player's braincells into work, as he needs to actively choose the best weapon to the situation at hand. And there are many weapons to choose from. From semi-automatic powerful pistols, less noisy fully-automatic sidearms, through shotguns and automatic mid-range rifles, to such miracles of technology as laser powered handguns or automatic multi-barreled miniguns. There are also "heavy artillery" modules that can be attached to any weapon adding the ability to launch grenades or spread napalm across the place. Most of the equipment may be found on the cold bodies of your ex-enemies. That includes med-kits as your health is limited as well. Fun never ends as there are hundreds of various enemies to kill. As the game makes heavy use of blue screen techniques (prefilmed actors shown against prerendered or photographed static backgrounds) - most of the enemies seem different every time you see them. However eyecandies like the number of weapons or above average number of destructible environment elements are only part of the graphical engine itself, which is one of the best in this type of games. The graphics are always clear and sharp (thanks to support for 640x480 resolution in 16bit color!), while all of the little details like explosions and other lighting effects suit the rest of the scene incredibly well. All moving scene elements are well cut from their blue background and fit perfectly into their surroundings, a sign of developers mastering the crafts of lighting and perspective, which was always the hardest part of the blue-screen technique. The backgrounds are mostly real locations with only little digital additions - additions seamless and pleasant for the eye. On rare occasions player can witness a longer computer-generated animation, mostly as a part of a longer movie between the action sequences. Now, the strengths of this game do not lie in the range of new solutions it incorporates - it is the great design that makes all the separate details a fun and enjoyable whole. Perfect interface that let's you pause and save the game any time you wish, skip or replay the movie you have already seen in only a few clicks, or an addition of sub-titles is only adding to the general fun factor. Although the developers didn't leave the player with a choice of game difficulty, the varied gameplay and sceneries will keep the pros interested, while slowly but steadily evolving S-F plot will keep all other "slower-handed" gamers in front of their monitors. Especially if they are shown quite a lengthy set of movies, hence the 3 CD worth of weight. Still, experienced player may finish the game in one evening. Now don't get me wrong, the story is not a top-notch science-fiction saga (and did I mentioned that acting is awfully bad...?) but when combined with all those other elements it is definitely more than enough to warrant a play-through for not only the action-oriented crowd. Save often and play to the end. The good: Interesting plot. Freedom of movement between the action sceneries. Unusually interactive world (for this type of game). The bad: No skill level choice. Poor acting (cut-scenes). Definitely worth a shot!

Same as the others, version 2 is the winner. Has some detail from the last one, but would is not diverting attention from the text so much.

Have you tried testing if this is really a feature implemented within the game's engine (it's rather hard to believe)? Changing the clock a day backwards? using an install monitoring programme (any file-index based uninstaller in the vein of Ashampoo Uninstaller would do the trick) to remove the game completely and then reinstalling again?

True, but you have to remember that if the mail is served by gmail servers - it never touches your server's bandwidth or space.

I had a similar issue after power outage. Used BootIt NG to format the flash drive under DOS.

The only thing I imagine this to be useful for, would be debugging your websites. I seriously hope that with browsers complying to standards more and more, the need for various hacks for different browser will finally disappear. Yes, but what would you gain with this? I can't imagine why a user of Firefox would like to masquerade his browser as Internet Explorer. Likewise a user aware enough to see the need to "turn" his IE into FF due to security issues, would probably just switch to FF.

Have you changed the polling frequency for your USB ports (i.e. for "speeding up" the data transfer rate of your mouse)? Kind of basic: Have you overclocked your PC? Another basic: Have you changed anything inside your PC lately (around the time the problems started occurring)?

Archimedean Dynasty DEVELOPER: Massive Development GmbH PUBLISHER: Blue Byte Studio GmbH FIRST RELEASE: 1997 PLATFORM: PC/DOS; CD with CD-AUDIO tracks ALTERNATIVE RELEASES: n/a MINIMAL HARDWARE REQUIREMENTS: DOS 5.0, 486 DX2/66 compatible CPU, 8MB RAM, 35MB free hard-drive space, x2 CD-ROM, Microsoft-compatible mouse RECOMMENDED HARDWARE REQUIREMENTS: Pentium 90, PCI graphics card with 16MB RAM, SoundBlaster 16 soundcard, joystick highly recommended RELATED GAMES: AquaNox (sequel); AquaNox 2: Revelation (sequel) Screenshots (courtesy of mobygames.com): Earth. The future is now. ... Our only habitat is much different from the almost heavenly planet described by historical archives. That blue heaven was once a place full of life - a home also to humanity, it's evolution through science and time - it's technological miracles: exploration of space, exploration of the deepest seas... People were setting their foot where no man had lived before - first brave men and women created underwater settlements in the deepest regions of seas. In the name of science. In the name of military security... While nations were making great leaps in the fields of culture - they were just that... nations. The planet was still covered with thick political boundaries. Not all men wanted those to disappear. And where a great political tension is created - a catharsis of even bigger volume will follow. Now, we look with terror how easy it was for human to cover it's only home with nuclear fire. But even the hell stepping down to Earth was not the worst to come ... And so begins the new masterpiece from the well known Origin. Famed for their original, creative and very entertaining productions like the Privateer or the Settlers series, now they strike again with perfectly crafted game, but with an unexpected theme as well. The action starts several hundred years after the great nuclear holocaust. A tragedy that resulted in melting of Earth's polar caps which flooded the planet with one, endless ocean. The last remnants of humanity have learned to exist deep under the surface, safe from the deadly radiation above. They have now created large communities, if not to say nations - each with it's own number of cities, settlements, it's own corporations and military power... Some rule with democratic protocol, others with a dictator's mighty hand. Science was not buried either - methods of relatively fast, large scale transport were developed initiating the evolution of trade. All in all - people have learned that the most precious key to survival is balance. A balance that soon might be disturbed... What we have here is of course an underwater sub-of-the-future simulator but there is much more to expect from the gameplay than a copy of SilentHunter routine. As you can see from the plot outlined above - the game takes us about 600 years into the future where we animate an experienced mercenary called Emerald "DeadEye" Flint. He is about to enter one of the greatest and most entertaining S-F stories ever encountered in a game. I won't say more, but rest assured that the plot-outline above is only the tip of the iceberg. An iceberg you are likely to fall off if you won't get your hands on the original book-size game-manual, where the whole history and geography of the future's world is laid out, without which you won't be able to fully appreciate the game. And there is plenty to appreciate - one of the most beautiful "underwater" 3D engines where big things a-r-e big; with hi-res textures and state of the art dynamic lighting, shading and perspective correction technologies; precisely recreated real-world physics like gravity, tides system and detailed hydro-dynamics; some of the greatest computer-animation sequences, easily blowing any Abyss movie stuff away; brilliant voice-casting; some of the most moody techno music you will ever hear; stunning armament of guns, torpedoes, turrets, software and other equipment for your boats; and above all - an unusually detailed and realistic world, where you can talk to people, choose your own dialogues and earn bonus missions in a non-linear fashion. Definitely worth a shot! Special notes: Be sure to grab the newest patch for the game and an update making the game use some 3DFX cards' acceleration (both available at dlh.net). Read the documentation delivered with the updates before installing! Analogue joystick strongly advised! If you want to understand the complex plot - grab the manual at replacementdocs.com

Quatrux, Have you though of somebody taking over your account and using it while impersonating yourself? If somebody does that, they can contact your friends, perhaps co-workers and do some moral damage. Also remember that gmail stores all your mail, so such a person would also have access to any passwords or logins erbsites often send to their users. More than that, they could find out which sites you're using and reset your passwords on them (correct e-mail address usually being enough), gaining access to more of your private information and disrupting your access to those resources. You're using services that you would not admit using in public? How about somebody sending your last invoice from a sex-toys website to your boss (radical example but still...). All this is quite easy if you're using an unsecured connection in a public place, in fact man-in-the-middle attacks are quite often. Please keep that in mind.

And some more practical reasons you might want to employ Google Apps: Insanely good spam-filters (used several e-mail providers in my life, but found nothing better) You will be saving your bandwidth, as mails will be going to gmail servers Depending on what web host provider you employ, this solution might give you better control over you mail system (multiple accounts, passwords, access privileges, redirections, etc.) It's easy to setup so just give it a try and see for yourself.

Yup, the software is quite impressive considering it's free. Missed the update as well. I usually use it when my friends have their computers ridden with parasites, and so far it couldn't eliminate only one pest which no other programme could (a certain procedure had to be employed). Apart from the capabilities described above, it can also install a resident monitor which will scan for possibly malicious registry or system-internals actions. Highly recommended!

Perhaps it's just me but I find most of those pretty contrast-heavy. What I like is designs that focus on information/text displayed, graphics being just a small addition. Right now I'm sitting in a completely dark room and only Apathy didn't hurt my eyes upon opening, though still being a bit too sad for my taste. In fact, take a look at this very page - there are very little bright and strong colours, and 100% white is present only in few places. Just my opinion. EDIT: After lots of searching I've found those to be extremely interesting:

I've tried gTalk with Miranda and to my surprise gTalk does not support offline messages. I for instance value those highly, as most of my friends live in different time zones and it is quite hard to catch them online. Is it hard to implement such feature? I always keep my IM software on, so the need for me to launch an e-mail programme to send my friend a one-sentence message seems a waste of time.

Hi Shaded,If by "program" you're referring to the terms of services Xisto provides, I think that technically you should be able to code everything you mentioned without many problems. Xisto has all the features you would need from a free web hosting, whereas there are some PHP-functions limitations you should read about in the forums before planning your site.Enjoy your stay

OK folks, but you have to remember that google does not aim at the crowd we represent. Quotes from their website include "Single-click page creation", "No HTML required". For me it's quite obvious they've designed the service for people who find things like myspace too limited, while having no knowledge or time to create a full blown website of their own. It's kind of a one-stop-shop for a somebody who feels a need for his own place on the Net, perhaps for school-related activities as well. I believe that for people who can't divert a lot of resources (time/money/learning) into this, it's a invaluable service. And with google provides it for free, we can't really blame them it's simple.

It's surprising how many people jumped onto the iPhone, claiming that it's the functionality and not the brand they want. PDAs have been around for so long, with their price going down all the time. They offer basically anything you'd want en-route without carrying a lap- or net-book with you. But people still insist iPhone is unique. I for one instance think it's cumbersome, it's UI is unintuitive, and configurability is sub par. With precision offered by a stylus I got used to so well, I think the finger driven control is suitable only for basic music, picture and phone capabilities whereas everything else is a pain to handle. Also the software limitations the iPhone has by design, inability of the owner to download and install any software he desires, and a price completely inadequate to the functions you receive, turn me down completely. Summarizing, I think it's the touch-pad alone that people not interested in the brand are so mad about, the function that among all others has already been available in PDAs. Could those cautious byers who got iPhone just because it was available for a lesser price from their GSM providers please tell me what are the possible advantages of iPhone versus Asus P535 for example?

I have only one issue with it. It applies only to CRT monitors at the moment, which obviously are being slowly phased out throughout the world. LCD monitors always have the backlight turned on, which is appropriately covered by LCD layers to produce various colours, black included. This plus the fact that LCDs use much less power than the old CRT monitors tells us to treat blackle's claims rather as wild marketing. There are rumours of new versions of monitor-LCD technologies, allowing for switching the inactive parts of the image completely off, eliminating contrast problems altogether.Of course, another interesting approach would be to say that it may save money in poor families where even a CRT monitor is a great expense, but then again taking into account the numbers stated, the savings would be mostly insignificant.

Why? What exactly are you missing? That would quite important for people who are thinking about the change due to costs or haven't yet decided which software to use... Again, why exactly? Sure, Gimp is not Photoshop but then again Gimp is completely free. As pointed out before, UI can be altered to resemble that from PS, while the programme itself is small. I must admit I've used PS long time ago, then switched to Gimp in favour of the open-source license. It's interesting that most people forget one of it's more important features - it's very small for the features it offers. Some time ago I searched for a smaller, simpler replacement for Gimp for the little everyday tasks. It surprised me that much software that brands itself "small and handy" are actually bigger when it come to size, while offering just the basic Paint-like functions. I'd like to say that the situation here is similar to that of early IE vs. Firefox conflict. People are so used to PS (which was developed with resources not available to the Gimp) that they think something is worse just because it's not PS, even though with a certain amount of effort (and with a huge amount of cash left in their wallet) they can replicate their results in Gimp as well. What do you experts think?

Darasen, could you please quote that fragment? It seems unlikely that nobody noticed that before, with so many privacy concerns regarding Google and it's software. Perhaps you're referring to this issue? When it comes to me, my main problem with (my currently favourite) Firefox was poor handling of many tabs at the same time. I don't really care whether it's due to Gecko or poor memory management but I don't believe that even 80 tabs open should create such a memory demand (sometime even up to 50% of my 2GB RAM, depending on the complexity of the webpages displayes). Chome is definitely a beta, especially with such security bugs/design flaws like secure browsing being cached. But the idea seems extremely tempting, something that Firefox is slowly drifting away from - a quick and small minimalistic browser. My library of FF plug-ins I got used to so much will be hard to forget, but excellent memory management and webkit's speed available on Windows apart from Safari (sorry, I don't like Apple and try to avoid their products) will definitely be a good argument. Another interesting point about Chrome is where it will end up in the great browser war. Contrary to the popular belief (amongst others supported by numerous articles on tgdaily.com) I believe that it will eventually hurt Firefox pretty badly. As long as IE is offered with Windows and it is the OS installed on most computers, Microsoft will hold its trenches quite well - majority of casual users just can't be bothered to try different browser unless those bring some serious change to the functionality of the webpages people use. Even though Mozilla secured Google's funding for the moment, Google itself has relatively much more resources of all kinds at its disposal. Even with unchanged funding of Firefox, as a safety measure against Chrome failure, Google can successfully push Chrome to the level FF achieved after years of experience and make its own browser surpass FF pretty quickly right after that. Firefox supremacy relied on it being a comprehensive and completely open alternative to IE, with other competitors on the market, with the same or even better logistical abilities and the same open-minded approach, FF may be in trouble pretty fast. Chrome managed to gain 1% of the market share right on the first day of its beta release. It's not really hard to imagine that soon (after Chrome hits v1.0) a huge community will gather around it, recreating all the functionality that we would otherwise miss after FF. What I'm really interested are the privacy concerns. What do you guys think? Any articles about monitoring Chrome behaviour when it comes to sending data home?

It looks nice on Vista, but a big miss on XP. I'm staying with open-source and fully configurable Miranda though.

I guess that happens to all companies who enter the big league. They just focus on zillions of customers, not single cases. On the other hand it's hard to blame them. When you have to serve millions of customers, would you be willing to pay some serious bucks for customer service provided to some minor clients, who don't really have the choice or you don't have much out of it? It's all into numbers. Things will change only when a strong competitor for google's ads in the private user sector will come up.