Stars video game. Stars! – The Ultimate 4X Space Strategy Game for Multiplayer Enthusiasts

What makes Stars. a standout 4X space strategy game. How does the game’s design cater to multiplayer experiences. Why has Stars. remained popular despite its age. What unique features set Stars. apart from other strategy games.

The Genesis of Stars! – A Multiplayer 4X Space Strategy Masterpiece

Stars! emerges as a beacon for 4X (eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, and eXterminate) strategy game enthusiasts, particularly those yearning for a robust multiplayer experience. Developed during the Windows 3.1 era, this game has defied the test of time, offering a depth of gameplay that continues to captivate players decades after its initial release.

At its core, Stars! places you in the role of an eternal leader guiding a fledgling civilization from its first steps into space to potentially becoming a galactic superpower. The game’s premise is familiar to fans of the genre, reminiscent of classics like Master of Orion, but Stars! carves out its own niche with its laser focus on multiplayer dynamics.

Unparalleled Multiplayer Experience: The Heart of Stars!

What sets Stars! apart in the crowded 4X genre? Its unwavering commitment to multiplayer gameplay. The developers crafted every aspect of the game with human opponents in mind, resulting in a balanced and engaging experience that shines brightest when played against other people.

The game’s mechanics are not only intricate and well-designed but also finely tuned, thanks in large part to a dedicated player base. These loyal fans have played a crucial role in identifying potential bugs and exploits, ensuring that officialized games remain fair and challenging for all participants.

The Role of the Community in Game Balance

How does the Stars! community contribute to the game’s longevity? By acting as unofficial quality assurance testers, players help maintain the game’s integrity. This collaborative effort between developers and the player base has resulted in a strategy game that remains competitive and enjoyable years after its release.

Timeless Design: How Stars! Aged Gracefully in the Digital Era

Despite its origins in the early days of Windows, Stars! has managed to age remarkably well. The game’s design choices, which might initially appear as limitations, often reveal themselves as strengths upon closer inspection.

• Portability: The game’s small size and minimal system footprint allow it to be easily carried on a USB stick and played on various computers.
• Practical Interface: While spartan by modern standards, the user interface is highly functional and never hinders gameplay.
• Resource Efficiency: The lack of built-in music and minimal sound effects keep system requirements low and allow players to focus on strategy.

These design elements contribute to a game that remains accessible and enjoyable across multiple generations of operating systems and hardware.

Cross-Platform Compatibility: Stars! Beyond Windows

One of the most impressive aspects of Stars! is its ability to transcend its original platform. While designed for Windows, the game’s versatility extends far beyond Microsoft’s ecosystem.

• Windows Compatibility: Runs smoothly on 16-bit and 32-bit Windows systems, including XP.
• 64-bit Solutions: While not natively compatible with 64-bit systems like Vista, workarounds exist using DOSBox or compatibility settings.
• Unix/Linux Support: Can be run on Unix and Linux systems using WINE.
• Mac Accessibility: Similar arrangements can be made for Mac users, expanding the player base further.

This cross-platform flexibility ensures that Stars! remains accessible to a wide range of players, regardless of their preferred operating system.

AI Opponents: A Fair Challenge Without Cheating

In a refreshing departure from many strategy games, the AI opponents in Stars! do not rely on cheating to provide a challenge. Instead, the game offers a unique approach to artificial intelligence that levels the playing field while still offering a worthy opposition.

Balanced AI Design

How do the AI opponents in Stars! provide a challenge without resorting to unfair advantages? The game employs pre-built races with additional race creation points, giving them a slight edge in capabilities. This approach ensures that AI opponents are formidable without feeling unfair or frustrating to human players.

For intermediate players who have mastered the race creation process, these AI opponents serve as excellent training exercises. They offer a consistent challenge that helps players hone their skills before facing human opponents in multiplayer matches.

Race Creation: The Strategic Core of Stars!

At the heart of Stars! lies its robust race creation system. This feature is not just a cosmetic addition but a fundamental aspect of gameplay that adds tremendous depth and replayability to the game.

Customization Options

• Primary Racial Traits: Half a dozen core characteristics that define your race’s fundamental abilities.
• Secondary Traits: An additional dozen traits that fine-tune your race’s capabilities and specialties.
• Economic Attributes: Customizable economic factors that influence your race’s development and resource management.

The race creation process allows players to tailor their civilizations to specific playstyles, strategies, or to counter expected opponent tactics. This level of customization ensures that no two games of Stars! are ever quite the same.

Strategic Depth Through Race Design

How does race creation impact gameplay in Stars!? The choices made during race creation have far-reaching consequences throughout the game. A well-designed race can provide significant advantages if played to its strengths, while a poorly conceived race may struggle to compete.

This aspect of the game is where true mastery of Stars! becomes evident. Experienced players can craft races that perfectly complement their preferred strategies, giving them an edge in multiplayer competitions.

The Time Investment: A Crucial Consideration for Players

While Stars! offers an unparalleled depth of strategy and multiplayer engagement, it’s important for potential players to understand the time commitment involved, especially in larger multiplayer games.

PBEM Game Duration

Play-by-email (PBEM) games, a popular format for Stars! multiplayer matches, can span considerable lengths of time. A standard PBEM game may require weeks or even months to complete, depending on the number of players and the frequency of turns.

This extended gameplay format allows for deep strategic planning and diplomacy but also demands patience and long-term commitment from participants. Players should be prepared for games that evolve slowly but offer rich, complex interactions over time.

Balancing Game Depth and Time Investment

How do players manage the time requirements of Stars!? Successful players often develop strategies for efficient turn management, balancing the depth of their strategic planning with the need to maintain a consistent pace of play. This balance is crucial for enjoying the full experience of Stars! without letting the game become overwhelming.

The Legacy of Stars! in the 4X Genre

Stars! occupies a unique position in the pantheon of 4X strategy games. Its focus on multiplayer gameplay, combined with its depth of strategy and customization, has allowed it to maintain a dedicated following long after many of its contemporaries have faded into obscurity.

Influence on Modern 4X Games

While Stars! may not be as widely known as some other strategy game franchises, its influence can be seen in many modern 4X titles. The emphasis on balanced multiplayer gameplay and deep race customization has become increasingly common in the genre, reflecting the pioneering work done by Stars!

A Continuing Community

Perhaps the most telling aspect of Stars!’ legacy is the continued existence of an active player community. Decades after its release, dedicated fans still organize tournaments, share strategies, and welcome new players into the fold. This enduring community speaks volumes about the game’s quality and lasting appeal.

Accessibility and Learning Curve: Navigating the Complexities of Stars!

While Stars! offers incredible depth and strategic possibilities, it’s important to consider its accessibility to new players. The game’s learning curve can be steep, particularly for those unfamiliar with the 4X genre.

In-Game Help Systems

Stars! provides a comprehensive in-game help file system that not only explains game mechanics but also offers a bit of lore, explaining the limitations of galactic travel within the game’s universe. This resource is invaluable for new players trying to grasp the game’s many systems and strategies.

Community Resources

Beyond the in-game help, the Stars! community has developed a wealth of resources to assist new players. These include strategy guides, race design tips, and forums where newcomers can seek advice from experienced players.

Balancing Complexity and Approachability

How does Stars! manage to be both deep and accessible? The game’s design allows players to engage with its systems at various levels of complexity. New players can focus on basic strategies and gradually explore more advanced tactics as they become comfortable with the game’s mechanics.

The Technical Marvel: Stars! as a Triumph of Efficient Design

From a technical standpoint, Stars! is a remarkable achievement in efficient game design. Created during an era of limited computational resources, the game manages to offer deep, complex gameplay within a remarkably small footprint.

Minimal System Requirements

• File Size: The entire game can fit on a single floppy disk, a testament to its compact design.
• Memory Usage: Stars! uses minimal system memory, allowing it to run smoothly on a wide range of hardware configurations.
• Graphics: The simple, functional graphics contribute to the game’s low resource requirements while remaining clear and informative.

Efficiency in Practice

How does the efficient design of Stars! benefit players? The game’s low resource requirements mean it can run alongside other applications without significant performance impact. Players can easily multitask, listening to music or running other programs while playing Stars!

Additionally, the game’s small size and minimal system footprint contribute to its portability, allowing players to easily transfer the game between computers or carry it on portable storage devices.

Modding and Customization: Expanding the Stars! Universe

While Stars! itself doesn’t support extensive modding in the way many modern games do, its community has found creative ways to expand and customize the game experience.

Custom Scenarios and Rulesets

Players have developed custom scenarios and rulesets that modify the standard game experience. These can range from historical simulations to fantasy-inspired settings, all within the framework of Stars!’ gameplay mechanics.

Third-Party Tools

The Stars! community has created various tools to enhance the gameplay experience. These include turn analyzers, race designers, and even programs to automate certain aspects of PBEM game management.

The Impact of Community Creativity

How have community-created content and tools impacted the longevity of Stars!? These additions have helped keep the game fresh and engaging for veteran players while also providing new ways for newcomers to explore the game’s possibilities.

The Future of Stars!: Preserving a Classic in the Digital Age

As technology continues to advance, the question of how to preserve and maintain access to classic games like Stars! becomes increasingly relevant.

Emulation and Compatibility Solutions

The use of emulators like DOSBox and compatibility layers like WINE has been crucial in keeping Stars! accessible on modern systems. As hardware and operating systems evolve, these solutions will likely play an even more important role in preserving the game.

Community-Driven Preservation

The Stars! community plays a vital role in preserving the game for future generations. Through documentation, archiving of game files, and sharing of knowledge, fans ensure that the game remains playable and its strategies remain accessible.

Potential for Remakes or Spiritual Successors

While Stars! itself remains a product of its time, its enduring popularity has led to discussions about potential remakes or spiritual successors. These projects, whether official or fan-made, could bring the core concepts of Stars! to a new generation of strategy gamers.

How might a modern remake of Stars! balance staying true to the original while incorporating contemporary game design principles? This question continues to spark debate and speculation within the Stars! community and the broader 4X strategy game fandom.

Download Stars! | Abandonia

Always been a fan of 4X games but always frustrated by the lack of good quality multiplayer games around? Look no further, my friend. Welcome home.

Stars! is a great strategy game designed solely to give the best multiplayer experience possible against other humans. The mechanics of the game are not only detailed and well designed, but also well balanced, thanks in part to the help of a small but very loyal player base which spot possible bugs and/or abuse and police the games officialized by their automatic host.

Loyal to the (now modern) ideology of the 4X space game genre such as Master of Orion, you are elected as the everlasting leader of a planet from which the dominant race have somehow managed to discover the secrets of space exploration and colonization. It is then up to you to guide this emerging race into the void, and turn this humble beginning into a mighty empire able to crush the other races in the galaxy. A small story is written in the nice in-game helpfile system, explaining how the galaxy formed and why you have limitations such as not being able to cross the borders of the galaxy map.

Created in the era of the elderly Windows 3.1, one of my greatest fears was to discover inabilities due to the antique coding. Not only did Stars! age wonderfully along with the new modern OSes, but it only took me a few sessions to realize that what can be considered weak points can just as easily be turned into assets. For example, the size and lack of entry in the registry allows you to carry the game on a USB stick and play on any computer as long as you are aware and wary of the cheat protection. The interface and spartan graphics, reminiscent of the old Windows 3.1 games, are another good example. Obviously designed with the limitation of the antique system in mind, they both do excel in their practicality. I have to admit that, in the twenty or so games that I’ve played so far, the interface never got in my way even once. This game also does not support music at all and barely even supports sound effects, depending on the version you are using. Obviously done to, again, keep the file size very small, it does help in the long run to concentrate on the task at hand when playing. With the game taking so little resources on its own to run on your computer, it is also a simple matter to open your favorite music player to listen to music you actually like, instead of always listening to the same boring synthesizer music, which is a problem that plagues a lot of other older games.

Since all the game core files can be stored on a single floppy, it is easy to simply carry the game (and your turn) to any other 16 or 32bit compatible computer and play from there (While XP works without a hitch, the 64bit Vista systems are not compatible. If you do not want to mess around with compatibility settings, DOSBox can be used in conjunction with Windows 3.1 in this case.). The game will simply create a harmless configuration file on the new machine in your Windows default directory so that it is able to save your configuration preferences and serial key (Vista, again, by default doesn’t allow you to do that: you will need to redo your configuration and enter your serial key every time you play unless you are willing to mess around for a workaround). It is also interesting to note that Stars! can be run in Unix/Linux systems (thanks to WINE), and that similar arrangements can be made for Macs.

One aspect of the game which was really refreshing to see, is the fact that the AIs don’t cheat, a point which greatly differs from the vast majority of the other well established 4X series. To compensate for their lack of creativity, the default AIs are instead pre-built races which have been attributed extra race creation points, making them slightly superior. They are, however, still far from being unbeatable, and are considered, by the intermediate players (who’ve mastered the race creation process), to be both weak and good training exercises for newcomers.

Speaking of the race creation process, a game without variety would become boring really fast… And the race creation helps a lot to alleviate that. With half a dozen primary racial traits and another dozen secondary traits to choose from, the custom race creation is what spices things up in this game. It is also where the true masters of Stars! can outshine the more moderate players since it also covers the economical attributes of the race being created. A lot of different options are available, all viable in their own way depending on the player’s play style.

There is one aspect of the game which requires a fair amount of warning for players who wish to compete in the biggest games: the time required to complete a standard PBEM game. In an effort to provide a good estimation of the time required to invest in a good and serious game, I tried various ways to play Stars! and have found three primary ways to play it. The first type of game, the solo mode against AIs in which you are your own host and thus play at your very own rhythm, has the advantage that you can stop and resume the game whenever you wish. This is the recommended mode for beginners, for it allows you to familiarize yourself with the game before jumping in the fray against human opponents. The second kind of game would be duels, a player versus player game with no diplomacy and usually no communication between the players. One player hosts the game while the second player plays on his own computer and receives and sends his turns to the host, usually by email. Such games can be completed in one sitting and usually require between four, eight, and ten hours, depending on the speed of play of both players. A specialized version of duels, called Blitz, can be played even faster by adding some special rules to speed up play, and can then be played with more players without sacrificing the speed of play.

The third and last kind of game is the “normal” game in which usually between four to eight players participate (but this can go as low as three players in a tiny or small universe, and up to as high as sixteen players in a huge universe, or any combination which strikes your fancy). From this point on, discussion, diplomacy, trade, and alliances between players begins to be commonplace as the game advances, adding greatly to the total base time required to micromanage your own empire. When war erupts, battles also need to be planned and, as you turn out to be victorious and grab more and more planets, the time required to continue to make good quality turns will increase. It is in this mode of play that time may begin to be an issue for a serious player, for it is not uncommon in the end game to need to invest around two hours of your time simply to micromanage your turn. If you wish to add to this the amount of time needed for diplomacy, the time needed to chat or discuss through emails about the right strategy to use to coordinate your action with your ally/allies, the research needed to make sure everything really goes along with your plan and the possible battle simulations that you might want to re-enact before engaging your main fleet into what could possibly be a kamikaze action… This small two hours per turn can easily go up to eight or even ten hours per turn. Adding to this the fact that most big games last at least about six months… A serious player wishing to compete against other human players needs to know right off the bat where they stand, and where they wish to go versus their real life schedule. From smaller games taking less time to complete, and bigger games potentially able to last for years, one should choose their game settings carefully if they want to complete the game from A to Z.

All in all, Stars! is truly a game which was, and is, still way ahead of its time. While neophyte strategy gamers would be wise to start with light and easy 4X games like Ascendancy or Spaceward Ho!, the hardcore strategy gamer will definitely find in this game the best which could ever have been done so far in multiplayer PBEM gaming. A definite gem for those who can truly understand its magic.

Please refer to the included text file for a more in-depth overview of the internet resources at your disposal.

For the game to work fully, it’s necessary to follow the instructions detailed in the readme file included in the download, or it can also be downloaded separately from the link above the review under “extras”.

Download Stars! (Windows) – My Abandonware

Read Full Description

Undoubtedly one of the best and most underrated 4X strategy games ever made, Stars! is a massive strategic romp through the universe that plays best in multiplayer mode.

Your goal? To take over said universe… or any of several other victory goals; universal domination is just the most fun and challenging.

What distinguishes Stars! from other galactic conquer titles is the multi-faceted complexity that is concealed beneath a deceptively simple mouse-driven interface. The game runs smoothly in a window, and everything you need to know about your budding empire (or a thriving war machine) can be accessed via menus or shortcut keys. After choosing the size of the universe you want (five sizes are available, from Tiny to Huge), you can add up to 15 (!) other players, both AI or human. Then you can set this up as play-by-email (PBEM) — a welcome feature that unfortunately not too many games nowadays support.

The beauty of Stars! is that the game gets more complex as you play, without bogging you down with tedious micromanagement. It is not uncommon for a huge battle later in the game to involve hundreds of ships or more, but the interface is so well-designed that managing your fleet is a breeze. The ship design interface is one of my most favorite features in the game: similar to Master of Orion, you can design your own ships by choosing various components.

Stars! boasts even more components, and numerous technologies that can upgrade each area. The computer AI is more than adequate, although the game is most fun in multiplayer mode against fellow human commanders. With a top-notch user interface, addictive “just one more turn” gameplay, and a challenging computer player, Stars! is a worthy entrant in our Hall of Belated Fame.

Aside from dedicated support to the game, developers Mare Crisium are also hard at work on Stars! Supernova Genesis, the sequel that has all the makings of another underrated classic (note: the title got cancelled). Highly recommended!

Review By HOTUD

The Video Game That Maps The Galaxy

In 1961, members of M.I.T.’s Tech Model Railroad Club created Spacewar, one of the first video games that ran on the university’s hulking hundred-and-twenty-thousand-dollar PDP-1 mainframe computer. Spacewar, like so many of the video games that would follow, took place in the cosmos. The setting was, in part, a practical decision: it was far easier for the earliest computers to render the blank canvas of space than the comparable complexities of rocks, hills, or cities. But, for games like Space Invaders, Asteroids, and Defender, there’s more to the choice of space as a backdrop than utilitarian function. Space has always fascinated storytellers, and with the birth of the video game humans finally discovered a way to explore its farthest reaches from the crunchy comfort of terra firma.

Early games kept the stories simple, but it wasn’t long before these representations of space offered more than merely a place to defend humanity from an alien threat. Through video-game simulations, which have become ever more sophisticated with technology’s advance, we’ve begun to discover truths about our own galaxy. One of the first truly ambitious simulations of space was Elite, a spaceship game created in 1984 by two university undergraduates, one aged nineteen, the other twenty, working out of a cramped dormitory in Jesus College, Cambridge. In the game, players tour the universe in a dog-fighting mining vessel; the program employed vector math to create vast swathes of space, filled with line-art asteroids and spacecraft, which tilted and spun as if their blueprints had popped into three-dimensional life. Every time the game loaded, there was a digital equivalent of the Big Bang: unimaginable vastness was created from almost nothing.

“In the early nineteen-eighties, a typical home computer would have just thirty-two kilobytes of memory—less than a typical e-mail today,” David Braben, the programmer who created the game with Ian Bell, told me. Rather than manually plot star systems by typing the coördinates of stars and planets into a database, Braben tried using randomly generated numbers. This method reduced the amount of designer time required to birth a universe, but at a cost: every time the game was loaded, its suns, moons, planets, and stars would be in a new arrangement. To overcome the randomness problem, Braben used the Fibonacci sequence as a seed from which identical galaxies would be generated each time the game was played, all within a computer program a fraction of the size of a photograph taken with a mobile phone today.

Today, Braben has returned to the game of his youth for a sequel, Elite: Dangerous. This time, he used astronomy rather than the Fibonacci sequence to arrange his galaxy. “I wanted to make the galaxy as accurate as possible so that the results of that exploration would make sense to people,” Braben said. “In the game, every single star in the real night sky is present, some hundred and fifty thousand of them, and you can visit each one. Even the clouds of stars that make up the Milky Way are included: some four hundred billion stars, their planetary systems, and moons are present, all waiting to be explored.”

The positions of the stars were drawn from the numerous publically available sky surveys, which Braben and his team at Frontier, the Cambridge-based game developer, collated and merged. They used procedural models based on physics to fill in gaps where data was missing or incomplete. “As you move farther from Earth, the data becomes increasingly sketchy, but the galaxy still runs by the same rules,” Braben said. “The hundred and fifty thousand star systems are taken from real-world data. But once you move beyond a few hundred light years we can only see the very brightest stars individually, so we use procedural techniques to augment the data.”

Floor van Leeuwen helps run the Gaia satellite project, which aims to chart a three-dimensional map of the Milky Way, at the Cambridge Institute of Astronomy. According to van Leeuwen, models of space such as those seen in Elite: Dangerous are crucial to expanding our understanding of the universe. “Computer simulations have played a very important role in astronomy for many decades,” he said. “The kind of problems encountered in astrophysics are almost always well outside what can be represented through simple clean equations.”

For Andrew Kuh, the human spaceflight and microgravity program manager at the U.K. Space Agency, the value of computer simulations has increased with data gathered by recent space missions. “This information is used to make models more accurate which, in turn, helps scope and define new missions to space,” he told me. “Of course, the ever-increasing power of computers is also a significant factor in improving computer simulations—but simulations will always need real data from somewhere as a starting point, and will require further observations to test their outcomes.”

Van Leeuwen believes that it’s in the disparity between real-world observations and computer simulations of space where advances are most readily made. “Astronomy is a field where you find a continuous exchange between new observations and modelling,” he said. “The conflicts that show up are generally due to simplifications made in the models, for which new observations can provide improved guidelines. There’s a continuously evolving and developing understanding of space, in which both models and observations play important roles.”

Elite: Dangerous has thrown up a number of conflicts between its model of the Milky Way and previous astronomical assumptions. “Our night sky is based on real data—it is not a hand-drawn backdrop as you might expect,” Braben said. “But the Milky Way and many of the stars around it are simply too bright and too uniform when compared to the real observable night sky.” Braben knew that the Milky Way appears somewhat dim when viewed from Earth because of obscuring space dust, but he was surprised by the quantity of dust and absorbent matter that the team needed to add to the game world in order to match the real-world perspective. “It appears as though our planet actually sits within that dust cloud, which is why the Milky Way appears so faint,” he said.

NBA Ball Stars Mobile Video Game, Ja Morant Cover and Gameplay Trailer Released | Bleacher Report

Photo Credit: Netmarble/NBA Ball Stars

Netmarble announced Tuesday it’s launched NBA Ball Stars, a mobile video game in which players can complete puzzles to upgrade their roster in pursuit of a championship. 

Here’s a look at the official gameplay trailer with the Memphis Grizzlies’ Ja Morant, the 2019-20 NBA Rookie of the Year, highlighted as the cover athlete:

The company reached an agreement with the NBA and the National Basketball Players Association to use player names and likenesses along with official team names in the game.

“Our partnership with the NBA has been momentous in the creation of a unique genre of game with appeal beyond casual gamers and sports fans to broader NBA culture, within the mobile gaming industry,” Netmarble U.S. president Simon Sim said.

The game ranges from quick play to a franchise mode, in which gamers can build a roster of their favorite NBA players and increase their talent level through completing puzzles, including head-to-head battles where opponents can place “Blocker Gems” as a hurdle to success.

Winning puzzles allows gamers to increase their players’ offensive or defensive skill level, or they can unlock signature moves. Players’ overall rating will increase over time, and the goal is then to create the most optimized lineup to move up the leaderboard.

Netmarble, which is known for titles like Lineage 2: Revolution and Marvel: Future Fight, provided a general overview of its newest release in collaboration with the Kung Fu Factory:

“NBA Ball Stars combines star players from the NBA, fast-paced gameplay and franchise-building skills into a strategic, team-based game suitable for general sports fans, casual gamers and players of all levels. Gamers will take charge of their favorite team and make a run for the championship title, choosing from an extensive line-up of NBA players to draft and train. By successfully bursting sequences of matching gems, players control their team and power-up their athletes to execute special shots, steals, slam dunks and more.”

Sim said players can expect “fresh content and surprises” in the coming months.

NBA Ball Stars, which is free to download, is available on mobile devices in Apple’s App Store and the Google Play store.

Birds Star In One of This Year’s Hottest Board Games

Real bird behaviors are central to player strategy in “Wingspan,” designer Elizabeth Hargrave’s debut game. Photo: Kim Euker

For Elizabeth Hargrave, it doesn’t get much better than gathering around a table with her husband and their friends to play board games. But at one such get-together in 2014, a question began to nag at her: Why did it seem like all the games were about Mediterranean traders, medieval castles, or galactic conquest?

Hargrave and her husband loved nature, and had recently started birding. All their friends were similarly outdoorsy. “Why,” she posed to the group, “are there no games about things we are into?” That conversation led Hargrave, a health policy consultant in Maryland, to a realization: She should make one.

Now, her debut board game Wingspan is one of the industry’s hottest titles for 2019 and is netting rave reviews. “It’s been a long time in the making, and it’s just mind-blowing to see pictures of this game being played all over the world,” Hargrave says.

Wingspan players take on the role of bird enthusiasts aiming to attract avian visitors to their wildlife preserve. The heart of the game is its deck of 170 illustrated bird cards, each depicting a North American species. Up to five players take turns placing these cards into their appropriate habitat, collecting food, laying eggs, or drawing new cards, with each action unlocking new resources. It’s what’s known in board game parlance as an engine-building game—one in which players try to create an increasingly effective system for generating points. The game lasts about an hour, and the player with the most points wins.  

Birds are the stars of Wingspan. Every aspect of the game’s strategy and scoring draws on their real-world behaviors and traits, such as diet, preferred habitat, and nest shape, which she gleaned from Audubon’s field guide, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, and other sources. Brown-headed Cowbirds can boost a player’s score by adding eggs to other birds’ nests, just like they do in the wild. Northern Harriers and Barred Owls can earn points by preying on smaller birds. And Horned Larks in Wingspan can form point-producing flocks, as the real birds do in winter.

The game’s confluence of theme and play mechanics caught the attention of Jamey Stegmaier, co-founder and president of Wingspan publisher Stonemaier Games, when Hargrave pitched it in 2016. “I knew within a few minutes that Elizabeth had something special,” he said in an email. “There’s something about birds that instantly captures a human desire to collect, sort, and admire. ”

Stegmaier honored Hargrave’s commitment to accuracy by commissioning artists Natalia Rojas and Ana Maria Martinez Jaramillo to do original bird illustrations, a bright collection of lifelike colored-pencil works. Their art is the first thing most buyers will see. On the Wingspan box is a Scissor-tailed Flycatcher, wings outstretched in a dramatic X shape, its white and salmon-pink plumage jumping off the blue background. It’s an eye-catching contrast to the gloomy dungeons, futuristic warriors, and historical peasants of many popular board games.

Those types of titles and themes have pushed the hobby’s popularity higher in the past decade; U.S. sales reached $1.1 billion in 2017, up 7 percent from the year before, Bloomberg reported. The hexagonal terrain tiles of the blockbuster game “Catan” might be the most widely known, but Stegmaier says other games are showing up in pop culture. “Western Legends” made a cameo on an episode of “South Park,” and Stonemaier’s megahit “Scythe” popped up on the BBC’s “Orphan Black. ”

Birds are still a niche theme across the board game landscape. 

Birds are still a niche theme across the board game landscape, says Alec Nelson, who maintains a list of avian tabletop titles. He says such games are often quick, casual affairs, where the bird theme is superficial and “a bit pasted on.”

That’s why Hargrave’s game is “somewhat unprecedented,” according to Nelson, a graduate student in conservation biology at the University of Georgia. “What you’re doing in Wingspan with these bird cards is really centered around what the actual species in the wild does. And as a byproduct,” he adds, “you actually learn something about these species.”

Drawn though Stegmaier was to Wingspan, he admits he was a little concerned about how hobby gamers would respond to a bird-themed title. Out of caution, his company ordered 10,000 copies of the game for its initial printing, half its typical first run.

They blew through them. More than half sold during a six-day preorder period in January, and distributors scooped up the rest, Stegmaier says. The game is effectively sold out until March 8, when small retailers will begin to sell their copies. (You can find a list of them here). Direct online orders should resume in April. Stegmaier, meanwhile, is already discussing future Wingspan products in the game’s Facebook group, possibly including expansion packs with birds from other continents. 

Hargrave says the gaming world’s embrace of her creation is “beyond anything I had dared hope for.” She finds particular joy in online comments that suggest the game could be a gateway between birding and board-gaming. Indeed, for those who have never donned a pair of binoculars and given the pastime a shot, a few wintry months of playing Wingspan and poring over its lifelike illustrations could prove the perfect primer for when spring migration heats up. 

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Freebie Alert! to quiz yourself on the songs and behavior of more than 800 North American species.  

The best space games on PC

What are the best space games on PC in 2021? Featuring the biggest Steam games, like Kerbal Space Program, and the best free games, such as Eve Online, these are the most sensational space epics around.

Trying to pick out the best PC space games is a galaxy-sized question. Developers have been churning out space adventures since the ‘70s, and with everyone getting excited about Jupiter, and with Kickstarter and crowdfunding allowing studios to strike out alone, we’re currently just a teensy bit obsessed with what’s beyond our little blue and green marble.

While we wait for E.T. to return our numerous missed calls, let’s kill the time by playing some amazing intergalactic adventures. Kick Collector posterior in Mass Effect 2. Mess around with adorable rocket science in Kerbal Space Program. Stare in awe at the sheer vastness of the universe in Eve Online. If you’re looking to go where only Bill Shatner and chums have boldly gone before, these are the best sci-fi and space games on PC. Just remember… no one will hear you scream.

The best space games are:

Star Trek Online

In movies and online, Star Trek has come a long way in a comparatively short space of time, though arguably it’s the initially troubled MMO that’s had the longest journey. Ravaged a little upon release for effectively being a bad fit, Star Trek Online has ended up filling its replica uniform rather well, and is now regarded as one of the best MMORPGs around.

It’s helpful to think of Star Trek Online not just as a game that manages to capture the spirit of the Roddenberry-enforced universe – with its pioneering forays into the unknown, tactical one-on-one battles, and meeting with curious aliens with an abiding love for human history – but as being part of an online fan convention. Players display their affiliations for TOS, TNG, or DS9, indulge their series knowledge and take part in various games on the side, namely via structured away team missions and battles in space. Being a game funded by microtransactions, you can also buy loads of tat, but the point is that Star Trek Online is not so much a sim for gamers who like Star Trek, but a hang-out for Star Trek fans who like to game.

And there’s a lot of game to like, from the way in which you develop your character and bridge officers, to playing through regular episode missions. It’s akin to riding an open-topped shuttle around every nook of Trek lore and history. Where the game excels, however, is during open team space battles, in which small groups of player ships combine to bring down indomitable NPC vessels. With a need to manage shields and power levels, consider speed and positioning, veteran fans of the Starfleet Command games will find much to engage, especially when part of a well-drilled team of frontline and support vessels tearing up the galaxy.

While Star Trek Online came out many, many years ago, it’s still receiving regular content updates and even expansions. The most recent one, Rise of Discovery, tells the story of a pivotal moment in the lives of both Gabriel Lorca and Ellen Landry. You get to experience the events that lead to the first episode of Star Trek: Discovery, plus there’s an overhaul to how you unlock the best ships in the game, making this a much kinder update for new players.

Play Star Trek Online for free

Star Conflict

Star Conflict is a dogfighting free MMO that sees pilots clash amid asteroid belts and above planets in fast-paced scraps. While it’s mostly concerned with PvP battles, you can grab a few quests, explore ruins, and dabble in a spot of crafting.

Make your day: the best crafting games on PC

It’s the ships that make the game, of course. From nimble fighters to beefy frigates and bulky destroyers, there are a copious number of vessels to unlock and upgrade, determining your role in whatever conflict you find yourself duking it out in. There are over a hundred ships to choose from, but getting access to them all takes some doing.

There’s a metagame, too, as you fight for your chosen faction, hunting down foes and getting in pitched battles in an effort to spread your group’s influence and net yourself some lovely rewards.

Play Star Conflict for free

EVE ONLINE

This has been the preeminent space game for so long that you might be forgiven for thinking it’s the only space game in existence. Unquestionably, Eve Online is one of the most interesting, partly down to the fact that its half a million online inhabitants play on the same mega-server rather than having to endure the severed realities offered by its many fantasy contemporaries.

Players join together to form fleets that number in the thousands, and alliances in the tens of thousands, all laying siege to entire regions for months on end, supported by an extensive supply chain of miners, traders, researchers, and manufacturers. In terms of scale and substance, there really isn’t anything else like it. For example, an Eve ship worth 309 billion ISK – one of just one of three in existence – was destroyed by a spy embedded in the ship’s owner’s organisation. Yes, there’s nothing quite like the stories generated by Eve’s astonishing community.

Online games of this scale aren’t without their downsides. It has a reputation for being bastard-hard to get into, but after updates to the user interface, graphics and the near-constant streamlining of some of the game’s more obscure systems, the Eve of today is no more difficult to approach than its single-player bosom buddies X and Elite.

It’s also receiving regular updates like the recent Eve Online: Invasion expansion, the second chapter of which will be arriving November 26. Earlier this year players were blindsided by the sudden aggression of a previously passive NPC faction, The Drifters, in a move designed by the developers to stir up trouble, proving the dangerous world of New Eden requires constant vigilance and cooperation.

The new player experience is being continually streamlined, but can still be challenging, especially if your aim is to carve out a small empire for yourself within a few weeks. Give yourself a fighting chance with our Eve Online beginner’s guide.

NO MAN’S SKY

Space is an unconquered and never-ending vista. That desire to explore the unknown also forms the attraction of Hello Games’ No Man’s Sky, which uses procedural generation to ensure that you’ll never reach the end of its recreation of space, which has over 18 quintillion planets to explore.

Exploration isn’t all you’ll do in No Man’s Sky, however, as you’ll need to find ways to survive. Paramount to your success in doing that is mastering the game’s trading and combat. No Man’s Sky didn’t have the smoothest launch, but a heap of updates has steadied the ship since, adding everything from deep sea exploration to base-building – maintaining a dedicated and loving fanbase that bought a billboard to say thank you.

The No Man’s Sky: Beyond update this year massively overhauled several aspects of the game, introducing near-unlimited inventory space, VR compatibility, and a much more significant multiplayer component. You can now play No Man’s Sky on PC Game Pass, and it continues to see regular, huge updates, like this one that “doubles the variety in the game”.

Stellaris

Stellaris, Paradox’s 4X grand strategy hybrid, makes space surprising again thanks to event chains that are, at first, evocative of Crusader Kings II, but end up going much further. In Stellaris, you should expect mutant uprisings, robotic rebellions, and the discovery of alien texts that make your citizens question their place in the galaxy.

It’s not just a 4X game; it’s a galactic roleplaying game and empire sim, bestowing a vast array of options upon players, allowing them to create unique, eccentric, space-faring species. You can play as a fundamentalist society built on the backs of slaves, or hyper-intelligent lizards that rely on robots whether they are fighting or farming. The robust species creator and a multitude of meaningful decisions mean that you can create almost any aliens that you can imagine.

Read more: Check out our Stellaris review for our complete verdict

And underpinning all of that is the game’s focus on exploration. While most space 4X games stick with one method of interstellar travel, Stellaris gives you three to choose from, each with their own strengths and counters. In one game, the galaxy might be a network of hyperlanes, but in the next, you might find yourself building wormhole stations and blinking across the galaxy.

Stellaris’ multiplayer isn’t to be overlooked either, transforming decent human beings into Machiavellian alien tyrants at the drop of a hat. Check out ours guides to The best Stellaris DLC and our Stellaris guide: tips and tricks for beginners.

Kerbal Space Program

The first order of doing anything in space is, of course, to get there. Unfortunately, most games in this otherwise splendid list make the rather wild assumption that rocket science isn’t all that important and skip to the business of spreading violence, free market capitalism, and all manner of other human diseases to all corners of various galaxies. Thankfully, the space program to which the Kerbals fatefully apply is rather more grounded in reality, in the sense that the aim of the game is to avoid crashing into the stuff.

Kerbal Space Program is ostensibly about trial and error, first in building a vessel capable of getting its payload off the ground, which is relatively easy, second by actually getting the damn thing launched and steered into some kind of orbit. You soon realise that getting past the Karman Line is one thing, while delivering your payload safely to its destination another entirely. Thankfully, because your gurning passengers seem quite happy to be sacrificed for the greater good of the basic understanding of astrophysics, the trial and error is every bit as involved and entertaining as any fleeting success.

As you’ll read in our Kerbal Space Program PC review, there’s plenty of successes to aim for: reaching the Mun (née Moon), deploying a modular space station, and mining on distant planets are all attainable, albeit after a great deal of crushing but entertaining failure, made bearable thanks to a combination of hard science unpinning a soft and cute interior. As well as being a bloody good space game, KSP may well be the most entertaining community-enriched sandbox games since Minecraft – massively helped along by Kerbal Space Program mods.

Dual Universe

Dual Universe is a first-person space MMO with a single persistent universe shared between all players simultaneously – and is voxel-based and fully editable, allowing you to build the sci-fi cities and hulking space stations of your dreams.

There’s also a global, player-controlled economy, which you can contribute to by building production factories. Or if combat is more your thing than trading, there’s masses of PvP to participate in, out there on the dangerous fringes of space.

The crafting system in Dual Universe has incredible depth – for example you can sculpt your own spaceships, and then add components to fine tune the way they work – including writing custom code to create an autopilot function.

Homeworld Remastered Collection

Homeworld’s the sort of game that gets inside your head and just stays there. It originally came out 15 years ago, eventually spawning an expansion, an excellent sequel, and most recently, Homeworld Remastered Collection. It’s a series that remains unsurpassed. It’s also one of those rare strategy games that has a great story; both tragic and hopeful, filled to the brim with tension. It’s a voyage of discovery, of learning about the past and desperately struggling to create a future. It’s beautiful and a bit sad.

Thanks to Gearbox’s Homeworld remastering efforts, one of the best old games is even more beautiful. Now the game looks like it does in our memories, even those clouded by nostalgia, with its beautifully detailed ships and its gargantuan space backdrops. And, thanks to its minimalist UI, none of that beauty is obscured.

Watching the game in action is like viewing an epic ballet. Tiny ships fly in formation in all directions; massive, heavily armed capital ships float around the vast mother ship; diligent resource gatherers work away to fuel a massive undertaking. Even the biggest vessels are dwarfed by the size of the 3D maps, and when the camera is zoomed out, they look alone and vulnerable. Which is exactly what they are.

Outer Wilds

Not to be confused with The Outer Worlds – another awesome space game from 2019 – Outer Wilds casts you as an astronaut anthropologist out in the wilds of space exploring ruins across your solar system. Your goal is to learn as much about the mysterious alien race, the Nomai, as possible, but it’s pretty much up to you how that mystery unravels.

There are several distinct planets to explore and a 20-minute time loop that bookends your adventures neatly, so each run you’ll aim to discover a little more about the world before your progress partially resets. Soulful and packed with mystery, Outer Wilds goes down a treat whether you gobble it all up in one sitting or treat each 20-minute time loop as a fresh bite.

Elite Dangerous

30 years since it first graced the BBC Micro, the Elite series returns in the form of Elite Dangerous. It’s been around for a while in alpha and beta forms, enough time to be written about thousands of times and played by countless pirates, bounty hunters, traders, and explorers. So we already knew it was going to be a bit impressive.

Our playground is a whole galaxy. Not just any galaxy, either. The Milky Way is the setting of Elite Dangerous, built to terrifying scale. It’s a galaxy populated with black holes, gargantuan suns, space anomalies, and spaceships that flit around like tiny specks of dust on an inconceivably big table. It’s still familiar and authentically Elite, but elevated by tech that would have boggled minds in 1984, when 256 planets was massively impressive. How you carve out a life in this galaxy is much the same, though, whether you become a trader, filling your cargo hold with algae and microchips, or a mercenary, fighting in an interstellar war.

It’s great, and thanks to Elite Dangerous mods, players are improving it with things like chatting ship AIs that react to voice commands. Frontier also continues to fatten it up with free updates along with the Elite: Dangerous’ Horizon expansion. And if you’re lucky enough to have an Oculus Rift, then you’re in for a treat, right up to the point where your ship spins out of control and you dive head-first into a sick bag.

If that’s got you excited to strap into a Cobra and hurtle into the inky black, get your space adventure started with our Elite: Dangerous guide.

Eve Valkyrie

There are a lot of pretty cockpits in VR, but Eve creators CCP did it best when they hired Mirror’s Edge producer Owen O’Brien to head up their scrappy space dogfighting simulation game.

Like the parkour cult classic, Eve Valkyrie is lent unparalleled first-person immersion through a hundred tiny touches in animation, art, and sound design – from the way your ship tips forward as it accelerates out of the hangar, through the sight of your arms at the control panel, to the muffled roar of your thrusters.

Spread your wings: the best plane games on PC

What Valkyrie captures that other space games don’t is scale – the sense that you’re piloting a rubber duck in a bath owned by Eve giants like the Amarr Titan. It’s impossible not to become acutely aware that you’re only a cracked windscreen away from a cold and unforgiving void, with just your manoeuvrability saving you from the ferocious and unyielding fire of enemy players. It’s no surprise Valkyrie is one of the best VR games on PC.

Endless Space 2

Story, a 4X designer would probably say, is something that emerges naturally from the interplay of systems in a strategy game – the clash of borders, an unplanned war. Amplitude Studios don’t think that’s much of an excuse. They’ve stuffed Endless Space 2 with as much science fiction as it can contain – and given that it’s got whole galaxies to fill, that’s plenty.

Here you’ll meet living crystals, tiny dragons, recycled war machines and millions of clones of a bloke named Horatio. It’s a universe teeming with offbeat ideas to enjoy, and then enslave, if you’re that sort of explorer. If not, you can play as a bunch of sentient trees and spread olive branches throughout known space.

More like this: Here’s the best strategy games on PC 

There’s less left to the imagination than in conventional grand strategy – scraps are resolved in a beautiful 3D battle engine that sees your elaborate ships drift together in the void in a dramatic, interplanetary ballet. It’s like Football Manager, but with chrome, faster-than-light monoliths. Isn’t that what Sega’s catalogue has been missing until now? If you still need convincing then just read our glowing Endless Space 2 review. It’s been years since the game launched, but still the Endless Space 2 player counts are looking strong

The Ur-Quan Masters

Here’s a quick sell for The Ur-Quan Masters: it’s not only free, it’s also one of the best free PC games you’ll ever find.

Played from a top-down perspective, UQM is a hitchhiker’s’ fight for the galaxy in a game of exploration, diplomacy, role-playing, and combat. You play the commander of a lost research mission sent to re-establish contact with Earth. However, upon reaching the Sol system you soon discover the third planet has been conquered by the unpleasant Ur-Quan. Without the means to free the planet’s inhabitants or oppose its oppressors, your quest is then to head out to distant worlds and find the resources, allies, and clues to help overcome the three-eyed tentacle-beasts that hold humanity in bondage.

While UQM’s flight model isn’t much more evolved than a game of Asteroids, the extensive galaxy, populated by hundreds of planets, stars and moons – all of which can be scanned, visited, and plundered – making for a deeply involving game. Constantly having to land on planets and collect materials to trade can get a little tedious, but discovering ancient secrets and conversing with the game’s 18 unique and often hilarious races (20 if you separate the Zoq from the Fot and Pik) more than makes up for having to constantly take in so many identikit planets. If meeting the cowardly Captain Fwiffo doesn’t make you immediately fall in love with the game then you’re probably dead inside.

Master of Orion 1 + 2

Fans have been arguing since last century over which of the Master of Orion games is the better of the series and they only seem to agree that the third most definitely isn’t it, which makes the widely-available double pack featuring the first two MOOs something of an essential and stress-free purchase – at least until Wargaming finish their MOO reboot with the help of some “key members” of the original team.

Released in 1993, Master of Orion took the concepts of Sid Meier’s classic turn-based Civilization and applied it across a galaxy of planets rather than one, so that instead of various flavours of human settlers and terrestrial biomes, players were given a wide range of planet types and races to control and conquer, such as the Silicoids; able to thrive in the most hostile of environments, albeit at a glacial reproductive rate.

While the driving force behind Master of Orion and all of the best strategy games since has been technological advancement and colonialism, this was the first game of its type to really nail diplomacy and offer a route to victory in which some measure of galactic peace could be achieved. The sequel went even further, with customisable races and a political victory that required you to be elected as the Supreme Leader of the galaxy.

What is undeniable is that MOO I and II are important historical references, as seminal an influence on turn-based space conquest as the first two Doom games were establishing and defining the FPS. Unlike Doom, however, MOO has cast such a long monolith-shaped shadow over the entire space game genre that many would argue that the Orion games have yet to be eclipsed.

Mass Effect 2

Admittedly, there’s not much fizzing and fwooshing of spaceships to be enjoyed in Mass Effect, but it’s still a planet-hopping, alien-seducing space adventure, and one of the best sci-fi RPG games you’re likely to play.

Mass Effect 2 merits inclusion here for two reasons: one is the obvious strength of the story and the characters, a story that started strong in the first game and blossomed throughout its middle act to such a degree that the conclusion was always going to wilt a little. Secondly, in spite of a complete lack of direct spaceship control, you felt not just part of a crew, but in command of a functioning ship with an ability to explore the galaxy.

Related: Check out the best Star Wars games on PC

Parallels have been drawn – not least by Bioware themselves – between the Mass Effect trilogy and the classic exploration series Starflight, which was notable in the late 1980s for being one of the very first space exploration games and is notable today for not having been bettered in that regard since. In terms of storyline, with all that ancient technology end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it gubbins, Mass Effect’s storyline is remarkably close to Starflight’s. Indeed Starflight could almost be seen as the ’70s original to Mass Effect’s BSG-style gritty reimagining, only without the risible Galactica 80 spin-off series to besmirch its reputation.

In case you’re wondering why any of the series’ newer entries aren’t here, read our rankings of the best Mass Effect games.

FTL: Faster Than Light

Space is awful and will probably kill you: that’s the lesson FTL attempts to impart on brave spacefarers. The permadeath ship management game is, on the surface, a simple race to deliver information to the hands of your allies, but you’re being chased. With every diversion explored, the enemy fleet gets closer and closer, and even if you do stay ahead of them, random death lurks around every corner.

Random violent encounters, shopping sprees, new worlds and races, unlockable ships and configurations, loads and loads of weird and wonderful weapons and tools – there’s so much in FTL that every game has the potential to be dramatically different. One could see you managing a tough vessel that employs ion cannons to disable enemy systems and drones to pepper them with lasers. Another might inspire you to use mind control to defeat your enemies, or teleporters to fill their ships with your own crew.

Related: how Into the Breach uses time travel

So much can go wrong. Sometimes it’s your fault, like when you mess up a fight and end up rapidly attempting to patch up hull breaches and put out fires. But sometimes luck just isn’t on your side, like when you agree to help a space station deal with a plague and one of your crew gets sick. But every failed attempt is a complete story full of adventures and misadventures, and a great excuse to make another valiant attempt.

Distant Worlds: Universe

Another 4X game to add to the list, but really, Distant Worlds is whatever you want it to be, and we were rather taken with it in our Distant Worlds: Universe review. It’s an exploration game where you have one vessel that’s part of a massive empire, and you spend the whole time flitting around the galaxy. A trade game, where one eye is always on your bank account, while the other is hungrily looking at aliens, searching for good deals and diplomatic opportunities. A game where you are the master of everything, sticking your finger in every conceivable pie, from military matters to colonisation.

It’s huge; mind-bogglingly, overwhelmingly massive. An entire galaxy is simulated from private traders going about their business, to pirates getting up to no good. It’s the most ambitious 4X space game that you’re ever likely to find.

At its core, it’s a tool for creating your own galaxies to play in. Players can curate the game to such a degree that one game could bear no resemblance to the next. Everything from the age of the galaxy to the aggression of pirates can be dictated before a game even begins.

Star Wars: TIE Fighter Special Edition

LucasArts might be gone, and one could argue that it died long before it officially shut down, but we’ll always have reminders of what it once was, with brilliant games like Totally Studio’s phenomenal Star Wars: TIE Fighter, the villainous sequel to X-Wing.

Its predecessor was great, there’s no doubt about it, but TIE Fighter’s campaign lets you play as an Imperial, and the Devil is always more fun. It was also, across the board, an improvement over X-Wing, from its graphics – now very dated, admittedly – to a targeting upgrade that allowed pilots to focus on specific parts of an enemy capital ship or station.

This isn’t some arcade space shooter like its not-quite-successor, the Rogue Squadron series. This is a space sim first, which comes with greater complexity but also greater control. For instance, if you’re being battered by laser fire from a pesky X-Wing and your ship’s been damaged, then you assign the order in which systems are repaired, allowing you to prioritise so you can survive for a few more seconds. Just enough to win the fight.

Being an oldie, expect a wee bit of fiddling to get the best experience. Thankfully, we’ve got a Star Wars: TIE Fighter beginner’s guide, which should save you from some potential problems.

Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion

A game that successfully manages to combine the very best of 3D real-time strategy – albeit without a proper single-player campaign – with the kind of empire building offered only by the very top 4X games.

Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion is played across a user-defined network of stars. Players begin forging an empire around the gravity wells of planets with shipyards, research outposts, extractors, and defence systems, then assemble fleets combining frigates, corvettes, cruisers, and capital ships to map and eventually conquer neighbouring systems.

In earlier versions of Sins of a Solar Empire, conquest was largely achieved in the time-honoured RTS fashion of dragging a huge box around every single damn ship you owned and directing them towards the enemy systems so as to allow sheer force of numbers to win the day. However, with the introduction of diplomatic victories in a previous expansion and research and occupation victories as part of 2012’s Rebellion standalone – not to mention new Death Star-like titan ships as a much-needed counter to the ultra-defensive starbases structures – the stalemates that would often cause games to peter out can be pursued as potentially winning strategies. And let’s not forget about the mods that let you play out your Star Wars or Battlestar Galactica fantasies.

Upcoming space games

Kerbal Space Program 2

Due out later this year, Kerbal Space Program 2 is a full sequel to the 2011 breakout space flight simulator. Among the many promised additional features are multiplayer, better mod support, improved onboarding, and fully-fledged interstellar travel.

star citizen

Star Citizen is still in development, but you can play the Star Citizen alpha now and fly through a small section of the Star Citizen universe – small in comparison to the grand scale of the star map they aim to include in the full release. It’s easily one of the most ambitious online multiplayer games ever put into production and boasts and absurd level of detail at every level, from adventuring with a crew of friends to battling it out in space or on land.

The crowdfunded behemoth has now raised more than $250 million in funding – coming off a funding surge after CitizenCon, during which the developers showcased a new stealth mission and a new planet. Backers have been pledging money to obtain Star Citizen ships in game, with prices starting at $45 – for the curious, there are free fly events that allow you to take any of the hundreds of ships out for a test drive. So if you enjoy the feel of the 600i Explorer enough to drop $570 USD on it, you’ll be in good company. Unfortunately – and we hate to be the ones to break the news – if you were after an Origin 890 Jump 2949 Showdown Edition for $1,140 USD, they’re currently all sold out.

Related: After something fresh? Here are some great new MMOs 

That’s our pick of the best space games on PC. While we have you, why not check out some of the most exciting upcoming PC games, or if you’re in the mood to read about the absolute greatest titles of all-time, check out our list of the best PC games.

In the meantime, lose yourself in the space epics above. Hopefully, by the time you’re done playing them, that bloody rude E.T. will have finally checked his voicemail.

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Nintendo’s ‘Super Mario 3D All-Stars’ Is Available Until April 2021

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• “Super Mario 3D All-Stars” is a $60 Nintendo Switch game collecting three iconic Mario titles.
• “3D All-Stars” includes “Super Mario 64,” “Super Mario Sunshine,” and “Super Mario Galaxy,” in HD.
• However, Nintendo is only selling “3D All-Stars” online and in stores until March 31, 2021.

In celebration of the 35th Anniversary of the “Super Mario” franchise, Nintendo released “Super Mario 3D All-Stars,” a collection of three of the iconic plumber’s classic adventures for the Nintendo Switch. The games included are “Super Mario 64,” “Super Mario Sunshine,” and “Super Mario Galaxy,” all of which were previously unavailable on the Switch.

“Super Mario 3D All-Stars” costs $60, and both physical and digital versions are available. However, Nintendo says “Super Mario 3D All-Stars” will only be available until March 31, at which point the digital download will no longer be sold and new physical copies will no longer be made.

It’s unclear why “Super Mario 3D All-Stars” is only available for a limited time, especially since “Super Mario” is Nintendo’s flagship franchise and fans have been eager to see the games restored and preserved on Nintendo’s newest hardware.

Digital versions of “Super Mario 64, and “Super Mario Galaxy” were available on Nintendo’s previous console, the Wii U. “Super Mario Sunshine” was released for the Nintendo GameCube in 2002 and the game has never been made available digitally before “Super Mario 3D All-Stars.”

Hopefully, Nintendo will make the individual games available as separate digital downloads when “Super Mario 3D All-Stars” is no longer available, and with any luck, “Super Mario Galaxy 2” will be added to the Switch library as well.

How to buy ‘Super Mario 3D All-Stars’ for the Nintendo Switch

You can buy “Super Mario 3D All-Stars” digitally through Nintendo’s eShop for $60, which will let you download the game to play right away, so long as you have the required 4.9GB install space. As noted above, the game will only be available to buy until March 31.

If you want a physical copy to keep long after Nintendo stops selling “Super Mario 3D All-Stars,” you can buy the game at most major retailers, including GameStop, Target, and Best Buy. 

What other Mario games are coming to the Nintendo Switch?

“Super Mario 3D All-Stars” is just one part of Nintendo’s big celebration for the “Super Mario” franchise’s 35th anniversary. 

Another updated release for the Switch, “Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury” is now available to buy for $60. The games is a remastered version of the 2013 Wii U release, adding online play and a new set of levels. 

90,000 Netflix streaming hires Plants vs Zombies and Star Wars mobile game creator

Free video games will be added to the Netflix content library during 2022, media reported. This week, streaming hired a former EA developer who has a hand in a number of popular mobile apps as its head of gaming. About what Netflix subscribers can get in the near future – in the material “Gazeta.Ru”.

Netflix has been trying itself as a potential developer of interactive shows and computer games for several years.So, in 2019-2020. streaming presented two games based on the series “Stranger Things” – an arcade and a mobile quest in augmented reality. A little earlier, the platform released an interactive film “Black Mirror: Brandashmyg”, in which the viewer had the opportunity to choose options for the development of the plot and influence the fate of the character.

The other day, the media reported that Netflix has hired Mike Verdu, who previously worked at Electronic Arts and oversaw the VR division at Facebook, as the head of the gaming department.He has had a hand in creating a number of popular mobile games including The Sims, Star Wars, Unreal II: The Awakening, and Plants vs Zombies. In addition, streaming is officially looking for employees for its gaming division. The company’s official website indicates that people with equally developed cerebral hemispheres will be ideal candidates for them. This is justified by the fact that such employees will be able to generate ideas needed in game development.

Video games are expected to be added to online theaters as early as next year.At the same time, subscribers will not have to pay for them separately – they will be a free addition to the main streaming content.

In April 2021, Netflix lost its leadership in new subscriber growth. According to experts, streaming into the field of video games can go a long way toward reclaiming a lost audience. Immediately after the announcement of the imminent addition of games to the online cinema, the company’s shares rose by 2.8%.

As Ivan Moroz, the project director of the game localization company Innova, explained to Gazeta.Ru, the pandemic forced the business to reorient itself to online – and the companies that are able to offer the maximum number of niche products to their users remain in the black.

“Netflix is ​​a well-deserved leader in the entertainment industry, and the decision to enter the video game market is a logical extension of the company’s ecosystem, which seeks to establish new contacts with its existing regular audience. Especially when the production of films and TV series was suspended, ”he said.

Frost also stressed that Netflix will not have any restrictions on the plot of the games.

“Games based on films, cinematic universes, TV series and cartoons are often created and find their audience – both on the side of loyal fans of the franchise itself and among gamers,” said the expert.“However, this is not a prerequisite: rather, we should expect that the company will start its way in gaming with licensing games, and not with its own development, which requires a huge amount of resources, and most importantly – time.”

According to Moroz, the streaming service’s entry into gaming territory will add loyalty to existing Netflix subscribers, as well as bring new users to the company who will come to the platform for a new kind of entertainment content.

How famous actors voiced video game characters – Articles on KinoPoisk

Did you know that Elijah Wood was not only a hobbit, but also a dragon? True, not in a book on Tolkien, but in a game.And he’s not the only one!

Over the past 25 years, many famous actors have worked on voice acting for video games. Familiar voices can be heard not only in the GTA and Call of Duty series, but also in lesser known projects. What roles made Mark Hamill famous, how Michael Madsen became a hitman in a Victorian city, and why Norman Reedus and Mads Mikkelsen ended up in a post-apocalyptic world together – about this in the material of KinoPoisk.

Ellen Page

Photo: Getty Images

Games: “Beyond: Two Soul”

Paige played and voiced the main character in Beyond: Two Soul, which was released in 2013.In order to achieve the maximum similarity between the actress and the character, all the fragments were first filmed using cameras and sensors, and then digitized. The same was done with her playmate Willem Dafoe, who got the second leading role in “Two Souls”. The main character – Jody, a girl endowed with supernatural powers – came out sad, stubborn and fragile at the same time, and she is probably the best thing in this game. The actress herself says about it this way: “When I first went through ‘Two Souls’, the sensations were very strange: I play with myself and at the same time remember how we shot all these scenes without scenery.”By the way, Paige has repeatedly said that she has been playing since childhood and adores Sonic the Hedgehog.

Ron Pearlman

Games: Fallout, Halo 2, 3, Hellboy: The Science of Evil, Icewind Dale, Justice League Heroes, Teen Titans

“War. War never changes, ”says Ron Perlman in the opening credits of the Fallout series since 1997. Probably, he will go down in the history of voice acting for video games precisely for this, but still his track record is much wider. It also contains an addition to Icewind Dale – Heart of Winter, which, by the way, also features the voice of Mark Hamill, as well as several parts of Halo and Payday.And that’s not counting such obvious things as the Hellboy game. What does Ron Perlman himself say about this? Here’s what: “I don’t play games myself, but I do a lot of voice overs. I worked on Halo and this one, how is her ..? “War, war never changes” … Oh, right, “Fallout”! ”

Chloë Grace Moretz

Games: Kick-Ass: The Game, Kick-Ass 2: The Game, Dishonored

Soon after “Kick-Ass” the game of the same name was released, in which the actress voiced the Killer. However, this is not her credit to video games.In 2012, Dishonored was released – a dark stealth action game that looked like it was made by the Wachowski sisters from a script by Dickens. In the first part of Dishonored, Moretz was voiced by Lady Emily Kaldwin, a young princess whose mother-empress was killed and whose father was framed and slandered. Moretz is a gamer, so she was thrilled when the developers asked her to voice Emily. For her, it was a challenge: unlike in a movie, only a voice can be used in a game, and what kind of facial expression the character will have at that moment is anyone’s guess.But she succeeded: Lady Emily was convincingly sad, innocent and young, although there were conspiracies and blood shedding around. And all thanks to how many feelings Moretz put into her game.

Michael Madsen

Games: Dishonored, Dishonored: Death of the Outsider, The Walking Dead, Call of Duty: Black Ops II, Grand Theft Auto III, True Crime: Streets of LA

Michael Madsen appears in the same Dishonored episode. He convincingly plays a criminal who had to rethink his life, and then choose what is closer to him – to continue to do evil or turn towards mercy.The story of Daud, the head of the assassin clan, is no less interesting than the main story arc. The main character of the first part, Corvo Attano, did not say a word for the entire storyline campaign, so listening to Daud’s reflections in the additions was a pleasure.

This, however, is not the only role of an actor in video games. He also voiced one of Telltale’s The Walking Dead characters and was involved in the Mob of the Dead expansion for Call of Duty: Black Ops II.

Mark Hamill

Photo: starwarscelebration.com

Games: Full Throttle, Icewind Dale: Heart of Winter, Batman: Vengeance, The Legend of Spyro: Dawn of the Dragon, Batman: Arkham Asylum, Batman: Arkham City, LEGO Marvel Avengers

Mark Hamill has two faces: one good and one evil. The good is, of course, Luke Skywalker, and the evil is the Joker. Hamill has voiced Batman’s main enemy in countless cartoons, animated series and, of course, video games. His insane and sad character was especially good at Rocksteady’s two-part action Batman: Arkham.In one of them, the Joker was dying, but, as Hamill himself said, until the last moment he did not stop enjoying his sadistic and unpredictable actions.

In general, Hamill has been voicing games for over 25 years and is not limited to one role. If you played in the 1990s, then you almost certainly remember one of his early works – “Full Throttle”, a classic biker quest from the golden age, where several characters spoke in his voice at once (but first of all the villain Adrian Ripburger).

Hamill really likes to do voice acting: “The fact that they don’t see me in the game has some kind of special freedom, its own magic.I feel like a wizard’s assistant. In voice acting I can play a lot more characters [than on screen] because they are not related to how I look. And if you play it right, everything will turn out just fine. ”

David Hasselhoff

Photo: Getty Images

Games: Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare, Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3, Pain

The Knight Rider and Rescuers Malibu star doesn’t have the same impressive track record as Hamill, but Hasselhoff’s voice can still be heard in several games.First, he was involved in 2016’s Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare, and even became a hard-to-find easter egg there. Hoff said that the experience was inspiring for him: “I was allowed to create my own character. This is not at all the same as “hiring David Hasselhoff and getting him to play a typical DJ”. Publisher Activision, which publishes Call of Duty, does not skimp on famous actors. The voices of David Tennant, Kiefer Sutherland, Danny Trejo, Michael Rooker and even Sarah Michelle Gellar have sounded in the game at different times.Hasselhoff also appeared with Tim Curry in the strategy game “Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3”, and in 2007 he voiced the comedy game “Pain”.

Elijah Wood

Games: The Lord of the Rings, The Legend of Spyro: A New Beginning, The Legend of Spyro: The Eternal Night, The Legend of Spyro: Dawn of the Dragon, Broken Age , “God of War III”

In the games of the “Spyro” series, the main character, the purple dragon Spyro, speaks in the voice of a former hobbit.The voice acting on which Elijah Wood worked can be heard in three parts – “The Legend of Spyro: A New Beginning”, “The Legend of Spyro: The Eternal Night” and “The Legend of Spyro: Dawn of the Dragon”. By the way, when the actor was working on the first part, he was pondering what superpower the dragon would like to get. Electricity, ice and fire seemed too dangerous to him, so he preferred the ability to fly. By the way, Wood was by no means the only famous film actor who worked on a series about Spyro.In the same three games, a hero appears who speaks in the voice of Gary Oldman. This is the dragon Ignitus, Spyro’s mentor.

The story of the dragon was not limited to Wood. His voice is also spoken by one of the main characters of the “Broken Age” quest, released in 2014. Four years later, he helped Ubisoft release the psychological thriller Transference. “We’re all gamers. We grew up playing games. And so we couldn’t pass up the chance to work with Ubisoft. It was just great, ”Wood explained. And the actor, of course, voiced Frodo in two Lord of the Rings games.

Seth Green

Photo: Getty Images

Games: “Family Guy Video Game!”, “Mass Effect 1,2,3”, “Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare”

Those who started watching TV in the 1990s remember Seth Green from Buffy, where he played the werewolf Oz. For younger ones, Green is one of the creators of Robot Chicken and the voice of Chris Griffin. Since 2007 the actor has been working on the Mass Effect series. In all parts of the first trilogy, he voiced the Joker – a fragile (in the literal sense of the word, due to imperfect osteogenesis) and witty pilot of the ship “Normandy”, on which the heroes of the game roam the Universe.Thanks to his cheerful nature, Joker is one of the nicest conversationalists Mass Effect has. Even in the most difficult times, he does not lose his sense of humor and ingenuity, which makes him the most important of the minor characters in the series.

At the same time, Green himself is not given games, but this does not mean that he does not like them. Since childhood, he played everything, but he failed to learn how to play well. True, he continues to try and treats defeat with humor: “All my friends are hardcore gamers.Sometimes they put on little tournaments at somebody’s house, put on six TV sets, and everyone comes to participate. I also come, but sooner or later I am thrown out of the team and forced to bring drinks or something else. They yell: “You’re screwing up! You’re spoiling the game for us! Because of you, our team is losing! Better bring pizza! “And I was like,” Okay, who wants pepperoni? “”

Patrick Stewart

Games: Star Trek Series 1995 to 2006, X-Men Series, Castlevania: Lords of Shadow, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Lego Universe, The Sims Medieval ”

Sir Patrick Stewart has been working on voice acting for video games for 25 years.The first project in which he participated was “Lands of Lore: The Throne of Chaos” in the RPG genre. For a quarter of a century, the actor managed to voice many games, including, of course, the series on “Star Trek” and “X-Men”. But he also worked on the vampire series Castlevania, the fourth installment of The Elder Scrolls, in which Emperor Uriel Septim spoke in his voice, and Lego Universe. At the same time, he himself prefers not to play, but not because he considers games to be a low genre. According to the actor, they seem too addictive to him: one has only to start, and that’s it, there is no turning back.However, because of this, Stewart does not stop working on the voice acting. At the moment, the last game in which his voice sounded was “The Memory of Us”, released in 2018. In it, Stewart voices the Narrator, the main character who recalls how he and his girlfriend tried to survive in Poland during World War II.

Sean Bean

Photo: Getty Images

Games: The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Kholat, Hitman 2, Sid Meier’s Civilization VI, Final Fantasy XV

If Patrick Stewart voiced Emperor Uriel Septim in The Elder Scrolls, then Sean Bean in this game got the role of his son, first a humble priest, and then heir to the empire.Since then, Bean has worked on several more games, including Hitman 2, released in 2018, in which he voiced the assassin called the Immortal. The fate of the Immortal turned out to be the same as that of other heroes of Bean – he was killed. “Hitman” is famous for the variety of kills: the more inventive the player, the more strange the death of the hero can be. The actor himself knew about this: “When I acted in films, I knew what would happen next. I knew I was going to die and I knew how I was going to die. But here I do not know anything. [In the game] anything can happen.The player can kill me as soon as he wishes. I don’t even know what to say about it ”.

Bean’s voice also appears in the sixth part of the series “Civilization”. The strangest game in Bean’s track record was “Kholat,” a 2015 Polish horror film about the disappearance of Dyatlov’s group. In the English version of the game, the actor also voiced the narrator.

Norman Reedus

Photo: Getty Images

Games: The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct, Death Stranding

So far, Reedus has voiced only his most famous character, Daryl Dixon, in two games based on The Walking Dead.But right now he is working on a more ambitious project – the open-world game “Death Stranding” by legendary game designer Hideo Kojima. As with Ellen Page and Beyond Two Souls, Reedus not only voices the protagonist, but is also filmed for the game: his movements are recorded by cameras and sensors, so that later they can be recreated in CG. The actor says that working with Kojima is pure delight, calls the game designer a genius and adds that the game they are working on should make people cry.However, it will be possible to cry there not only over the hero of Reedus. Kojima has invited many famous actors to his project. So, the main character’s opponent is played by Mads Mikkelsen, and Lea Seydoux, Emily O’Brien and Guillermo del Toro also participate in Death Stranding. One problem: the game has no release date yet, although earlier the developers hinted that they could release it before 2019.

⚡Vin Diesel will be the main star of Ark 2 | Video Games | News digest

The protagonist of the large-scale Ark 2 trailer from Studio Wildcard, shown during The Game Awards 2020, is a computerized Vin Diesel fighting off bloodthirsty dinosaurs.

The original game, Ark: Survival Evolved, is a survival quest in a world inhabited by dinosaurs. It is difficult to attribute it to story games, so for many the familiar face of Diesel in the sequel trailer came as a surprise.

Vin, by the way, is no stranger to video games: he participated in game projects based on such famous film franchises as Riddick and Fast and Furious. His character in Ark 2 is named Santiago, and his mission is to take care of a young girl.It is clear from the video that basically this concern is to prevent the heroine from being eaten.

Also at the Game Awards was presented the upcoming Ark animated series, in which we will see Diesel again – this time with Russell Crowe, Gerald Butler, Elliot Page, Karl Urban and other famous actors.

Source: venturebeat

Jedi Games: Star Wars: KotOR, Dark Forces and others | Video Game

It is absolutely impossible to tell about all the Star Wars games within the framework of one material – there are more than a hundred of them! In this article, we will talk specifically about those games where you can feel like a Jedi or a Sith, fight with lightsabers and use the Force on enemies.

All these projects can be roughly divided into three groups. First, games based on the prequel trilogy; secondly, the Jedi Knight and Force Unleashed cycles; third, the role-playing series Old Republic.

Let’s dive into the memories!

Star Wars: Episode I: The Phantom Menace

●● Developer: Big Ape Productions

●● Platforms: PlayStation, PC

●● Release date: May 19, 1999

In 1999, along with the release of The Phantom Menace, the video game of the same name was released.Its plot, with some deviations, followed the script of the film, and also significantly expanded it, showing the events that remained behind the scenes. The main protagonist of The Phantom Menace was the young Padawan Obi-Wan Kenobi, but other heroes were also allowed to play, including Qui-Gon Jinn, the captain of the Panaka Royal Guard and Queen Amidala herself.

The game has a fairly simple combat system with an interesting feature: you can parry an enemy blaster by hitting the charge back at the enemy.To do this, you need to hit in time, as if hitting the ball with a tennis racket.

The Phantom Menace offered a rather varied gameplay, the basis of which was battles and movement through the levels with overcoming obstacles. The elements of the platforming game, perhaps, should be attributed to the disadvantages: there were too many of them, which annoyed, not entertained. But in the game there were practical peaceful levels, and the dialogue system made it possible to get to know local NPCs a little better or get valuable information and tips.

The Phantom Menace received restrained press reviews, and not least because of the inconvenient camera: the strange viewing angle not only made navigation more difficult, but also hid enemies literally twenty meters in front of the hero from view. As a result, the player at times had to deflect blaster charges fired by an unknown enemy from outside the line of sight.

Few fans of the PC version of the game will probably still remember the naughty naughty code, the introduction of which moved the camera behind the hero’s back, making battles and navigation much easier.

Star Wars: Episode I: Jedi Power Battles

●● Developer: LucasArts

●● Platforms: PlayStation, Dreamcast

●● Release date: March 31, 2000

A year after the release of The Phantom Menace, another game based on the same episode went on sale. The player had to walk through familiar locations as one of the five Jedi who appeared in the film: Obi-Wan Kenobi, Qui-Gon Jinn, Mace Windu, Adi Gaul or Plo Koon.Several more characters, including Darth Maul and Ki-Adi-Mundi, were unlocked after completing the game.

Despite the relative similarity and genre proximity, Jedi Power Battles offered a slightly different concept than The Phantom Menace. Most of all, the project resembled the classic Golden Ax series, transferred to 3D with the addition of platforming elements. They were also related by the presence of local multiplayer – in Jedi Power Battles it was possible to play together on one screen.

Each of the available characters had their own set of animations, combat stance, and a special Force technique that was inaccessible to others.As in The Phantom Menace, in order to block enemy shots, it was necessary to repulse the shells in time, but the developers still bothered to allocate a separate button for this function. But with the colors of the blades, the authors of Jedi Power Battles did not guess – in Attack of the Clones, released three years later, Windu had a purple sword instead of a blue one.

The project received relatively good press reviews (especially the version for the console from Sega), and among fans of “Star Wars” it is considered one of the most fun games of its time – largely due to the local multiplayer on one screen.This concept is still heavily used in the long-running LEGO Star Wars series and many other games based on the famous construction set.

Star Wars Episode I: Obi-Wan’s Adventures

●● Developer: THQ

●● Platform: Game Boy Color

●● Release date: November 27, 2000

The first episode did not let the gaming industry go for a long time. In 2000, THQ Studios and LucasArts signed an agreement that allowed THQ to make Star Wars games for the Game Boy Color.In 1997, the company already released Star Wars: Yoda Stories, an adventure game dedicated to training Luke Skywalker on Dagobah. And in 2000, armed with a contract with LucasArts, she adapted the game about Obi-Wan Kenobi, originally conceived for personal computers, for a portable console.

Star Wars Episode I: Obi-Wan’s Adventures offers to look at all the events of the first episode as the story of Obi-Wan’s formation, his transformation from a young apprentice into a real Jedi Knight. The plot of the original was even slightly changed for this concept.Confronting Trade Federation agents on the road to the Senate on Coruscant has already become a cliche in the computer adaptations of the first episode, but THQ didn’t stop there. Developing a one-minute scene from the film’s finale where Queen Amidala is taken prisoner, they introduced an episode in which Obi-Wan and his teacher single-handedly rescue a queen captured during the decisive Battle of Naboo. However, the destruction of the droid control center still remained Anakin’s merit.

In terms of gameplay, Obi-Wan’s Adventures is a traditional isometric adventure game, but with the “Jedi” mechanics already familiar to games from the first episode.Obi-Wan could use his lightsaber to deflect enemy shots and use the Force to repel attackers. Telekinesis was also used in puzzle solving to clear obstacles out of the way or press buttons from a distance.

Journalists praised the mechanics of reflecting laser charges, but almost no one liked fencing, which became a serious disadvantage for the game about the Jedi. But really Star Wars Episode I: Obi-Wan’s Adventures was crushed because of the monotonous graphics and bad design decisions.The choice of colors and framing turned out to be so unfortunate that from time to time they created problems for the player: doors and other important objects literally merged with the background.

Star Wars: Obi-Wan

●● Developer: LucasArts

●● Platform: Xbox

●● Release date: December 21, 2001

Even after a weak Game Boy Color first episode and young Obi-Wan was in no hurry to leave alone! However, in Star Wars: Obi-Wan, LucasArts really tried to come up with something new.First, the game is centered around the title character, not the plot of The Phantom Menace. Secondly, a unique fencing mechanic was introduced here.

Unlike most console games, where the left stick of the game controller moves the hero and the right stick rotates the camera, in Star Wars: Obi-Wan both functions were focused on the left stick. The right one was responsible for the fights: tilting it, the player made a blow, the direction of which approximately corresponded to the direction of movement of the stick.

Unfortunately, Star Wars: Obi-Wan failed to fully reveal this concept. Since the control of the character and the camera was focused on a single input element, the hero could not move sideways without changing the angle of view. Because of this, very dynamic by the standards of 2001, fights were sometimes interrupted by ridiculous cutting of circles around the enemy in order to once again be face to face with him.

In addition to fencing itself, the supernatural abilities of the Jedi were also presented in the game.The player could push and pull opponents with the power of thought, bring down furnishings on them and throw his sword, returning it back after the throw.

Star Wars: Obi-Wan received controversial reviews. Some journalists praised her originality and noted the interesting combat system, while others complained about the awkward handling and scolded the lifeless levels. After the release on Xbox, the developers planned to release the game on the GameCube, but this was prevented by unenthusiastic reviews and low sales.

Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones

●● Developer: THQ

●● Platform: Game Boy Color

●● Release date: May 30, 2002

Despite the setbacks, THQ continued its partnership with LucasArts and two years later released the game on the Game Boy Color for the second episode. Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones was a side-scrolling game where the player used a lightsaber to slash off a multitude of opponents running from outside the screen. In some levels, it was also possible to control a spaceship and ground transport.

Unlike Obi-Wan’s story, the new game did not deviate much from the canon of the film. There was no obvious protagonist here – the player was led by Master Kenobi, Mace Windu, or Anakin Skywalker. But the claim for variety didn’t save the game: Episode II was crushed by critics for sluggish gameplay, poorly designed controls, and repetitive levels. THQ’s collaboration with LucasArts has come to an end – the next Star Wars games for Game Boy Color and Advance have been made by other studios.

Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith

●● Developers: The Collective, LucasArts

●● Platforms: Xbox, PlayStation 2

●● Release date: May 4, 2005

By the time the third episode was released, of course, something more impressive than a Game Boy game was needed.Revenge of the Sith retells and expands on the plot of the film of the same name. In addition, it features some scenes cut from the final cut, recreated in the game engine.

It was to play alternately for Obi-Wan Kenobi and his student Anakin Skywalker. The plot largely followed the script of the film, however there were some differences. So, for example, there was a fairly extensive level in the Jedi Temple, where Anakin, who fell to the dark side, had to fight with numerous representatives of the ancient order.

There are two endings in Revenge of the Sith – they depend on the hero the player prefers when completing the last task. Choosing Skywalker for the final battle on the planet Mustafar, the player will have the opportunity to defeat his former teacher and return to Palpatine unharmed. In this alternate ending, Anakin kills the newly made Emperor and proclaims himself the ruler of the galaxy.

In terms of gameplay, Revenge of the Sith was not much different from typical third-person action games and bitemaps of the PlayStation 2 era: most of the time the player knocked the crap out of mechanical opponents, beautifully falling apart under the blows of a lightsaber, and occasionally fought duels with other owners ” elegant weapons of a more civilized era. “A simple progression system allowed them to improve their skills between missions, unlocking and improving moves, as well as developing Force abilities, including push, stun, heal and throw a lightsaber.

Revenge of the Sith has received the most controversial reception of the entire cycle. The reaction of the mainstream media ranged from deep disappointment to delight, although the reviews were mostly rather neutral. At the same time, the user average score of the game on Metacritic is noticeably higher than the journalistic one.Probably, the ability to knock the Emperor and rule the galaxy single-handedly played a role.

Games based on the prequels, although they did not have enough stars from the sky, still tried to experiment with their material and expand the boundaries of the cinematic universe. Lightsaber fights were trying to make something special, and unusual mechanics like reflecting projectiles were integrated as organically as possible.

Star Wars: Dark Forces

●● Developer: LucasArts

●● Platforms: PC, PlayStation

●● Release date: February 28, 1995

The story of another important cycle of games in a galaxy far, far away began before the prequels, in the nineties.Work on Star Wars: Dark Forces started in 1993, in the wake of the shooter boom. Learning that Star Wars fans make their own DOOM mods dedicated to their favorite universe, LucasArts decided to keep up with their own fandom and started developing the game. However, they tried to release something more interesting than Doomgai’s adventures in the Star Wars universe.

For starters, the new game had a storyline. The main character, Kyle Katarn, joined the Imperial army after the death of his parents, as he believed that the rebels were to blame for their death.After discovering that this was not the case and his family died due to the Empire, he deserted and became a mercenary, fulfilling contracts for the Alliance. During the game, he performed a number of impressive feats – in particular, already in the first missions, it was Katarn who stole the very plans of the Death Star from the fourth episode. He later thwarted the development of the Dark Troopers, battle droids intended to replace the rank and file of the Empire. Here we must remember that Dark Forces came out at a time when battle droids, like clones, had not yet become part of the canon.

The game was distinguished from the usual tracing paper with Doom by a number of technical solutions. The Jedi engine, built specifically for her, allowed her to look up and down, duck and jump. In addition, in order to emphasize that Katarn is a scout, and not just an action movie, the developers have included puzzles and non-combat items in the game that allow you to cross rivers and chasms.

All of this diversified the gameplay, but Dark Forces was remembered not by technical innovations, but by the fact that it was with this game that the story of Kyle Katarn, one of the most iconic characters of the Expanded Universe that appeared in video games, began.

Star Wars: Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight

●● Developer: LucasArts

●● Platform: PC

●● Release date: October 9, 1997

Katarn returned to us in Star Wars: Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight, which reversed the concept of the original – albeit not immediately. Starting as a regular shooter, towards the second third of the Jedi Knight gave the player a lightsaber, offering simple combat mechanics (only two types of blows) and a modest development system that allowed you to learn various power abilities like choke, lightning, haste or heal.

What’s especially interesting, there were two mutually exclusive branches to choose from, corresponding to the dark and light sides of the Force, and the list of abilities was not the only thing that influenced this choice. The player was free not only to determine the skills to taste, but also to change the course of the plot. By performing certain actions, it was possible to turn Katarn to evil, which influenced the set of bosses, the ending of the story and some non-play cutscenes. The latter, by the way, were made in a format popular at that time – with the participation of live actors.Naturally, now these cinematics look worse than other fan-made short films, but in 1997 they were impressive in earnest.

A year later, the independent expansion Mysteries of the Sith was released for the Jedi Knight. Its protagonist was no longer Kyle Katarn – the charismatic bearded man was replaced by the former Imperial agent (and future wife of Luke Skywalker) Mara Jade, whom Katarn undertook to teach the ways of the Jedi. The plot of the add-on tells about the fall of Katarn to the dark side and his return through the efforts of a student who went in search of a teacher to the ancient temple of the Sith.

From the point of view of game mechanics, Mysteries of the Sith did not bring anything new to the concept of the original (and even lost some features), but its storyline is important for understanding the next game.

Star Wars: Jedi Knight II – Jedi Outcast

●● Developer: Raven Software

●● Platforms: PC, Xbox, GameCube

●● Release date: March 26, 2002

In 2002, Raven Software released Jedi Knight II – Jedi Outcast, with Kyle Katarn again taking center stage.The new Republic faced another threat from one of the fragments of the Empire, and the player in the role of a former Jedi (Kyle did not like the exposure of the “Forces” to the Dark Side so much) continues to carry out tasks under the command of Mon Mothma. At some point, Katarn will have to take up the lightsaber again to pay tribute to another hostile Sith – the lizard-like Desann, a former student of the Jedi Academy.

The word Outcast (“Outcast” or “Renegade”) is included in the title for a reason.Having decided to abandon two different branches of development, the developers allowed Kyle to use the abilities of both the Light and the Dark Side, and the hero himself this time pursues purely personal goals – revenge. However, the heroic salvation of the galaxy was not done without again.

The developers put forward a bold and important for the canon idea that belonging to one or another part of the power spectrum is determined not by the abilities of the Jedi, but by how and for what he uses them. Naturally, this significantly affected the gameplay, in which abilities began to play a central role.Lightning-enveloped stormtroopers writhe in their death throes and stumble upon the hero’s lightsaber, pulled up by the corresponding skill. And what could be more fun than grabbing an annoying stormtrooper by the throat with the Force and, without waiting for a fatal outcome, to throw the poor fellow into the abyss?

Fencing has also undergone radical changes. If in the first part the lightsaber strikes resembled the watchman’s attempts to fight off stray dogs with a shovel handle, then Jedi Knight II acquired a full-fledged combat system, and now even the direction of the character’s movement was taken into account when striking – the animation changed accordingly.It is thanks to sword fighting that the multiplayer Jedi Outcast has become a real hit among fans of online battles.

However, there was a place to roam in the story campaign. The new combat system required more duels, and the number of opponents armed with light bombs increased many times over. Although the plot justification for such a leap was, to put it mildly, not the most convincing, it only benefited the gameplay.

Star Wars: Jedi Knight – Jedi Academy

●● Developer: LucasArts

●● Platforms: Xbox, PC, Xbox One (thanks to backward compatibility)

●● Release date: September 13, 2003

The success was rushed to develop: just a year and a half after the release of Jedi Outcast, a spin-off of the main series called Star Wars: Jedi Knight – Jedi Academy was released.Here Kyle Katarn again faded into the background, and the leading role was assigned to his next student, race, gender, appearance and outfit of which the player determined independently. In terms of customization, the developers paid special attention to the lightsaber – you could choose not only the color of the blade, but also the shape of the handle.

The game was not positioned as a full-fledged part of the series, and its plot was a fairly obvious development of one of the Jedi Outcast storylines. The hero was opposed by Tavion, the student of the antagonist from the previous game, whom Katarn saved after the victory in the duel.Still offended by the Jedi, the lady led the Cult of the Ascended, worshiping the ancient Sith Mark Ragnos, and set out to bring the once powerful lord of the dark side back to life.

The plot traditionally for the series did not shine with originality, but the gameplay has noticeably improved again. Having created a hero to their liking, at some point, players got the opportunity to change a regular lightsaber for a pair of blades or a light staff, the analogue of which was owned by Darth Maul. Each type of weapon had its own fighting style, set of animations and special movements, which increased replayability and made you feel like a real Jedi Knight.What can we say, if multiplayer battles on fan servers continue to this day, more than fifteen years after the release of the game!

One of the most important advantages of Jedi Academy is the unprecedented variety of tasks. A chase on fast-paced bikes with high-speed lightsaber duels, cat and mouse with a giant mutated rancor, a mission on a stolen train, in an ancient Sith temple with unusual architecture, and even a mission to rescue a ship that crashed on a desert planet where a giant carnivorous worm (hello, “Dune”!).After the monotonous imperial bases on the territory of which the events of the Jedi Outcast unfolded, the Academy was a real breath of fresh air.

Over time, a cult has formed around the game, and fans still dream of its successor. The power of Jedi Academy nostalgia was so great that Microsoft released the game on Xbox One through backward compatibility, upscaling the resolution to 4K! And yet, despite rave reviews from critics and fans, the series never developed.Star Wars: Jedi Knight III – Brink of Darkness was in development for a while, but it was eventually canceled. Why? There is an assumption that the studio simply did not want to work on two series, similar in concept, letting the less promising from a financial point of view under the knife. The fact is that four years after the release of Jedi Academy, The Force Unleashed appeared to the world.

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed

●● Developer: LucasArts

●● Platforms: PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Nintendo

Wii, PlayStation 2, PC, Nintendo DS, PlayStation Portable, iPhone

●● Release date: September 16, 2008

This is perhaps the largest project in the Expanded Universe.At the center of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed was the video game, but the creators positioned the story as a full-fledged part of the saga, taking precedence over all other creations, and did not want to be limited to the gaming audience. The story told here became the basis for the book and comic book series, and along with them, board game kits and even an encyclopedia went on sale. Star Wars: The Force Unleashed came out on every imaginable platform. There was even a simplified version for the iPhone!

Curiously, the “junior” versions differ from the “senior” ones not only in graphics quality, but also in content.Among fans, the PlayStation 2 version is especially appreciated – this is actually a different game, created on a different engine and with noticeable deviations. For example, it has a completely different setting of cut scenes and a different visual design of locations.

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed: the same scene in different versions of the game

The game told about the secret disciple of Darth Vader himself, whom the dark lord raised in order to overthrow the Emperor over time. The young man whose Jedi father Vader killed with his own hands was named Galen Marek, but after starting an apprenticeship (more like slavery) he was named Starkiller.Incidentally, this is how Luke Skywalker’s surname should have sounded, according to early drafts of the Star Wars script. When the rights to the franchise passed to Disney and the entire Expanded Universe was transferred to the category of “Legends”, “Starkiller” still returned to canon, but not as a character – this name was given to the base that destroyed the capital of the New Republic in “The Force Awakens.”

The most controversial element of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed was the unbridled power of the protagonist, rendered in the subtitle. Galen did absolutely unthinkable things that no Star Wars character was capable of either before or after him.At some point, Marek even knocked the Star Destroyer “parked” in the planet’s orbit to the ground.

But the game had the opportunity to choose the dark side and tell the story in a different way. However, unlike the adventures of Kyle Katarn, the adventures of the evil Galen did not end there: the developers released several DLCs that continue the story of the “non-canon” Marek, who replaced Darth Vader in the service of the Emperor. In one of the additions, Starkiller, in search of well-known droids, was to visit Tatooine and fight Obi-Wan Kenobi, and in the other – to hunt down Luke Skywalker on Hoth.

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II

●● Developer: LucasArts

●● Platforms: PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PC

●● Release date: October 26, 2010

Starkiller’s story did not receive widespread support from fans – many fans of the universe perceived the game as a thoughtless high-budget fanfiction. But despite very average critical ratings and a lack of enthusiasm from the fan community, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed sold out in huge numbers, at the time of release, becoming the best-selling Star Wars game in history.Due to the completed plot and the tragic ending (the fact that the canon), the project was not designed for a sequel, but it was necessary for the bosses of LucasArts.

The authors of the second part did not become especially original. Despite the fact that, according to Star Wars mythology, it is almost impossible to clone a Jedi, Vader still tried to do it. The hero of the new game is a clone of Galen Marek, the first successful of a series of attempts to “resurrect” a former student. Breaking free, Starkiller 2.0 began to look for his former comrades-in-arms, while simultaneously revealing Vader’s insidious plans to create an army of cloned forseusers.

The plot of the second part turned out to be even stranger than in the original. In addition, the authors of the sequel did not come up with anything better than to drive the player through the same locations twice in a short-lived game. The Force Unleashed II also had advantages: the controls and the combat system were significantly improved, and therefore it became much more fun to chop stormtroopers, especially considering the additional sword that the hero received in a pair to the original blade.

But the monotony of locations, the lack of originality and interesting situations, the transience and crumpledness of the narrative did their job – the ratings of the journalists were even lower than those of the first game, and the sales disappointed the LucasArts management. With the arrival of a new CEO, the idea of ​​a triquel was sent to the scrapyard, and fans of the series were left wondering how the intriguing cliffhanger from the game’s finale was resolved.

High-budget games LucasArts was distinguished by the boldness of ideas, and the quality of execution, and unprecedented even for films, the possibilities of characters, who were a pleasure to control.Alas, The Force Unleashed II was the last game from the old LucasArts set in the Star Wars universe. After the acquisition of the brand by Disney Corporation, all projects in the works were closed, LucasArts itself was disbanded, and the license for the production of video games was sold to Electronic Arts.

Knights of the Old Republic

●● Developer: BioWare

●● Platforms: PC, Xbox

●● Release date: July 15, 2003

Despite the success of Star Wars action games, RPGs remain the most iconic games in the universe.Development of the first of these, Knights of the Old Republic, began in 1999. After BioWare blew up the market for its Baldur’s Gate, LucasArts approached a young and ambitious team with a very attractive proposal: to make an RPG based on the Star Wars universe. The proposal, however, had a small catch: the new game was intended not only for computers, but also for consoles.

The early 2000s was a time when Japanese RPGs were definitely dominant on consoles.It got to the point that some journalists used “console RPGs” and “Japanese RPGs” as synonyms. On the surface, BioWare, as one of the studios that breathed new life into the RPG genre, was the perfect fit to make a difference. But her previous projects relied on the capabilities provided by the computer. There was a lot of text, vast locations, a lot of dialogue, a complex role-playing system with a lot of classes. To conquer the consoles required something new.

The decision was prompted by the original source – the “Star Wars” themselves.BioWare rightly assumed that if they can make the player feel like he is the protagonist of a movie in a super popular franchise, they will be forgiven for the smaller world compared to previous projects, and the rules simplified against the background of Baldur’s Gate and Neverwinter Nights.

This approach was fully justified. Bright companions with a unique voice acting and appearance, a combat system that allowed you to beautifully fence with lightsabers and did not force the player to develop their own agility and reaction, a variety of planets and an epic storyline – all this worked to recreate the spirit of the original source.

Knights of the Old Republic was set 4,000 years before the films, during the Old Republic period. However, her problems were familiar to any fan of the franchise: the fallen Jedi, Darth Malak, tried to conquer power in the galaxy using a unique warship, the so-called Star Forge. There were many parallels with the original film trilogy, ranging from the images of individual companions and ending with the composition of the entire plot, which was built around a turn in the middle, which obviously referred to “Luke, I am your father!”But for the fans of the universe, all this was a plus, not a minus. Moreover, in the new game, as in many other Star Wars projects, there was an opportunity to go to the dark side and conquer the galaxy on their own. True, for this it was necessary to kill almost all of his party.

Knights of the Old Republic has become one of the most highly regarded Star Wars projects and still regularly makes the lists of the greatest games, despite frighteningly aging 3D graphics. And BioWare has since then relied on cinematography in all of its developments.

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords

●● Developer: Obsidian Entertainment

●● Platforms: PC, Xbox

●● Release date: December 6, 2004

Since BioWare was busy with other projects, the work for the sequel to “Knights of the Old Republic” had to be transferred to Obsidian Entertainment, which released the next game – Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords. The sequel also earned high marks.Many journalists noted that the new game was too similar to the original in terms of gameplay and graphics, but fans rejoiced at the opportunity to return to the era of the Old Republic. They forgave the game and numerous bugs, and the fact that its plot, which unfolds just five years after the first part, actually devalued the player’s previous victory.

Despite the triumphant finale of the first KotOR, the situation in the galaxy was even worse in the sequel. The player had to rebuild the Jedi Order, defeated by the Sith, from scratch.But this pushed the developers to an interesting mechanic for training companions: almost any companion of the protagonist could, with the help of the player, find a connection with the Force and comprehend the art of the Jedi. And while so many people with the Force might seem strange, the very opportunity to look at the familiar teacher-student relationship from a mentor’s position has added a lot of fans to the game.

Star Wars: The Old Republic

●● Developer: BioWare Austin

●● Platform: PC

●● Release date: December 20, 2011

In 2011, BioWare itself returned to the universe of the Old Republic, which by that time had become part of Electronic Arts.While the merger was not unfoundedly criticized by many, it gave the studio the resources for large-scale projects. For example, to create your own Star Wars MMORPG. Star Wars: The Old Republic was the second attempt to make a multiplayer role-playing game in the Jedi world. The first, Star Wars Galaxies, was released in 2003 and successfully existed until 2011. That game took place roughly between Episodes 4 and 5 and centered on the Rebel-Empire conflict. The developers, studio Sony Online Entertainment, relied on an abundance of features and game mechanics.In particular, the game was distinguished by many separate professions and skills, including allowing you to create your own tasks and cities. Galaxies is still quite popular today. For example, now several independent teams are working on emulators at once, which would allow to once again plunge into the atmosphere of everyday life against the backdrop of a civil war in a distant, distant galaxy.

BioWare, inspired by its own success with KotOR, took the opposite approach.Their MMORPG is primarily an epic saga of dark versus light side that can be played with friends. Duration – 300 years after the events of the first Knights of the Old Republic. The galaxy was divided between the Sith Empire and the Republic; players chose one of the sides and went through long chains of tasks, performed in the best traditions of old RPGs, with their own internal drama and cinematic cutscenes. The game even has the characteristic BioWare ability to strike up a romantic relationship with an NPC.

True, one had to pay for such an abundance of content. The Old Republic was nowhere near the riot of opportunity that Galaxies fans are nostalgic about. All classes were lined up around a role in battle – no city building or space barbering. However, the game did not pretend to this.

Star Wars: The Old Republic received high marks from critics and gamers alike, although it failed to become a hit on the level of the original KotOR. Nevertheless, its official servers are still functioning, despite the outdated graphics.

It is noticeable that the better the game allowed to get used to the role of a native from a distant galaxy, the more carefully it supplemented the canon, the more love it enjoyed among the fans. Shooting a blaster and steering a fighter is not bad, but living a full piece of the life of a mighty Jedi or Sith is already like a fan dream come true.

* * *

We haven’t even covered half of all Star Wars games in this article. The first of them came out on slot machines in the early 1980s, and new ones are being developed and are coming out right now.Their genres range from puzzles, arcades and kids’ tutorials to quests, fighting games and strategies. Thanks to the incredible popularity of adventure in a galaxy far, far away and the timely appearance of LucasArts, Star Wars games have become a unique layer of modern culture, with their own fans, canon, history, ups and downs.

Few universe boasts the same number of videogame incarnations, all the more so influential as the Knights of the Old Republic or the Jedi Knight series.And, despite the reboot (it’s obviously not fair to call it “cancellation”) of the Expanded Universe, Star Wars games are not losing popularity. Perhaps this franchise will delight gamers more than once with the adventures of familiar heroes. And maybe he will give us new figures of the level of Kyle Katarn.

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90,000 Top ten worldwide video game fanatics

Hollywood actors and world famous musicians also love to relax. Like many of us, after a hard day’s work, they “spread” on the chair or jump on the couch to spend some time playing their favorite video game.Some stars are so addicted that they delay work meetings or miss important calls that could change their lives here and now.

Justin Bieber

You can treat the idol of millions of girls as you like. The main thing is not to talk about him in Call of Duty – a headshot may come from the singer himself. As the musician admitted more than once, he preferred to spend his free time from recording songs in the most popular shooter on the planet. He also proved to be a huge fan of Mario Kart and Halo .

Bieber also did not pass by the main mobile hit – Pokemon Go . It is said that once the organizers of his concert had to delay the start of the performance. All because Justin was running around the city in search of a new Pokémon.

Sasha Gray

Whoever thinks that Sasha Gray is not a movie star, let him be the first to throw a stone at me. The adult film actress, after completing her career, enjoys life and spends time playing video games. Sasha has channel on Twitch , where she communicates with the audience and blows out zombie brains in Resident Evil 2 .

In addition to horror movies Gray streams Mortal Kombat , Assassin’s Creed , League of Legends and other games.

Snoop Dogg

Who doesn’t know the old days Snoop and how he loves video games! The singer began to appear less often in the news as a musician and more and more as a big gamer.For example, at Battlefield 1 presentation, he was caught by smoking joint right at Electronic Arts booth . And once Snoop was broadcasting on his Twitch channel and pretended to be playing. However, he was so carried away by commenting on what was happening that he managed to light a cigarette and show both hands at the camera, while his character was taking active actions in the game. Rapper magic, not otherwise!

And every few years Snoop posts a video message to Bill Gates .This happens when the Xbox Live servers break down and collapse, and the rapper really wants to play on his favorite console. “Fix that shit” Snoop has requested several times already, threatening to switch to PS4 .

Henry Cavill

The love of video games led Henry Cavill to one of his most coveted roles. The British actor “lived and breathed” the world of Sapkowski for many months, went through all parts of “The Witcher ” and fell in love with Geralt.Hearing that Netflix was about to turn fantasy into a TV series, Cavill tortured his own agent. He made the poor man call the producers of the show almost every day, asking if he was approved for the role of the gray-haired witcher.

Also Cavill is a big fan of World of Warcraft . It is known that after passing the casting for the role of Superman, the actor spent some time without work and spent most of the time playing the popular MMO. He played so much that did not answer when he was called by Zach Snyder himself.The director wanted to personally congratulate Cavill for being approved, but received no response.

After the release of World of Warcraft Classic , the actor remembered the old days – defended long queues on the server and made his way into the game on the day of release.

Samuel L. Jackson

Agent Fury and one of the most important on-screen foul language in Hollywood Samuel L. Jackson is familiar with video games.He was eventually part of GTA San Andreas in which he voiced Frank Tenpenny. He also donated his voice to several other projects, including appearing in LEGO Star Wars 3 .

In his youth, Jackson played Pong and Space Invaders , however, like millions of other gamers, he is now a fan of shooters and sometimes runs into a match or two in Call of Duty . In addition, the actor admitted that he would not mind wandering around the Wasteland in Fallout .

Vin Diesel

Before becoming a hero of action and the founder of the “afterburner” family Vin Diesel was still a nerd. He pumped up his acting talent by selling figures from Street Sharks , and in his spare time playing with friends at D&D . After becoming a star, D Isel founded his own game company Tigon Studios .In collaboration with Starbreeze they managed to make one of the best movie games – The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay .

In his spare time from the heaviest voice acting Groot and filming in the next “Fast and the Furious” time, Diesel likes to shoot Call of Duty or plunge headlong into some strategy.

Mila Kunis

Milena Markovna Kunis before she got together with Ashton Kutcher and became a mother of two children, she also loved to spend her free time playing video games.The super popular World of Warcraft took a lot of hours from the actress. It is unknown who the native of Ukraine was pumping, but this did not affect her work.

With the advent of the family, Kunis began to play much less often, but sometimes he still comes to get rid of extra nerves in Call of Duty .

Jack Black

This actor and musician is a must-have for top video game fans. In addition to the fact that Black took part in the development of one of the most unusual RPG games Brutal Legend , he is also the founder of the popular YouTube channel Jablinski Games .Black began his career as video blogger by talking about old games and arcade machines. Over time, the actor began to release more videos about his filming and meetings with friends, but this did not make the channel worse.

Perhaps as a joke, but Black considers the passage of Project Gotham Racing to be his main gaming achievement.

Lady Gaga

Oscar-winning actress and singer Lady Gaga, despite her busy schedule, finds time to play video games.Although as a joke or for the sake of publicity, she pretends to that she does not know, “what is fortnight”. In social networks, Lady Gaga admitted that she lost sleep because of … Bayonetta .

“I am in the middle of Chapter 13, my hands are aching and it’s time for me to sleep. But the time is 4 am, and I have to kill this damn dragon. ”

The singer expressed her respect to all gamers, but admitted that emotional help would not hurt her.

Zachary Levy

Popularity among gamers Zachary Levi acquired long before he starred as a superhero in the movie “ Shazam “.The actor has hosted many panels at Comic Con , played with Miranda from Mass Effect 2 on Chuck over the years, and talked about his love of video games.

Levy loves shooters and can be found on the battlefields in Destiny , CoD , Battlefield and other games. The actor spent a lot of time in Gears of War 3 . Whether he played in the fifth part is unknown. But, probably, due to the continuation of “Shazam”, he had not yet had time to get acquainted with the new game of his favorite series.

Which gamer stars do you know?

90,000 Fight with your friends in the best fighting video game Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl – You’re in the game!

Enjoy the power of your favorite Nickelodeon ALL-STAR characters and multiplayer action coming this fall on all major consoles.

Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl, a new platform fighting game featuring fan-favorite Nickelodeon characters, has been announced for PlayStation®5, PlayStation®4, Xbox Series X / S, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch.

Fight online and in local multiplayer for up to four players this fall!

The Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl, co-developed with Ludosity and Fair Play Labs, is the ultimate Nickelodeon fighting game that fans have been waiting for! Choose from many of the most iconic characters from Nickelodeon’s huge roster of favorite franchises, including SpongeBob SquarePants, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Hey Arnold! (Hey Arnold!), Invader Zim, Danny Phantom, The Loud House, Aaahh !!! Real Monsters, Rugrats, and more.

KEY FEATURES:

• Stellar line-up: fan-favorite characters from the Nickelodeon cartoon universe are here, and each fighter offers a unique set of moves and playstyle to master as you try to get your enemies flying away from the level to conquer.
• 20 Nickelodeon-themed Levels: Fight in a variety of levels inspired by the iconic Nickelodeon universes, including Jellyfish Fields from SpongeBob SquarePants, TMNT Technodrome, and more!
• Single and Multiplayer Game Modes: Test your skills against AI or battle it out in competitive online and local multiplayer for up to four players.
• Bonus Content: Unlock advanced moves unique to each character and more in the in-game gallery!

Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl is available on Nintendo Switch, PS4, PS5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X / S.

About GameMill Entertainment

GameMill Entertainment, based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, is a third-party publisher of console and mobile games for passionate fans around the world. Development platforms include PC, Nintendo Switch, Microsoft consoles including Xbox Series X / S and Xbox One, Sony consoles including PlayStation®5 and PlayStation®4, and mobile devices.GameMill is developed all over the world and is the source of fun and entertaining games for all ages.

About Nickelodeon

Nickelodeon, now 42 years old, is a leading entertainment brand for kids. She has built a diverse global business by putting children first in everything. The brand includes television programming and production in the United States and worldwide, as well as consumer goods, digital technology, location-based services, publications, and feature films.

About Ludosity

Ludosity is a creative studio based in picturesque West Gothia, Sweden. Our 13-member team has been releasing popular PC and console games since 2008 such as the Ittle Dew and Slap City series. Their games combine humor with solid mechanics and great character designs.

About Fair Play Labs

Fair Play Labs is an experienced game development studio founded in 2006 in Costa Rica. With a creative and experienced team, they focus on creating fun and engaging games that entertain gamers of all ages on consoles and PCs.

………………………
90,000 The Russian premiere of the FIFA 18 video game and a meeting with FC Spartak footballer Artem Rebrov and e-football stars will take place at the Moscow-870 festival

We set records together with the stars of football and video games! September 6 at Manezhnaya Square, guests of the festival “Moscow-870. The city where history is created ”will be able to be the first in Russia to play the video game FIFA 18.

September 7 on the same site we play FIFA with FC Spartak footballer Artem Rebrov and popular e-sports bloggers PandaFC, STAVR (Loko E-Sports Team) and Wylsacom.

On the site on Manezhnaya on all days of the festival, from September 1 to September 10, everyone can play FIFA 17 – or watch others play with the help of large screens specially installed on the site. Also, meetings with famous football players, bloggers and letplayers are regularly held here.

September 6, starting at 5 pm festival guests will be the first to play FIFA 18: the Russian premiere of this video game will take place within the framework of the Moscow-870 festival.

The next day, we invite fans to meet with Artem Rebrov and popular bloggers . The program of each meeting includes interviews, autograph sessions and master classes or challenges with audience participation.

Schedule of meetings 7 September:

17.30 – 18.30 – PandaFC (blogger, e-sportsman, author of one of the most popular Russian YouTube channels on FIFA)

18.00 – 19.00 – STAVR (blogger, e-sportsman Loco E-Sports Team)

19.00 – 19.30 – Wylsacom (blogger, author of the popular YouTube channel about technology. More than 3.5 million subscribers to the Wylsacom channel)

19.