If you try to move or rename files or folders on your Windows Vista, you cannot move or rename files or folders, you get the error : The File or Folder does not exist.
It is quite likely that the issue is being caused due to deletion of the Registry branch:
If you have installed update KB938979 by (an earlier version of) vLite edited Vista or installed the beta version of KB938979, you are most likely to be facing this problem.
Uninstalling the update is not known to help, as its a case of registry corruption. What you need to do is restore the missing registry hive to its default settings.
You can apply the applicable registry patch mentioned below. Download it and rt click and merge it into your registry. This registry fix is a result of the discussions here at MSFN.org and you may download the fix from here or from the mentioned source directly.
Sooner or later you will need to know the manufacturer and exact model of your motherboard, especially if you do plan to upgrade your computer, since the upgrade capabilities of your computer are set by the motherboard model you have. You will need to know this information if you need to perform a BIOS upgrade or download your motherboard manual or drivers. A BIOS upgrade is needed to make your computer to recognize a new CPU, and the manual is necessary if you want to check how much RAM your computer is able to recognize, for example.
Finding out this information is not so easy, because many manufacturers simply don’t print on the motherboard their name or the model name. Also, you may want to check if the motherboard installed in your PC is really the model you ordered. Usually the warranty is void if you open your computer, so you will need to learn how to find out this information without opening your PC.
How it is possible to know the motherboard manufacturer thru software? Inside the computer BIOS there is a serial number, which has includes a code for the manufacturer. So, what a hardware identification utility does is to read the BIOS serial number and to decipher it for you. Read our tutorial Deciphering the BIOS Serial Number for a detailed explanation on this subject.
We will teach you how to use three very popular hardware identification programs to find out your motherboard manufacturer and model:Hwinfo 32.
After you found out your motherboard manufacturer and model, you may want to know what is the manufacturer website and where you can download the latest BIOS, drivers and manual for your motherboard model.
After installing Hwinfo32, run it (it will take one minute to collect all hardware info from your computer) and click on Motherboard. You will see your motherboard manufacturer and model being listed under Motherboard Model, as you can see on Figure 4. As you can see, we were using a Gigabyte GA-7VAXP Ultra motherboard.
On this screen you can see also some basic features of your motherboard, like the number of expansion slots it has and the chipset model on which it is based.
On this screen you can also find several other useful information about your motherboard, like how many memory slots it has and which ones are used and the chipset model your motherboard is based on. You can also see the BIOS serial number we were talking about under System BIOS.
Hey there, It's me Ashwin Sinha back again, Well, over the past few months, 2 years to be approximate, people complain of low disk space in windows XP. This Happens Mainly due to 3 factors :
1) You do Not Clear The Recycle Bin 2) You Have Too Many System Restore Points Saved 3) Your Temp drive eats too much space.
Usually an average user who's got around 3 years of an experience can tackle the 1st 2 problems but the third one is still a pain in the nose.
What users mostly do is just clear all the files saved in the temp directory located in Windows XP at : C(root):\Documents and Settings\[username]\Local Settings\Temp This helps but is a very short lived relief.
To avoid this, there is another very good method but with a small problem which may make you angry if you do not have all the required things.
This method is very very helpful if you have another hard drive or a partition on your computer.
The Idea is to change the location of your Temp directory from the root drive to the drive you have free space in !!!
To do this: 1. Select Start -> Settings -> Control Panel. 2. Select System -> Advanced -> Environment Variables. 3. Edit the variable to reflect your new drive.
In Environment Variables, Change The location of both TEMP and TMP to the desired location you want your folder to be shfted to.
A Video on how to do this has been posted below:
So, This gets you 1 more problem solved ! If you are happy, or you still have any problems, do send in your comments to this post and you will be contacted soon!
A simulation game is a game that contains a mixture of skill, chance, and strategy to simulate an aspect of reality, such as a stock exchange. Simulation gaming has its largest application in the world of computers with people learning by simulation. It has been used extensively as an effective way to generate new and more complex behavior among participants (eg. to engender courage among participants exposed to fearful conditions). One notable example is the use of Ropes Course challenge elements to spawn new "outside the box" thinking among corporate executives. When deftly used, simulation gaming can produce results which eclipse many other forms of training.
In computer games, simulation game describes a diverse super-category of video games. Some simulation games are intended to simulate the real world; others are intended to simulate a fictional world; still others (The Sims 2 for example) are designed to be able to do both.
A dogfight or dog fight is aerial combat between fighter aircraft. The term originated during World War I when pilots had to switch off their engines to avoid turning into the torque, and then restart them again, which from the ground sounded like dogs barking.
Modern terminology for aerial combat between aircraft is air-to-air combat and air combat manoeuvring, or ACM.
World War I
Dogfighting emerged in World War I. Aircraft were initially used as mobile observation vehicles and early pilots gave little thought to aerial combat—enemy pilots at first simply exchanged waves. Intrepid pilots decided to interfere with enemy reconnaissance by improvised means, including throwing bricks, grenades and sometimes rope, which they hoped would entangle the enemy plane's propeller. This progressed to pilots firing hand-held guns at enemy planes. Once machine guns were mounted to the plane, either on a flexible mounting or higher on the wings of early biplanes, the era of air combat began. The Germans acquired an early air superiority due to the invention of synchronization gear in 1915.
During the first part of the war, there was no established tactical doctrine for air-to-air combat. Oswald Boelcke was the first to analyze the tactics of aerial warfare, resulting in a set of rules known as the Dicta Boelcke. Many of Boelcke's concepts, conceived in 1916, are still applicable today, including use of sun and altitude, surprise attack, and turning to meet a threat.
World War II
During the 1930s two different streams of thought about air-to-air combat began to emerge, resulting in two different streams of monoplane fighter dev
elopment. In Japan and Italy especially, there continued to be a strong belief that lightly armed, highly manoeuvrable single seat fighters would still play a primary role in air-to-air combat. Aircraft such as the Nakajima Ki-27 and Nakajima Ki-43 and the Mitsubishi A6M Zero in Japan, and the Fiat G.50 and Macchi C.200 in Italy epitomised a generation of monoplanes designed to this concept.
The other stream of thought, which emerged primarily in Britain, Germany, the Soviet Union and the United States was the belief the high speeds of modern combat aircraft and the g-forces imposed by aerial combat meant that dogfighting in the classic WW I sense would be impossible. Fighters such as the Messerschmitt Bf 109, the Supermarine Spitfire, the Yakovlev Yak-1 and the Curtiss P-40 were all designed for high level speeds and a good rate of climb. Good manoeuvrability was not a primary objective
A pilot who realized that new tactics had to be devised was then-Lieutenant Commander John S. "Jimmy" Thach, commander of Fighting Three in San Diego. He read the early reports coming out of China and wrestled with the problem of his F4F Wildcats being relatively slower and much less manoeuvrable than the Japanese planes. He devised a defensive manoeuvre called the "Thach Weave" by Lt.Cdr James H. Flatley, another fighter tactician and contemporary of Thach. Lt.Cdr Thach reasoned that two planes, a leader and his wingman, could fly about 200 feet apart, and adopt a weaving formation when under attack by Japanese fighters. He later faced the A6M Zero during the Battle of Midway in June 1942 for the acid test of his theory. Although outnumbered, he found that a Zero would lock onto the tail of one of the fighters. In response, the two planes would turn toward each other. When the Zero followed its original target thro
ugh the turn, it would come into a position to be fired on by the target's wingman, and the predator would become the prey. His tactic proved to be effective and was soon adopted by other squadrons. The Thach Weave helped make up for the inferiority of the US planes in technology and numbers, until new aircraft could be brought into service. The usefulness of this strategy survives until today.
Modern air combat
Even in the jet age, modern air-to-air combat can develop into dog fights. A fighter can evade a missile by abrupt maximum-performance turns and employing countermeasures—such as chaff and flares—provided he can detect the missile via a radar warning receiver (RWR) or visually. If beyond-visual-range (BVR) missiles can be defeated, pilots can press the attack and very quickly arrive at the within-visual-range (WVR) arena. This will typically result in a high-speed neutral pass (or merge) from which the opposing pilots must decide to turn and continue the fight with his or her opponent or continue straight and 'bug-out'. The turning fight that develops can be commonly called a dog fight, or basic fighter manoeuvring (BFM).
Superiority in a dog fight can depend on a pilot's experience and skill, and the agility of his fighter when flown at minimum air speeds approaching loss of control (causing a danger of stalling); the winner typically plays to the strengths of his own aircraft while forcing his adversary to fly at a design disadvantage. Dogfights are generally contests fought at low airspeeds, while maintaining enough energy for violent acrobatic manoeuvring, as pilots attempt to remain within air speeds with a maximum turn rate and minimum turn radius: the so-called "corner speed" that often lies between 300 and 400 knots, depending on conditions. Therefore a dogfight has nothing to do with supersonic speed, but much to do with the engine power that makes supersonic flight possible. The F-22 Raptor can stand on its steerable nozzles at less than 100 knots airspeed, yet quickly manoeuvre to bring its M61 Vulcan cannon to bear on a nearby evasive target, while an F-15 Eagle is more likely to use its thrust to maintain its relatively high corner speed, working to counter the drag caused by tight turns.
The continued importance of maintaining dogfighting proficiency was demonstrated during the Vietnam War. American pilots flew aircraft such as the F-4 Phantom II, equipped with long-range AIM-7 Sparrow missiles, and AIM-9 Sidewinder missiles. However, air crews were required not to fire any missiles without having visually identified the target first, to make absolutely sure they were not an ally, thus losing this technological advantage. The AIM-7 missile was also not very reliable, making heavy use of delicate components such as vacuum tubes—which had to endure the SE Asia climate, carrier takeoffs, and high-stress manoeuvres. Also, they had semi-active radar homing, meaning that they used the carrier plane's radar signals to home in on the target. The missiles themselves did not have a radar system, but "listened" to the pings of the attacker's radar and used the reflection of the prey aircraft to home in on it. AIM-9 missile were heat-seekingfire-and-forget missiles, meaning that once they had a lock on a heat source, they would attempt to hit it. They were only useful in short range, and in many cases failed, due to a number of factors, including delicate instruments and false heat sources (such as the sun). Additionally, early versions of the F-4 (prior to the E model) relied solely on missiles, having no guns nor lead-computing Gyro gunsight, and were therefore very vulnerable in the gun-range combat that could ensue.
Lightweight, short-endurance, point-defense fighters such as the MiG-17 and MiG-21 are typically far more agile than heavy, long-range, fighter-bombers (see the F-105 Thunderchief). Still, using superior tactics, the AIM-9 Sidewinder short-range missiles, and cannon fire, American pilots were able to gain significant victories in the air over North Vietnam, especially after the establishment in 1969, of the United States Navy Fighter Weapons School (TOPGUN) to restore dogfighting ability to its pilots. At this school, pilots learned to exchange airspeed for altitude, using maneuvers like the Immelman turn and the Split-S, and to master tricks that put him behind an enemy fighter, where the enemy is vulnerable to heat-seeking Sidewinder missiles.
Referring back the previous section, which focused on tactics developed during World War II, the North Vietnamese MiG-17 resorted to use of the Lufbery maneuver on occasion when cornered by faster F-4 Phantom fighters. Whereas the Thach Weave is used as aircraft move towards a point in space, the Lufbery is employed over a fixed point.
With modern air-to-air AMRAAM guided missiles greatly extending the general engagement range of jet fighters, some experts hypothesize that dogfighting may be headed toward extinction, but others cite the occurrences in Vietnam as evidence otherwise. However, it is worth noting that there have been a great number of Beyond-Visual-Range (BVR) kills occurring during and after the Persian Gulf War. This was due to the improved reliability of BVR missiles, radars, and most importantly, the integration of C3I assets, such as AWACS aircraft, into the realm of aerial warfare. This provided Coalition forces with a superior picture of the battlefield, and in conjunction with airspace management allowed utilization of BVR weaponry.
Despite this, the improvement of all-aspect IR, missiles coupled with helmet-mounted sights, has reduced the necessity of tail-chase attacks. In addition, Russian development of tail-mounted radar and rear-firing missiles has reduced Russian planes' vulnerability to tail-chase attacks.
Yet because this feature is only present on the most modern jets, and missiles are a finite resource, the US Navy (TOPGUN) and the US Air Force (Red Flag) continue to teach postgraduate-level classes in air-combat-manoeuvering engagements. Russian aircraft manufacturers heavily emphasize superagility and dogfight capabilities in fighter design, with aircraft such as the Su-37 or the Su-30MKI demonstrating advanced thrust vectoring systems to achieve these goals, pushing the aircraft to its limits to give it an advantage in combat. USAF fighters, such as the F-15 and F-16, tend to favor higher speeds, because of their emphasis on high power-to-weight ratio and low wing-loading; although the F-22 has superagility with its own vectored thrust
is a French computer and video game publisher and developer with headquarters in Montreuil-sous-Bois, France. The company has facilities in over 20 countries, with studios in Montreal and Québec City, Quebec, Canada; Bucharest, Romania; Barcelona, Spain; Shanghai, Chengdu, China; Singapore; North Carolina, USA; Düsseldorf, Germany; Sofia, Bulgaria; Casablanca, Morocco; Sydney, Australia; Milan, Italy ; Pune, India and São Paulo, Brazil amongst other locations.
As of 2004, it was the third-largest independent video game publisher in Europe, and the seventh largest in the United States. Ubisoft's revenue for 2002-2003 was €453 million; for fiscal year 2003-2004, this grew to €508 million. As of 2005, Ubisoft employed more than 3,500 people, of which over 1,700 are classed as working in production. The company's largest development studio is Ubisoft Montreal, which in 2004 employed approximately 1,600 people. Yves Guillemot, a founding brother, was the chairman and CEO.
Ubisoft Romania is the headquarters of the Eastern Europe developing studios, with over 400 people, and rising. The Bucharest studio is known for games like Blazing Angels, Silent Hunter, and the more recent Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X.
Ubisoft Australia also distribute Square Enix's games due to Square Enix not having an Australian presence[citation needed].
The correct pronunciation of the company name is you-be-soft, though it is also commonly mispronounced oo-be-soft.
History:
The five brothers of the Guillemot family founded Ubisoft as a computer game publisher in 1986 in France (Brittany). Yves Guillemot soon made deals with Electronic Arts, Sierra On-Line, and MicroProse to distribute their games in France. By the end of the decade, Ubisoft began expanding to other markets, including the United States, the United Kingdom, and Germany.
In the early 1990s, Ubisoft initiated its in-house game development program which led to the 1994 opening of a studio in Montreuil, France, which later became their headquarters. Ubisoft became a publicly traded company in 1996 and continued to expand to offices around the globe, opening locations in Shanghai and Montreal.
In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Ubisoft committed itself to online games by getting behind Uru: Ages Beyond Myst, The Matrix Online, and the European and Chinese operation of EverQuest. The publisher established ubi.com as its online division. However, in February 2004, Ubisoft cancelled the online portion of Uru and backed out of the publishing deal on The Matrix Online. Nevertheless, a mere week later, the company announced its acquisition of Wolfpack Studios, developer of Shadowbane.
In December 2004, a rival game corporation Electronic Arts purchased a 19.9% stake in the firm, an action Ubisoft referred to as "hostile" on EA's part.
In March 2005, Ubisoft acquired part of MC2-Microïds (Microïds Canada) and integrated it into their Ubisoft Montreal.
In July 2006 Ubisoft also bought the Driver franchise from Atari for a sum of €19 million (USD$24 million) in cash for the franchise, technology rights, and most asset. Additionally, though Ubisoft is not acquiring the studio outright, the members of Driver developer Reflections Interactive became employees of Ubisoft. As a result, Reflections Interactive was subsequently renamed Ubisoft Reflections.
On 11 April 2007, Ubisoft announced that it had acquired German game developer Sunflowers, followed by an acquisition of Japanese developer Digital Kids that November.
Ubisoft is also responsible for publishing famous franchises produced by other important studios for some specific platforms, such as Resident Evil 4 for PC, which is a Capcom's production, and Innocent Life: A Futuristic Harvest Moon for Playstation 2 and Harvest Moon Online, which are a Marvelous Interactive's production.
Subsidiaries:
Singapore
In August 2008, Ubisoft's 1818 studio was opened in Singapore. Ubisoft cited the Singapore government's demonstrated interest and support for the video game industry, together with other factors such as the quality of the universities and training institutions, as reasons for opening a studio there. Ubisoft Singapore is focused on developing their own game titles.
India
Ubisoft has also announced plans for expansion into India after many years of ignoring the market. The publisher has bought out the Pune Gameloft studio, which will focus on porting games to the current generation of handhelds.
Activision Inc. is an American video game developer and publisher. It was founded on October 1, 1979., and was the first independent developer and distributor of video games for gaming consoles. Its first products were cartridges for the Atari 2600 video console system. Activision is now one of the largest third party video game publishers in the world and was also the top publisher for 2007 in the United States On January 18, 2008, Activision announced they were the top US publisher in 2007, according to the NPD Group.
On December 2, 2007, it was announced that Activision would merge with Vivendi Games. The merging took place on July 9, 2008, with the newly formed company Activision Blizzard, owned by Vivendi.
Before the formation of Activision, software for video game consoles were published exclusively by makers of the systems for which the games were designed. For example, Atari was the only publisher of games for the Atari 2600. This was particularly galling to the developers of the games, as they received no financial rewards for games that sold well, and did not receive credit for their games. This caused several programmers to resign from their jobs. Activision became the first third-party game publisher for game consoles.
The company was founded by former music industry executive Jim Levy and former Atari programmers David Crane, Larry Kaplan, Alan Miller and Bob Whitehead. Atari's company policy at the time was not to credit game creators for their individual contributions; Levy took the approach of crediting and promoting game creators along with the games themselves. The steps taken for this included devoting a page to the developer in their instruction manuals and challenging players to send in a high score (usually as a photograph, but sometimes as a letter) in order to receive a patch. These draws helped the newly formed company attract experienced talent. Crane, Kaplan, Levy, Miller, and Whitehead received the Game Developers Choice "First Penguin" award in 2003, in recognition of this step.
The departure of the four programmers, whose titles made up more than half of Atari's cartridge sales at the time, caused legal action between the two companies which were not settled until 1982. As the market for game consoles started to decline, Activision branched out, producing game titles for home computers and acquiring smaller publishers.
In 1982, Activision released Pitfall!, which is considered by many to be the first platform game[citation needed] as well as the best selling title on the Atari 2600. Pitfall! was a huge success for the company and the developers. Due to this success, many clones of the game were introduced, including stand-up arcade games. This also launched the entire platform genre which became a major part of video games through the 1980s.
On June 13, 1986, Activision merged with struggling text adventure pioneer Infocom. Jim Levy was a big fan of Infocom's titles and wanted Infocom to remain solvent. About six months after the "InfoWedding", Bruce Davis took over as CEO of Activision. Davis was against the merger from the start and was heavy-handed in management of them. He also made marketing changes on Infocom which caused sales of their games to plummet. Eventually in 1989, after several years of losses, Activision closed down the Infocom studios in Cambridge, Massachusetts, extending to only 11 of the 26 employees an offer to relocate to Activision's headquarters in Silicon Valley. Five of them accepted this offer.
In 1988, Activision started to get involved in other types of software besides video games, such as business applications. As a result, Activision changed its corporate name to Mediagenic in order to have a name that would globally represent all its fields of activities. (Mediagenic is often mistaken to be a company that purchased Activision but in reality it was only Activision with a different name). Despite this change, Mediagenic continued to largely use the Activision brand on its video games of the various platforms it was publishing for, notably the Nintendo Entertainment System, the Sega Master System, the Atari 7800, Atari ST, Commodore 64 and Amiga. The decision of the company to get involved in various fields at the expense of video gaming proved to be a move so bad that in 1992 Mediagenic filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
The failure of Mediagenic resulted in a reorganization and merger with The Disc Company, with Mediagenic again being the acquirer. After emerging from bankruptcy, Mediagenic officially changed its entity name back to Activision in the state of Delaware on December 1992. At that point Activision moved its headquarters from Silicon Valley to Southern California. While emerging from bankruptcy, it continued to develop games for PCs and video game consoles, and resumed making strategic acquisitions. Activision chose from then on to only concentrate on video gaming and nothing else.
In 1991, Activision packaged 20 of Infocom's past games into a CD-ROM collection called The Lost Treasures of Infocom sans most of the feelies Infocom was famous for. The success of this compilation led to the 1992 release of 11 more Infocom titles in The Lost Treasures of Infocom II.
Activision Value is a subsidiary brand of Activision and a merger of Expert Software and Head Games Publishing. It has offices located in Eden Prairie, Minnesota, a suburb of Minneapolis.
Activision Value is the publisher of budget titles for Activision. Its most prominent titles are the Cabela's line of hunting and fishing-related games, and the World Series of Poker.
Third-person shooter (TPS) is a genre of 3D computer and video games in which the player character is seen at a distance from a number of different possible perspective angles, as opposed to the first-person model in which the player views everything in the game world as if through the character’s own eyes. Tomb Raider was an early third-person shooter which popularized the genre.
Owing to the general nature of the term, many games are placed outside of the third-person shooter genre because their styles are covered by more specific genre labels. Prior to Resident Evil 4, the Resident Evil games, though they incorporate both third-person gameplay and shooting, are not considered third-person shooters; because of the emphasis on fear and survival, they are called survival horror. In contrast, the GTA series from Grand Theft Auto III on has been labeled by some as third-person shooters, but also incorporates driving and RPG elements. Examples of traditional third-person shooters include MDK, Gears of War, Dark Sector and Uncharted: Drake's Fortune.
Third-person shooters have advantages and disadvantages. A third-person perspective gives the player more awareness of the surroundings; however, this leaves the camera disconnected from movement, unlike in a first-person shooter. Poor camera control can cause the player to view the wrong area, having their line-of-sight obstructed by an object behind the character. Many solutions to these problems have been both proposed and implemented. For example, if the player positions the character with their back to a wall, the wall may become transparent to not obstruct the player's view. An example of this is in Warhawk, where structures and other players who come between the player's character and the camera will become translucent to give the player an easier view of the game. Another solution is to allow the player to enter a first-person view, should a situation arise where the third-person perspective becomes problematic, while allowing them to otherwise remain in a third-person view. Examples of this are in Star Wars: Battlefront, Gears of War, and James Bond 007: Everything or Nothing.
The third-person perspective can also be used to add non-shooting or action-adventure elements to the game. Games such as Uncharted: Drake's Fortune and Tomb Raider feature sections of puzzle solving and platforming sections which are made easier by this.
Electronic Arts (EA) is an American developer, marketer, publisher, and distributor of computer and video games. Established in 1982 by Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer games industry and was notable for promoting the designers and programmers responsible for their games. Originally, EA was a home computing game publisher. In the late 1980s, the company began developing games in-house and supported consoles by the early 1990s. EA later grew via acquisition of several successful developers. By the early 2000s, EA had become one of the world's largest third-party publishers. In May 2008, the company reported net annual revenue of US$4.02 billion in fiscal year 2008.[1] Currently, EA's most successful products are sports games published under their EA Sports label, games based on popular movie licenses and games from long-running franchises like Need for Speed, Medal of Honor, The Sims, Command & Conquer and the later games in the Burnout series.
History
Electronic Arts' original corporate logo, 1982–1999.
1982-1991 - Seeing Farther: The Emergence of an Industry
In February 1982, Trip Hawkins arranged a meeting with Don Valentine of Sequoia Capital[3] to discuss financing his new venture, Amazin' Software. Valentine encouraged Hawkins to leave Apple Inc., in which Hawkins served as Director of Product Marketing, and allowed Hawkins use of Sequoia Capital's spare office space to start the company. On May 28, 1982, Trip Hawkins incorporated and established the company with a personal investment of an estimated US$200,000. Seven months later in December 1982, Hawkins secured US$2 million of venture capital from Sequoia Capital, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, and Sevin Rosen Funds.
For more than seven months, Hawkins had refined his Electronic Arts business plan. With aid from his first employee (whom he worked in marketing with at Apple), Rich Melmon, the original plan was written, mostly by Hawkins, on an Apple II in Sequoia Capital's office in August 1982. During that time, Hawkins also employed two of his former staff from Apple, Dave Evans and Pat Marriott, as producers. The business plan was again refined in September and reissued on October 8, 1982.
Between September and November, employee headcount rose to 11, including Tim Mott, Bing Gordon, David Maynard, and Steve Hayes. Having outgrown the office space provided by Sequoia Capital, the company relocated to a San Mateo office that overlooked the San Francisco Airport landing path. Headcount rose rapidly in 1983, including Don Daglow, Richard Hilleman, Stewart Bonn, David Gardner, and Nancy Fong.
Early Sales strategy
Hawkins was determined to sell directly to buyers. Combined with the fact that Hawkins was pioneering new game brands, this made sales growth more challenging. Retailers wanted to buy known brands from existing distribution partners. Despite this, revenue was $5 million in the first year and $11 million the next.[citation needed] Former CEO Larry Probst arrived as VP of Sales in late 1984 and helped the company sustain growth into $18 million in its third full year. Teaming with the existing sales staff that included Nancy Smith, David Klein, and David Gardner, Probst built the largest sales force of any American game publisher.[citation needed] This policy of dealing directly with retailers gave EA higher margins and better market awareness, key advantages the company would leverage to leapfrog its early competitors.
In December 1986 David Gardner and Mark Lewis moved to the UK to open a European headquarters. Up until that point publishing of Electronic Arts Games, and the conversion of many of their games to compact cassette versions in Europe was handled by Ariolasoft. A small company in Wales was already called Electronic Arts, and until 1997 Electronic Arts in the UK was known legally as EOA, a name derived from its square/circle/triangle logo. The Welsh company ceased trading in 1997 and Electronic Arts acquired the rights to the name.[citation needed]
Name change
Some of the early employees of the company disliked the Amazin' Software name that Hawkins had originally chosen when he incorporated the company.[citation needed] While at Apple, Hawkins had enjoyed company offsite meetings at Pajaro Dunes and organized such a planning offsite for EA in October 1982. Following a long business day at the offsite, the dozen employees and advisers who were present agreed that they would stay up that night and see if they could agree unanimously on a new name for the company.[citation needed]
Hawkins had developed the ideas of treating software as an art form and calling the developers, "software artists." Hence, the latest version of the business plan had suggested the name "SoftArt". However, Hawkins and Melmon knew the founders of Software Arts, the creators of VisiCalc, and thought their permission should be obtained. But Dan Bricklin did not want the name used because it sounded too similar (perhaps "confusingly similar") to Software Arts. However, the name concept was liked by all the attendees. Hawkins had also recently read a best-selling book about the film studio, United Artists, and liked the reputation that company had created. Early advisers Andy Berlin, Jeff Goodby, and Rich Silverstein (who would soon form their own ad agency Goodby, Silverstein & Partners) were also fans of that approach, and the discussion was led by Hawkins and Berlin. Hawkins said everyone had a vote but they would lose it if they went to sleep.[citation needed]
Hawkins liked the word "electronic", and various employees had considered the phrases "Electronic Artists" and "Electronic Arts". Other candidates included Gordon's suggestion of "Blue Light", a reference from the movie "Tron".[citation needed]
When Gordon and others pushed for "Electronic Artists", in tribute to the film company United Artists, Steve Hayes opposed, saying, "We're not the artists, they are..." meaning that the developers whose games EA would publish were the artists. This statement from Hayes immediately tilted sentiment towards Electronic Arts and the name was unanimously endorsed.[citation needed]
Sharing credit
Pinball Construction Set was an enormous hit for EA. The original version for the Apple II by Bill Budge was quickly ported to other popular home systems of the era.
A novel approach to giving credit to its developers was one of EA's trademarks in its early days. This characterization was even further reinforced with EA's packaging of most of their games in the "album co pioneered by EA because Hawkins thought that a record album style would both save costs and convey an artistic feeling.[citation needed] EA routinely referred to their developers as "artists" and gave them photo credits in their games and numerous full-page magazine ads. EA also shared lavish profits with their developers, which added to their industry appeal. Because of this novel treatment, EA was able to easily attract the best developers.[citation needed]
The square "album cover" boxes (such as the covers for 1983's M.U.L.E. and Pinball Construction Set) were a popular packaging concept by Electronic Arts, which wanted to represent their developers as "rock stars".
Hawkins exits
After a very successful run on home computers, Electronic Arts later branched out and produced console games as well. Eventually Trip Hawkins left EA to found the now defunct 3DO company.[citation needed]
1991-2007 - The Probst Years: Explosive Growth and Industry Maturation
EA is currently headquartered in the Redwood Shores neighborhood of Redwood City, California. Following the departure of Trip Hawkins, Larry Probst took over the reins and led the company to its current size and stature.[citation needed]
Welcome sign at EA headquarters in Redwood Shores
Probst considered himself a man of principle and has refused to follow the M-rated example set by Take Two Interactive, whose violent Grand Theft Auto franchise became the dominant brand in many key demographics from 2000 through 2003.[citation needed] As a result, Probst was heavily criticized by Wall Street analysts, who believe that because of this policy, EA's stock price is lower than it should be.[citation needed] In late March 2005, Electronic Arts issued its first ever mid-quarter profit warning blaming hardware shortages and lower than expected fourth quarter sales.[citation needed]
Not that M-rated games are new to EA: in 1999 EA approved its first M-rated game, System Shock II for the PC. Probst later changed his overall stance on M-rated games, and now EA has several titles that compete in the M-rated, adult game arena.
In 2004, EA made a multimillion dollar donation to fund the development of game production curriculum at the University of Southern California's Interactive Media Division. In addition to the funds, EA staff members have been actively teaching and lecturing at the school.[citation needed]
On February 1, 2006, Electronic Arts announced that it would cut worldwide staff by 5 percent.[4]
On June 20, 2006 EA purchased Mythic Entertainment, currently working on Warhammer Online.[citation needed]
Exclusive licenses
After Sega's ESPN NFL 2K5 successfully grabbed market share away from EA's dominant Madden NFL series during the 2004 holiday season, EA responded by making several large sports licensing deals which include an exclusive agreement with the NFL, and in January 2005, a 15-year deal with ESPN, much as with Take Two Interactive's exclusive licensing deal with baseball's Major League. The ESPN deal gave EA exclusive first rights to all ESPN content for sports simulation games. On April 11, 2005, EA announced a similar, 6-year licensing deal with the Collegiate Licensing Company (CLC) for exclusive rights to college football content.
Development strategy
Much of EA's success, both in terms of sales and with regards to its stock market valuation, is due to its strategy of platform-agnostic development and the creation of strong multi-year franchises. EA was the first publisher to release yearly updates of its sports franchises—Madden, FIFA, NHL, NBA Live, Tiger Woods, etc.—with updated player rosters and small graphical and gameplay tweaks. Recognizing the risk of franchise fatigue among consumers, EA announced in 2006 that it would concentrate more of its effort on creating new original intellectual property.
2007-: Riccitiello Takes Over
In February 2007, Probst stepped down from the CEO job while remaining on the Board of Directors. His handpicked successor is John Riccitiello, who had worked at EA for several years previously, departed for a while, and then returned.[citation needed] Riccitiello previously worked for Elevation Partners, Sara Lee and Pepsico.
The Emergence of the City State Label Model
In June 2007, new CEO John Riccitiello announced that EA would reorganize itself into four labels, each with responsibility for its own product development and publishing (the city-state model). The goal of the reorganization was to empower the labels to operate more autonomously, streamline decision-making, increase creativity and quality, and get games into the market faster. This reorganization came after years of consolidation and acquisition by EA of smaller studios, which some in the industry blamed for a decrease in quality of EA titles. In 2008, at the DICE Summit, Riccitiello called the earlier approach of "buy and assimilate" a mistake, often stripping smaller studios of its creative talent. Riccitiello said that the city-state model allows independent developers to remain autonomous to a large extent, and cited Maxis and Bioware as examples of studios thriving under the new structure.
Mac Games
Also, in 2007, EA announced that it would be bringing some of its major titles (such as Madden NFL 08, Need for Speed: Carbon, etc.) to the Macintosh. EA has released Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Need for Speed Carbon, Battlefield 2142 and Command & Conquer: Tiberium Wars for the Mac. All of the new games have been developed for the Macintosh using Cider, a technology developed by TransGaming that enables Intel-based Macs to run Windows games inside a translation layer running on Mac OS X. They are not playable on PowerPC-based Macs.
Recent Acquisition Activity
In October 2007, EA purchased Super Computer International, a long standing industry provider of game server hosting for development studios, who were currently developing the new PlayLinc software. A week later they then purchased VG Holding Corp, the parent company of BioWare and Pandemic Studios.[13] In November 2007, EA signed an agreement with GigaMedia for the online game, NBA Street Online.[citation needed]
It was revealed in February 2008 that Electronic Arts had made a takeover bid for rival game company Take Two. After its initial offer of $25 per share, all cash stock transaction offer was rejected by the Take Two board, EA revised it to $26 per share, a 64% premium over the previous day's closing price and made the offer known to the public. Rumours had been floating around the internet prior to the offer about Take Two possibly being bought over by a bigger company, albeit with Viacom as the potential bidder.
In May 2008, EA announced that it will purchase the assets of Hands-On Mobile Korea, a South Korean mobile game developer and publisher. The company will become EA Mobile Korea.
Game quality
For 2006, the games review aggregation site Metacritic gives the average of EA games as 72.0 (out of 100); 2.5 points behind Nintendo (74.5) but ahead of the other first-party publishers Microsoft (71.6) and Sony (71.2). The closest third-party publisher is Take 2 (publishing as 2K Games and Rockstar) at 70.3. The remaining top 10 publishers (Sega, Konami, THQ, Ubisoft, Activision) all rate in the mid 60's. Since 2005 EA has published three games Battlefield 2, Crysis and Rock Band that received Universal Acclaim (Metacritic score 90 or greater).
However, EA's aggregate review performance has shown a downward trend in quality over recent years and is expected to affect market shares during competitive seasons. Pacific Crest Securities analyst Evan Wilson has said, "Poor reviews and quality are beginning to tarnish the EA brand. According to our ongoing survey of GameRankings.com aggregated review data, Electronic Arts' overall game quality continues to fall...Although market share has not declined dramatically to date, in years such as 2007, which promises to have tremendous competition, it seems likely if quality does not improve."
EA has also received criticism for developing games that lack innovation vis-à-vis the number of gaming titles produced under the EA brand that show a history of yearly updates, particularly in their sporting franchises. These typically retail as new games at full market price and feature only updated team rosters in addition to incremental changes to game mechanics, the user interface, and graphics. One critique compared EA to companies like Ubisoft and concluded that EA's innovation in new and old IPs, "Crawls along at a snail's pace.", while even the company's own CEO, John Riccitiello, acknowledged the lack of innovation seen in the industry generally, saying, "We're boring people to death and making games that are harder and harder to play. For the most part, the industry has been rinse-and-repeat. There's been lots of product that looked like last year's product, that looked a lot like the year before." EA has announced that it is turning its attention to creating new game IPs in order to stem this trend, with recently accquired and critically acclaimed studios Bioware and Pandemic would be contributing to this process.
A first-person shooter (FPS) is an action[1] video game from the shooter game[1] subgenre. Like all shooters, they involve "an avatar, one or more ranged weapons, and a varying number of enemies".[1] FPSs are distinguished by a first person perspective, that renders the game world from the visual perspective of the player character. The character is nominally a literal person; humanoid movement is expected. Games that primarily involve piloting vehicles are more correctly classified as vehicle simulation games.
In the modern era of video games, FPS was one of the first genres to use key technologies such as 3D graphics, online play, and modding. Enhanced realism combined with graphic violence has also made FPS a common topic in ongoing controversies over video games.
Overview
The first-person shooter is a sub-genre of shooter games. Many other shooter genres, such as on-rails shooters, are viewed from a first-person perspective, while flight simulators frequently involve the use of weapons; however, these are not considered FPSs. In the early 1990s, the term came to define a more specific type of game with a first-person view, where the main character's gun and part of his/her hand is shown, almost always centered around the act of aiming and shooting hand-held weapons, usually with limited ammunition. The focus is generally on the aiming of one's own guns and the avoidance of enemy attacks, but the player is given more control over their movement than in on-rails shooters and most light gun games.
Many third-person shooters (where the player sees the game world from a viewpoint above and behind the main character) are commonly treated as first-person shooters, due to similarities in gameplay. In some cases, it is possible to toggle the game between viewpoints and play the entire game from either perspective.
More frequently, a first-person view will be adopted in a third-person game only for brief periods for certain situations when it is advantageous. Since a first-person view usually allows more precise refinement of a player's aim than most third-person aiming systems, many third-person shooters allow the player to switch to their avatar's viewpoint in order to fire a weapon; sometimes this may only be done when specific weapons (a sniper rifle, for example) are equipped. In addition, certain third-person shooters let the player switch to a first-person perspective in order to observe their surroundings, but do not allow them to shoot any weapons while using it, such as Metal Gear Solid on the PS1 . Some first-person games switch by default to a third-person view when a melee weapon, such as a sword or a lightsaber, is selected on the theory that a wider perspective makes those weapons easier to manage.
The term first-person shooter has also been applied to games that take advantage of the first-person view and allow for free movement by the player, but are not heavily dependent on the use of fired weapons but instead focus on melee attacks or even a different form of gameplay altogether, such as the action/puzzle game Portal.
Gameplay
All FPSs feature the core gameplay elements of movement and shooting, but many variations exist, with different titles emphasizing certain aspects of the gameplay. The lines between sub-genres are not distinct; some games include stealth elements in addition to action-packed sequences more typical of a "run and gun" FPS.
Realism
Settings may vary from accurate recreations of historical periods to fantasy sci-fi depictions of the distant future. Damage to the player and enemies may be modeled fairly realistically, with the possibility of dying by a single shot (such as Rainbow Six), or wounds to different body parts having a visible effect on the gameplay (such as S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl). A very common simplification of the main character's overall condition is to represent it as two sets of hit points: a base "health" meter representing the "naked" character's vitality, and another gauge measuring external protection provided by body armor or shields.
The type of weaponry found in an FPS, and the realism of guns' accuracy and power, is usually appropriate to that game's setting. Frequently, the most recently-found gun will be the most powerful, and players will retain every weapon they have discovered, ending the game carrying an unrealistically massive arsenal of guns and ammunition. However, developers have also attempted to improve the realism of their games by placing a limit on the number of weapons players may carry. Counter-Strike and Halo popularized restricting the player to two firearms, and this has been heavily adopted by other games, particularly the Call of Duty games. This sometimes takes the form of a primary weapon (such as a rifle or shotgun) as well as a sidearm; these games will usually also allow you to carry grenades or other devices. Alternatively, some in-game explanation of how the character is able to carry this vast arsenal is decided, such as in the Star Trek: Elite Force games, where it is explained through the use of that universe's transporter system.
Some FPS games strive to increase visual realism while retaining unrealistic gameplay. As a result, in many games the player character demonstrates exaggerated physical capabilities and resiliency, such as absorbing many hits from small arms fire, surviving a direct hit from a tank shell, jumping an entire body length into the air, or falling several stories without sustaining injury. Often these super-human attributes are explained in canon, the most common are cybernetic or biological enhancements or the player wears a powered exoskeleton. This gameplay element is seen in such popular series as Quake, Halo, and Unreal Tournament. This gameplay style is more suited to "run-and-gun" type of combat and for "death match"-like multiplayer.
Structure
Most FPSs employ the videogame convention of being split into distinct levels separated in time and space, each set in a specific environment such as a warehouse, desert, laboratory, or castle. The most common style in earlier days of FPS gaming was the "level" system; however, Half-Life popularized a progressive system where the point-of-view never leaves the character and the entire game is a single continual campaign with no breaks in time. Both styles are now utilized extensively. The linearity of FPSs also varies, with some leading the player as directly as possible through the game through as many gunfights as possible, while others give the player numerous options regarding how they tackle each section. More recent titles, such as S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl and Crysis, have allowed the player to wander around large sandbox environments.
Environment interaction
Different FPSs allow different types and amount of environment interaction. The most common are simple doors which can be opened (either by pressing a specific "use" button or automatically) and the health and ammo packs and new weapons that can be collected (the player character gets the effect simply by walking over them). Buttons in the game environment allow a bit more interaction: they can open a door, start or shut down some machinery in the game environment which do a certain task (create a lethal trap for enemies, lower a bridge over a chasm) or whatever the programmers have scripted. These have been used in FPS games since Doom, although the variations have slightly increased.
More recently games in general, but especially FPSs, have provided more realistic interactive environments. An old addition was the use of blood splatters and bullet holes as a graphical decal that are displayed on top of texture. Barriers and specific objects that can be destroyed are now common, while the walls and such are still immovable and indestructible. More realistic physics have allowed for background objects (tables, cars, garbage bins) to be interacted with; for example Half-Life 2 (2004) was among the first games to incorporate the manipulation of objects both as weapons and as keys to environmental puzzles.
Combat and pacing
Many FPSs maintain a focus on "run and gun" gameplay, with quick movement and near constant combat. Other titles adopt a slower pace, with the emphasis on puzzle-solving, or interaction with characters in ways other than combat. Stealth is a common feature of FPSs — firefights in some FPSs are extremely risky and require the player to avoid detection. These games also retain much more of a focus on melee weapons. But even in games that feature numerous shootouts, sneaking up on an unaware opponent is an advantageous technique.
Strategy and planning are emphasized in tactical shooters and military simulations. These often allow the player to fight alongside and issue commands to squads made up of AI-controlled companions or human teammates. There have also been games that blend real-time strategy gameplay to FPSs. In these games, the player appears on the field as a single unit, but is able to give commands to other units, construct new units, and control the overall strategy, such as in Battlezone (1998). Some RTS/FPS hybrids use teamplay approach where one player is the commanding officer, responsible for the strategy part, and the other team members are ordinary soldiers, as in Battlefield 2 (2005).
Multiplayer
Almost every FPS contains a multiplayer component, and it was the first genre to make extensive use of and popularize multiplayer gaming (beginning as far back as Doom). Some games have almost entirely eliminated the single-player component, restricting single-player game to combat against bots (or rarely eliminating it altogether) and keeping the focus almost entirely on the multiplayer component. The Quake games were the first popular games that were almost exclusively multiplayer. The Unreal Championship and Battlefield series are other popular series that were designed almost exclusively for multiplayer play. The MMOFPS genre (including Planetside) combines first-person shooter gameplay with a large number of simultaneous players over the Internet, but has struggled to gain prominence in a field dominated by MMORPGs.
Control schemes
The control scheme for first-person shooters require allowing the player to control the direction their character is looking, the direction the character is moving, other character movements such as running, crouching, or jumping, firing and switching weapons, and other actions that specific games may need. As such, the control schemes for first-person shooter games can be extremely varied depending on the game's platform, as well as with limitations of control hardware.
For most first-person shooter games on PCs, as well as for select console games that support such input hardware, the control scheme utilizes a combination of keyboard and mouse inputs. Directional keys are typically placed on the WASD keys, with other character actions such as strafing, jumping, and the like placed on nearby keys. "Free look" or "mouse look" is controlled by moving the mouse around, weapon activation by the mouse buttons, and weapon management through the scroll wheel. Prior to the common inclusion of the scroll wheel on computer mice, the number keys or the tab key was often used to switch weapons. Keyboard and mouse control schemes are almost always customizable, allowing the player to assign various actions to other keys or mouse actions to their preference.
The controls for console games are limited by the available keys and controls on the system's control pad. Pads for early consoles such as the Mega Drive's D-pad provided only a single digital directional input and limited buttons, and early FPS console games used the directional input and another button combination for the input of additional movement commands like jumping. With control pads with a single analog stick, movement is primarily controlled by the analog stick, and additional movement and actions are performed using the other face buttons. Most modern controllers offer two direction inputs through analog sticks in addition to several more buttons than previous systems. This had led to two primary control scheme variations. In one configuration, one analog stick is used for forward and reverse motion and strafing relative to the current viewpoint, and the other thumb stick used to look around. An alternate variation provided forward and reverse movement and to look left or right on one thumb stick, and vertical aiming and lateral motion on the other thumb stick. Weapon activation is set to the control's shoulder triggers, and other functions such as jumping, reloading, or interaction with the environment is performed on other buttons on the controller. Many console-based FPSs include or offer both "lock-on" (auto-centering the aim to a target) and "auto-aim" (adjustment of the user's aim to a target when they are aiming slightly away from it) features to account for the loss of precision[citation needed] that a player has when aiming with the analog controls over a PC mouse[citation needed]. Control customization is available for console FPS titles, but is not as widely available as for PC games. Many games for both PC and consoles allow the user to invert the look axes as to allow the controls to behave more like a flight simulator joystick.
Newer controllers for the current generation of console hardware have brought additional variation to how the player interacts with an FPS game. Motion-sensitive remote controllers have allowed several FPS games to use the remote similar to a mouse to provide more accurate aiming than a typical controller and a more immersive environment as actions acted out by the player with the controller (e.g., swinging a sword) translate into those same actions taken on the screen.
History
First-person shooters came to be recognized as a genre in the early 1990s, and many of the genre's most common conventions date to this time. However, the modern genre is an extension of earlier games, particularly those involving 3D graphics. While some of these early games are not first-person shooters in the modern sense, some of them might be retroactively included in the genre, and many others contained ideas which later influenced the modern genre.
Origins
MIDI Maze (Atari ST)
Wolfenstein 3D screenshot
It is not clear exactly when the first FPS was created. Maze War is the most likely candidate, but even its developer cannot remember exactly when it was produced.[2] The initial development of Maze War probably occurred in the summer of 1973.[2]
In the early 1980s, the home computer market grew rapidly. While these machines were relatively low-powered, limited first-person-perspective games appeared early on. In these games, computer-controlled opponents were drawn using bitmaps. Phantom Slayer (1982) restricted the player to 90-degree turns, allowing "3D" corridors to be drawn with simple fixed-perspective techniques.
Later in the decade, the arrival of a new generation of home computers such as the Atari ST and the Amiga increased the computing power and graphical capabilities available, leading to a new wave of innovation. 1987 saw the release of MIDI Maze (aka Faceball), an important transitional game for the genre. Unlike its polygonal contemporaries, MIDI Maze used a raycasting engine to speedily draw square corridors. It also offered a networked multiplayer deathmatch (communicating via the computer's MIDI interface).
In 1991, the fledgling id Software released Catacomb 3D, which introduced the concept of showing the player's hand on-screen, strengthening the illusion that the player is viewing the world through the character's eyes. In 1992, id improved the technology by adding support for VGA graphics in Wolfenstein 3D. With these improvements over its predecessors, Wolfenstein 3D was a hit. It would be widely imitated in the years to follow, and thus marked the beginning of many conventions in the genre, including collecting different weapons that can be switched between using the keyboard's number keys, and ammo conservation.
In the year that followed the success of Wolfenstein 3-D, many imitators quickly arose, including Ken's Labyrinth by Epic Games, and several games licensing the Wolfenstein 3-D technology like Blake Stone: Aliens of Gold. Softdisk also released a series of sequels to Catacomb 3D using a modified version of id's engine, but id had no involvement with these games. Because of this sudden boom of games with a pronounced influence from id's games, the term "first-person shooter" was coined to describe the budding genre.
Doom era
Doom Screenshot
Id followed up Wolfenstein 3D the following year with Doom (1993). While still using sprites to render in-game opponents, and raycasting to render the levels, Doom added texture-mapping to the floor and ceiling, and removed some of the restrictions of earlier games. Walls could vary in height, with floor and ceiling changing levels to create cavernous spaces and raised platforms. In some areas, the ceiling textures were dependent on the position of the player, create the illusion of outdoor environments that were generally lacking in previous genre games. However, Doom wasn't truly 3D; id used a line map system which the game would make into a 3D looking environment, and they added the height later; this meant they couldn't put a room on top of a room, but they could create an Automap more easily.
While the graphical enhancements were notable, Doom also introduced network multiplayer against human opponents. Similar multiplayer modes existed in mainframe and arcade-based games, but Doom was the first PC game to gain a significant following dedicated to multiplayer. Doom was also one of the earliest FPS games to gain an active community of fans producing add-on maps.
Doom dominated the genre for years after its release. Every new game in the genre was held up against it, and usually suffered by comparison. However, some developers opted not to attack Doom head-on, but instead to concentrate on its weaker aspects or expand the new genre in alternative directions.
After Doom
Duke Nukem 3D, released in 1996, was the first game using what proved to be the most popular engine of the decade (12 released titles), Ken Silverman's Build engine. Build was outwardly similar to Doom's engine in that it used many 2D tricks, but was somewhat more advanced in this regard. It introduced the ability for players to swim and fly using a jetpack. Duke Nukem and its Build engine are also notable for having one of the simplest map editors of any 3D game ever made.
In 1996 id Software released their eagerly-anticipated Quake, which significantly enhanced the network gaming concept introduced by Doom. Like Descent, it used a 3D polygonal graphics engine to render enemies, but also added support for hardware-accelerated 3D graphics with GLQuake. In addition, id released an internet-optimized network client called QuakeWorld. Quake also actively encouraged user-made modifications. These "mods" contributed to its longevity and popularity with players; the most important of these was Threewave's CTF mod, which defined the now-standard Capture the Flag mode found in many FPS games.
A screen shot from GoldenEye 007 for the Nintendo 64
In 1997, GoldenEye 007 was released for the Nintendo 64. It was praised for a realistic setting, incorporating impressive artificial intelligence and animation, elaborate bullet-hit detection (permitting a player to inflict maximum damage through accurate "head shots"; a practice encouraged through the incorporation of a "sniper scope" weapon function), and mission objectives and well-designed environments based on the GoldenEye film's sets. Its split screen multiplayer deathmatch mode was also well-regarded for the range of options offered. Console first-person shooters have for many years been criticized for having control schemes less precise than the keyboard and mouse of PC titles, yet GoldenEye overcame such complaints to be considered the first great FPS for a console, as well as one of the best movie-to-game adaptations.
In early 1998, Rainbow Six helped to popularize tactical FPS by using a realistic combat-simulation approach to the genre. Player characters and enemies could be killed or critically wounded with one shot, and weapons were relatively inaccurate and unreliable, especially at long range -- a player could not aim a perfect shot just by keeping the crosshairs steady. As a result, the game encouraged players to employ real-world tactics such as taking cover and using flashbangs and other forms of stun grenades to incapacitate enemies before exposing one's own body. Additionally, the cartoonish acrobatics that are possible with most FPS games were eliminated in Rainbow Six -- players could not jump, and movement speed was relatively slow.
An outdoor environment from Half-Life
In 1998, Half-Life was released, featuring a single-player game with a narrative focus directing the action and the goals of the player. The combat sequences were heavily scripted throughout the game. Half-Life was among the first games to feature a continually-progressing campaign with no true level breaks, and also eliminated cut scenes, never removing the player from the point-of-view of the main character. It was also among the first games to place ammunition and health in more realistic settings, doing-away with the "power-up" feature that was the standard of FPS games, when ammo, health packs, and special abilities, among other items, would be scattered in random places around the map.
Another game of 1998, Starsiege: Tribes, was the first attempt to create a large, team-based arena FPS requiring strategic coordination. Supporting large numbers of players, vehicles, wide-open landscapes and movement mechanics provided by the jetpack all players spawned with, Tribes can be considered the ancestor of shooters like Battlefield 1942 and contributed greatly to the creation of the massively multiplayer FPS genre. This game also spawned a large functionality-based modding community that created numerous user interface changes and scripts that made play easier, including complicated inventory management scripts and movement aides.
1999 was another important year for FPS, as two competing franchises were pitched head-to-head: Quake III Arena and Unreal Tournament. At this point both franchises concentrated on multiplayer gameplay over a LAN or the internet, reducing the single player experience to arena-based bot matches.
The Half-Life mod Counter-Strike was released in mid-1999, and became one of the most popular multiplayer FPS titles ever released. The game is a tactical shooter in much the same vein as Rainbow Six, though it places slightly less emphasis on realism and more on team coordination.
Ask.com, the fourth-ranked search engine, has completed its acquisition of Lexico Publishing Group, which owns Dictionary.com, Thesaurus.com, and Reference.com.
Ask.com, a wholly owned subsidiary of InterActiveCorp, had announced the all-cash deal in mid-May. Financial terms of the deal, which closed Thursday, were not released. Lexico, a privately held company based in Long Beach, Calif., debuted in 1995 with Dictionary.com.
Altogether, Dictionary.com, Thesaurus.com, and Reference.com had more than 28 million unique visitors in March, according to Lexico.
In May, Ask.com said the acquisition would increase its unique monthly users by 11 percent to 145 million.
According to statistics-tracker Hitwise, Ask.com had 4.23 percent of the U.S. search market in May. Microsoft had 5.89 percent, Yahoo had 19.95 percent, and Google overwhelmed them all with 68.29 percent.
People aren't waiting for Microsoft to announce a deal with Netflix.
Someone has already figured out how to hack the Xbox 360 video game console and enable it to play Netflix streaming movies.
At Lifehacker.com, Adam Pash writes that all anyone needs is an Xbox 360, a Windows Vista PC, a Netflix account, and a free Windows Media Center plug-in called vmcNetflix.
Here is some of what Pash says an Xbox 360 owner can do following the hack: stream Watch Now movies directly to the Media Center player; download Watch Now movies to a "Watch Later" gallery; search for movies by keyword; browse DVDs; Watch Now movies by genre; and add, remove, and move movies in your queue.
Of course, this is more functionality than the $100 Netflix Box offers. Roku has received favorable reviews for streaming movies from the Web to television sets without long delays and at a reasonable price.
Soon, a hack may be unnecessary. Rumors are that Microsoft will announce this year that it has cut a deal to deliver Netlix's Watch Now service on the Xbox.
How to convert vob to avi file for Adobe Premiere Pro 2.0
There are times when you need to edit a video theme and it's necessary to use footage from an archived dvd video. Which is the fastest way to put this type of content into your Premiere Pro 2.0 timeline?
The solution is much easier than you probably think. You already know that you cannot import directly .vob files in Premiere Pro 2.0 You just can't!
But you can import other types of files such as .avi, .mov, .mpg, etc. Mpeg file type (.mpg) is the solution of this kind of problem!
So, you have to rename the file's extension from .vob to .mpg in windows explorer and voila...Premiere Pro 2.0 imports the file.
Let Adobe Premiere Pro 2.0 conform the file and through it to your timeline.
Problems that may occur :
The only problem i have noticed so far is with the .vob audio stream! Because video and audio streams are multiplexed into a single file, weirds things may happened, such as after 3-4 sec the audio loops constantly! This can only happened when the audio stream is encoded in .ac3 format not .pcm or .mp2 (.ac3 isn't recognized by Premiere)
The solution to this is to re-encode the audio stream with a utility (there are plenty of applications in the internet but personally i prefer this) into .wav audio file and synchronize it with your video in the timeline! Then you'll start editing without any concerns!
