And there were a lot of things we wanted to include in the game that had to be scrapped. Despite the inclusion of Mech-style walker units, tanks, planes, ships, static gun emplacements and all the required buildings to create them. Chris felt early on in TA's development that the game lacked a certain something. I wanted to take you to the battlefield and involve you at a more personal level. That's when I thought of the Commander; the ultimate end-all unit-you.
One of TA's true strokes of genius, the Commander was central to the game. If he died, it was game over - but he wasn't a typical desk-bound general, hidden away and protected. He could build all the basic level units in the game faster than any of the Construction bots. He could reclaim resources from the battlefield, repair, cloak and detect enemy units and walk underwater.
Best of all, he was well armed and fully armoured, with the game's most powerful weapon - the D-Gun. However, in spite of their awesome capabilities, it's not the Commanders that Chris remembers most fondly from the game, but the humble KBot - the lurching, stumbling metallic foot soldiers of TA.
Some people like conventional units: others prefer ones that are more unique. Units are like toys: no matter how many you have, you get bored with them.
Ergo, the more fun units you have, the less chance of falling asleep at the keyboard. Soon after TA was released. Cavedog began releasing units for download from its website. The aim might have been to stave off player boredom, but the result was a rapidly ballooning and hugely loyal fanbase.
Frequent forum visits from the Cavedog team also fed this phenomenon, as did the popularity of the 3D unit viewer released before the game. In the end. I was blown away and never expected the game to take off the way it did. The multiplayer was very important for that, and after it shipped, it was even more important than we first thought. In fact, we added co-operative multiplayer because everyone was insisting that we supported team play. With plans for four expansion packs and a full-blown sequel already in place.
Cavedog began taking steps to capitalise on the success of its debut. It quickly did with 's TA: The Core Contingency, an add-on that complemented TA's already massive arsenal with nearly a hundred submarines and seaplanes. Soon after its completion. Chris Taylor decided it was time to move on. Cavedog continued regardless, but soon the free downloads began to dry up and the second expansion. TA: Battle Tactics was a disappointing addition, full of maps but lacking real substance.
The result was Total Annihilation: Kingdoms. While the game looked good and offered a range of unique units. TA: K lacked the frenetic pace of its predecessor and was plagued with performance issues. Just after its release at the end of Cavedog was put down by struggling publisher GT Interactive.
Despite its short life. Cavedog's legacy remains strong. Among its contemporaries and even against more modern games, TA remains highly playable and unique. Few games from that era. Also, much of the credit must go to the mod community, which kept the game fresh with all the new units, maps and Al improvements. They did an amazing job and still do. I still have a look over the TA community occasionally and it amazes me that after six years, people are still creating content for the game. Luckily, from some extensive sessions both single player and across a four player network, it would appear that TA is in quite another league.
The units behave in an incredibly intelligent manner if that's the correct expression and if the development hype is to be believed, the fact that "real life" military tactics were fed into the Al engine would explain this. Occasionally you will find your fellas wandering astray, but if you leave them you soon learn that they are simply exploring a slight deviation to the obvious route.
Real soldiers do that we're told. Apparently it 'spreads the risk. There are lots of important points to cover here and they all lead to one fact There - said it. There are numerous technical reasons that make the game better Or that it operates a Tine of sight' model that prevents units from seeing round corners or over hills.
Or that all of the units in the game are constructed from polygons rather than sprites so you can see the way the terrain affects them as they trundle around. But at the end of the day it's the way it feels that really counts, and TA has, ultimately, that special something that feels genuinely exciting. You know how good it feels when you role this lot into the heart of the enemy base and just stomp all over everything? Well that's the feeling that the designers of this have clearly been focusing on.
In TA you find yourself with an awful lot of firepower at your disposal in a relatively short space of time and whether you like it or not this just prickles your adrenal gland enough to throw you into a destructive frenzy. Part of the reason for this is that there are no ground troops per se - absolutely no cannon fodder whatsoever. Instead you start the game with just one unit Fortunately the commander is a big dude resembling one of the larger, lumbering Meehs from MechWarrior and as well as being the centre of the resource management, he is also armed to the teeth with laser turrets and a fantastic nuke-style 'D-Gun' that can wipe out any unit on the board in one shot Along with this he can also repair units and salvage wreckage from the battlefield when your resources are running particularly low.
As stated, the commander absolutely has to be protected at all costs - you use him to establish your base, and he is also the hub of pretty much all the important activity. A typical level will start with him and a number of pre-built units such as tanks or basic artillery. Before attempting to go after your mission goal set out in, it has to be said, one of the most boring-but-functional briefings ever , you must establish a base from which to operate.
Once you have built solar power stations or wind generators or whatever and built a few mines you are free to build some of the more exciting stuff. The units in Total Annihilation are broken down into four main types Each of these is subdivided into scouts, light and heavy attack vehicles as well as either construction or transport craft.
As you progress you can build more advanced factories, and with improved technology come more spectacular units. Alongside the mobile units you also find that as you progress through 'tech levels' you can also build defensive and offensive structures with which to pummel your opponent.
Huge plasma guns called 'Big Berthas' can obliterate bases from miles away, laser turrets can defend your base from the enemy onslaught - whilst nukes can be used to take out whole areas of land.
I must say that my early experiences with this were a bit up-and-down to say the least. We had a crack at a multi-player game first, and this really was fab.
Four of us were locked in mortal combat using just about every unit that the game has to offer The satisfaction gained from bombarding a base with your battleships whilst sending in fighters to knock out perimeter defences and then rolling in heavy bombers to flatten the place is unparalleled.
Red Alert really can't match it. Don't even think about how much fun rumbling the tanks in before nuking the place is We've recently been to Redwood City to see the game in action, and have to confess to coming away mildly impressed. On the surface, the gameplay seems to largely consist of clubbing enemies about the head and neck, but we're assured that greater depth will become apparent during extended play.
Visually, there can be few quibbles, despite the console origins, with the PC version boasting the obligatory high resolution graphics. EA certainly seems to be making the most of its lucrative licence, and we have to say it looks just like the films. Except smaller. Depending on the character you pick hairy half-pints included , you'll play through one of three distinct paths with additional detours for determined explorers that overlap to match events in the forthcoming film.
But if anything makes this the movie game to keep an eye out for, it's the new two-player cooperative play. Of all the new features, that one's the most intriguing. Involved, eye-pleasing, majestic--Return of the King's epic scale is simply overwhelming. Sulfur-spewing dragons soar overhead, waves of ores advance beyond the citadel walls, siege engines roll up against ramparts, the camera spins dramatically to capture incoming catapult fire Now I know how the sword hand of royal asskicker Aragorn feels after a hard day's hacking.
Return of the King--due for all systems on November has curled my fingers into blistered claws. But as I sit here soaking in salves and ointments and think back to the 10 hours it took to save besieged Middle-earth, I don't regret debilitating my digits.
This game is a thrill ride. And not just 'cause Return of the King unleashes larger hordes of foes than last year's equally slick Two Towers prequel. Many of Return of the King's levels actually force you to multitask while you hack and slash. Take Osgiliath--an early mission for new playable halfling Sam--in which you must steer Frodo clear of open areas, lest a soaring Black Rider swoop down and pluck the fuzzy little guy away while you're busy smiting scumbags.
In the Battle of Pelennor Fields, a massive clash that could have been the game's finale but isn't, you have to trigger catapults to cripple rampaging behemoths while simultaneously knocking a Black Rider from the sky, defending small-fry Pippin, and fending off a never-ending crush of enemy warriors.
My blisters burn at the memory. Adding to the chaos: The game doles out just enough health to keep you a few steps from death at all times--and then only if you rely on combo attacks and blocking moves rather than random button hammering. It makes for a white-knuckle experience that can also lead to hairpulling frustration in a few levels that suffer from unclear objectives.
Let me save you from some pain right now: If you get stuck during the siege of Minis Tirith, try using Gandalf's long-range magic attack. Trust me on this. While players will limp away from Return of the King with carpal-tunnel pain, they at least won't have much of the new movie spoiled. The game actually contains little footage from the flick, although the environments themselves are modeled after the movie's locales.
In fact, a few plot points and bosses will be lost on players who haven't read the books. But the whole thing still hangs together as a high-gloss experience that'll make your Middle-earth move.
Return of the King does a fantastic job of putting you into the world of the movie through its graphically stunning reproductions of the film's war-torn sets, smooth transitions from thrilling cinema clips into exciting gameplay, top-notch voice work by the trilogy's actors, and music drawn from the flick's epic soundtrack.
Once you the game, that's it: You've entered Middle-earth, or at least the one from the movie. Granted, that all was true of last year's Two Towers, too. So, what's changed? Return of the King's gameplay has much more variety because the Hobbits Sam and Frodo , the warriors Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas , and Gandalf all play distinctly different. You'd think that nothing could possibly compare to cleaving through almost Galaga-like droves of ores as Aragorn, but blasting them with Gandalf's magic staff and outwitting them using small-fry Sam's stealth and cunning is surprisingly just as much fun.
Each of the three group's stages are also dissimilar enough that--once you've beaten the game and gained the ability to play through levels as any character--you'll want to go back and see how, say, Aragorn fares defending the walls of Minas Tirith or how well Gandalf holds up at the Black Gate of Mordor. Does Return of the King have an Achilles' heel? Sure: It's too frigging hard. The game can make you more irate than exhilarated on many stages, but its multiple unlockable features, co-op mode, and online gameplay for PS2, anyway make up for a lot of the frustration.
At the danger of sounding like a broken record preferably a warped old 45 of Leonard Nimoy's 'Ballad of Bilbo Baggins' , I must admit that I agree with my fellow reviewers on just about all their points regarding Return of the King. It bests last year's Two Towers game by adding more playable characters, a wider variety of level types, and much-needed two-player co-op action. Like the previous game, King offers an audiovisual orgy of Middle-earth splendors that accurately re-creates the film which, in turn, perfectly adapted the original books with terrifying reverence.
Massive armies battle in the background, siege weapons obliterate fortress walls, and Gollum's loincloth ripples tastefully in the breeze--videogames rarely look this polished and solid. Also, just as in last year's model, a bevy of impressive bonus features see Small Wonders on the previous page adds even more pizazz to the slick package, plus makes a make fine reward for plowing through those legions of ores. Org: Client library for the Composite extension libxcursor 1.
Org: X Window System Cursor management library libxdamage 1. Org: X Damage Extension library libxdg-basedir 1. Org: Library for common extensions to the X11 protocol libxfixes 6. Org: Core of the legacy X11 font system libxft 2. Org: X FreeType library libxi 1. Org: Library for the X Input Extension libxinerama 1. Org: XKB file handling routines libxls 1. Org: X miscellaneous utility routines library libxo 1. Org: X Resize, Rotate and Reflection extension library libxrender 0.
Org: Library for the Render Extension to the X11 protocol libxres 1. Org: X-Resource extension client library libxscrnsaver 1. Org: X11 Screen Saver extension client library libxshmfence 1. Org: Shared memory 'SyncFence' synchronization primitive libxslt 1. Org: X Toolkit Intrinsics library libxtst 1. Org: X Video Xv extension libxvmc 1.
SAX-like interface md5deep 4. Works with signify in OpenBSD miniupnpc 2. Used for magento development modman 1.
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