Launching Up - Goin' Retro: Episode 5

Goin' Retro is our new weekly series showcasing old console games. From the big hitters to the relatively unknown, join us for as we stroll through time.

In this week's episode we examine the games that were available for the Sega Mega Drive/Genesis and Sega 32X launches. Twelve games in total released day one in three regions, over two platforms.

Games:
Space Harrier II
Super Thunder Blade
Altered Beast
Last Battle

Music: "Night Owl" from "Directionless EP" by "Broke For Free" (CC BY 3.0)

"Show Your Moves" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

"Spazzmatica Polka" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

"8bit Dungeon Boss" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

"Crunk Knight" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

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Kerbal Space Program - Let's Play - Beta

Its here. Kerbal Space Program has officially entered BETA after 3 years of Alpha. This time, Daniel takes us through some of the major features of the patch and looks at a few of the new additions.

Kerbal Space Program: http://www.kerbalspaceprogram.com/

Copyright © 2011-2015 Squad. All Rights Reserved.

Squad: http://www.squad.com.mx/

This video is not affiliated with Squad or Kerbal Space Program in anyway.

Intro Music: "Night Owl" from "Directionless EP" by "Broke For Free" (CC BY 3.0)

Music Used: "Make It Drums" from "Bonus Beat Blast 2011" by "Daedelus" (CC BY 3.0)
Changes Were Made To "Make It Drums" by "Daedelus" (Looping)

Music Used: "Is That You or Are You You?" from "Reappear" by "Chris Zabriskie" (CC BY 4.0)
Changes Were Made To "Is That You or Are You You?" by "Chris Zabriskie" (Looping)

Music Used: "CRUZIN" from "Bonus Beat Blast 2011" by "Benedek" (CC BY 3.0)
Changes Were Made To "CRUZIN" by "Benedek" (Looping)

Music Used: "LA Montage" from "L.A. Montage" by "Rockit Maxx" (CC BY 4.0)
Changes Were Made To "LA Montage" by "Rockit Maxx" (Looping)

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Feature: Everything Is Beta In Kerbal Space Program

Kerbal Space Program has recently been updated to version 0.90 — dubbed BETA Than Ever by developer Squad — taking the game into the Beta stage of development. "We've come a long way. The decision to go into Beta is a big step, and there's no better way to say it than with an update the size of Beta Than Ever" said Lead Developer Filipe Falanghe via the games official Tumblr. He continued stating "It means we are in the home stretch. We are not done with the game by any means, but it has matured to a point where we can safely say that hitting 1.0 is within sight." Still where did the game come from? How did they get it to where it is today? Also, what does the future hold?

Kerbal Space Program — KSP for short — is a physics-based space simulator that allows players to manage a space program via Sandbox or Career Mode. It was quite a different project for the Mexico-based marketing company Squad. As a company they had no desire to break into the video game market when Filipe, one of the 3D Modellers, started work on a Rocket Builder/Simulator. Management at Squad saw potential in the game however when Filipe posted some rocket parts on several forums and overnight they received in excess of 30,000 hits. As a result, some people even began offering to pay for a playable version of the game. Originally intended to be just a 2D side-scroller with 3D assets, the game went through a multitude of design changes before the earliest playable version of the game got released. The 2D side-scroller style made way for a full 3D game engine, with version 0.7.3 released for download on June 24th, 2011 and hitting over 5,000 downloads. With the increasing popularity of the game, the development team has grown to eight developers. It is now the primary focus of Squad, although the marketing arm of the company remains intact.

As the groundswell for the game increased due to players streaming on Twitch and posting videos to YouTube, Squad kept on producing content and tweaking the game's assets. Early versions of the game only featured the planet Kerbin, home of the little green Astronauts with large heads known as Kerbals. For many new players, the first objective tends to be construction of a rocket that can get as high as possible. However, this commonly ends with players attempting to produce the biggest explosion they can achieve with the least amount of parts possible. The games physics can take a while to get to grips with due to the game engine being based on real Orbital mechanics. Every player will remember that feeling of accomplishment when they reach orbit for the first time or their first encounter with Mun (one of the moons of Kerbin, the other being Minmus). As the game continually receives updates, more and more planets and moons are added providing increasingly difficult challenges for players.

As more people became aware of the games existence, a modding community began to form making unofficial user created parts and planets. This was encouraged by Squad, who added hooks into the game to facilitate modding and sometimes officially developed those mods back into the game. This was the case for the Spaceplane Plus Mod created by forum user Porkjet, who improved the stock Mk2 Space Plane components and added additional parts that Squad incorporated into KSP. The fanbase of KSP continued to grow gaining fans even at NASA, resulting in a patch mixing aspects of the NASA Asteroid Redirect Mission with their full support. This added the game mechanic where asteroids can appear and travel towards Kerbin. Players must approach the asteroid and either capture it in the planets orbit or adjust the orbital trajectory to prevent an impact on Kerbin. Career mode received another update allowing players to gather Science that can be spent on unlocking parts, giving the game some direction and a sense of progression. Another added mechanic are Contracts for players; that is a request from one of the various Agencies to complete a randomly generated task such as testing components in a particular environment or collecting data from different planets.

With the release of Patch 0.90 on December 15th, 2014, it brought an enormous amount of new content to the game. The Kerbal Space Centers (KSC) various buildings now require upgrading to unlock their full functionality. This can halt the progression in some cases until a building receives an upgrade, for instance, the Vehicle Assembly Building. Without being upgraded it can only hold a maximum of thirty parts but with a Level 2 upgrade it can hold two hundred and fifty-five. Every celestial body with a solid surface received an overhaul adding additional Biomes to allow players to gather more Science from each via Exploration Missions. With the addition of Satellite Contract Missions players must construct, launch and position satellites in orbital trajectories around different planets and moons. Numerous components received a redesign, like the MK3 Spaceplanes parts, allowing a more realistic construction of shuttle style spacecraft. Another feature is Experience that levels up the abilities of the three different types of professions — Pilot, Engineer, and Scientist. For example, a Level 0 pilot can use the Stability Augmentation System (SAS) only, but a Level 1 can also aim the ship prograde or retrograde — forwards or backwards along the orbital path. Finally in the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) and Space Plane Hangar (SPH) the Editor user interface received an overhaul adding the ability to sort parts by criteria such as Manufacturer or Price. It also enabled precise part positioning, a feat that until recently could only be achieved by glitching parts into one another.

On December 19th, 2014, Squad teamed up with TeacherGaming LLC to release KerbalEdu. This is a version of KSP where Educators can create custom scenarios that present problems for students to solve using the games Aerodynamic and Orbital Physics. This version of the game, for both the Mac and PC, are provided at a discounted price for educational institutions.

So what is next for KSP? The fanbase continues to grow and yearn for more content. The developers have taken to social media sites like Tumblr to report on what they have been doing over the past week, providing a sneak peek of up and coming additions and changes. KSP is still very much a single-player game, but Squad PR Manager Bob Holtman has confirmed this will change. "Shaun [Esau, multi-player mod developer] has proven that multi-player can be done, so Squad is committed to making multi-player a part of the final release." This may mean that multi-player may not make an appearance until version 1.0.

Whatever the case, the hype train keeps on rolling and gathering pace, with the last big bump coming from the influx of new players via Steams Early Access program in March 2013. Only time will tell if the game continues to deliver the same stellar content that it has become known for by gamers worldwide. Either way it should be a blast.

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Chakan It Out - Goin' Retro: Episode 4

Goin' Retro is our new weekly series showcasing old console games. From the big hitters to the relatively unknown, join us for as we stroll through time.

In this week's episode Troy shows you the games he played the most on the Mega Drive.

Games:
Rings of Power
Chakan: The Forever Man
The Immortal
Michael Jackson: Moonwalker

Music: "Pumped" by "RoccoW" (CC BY-SA 3.0)
A Change To Extend The Length Was Made To "Pumped" by "RoccoW"

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Arekkusu Kiddo - Goin' Retro: Episode 3

Goin' Retro is our new weekly series showcasing old console games. From the big hitters to the relatively unknown, join us for as we stroll through time.

In this week's episode, we go bananas for the big ear monkey boy they call Alex.

Games:
Alex Kidd: High Tech World
Alex Kidd in Miracle World
Alex Kidd in Shinobi World
Alex Kidd The Lost Stars

Music: "Pumped" by "RoccoW" (CC BY-SA 3.0)
A Change To Extend The Length Was Made To "Pumped" by "RoccoW"

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Australian Game Releases: Week 04 - 2015

Now we are getting back in to the swing of things.

Week 04 - 2015

Grey Goo

Five centuries after humans first left earth, three factions fight to control the lifeblood of a rocky oasis: Ecosystem Nine. It is a world of chaos. Survival depends on the ability to grow, fight—and to evolve.

As commander to one of three factions, your goal is simple: to wage war. To forge machines of battle from catalyst, Nine’s powerful resource—because whoever attains the largest supply has the tightest grip on the future.

Publisher: Grey Box

Release Date: 23/01/2015

Saints Row IV: Gat Out Of Hell

After the space faring antics of Saints Row IV, many fans asked what we could do next… the answer? Shoot The Devil in the face. Play as either Johnny Gat or Kinzie Kensington as you tear apart Hell in a quest to save the leader of the Saints’ soul. Historical icons, old friends, older enemies, a talking gun, a full length musical number, and a whole lot of other shenanigans all await you in the open world standalone expansion playground that is Saints Row: Gat Out Of Hell.

Publisher: Deep Silver

Release Date: 23/01/2015

Saints Row IV: Re-Elected

In Saints Row IV, the head honcho of the Saints has been elected to the Presidency of the United States. But the Saints are just getting started. Now the larger-than-life insanity of the Saints series gets a new twist with a catastrophic alien invasion, and the aliens have transported the Saints to a bizarre Steelport simulation. Wield gargantuan superpowers and fight to free humanity from alien granddaddy Zinyak’s mental grasp. Escape the simulation that’s trapped the Saints crew, or die trying.

Publisher: Deep Silver

Release Date: 23/01/2015

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Let's Play: Magicite: Episode 4 - Co-ordination?!

Episode 4 of the Magicite Let's Play series, in which Daniel shows off the cooperative mode of the Rogue-Like RPG Platformer Magicite. No special rules or regulations here, just jump in, kill dudes, eat food, make plop, get killed, rinse and repeat.

Special Guest: Matt

Title Music: "Night Owl" from "Directionless EP" by "Broke For Free" (CC BY 3.0)

End Music: "Simple Hop" from "Slam Funk" by "Broke For Free" (CC BY 3.0)

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Writing Throwback: Pharaoh

Yet another 14 year old review. Take a deep breath, this is the last one.

Review

We cannot get enough of God simulations can we, here is Impressions Games latest shot at the title. Pharaoh is set in ancient Egypt, making the game unique as you now solely control what was known to be a very creative race. It uses the Caesar 3 game engine, so with a solid foundation and a good idea, has Pharaoh come out leader of the pack?

First, don't do what I did when I saw this game. "Game, Manual, Map, Install, Yada, Yada, Yada..." because you will be in for a rude shock. It was not that easy. The Pharaoh installation starts, and you think, I might have a look at the chunky manual. The manual is 270 pages, no problems, most of it will be the history of Egypt, sorry my friend only 31 pages are. So you play the game and after fifteen minutes you are lost, stuck in the middle of the game and now realise you have to read the manual.

Wait that is good because games do not usually require that. After reading the manual, you start to understand how complex the game is. It has the standard fare, grow food, harvest food, build and fight, but it also has a lot more strategy inside. There are tasks to achieve in each mission, and you also have to rule the city, controlling almost everything. You also have to plan your city, not to avoid losing battles but to win against the elements.

For example, your city starts on the Nile River, 3200 BC. As you are so close to the river, it affects you through the seasons. Once a year the river floods and when it recedes it leaves the fields rich with nutrients thus helping your crops. The problem is, just as it did back then; the Nile sometimes doesn't flood or floods too much, starving the crops of the nutrients or destroying your food supply. Planning is important here because when food becomes scarce, people get angry or starve.

There are many buildings to create as well from food production, manufacturing and storage to mines for employment and homes for the masses. Throughout the game, you will receive missions were you have to do such things like getting the populace to like you or quench un-employment. At the end of the missions, you get measured on things such as your food harvest, leadership, crime, employment and all these factors can affect each other and also the outcome of the mission. You will also have to deal with gods as they can make or break a game for you.

Within the game, there are five gods:

• Ra, the god of the kingdom
• Seth, god of destruction
• Osiris, god of the land
• Ptah, god of industry
• Bast, goddess of homes and the people

All these gods can affect the game so you must build monuments, worship, celebrate and pray for your gods. If not prepare to feel their wrath as Osiris can influence the floods and the lands nutrients when it comes to the harvesting season for your crops. Ra makes everyone in the kingdom like or dislike you and can make your job easier.

Pharaoh also has tutorials to teach you how to play. With such things as resource management, building and running the city being covered it does pay to go through them. Once up and running the game is good. Graphically it is well done, with an Egyptian feel to the menus, right down to the buildings and people. It is also complex that makes it challenging, but is also refreshing as you feel compelled to play the game. Be prepared to think though as it is not as straight forward as destroying the enemy. You will have to work with the other kingdoms as you are all trying to achieve the same goal, make Egypt the greatest kingdom in the world.

There is one problem with Pharaoh though, lack of interest. I do not mean the story as Egypt can be quite interesting, and it does follow the history carefully. The problem is that it can be a bit hard to get into at first. I played it and wasn't impressed so was unmotivated to continue. I then took another stab after reading the manual and then it became a great game. There is much depth to this game; it is not just a rehashed Caesar 3, but you have to work for it. Stick with it, and you will be rewarded, those who do not won't know what they have missed.

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Let's Play: Magicite: Episode 3 - Hello Chickens

Episode 3 of the Magicite Let's Play series, in which Daniel shows off the cooperative mode of the Rogue-Like RPG Platformer Magicite. No special rules or regulations here, just jump in, kill dudes, eat food, make plop, get killed, rinse and repeat.

Special Guest: Matt

Title Music: "Night Owl" from "Directionless EP" by "Broke For Free" (CC BY 3.0)

End Music: "Simple Hop" from "Slam Funk" by "Broke For Free" (CC BY 3.0)

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Last Week Today: Week 02, 2015

Activision on Thursday announced that the 2015 Call of Duty Championship will be held in Los Angeles from March 27-29. The prize pool will be US$1 million with the semi-finals and finals streamed live via Xbox Live. "We developed Advanced Warfare with the competitive community in mind, and we can't wait for the top talent from around the world to compete in the Call of Duty Championships," Sledgehammer's Glen Schofield said. Call of Duty: Advance Warfare is still freezing for PlayStation 3 users after two months of patches. The latest Forza Horizon 2 DLC Storm Island caused a storm with fans due to crashes.

The Internet Archive — a non-profit digital library — now hosts 2,386 DOS games you can play for free. Due to the way it works some games may not run as intended, but it is an excellent and simple way to play old games on new machines. Supergiant Games creative director Greg Kasavin revealed their latest game Transistor sold 600,000 units — their first game Bastion sold 3 million. "Word-of-mouth is what kept Bastion going for way, way longer than we could have imagined, and it's what's kept Transistor going strong, too," Kasavin said. An eBay auction for Stadium Events — a rare NES game — has topped US$40,000. The seller claims verification of the cartridge by the Video Game Authority, a group who authenticates retro games.

Microsoft is playing with the Xbox Avatars again, possibly spreading them throughout the Microsoft ecosystem. Microsoft is playing with the Xbox DRM again, a response to an issue triggered by FarCry 4. Xbox One owners, who pre-purchase Evolve from the Xbox Games Store, will get some characters, allowing users to cut some of the level grind. Microsoft announced new streaming and recording rules granting users a "personal, non-exclusive, non-sublicenseable, non-transferable, revocable, limited license." Sony announced pricing for PlayStation Now, their online streaming gaming service. They have a library of more than 100 PlayStation 3 games, with PS1 and PS2 games coming later.

Codemasters is looking to lay off fifty staff members to ease its wage budget. Steam enforced a CAPTCHA for trading, to stop gamers from being exploited and having their goodies transferred from their account. Star Citizen developer Cloud Imperium Games has reached US$69 million in funding for the game, and now has 180 staff members worldwide. Minecraft surpassed Valve's popular online game Dota 2 in cracking one million concurrent players.

Mad Catz announced a new mobile controller called the L.Y.N.X. that offers "uncompromised control and portability." for use "across multiple devices." Rockstar made it snow over the Holiday Period, creating a serene and slippery Los Santos. Razer announced Cortex, their game streaming technology which will work with any hardware and software, unlike the solutions used by Nvidia and Steam. Razer announced their open-source headset called OSVR. The open-source dev kit can work with other devices, so games, which support Oculus, should automatically work on OSVR. Nyko announced a dock for the PlayStation 4 that will allow over two Terabytes of storage. Nvidia announced the Tegra X1 at CES 2015, a chip, they claim, that is twice as powerful as the Tegra K1 introduced in 2014. Nvidia touts performance levels and energy efficiency that will bring console and PC-grade graphics to tablets and phones.

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Australian Game Releases: Week 03 - 2015

Another one this week. Just one.

Week 03 - 2015

Apotheon

The Gods of Olympus have abandoned humanity, leaving you to perish without their benevolence. Take up arms against the Gods, climb Mount Olympus, and take their divine powers for yourself to ensure mankind’s survival!

Apotheon is a fast and brutal 2D action game with a striking art style and heroic narrative based on Ancient Greek Mythology.

Publisher: Alientrap

Release Date: 15/01/2015

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Goin' Retro: Episode 2 - Going The Distance

Goin' Retro is our new weekly series showcasing old console games. From the big hitters to the relatively unknown, join us for as we stroll through time.

In this week's episode, we get our drive on with a selection of the best know racers of the era.

Games:
Chase HQ
Enduro Racer
Hang-On
Outrun

Music: "Pumped" by "RoccoW" (CC BY-SA 3.0)
A Change To Extend The Length Was Made To "Pumped" by "RoccoW"

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Writing Throwback: Half-Life: Opposing Force

Second last old review, again 14 years old. Hold on to your butts.

Review

Do you like first person shooters? I do not, or should I say did not. I remember when Quake and Unreal all came out, I could not stand those games. Then along came Half-Life by Valve Software. I played it and played it and played it; I was hooked. Then I found out Sierra was releasing an official add-on for Half-Life called Opposing Force. Gearbox Software made this add-on, but the question remained, is it any good?

This time around you play as the marines from Half-Life. You are Corporal Adrian Shepherd sent to the Black Mesa Research Facility to eliminate Gordon Freeman. Unfortunately, you get separated from your unit due to attacking aliens but it was for the best as almost all of the remaining marines were killed, so things are looking up. As such your mission has been aborted, your new mission is to get out alive using any means possible and if by chance you still find Freeman, kill him.

The reversal of characters makes this game interesting. You still go through some of the old places Freeman went through but this time you may arrive earlier, later or even at the same time as Freeman. The difference though is that you also get to go to some places Freeman was not allowed entrance to. Because of that you get a little more alien interaction as your travels take you deeper into Black Mesa.

As you move through the game this time, you will notice a few new things like weapons. How does a combat knife, wrench, pistol with laser site, sniper rifle, and a new machine gun sound? They do not change the game much, but more weapons can be handy. You also have new talents like climbing and swinging on a rope. It is tricky at first, but it does add to the game. This is a feature I think we will see used better though in the future.

You also can control marines the same way as the guards in Half-Life. This time though they have skills, like an engineer who can open locked doors and the medic who will heal you. They will also open fire when a hostile situation arises which is quite a bit as you are not alone. There are the original aliens plus a few new ones as you are seated deeper in Black Mesa like the pit drone — a fast little creature that shoots at you. There is also the shock trooper — a more advanced version of the head crab human — and some big guys which I will let you see for yourself.

Graphically it is almost identical to Half-Life (it is an add-on remember, not a new game) with the exception of the new weapons. This time your protection is the PCV vest which replaces you HEV suit, so the on-screen display is different. The question remains, is it a worthy purchase and the answer is yes. If you remember that this is an add-on, not a full game then you will enjoy it. If you loved Half-Life though you will love this as well.

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Let's Play: Magicite: Episode 2 - Boaring

Episode 2 of the Magicite Let's Play series, in which Daniel shows off the cooperative mode of the Rogue-Like RPG Platformer Magicite. No special rules or regulations here, just jump in, kill dudes, eat food, make plop, get killed, rinse and repeat.

Special Guest: Matt

Title Music: "Night Owl" from "Directionless EP" by "Broke For Free" (CC BY 3.0)

End Music: "Simple Hop" from "Slam Funk" by "Broke For Free" (CC BY 3.0)

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Last Week Today: Week 01, 2015

Last week Aliens: Colonial Marines got delisted from Steam. No confirmation yet if this was due to the pending lawsuit over allegedly false advertising or a licensing issue with the Aliens property. Steam also added a Frames Per Second Counter to the Steam Client Beta. Speaking of Steam and its creator Valve, who also made Half-Life, the fan-made Half-Life remake Black Mesa has a website, BMRF.us. An update posted an image of an Emergency Broadcast System, and it started played a looping message. The transcription comes via Reddit, where people continue to discuss the event.

Skyrim continued to show the PC community why it is still, after fours years, one of the best looking games ever. A leaked software development kit (SDK) has shown that Xbox One developers will soon be able to use another CPU core. As the Xbox One Operating System continues to use less CPU it can be given back to developers. Microsoft also talked about their discontinuation of the original Kinect for Windows, and its studio 343 Industries announced new maps and a new weapon for the Halo 5 Beta.

A new leak for Destiny could potentially be showing the roadmap for the game for 2015 and beyond. A raid in EVE Online cost a player US$1500 when his in-game PLEX got destroyed. Sony announced they would be giving PlayStation Plus subscribers an extra five days and a one off 10% discount to the whole shopping cart due to the PSN Outage. Battle.net, an online service for Blizzard, suffered “unknown slowdown”. World of Warcraft fans posted their theories about The Return of the Lich King. A Cuban refugee got to visit her homeland after fifty-seven years thanks to the Oculus Rift. Finally, a video showcasing  a lovingly restored Dreamcast Kiosk was released.

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Australian Game Releases: Week 02 - 2015

No game releases this week.

Sorry.

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Happy New Year! Hello 2015

Happy New Year from all of us here at Insert Coin 1P.

May 2015 have more games, less bugs, and see you all at PAX Australia!

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