Homeworld 2 (
International distributor: Vivendi Universal
Local distributor: Interwise Multimedia Corp
Platform: English for PC
Release date: Already available
When Homeworld was first released in 1999, it was the first three-dimensional real-time strategy game in PC game history. It had amazing scenes and a breakthrough star war system that strongly influenced all real-time strategy games that followed. It was also chosen as the best game of the year by many game magazines and Web sites. After waiting over four years, consumers can finally purchase the second generation of the game this month.
The most impressive effect in Homeworld was the mega-scale conflict between the fleets. With Homeworld 2 a brand new three-dimensional engine has been developed. With the hardware acceleration, players get to enjoy more subtle space and spaceship images. Even more special, when a ship is damaged, all kinds of effects, such as the explosion of internal mechanical parts, are breathtaking, especially when a player leads hundreds of ships to make war with the computer or an opponent.
"The atmosphere surpasses what you can get from a movie," said Dell Yu (余如山), Interwise Vice President.
There are two opposing groups in Homeworld 2 and the ships in both camps can be roughly divided by function into a major production base, the Mother Ship, and four major attack forces -- Strike Craft, Corvette, Frigate and Capital. Each contains over 10 varieties. The four different attack forces counteract each other, and a player cannot pass a stage or make winning strategy or tactics with only one kind of ship, said Tang Ming-lun (唐明倫), a senior PC game player.
Empires: Dawn of the Modern World
Designer: Stainless Steel Studio
International distributor: Activision Inc
Local distributor: Unalis Technology
Platform: Chinese for PC
Release date: November
At the 2003 E3 exhibition one game was touted by players from many different countries -- Empires: Dawn of the Modern World.
This new game is set during the millenium between 950 and 1950 and makes use of an excellent three-dimensional graphics engine to bring to life historical battles and different countries' armies. It is the most anticipated AOK-like PC game product of the last quarter.
Hoping to emulate Microsoft's success with its AOK series, in which it won the hearts of Taiwanese players with simultaneous Chinese-version release, Stainless Steel Studio and Taiwan's Unalis have worked hard on the Chinese version of the game to ensure a simultaneous release in November.
"The game offers seven countries or groups for a player to choose from, and each possesses a different culture and technology. Each army is different. Even the appearances of the armies are designed according to their own cultures. Through different technology development, each army has complex strategy possibilities that make the game more challenging and fun," said Antonio Lu (呂維振), senior editor of the Gamebase Web site.
The timeline in the game can be divided into five periods: the medieval period, the exploration period, imperialist period, World War One and World War Two. Each period has its own battles and technologies, and also present the player with distinct international issues.
Compared with other renowned RTS games, while EA's Command & Conquer: Generals stresses the linear plot, and Sierra's War Craft III emphasizes battle speed, Empires focuses more on unit strategies and offers a player two conquering modes: one is a slower method, while the other involves rapid killing. A player can switch between the modes at will.
Age of Mythology: The Titans
Designer: Microsoft & Ensemble Studio
Local distributor: Microsoft Taiwan
Release date: Late October
Ensemble Studio released Age of Mythology in 2002 and based the game on mythologies that allowed the player to control Scandinavian, Egyptian, and Greek heroes and gods to take charge of epic battles.
Vincent Huang (黃維倫), senior product marketing specialist at Microsoft Taiwan, said The Titans is based on Atlantean culture and the player can control them to fight the three cultures in the game's popular predecessor.
The Atlantean character set includes 12 new gods, 18 human units and 10 holy monster troops. The people cost more but their basic ability is three times higher than that of the other cultures. The Atlanteans are better at economic development but slower at population expansion, which makes them balanced with the other cultures.
Nobunagano Yabou (Nobunaga's Ambitious): Tenka Sousei
Designer: Koei
Local distributor: Taiwan Koei
Release date: Already available
Based in the Japanese warlord period, the Nobunagano Yabou series is now in its 11th generation, called Tenka Sousei. The game is entirely in three-dimensional mode. The player fights on a huge Japanese map, plans various construction projects on the virtual landscape based on real terrain, and enjoys a realistic view of his own castle.
Gamebase Web site senior editor Lai Chun-kuang (賴俊光) said Japanese PC games typically focus on beautiful and romantic comic-style art and a complex resource management mode.
The main feature of the two major games by Koei -- the Romance of Three Kingdoms series and the Nobunagono Yabou series -- is the turn-based war-game. They allow the player to deploy army formations and plan city construction, which resembles the Civilization series, Lai said.
A jumbo operation is moving 20 elephants across the breadth of India to the mammoth private zoo set up by the son of Asia’s richest man, adjoining a sprawling oil refinery. The elephants have been “freed from the exploitative logging industry,” according to the Vantara Animal Rescue Centre, run by Anant Ambani, son of the billionaire head of Reliance Industries Mukesh Ambani, a close ally of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The sheer scale of the self-declared “world’s biggest wild animal rescue center” has raised eyebrows — including more than 50 bears, 160 tigers, 200 lions, 250 leopards and 900 crocodiles, according to
They were four years old, 15 or only seven months when they were sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau, Bergen-Belsen, Buchenwald and Ravensbruck. Some were born there. Somehow they survived, began their lives again and had children, grandchildren and even great grandchildren themselves. Now in the evening of their lives, some 40 survivors of the Nazi camps tell their story as the world marks the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the most notorious of the death camps. In 15 countries, from Israel to Poland, Russia to Argentina, Canada to South Africa, they spoke of victory over absolute evil. Some spoke publicly for the first
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