Gta Liberty City Stories Beta

GTA Liberty City Stories PC Edition Beta 3.1.1.exe( 265 MB )

                           

                           

                                                                      file size - 265 MB


      

PDFs, Pragmatism & WWPP

WWPP,  a pragmatic compromise: WP, WWW, PPT & PDFs

If there is one thing I've learned in my now almost a decade as a digital literacy coach (DLC), and from now over 20 years working with 'edtech' or the technology enhanced learning (TEL) in the classroom from K-12, it's that there is a fundamental shift, in terms of how opportunities to learn and to create with digital tools are experienced as students move though their school lives. There is a gradual progression. During their primary/elementary years, students at UWCSEA regularly (ie, at least once a year) work across all five of the domains that span what I what I would describe as true digital literacy, or perhaps a better word is competency; video, image, text, audio, data—or VITAD. Then as they progress through middle and then high school, there is a narrowing of focus as students become more specialised in their learning, and their range of learning experiences narrows, from VITAD, to something I call WWPP:

• Word Processing
• Websites & Web Search
• PowerPoint Slideshows (or similar)
• Printing, PDFs, Posters (yes I realise that's more than one P)

WWPP describes the fundamental domains that are the norm for most teachers in most subjects in terms of the tools they rely on to do their own work, and so, not surprisingly, represent the kinds of digital technology they are comfortable using with their students, and in (hopefully, but not necessarily) expecting their students to use. This means, whether you like it or not, this represents the actual reality in most secondary school classrooms, especially those that are organised around the premise of preparing students for high stakes examinations.

This doesn't mean that VITAD is non existent in secondary schools, it just means that it will be more isolated and consigned to certain subject areas, eg data handling in the Sciences, image in the Arts, audio in Music, video in Film et cetera. This doesn't mean these experiences aren't beneficial in other subject areas, the work they do in primary school clearly demonstrates that it is, it's just that, having worked on trying to facilitate this, I've had to concede that it just doesn't happen much, if at all, once students are taught by subject specialists. This observation is one I have observed both as a teacher and a parent for many years, and it is one that is borne out by the literature. I've already written a post about this phenomenon, that can be summed up by these quotes from two recent studies into the dominant use of digital technologies in secondary schools is in terms of their assumed and actual use: 

Laptops are typically purchased by schools and sometimes by parents, and they are largely used to write and revise papers, conduct Internet searches, and engage in personalized instruction and assessment using educational software or online tools. (Zheng et al, 2016, p2)

... schools revealed moderate use of many well-established digital technologies, such as word processing, presentation software, and quiz games. (Hughes et al, 2018, p1)

... students reported using word processing, spreadsheets, presentation tools, and web searches most frequently in class. (ibid, p2)

So the fact is that, like it or not, what studies repeatedly show as 'effective' use, is use that can be translated into evidence that is measured using a standardised test score. And if that is the only metric we are prepared (or able) to consider, then WWPP is the model that works, and WWPP is a model that works for preparing students for high stakes examinations; until those examinations change in terms of their expectations, then WWPP is here to stay. 

Now I'm not ecstatic about this, but I am pragmatic; by this I mean if we're going to accept that this narrowing of expectation exists, that the least we can do is teach these skills properly. The danger at the moment, is that in the same way that these skills reflect their teachers ICT skills, they also reflect their teachers competency, or as is more often the case in my experience, their teachers' gradually increasing competency. Now—don't get me wrong—I don't blame teachers for this, it's very powerful when a teacher can model for their students that they are also 'lifelong learners' and anyway, if they are anywhere near my age, they didn't actually own a computer until they were in their 20s, and even then they were never taught how to use them, they were just expected to figure it out themselves by trial and tribulation. I've written more on this skills issue in another post, but suffice it to say here, that at the very least, if we're going to narrow our focus, can we at least expect these skills to be taught properly? To be used in a skilful, or especially at high school level, a competent way? I think we can, and I think we should. The benefits to both teachers in terms of their ability to do their jobs more effectively, and to their students are clear. 

What does skilled WWPP look like?

It looks like the expectations for any adult who would be deemed to be digitally literate, any adult who wants, no, needs to function effectively in the vast majority of workplaces in the 21st century. Some suggestions below:  

Skilful Word Processing 

• Use and format tables: insert & delete rows, columns, & merge cells
• Use the tab key (also add new row to a table/indented bullets)
• Use commenting tools to give, receive & respond to feedback
• Paste text without formatting, or to match destination formatting
• Insert/format/manage page numbers
• Add/use headers/footers 
• Use, modify, and create templates
• Use document page breaks, section breaks & styles
• Use automatic features like table of contents (TOC), references, citations
• Reference source materials, ie MLA, APA et cetera
• Extend these same skills to the building of web resources/sites

Skilful Web Browsing/Searching

• Use History and bookmarks effectively instead of relying on excessive tabs
• Use multiple accounts with web browsers to manage private/professional practice
• Access and find information in an online database not just Google/Bing et al.
• Identify key words, names, & phrases for a search
• Appreciate the advantages & disadvantages of a variety of sources
• Use the find command to locate specific words on a page
• Upload & download files as appropriate, understand the associated file sizes. 
• Understand & carry out an (advanced) multiple field search
• Search using Boolean terms (site:, intitle:, —)

Skilful PowerPoints/Slide Shows

• Create well designed slideshows that rely on image, not text  
• Format & customise well designed themes 
• Create presentations that use multimedia effectively, eg video, sound &/or animation
• Format & edit master slides to manage the formatting of a presentation
• Use appropriate images, eg pixel width, proportion, illustration not just decoration
• Crop & enhance images to complement your slides 
• Select, trim and incorporate video clips/animations
• Visualise data effectively using charts and graphs 
• Understand the affordances of different tools, eg PowerPoint, Keynote, Google Slides... 
• Use slide aspect ratio intentionally (wide screen v 4:3)
• Use the slide sorter view to manage/organise your presentation 

Skilful use of PDFs & Posters

• Organised and synchronised online for ease of access/sharing
• Edit to isolate certain pages, extract specific content, reorder content
• Annotate, comment, and highlight 
• Convert (hard or soft) documents to/from PDF 

• Create well designed posters that balance the use of image with text  
• Format & customise pre-designed themes 
• Understand the differences between an infographic (screen) and a poster (print)

Pragmatism

I've been hesitant to concede these facts, but I console myself with the knowledge that if the students have been given the appropriate foundations and experiences what span VITAD in Primary and some extent, Middle School, their ongoing development in terms of digital literacy is now something they should be able to pursue independently throughout High School, and for the rest of their lives. This means that High School teachers have one focus, and one focus only, that is to enable their students to succeed in their examinations, in the same way they have for the past 50 years. Until the examinations change, there little point expecting teachers to change, Especially as the efficacy of their teaching practice is often based, either explicitly or implicitly, on their students' grades. 

It's obvious internationally that many if not most schools don't understand this, or don't care.  This is why Google Chromebooks and similar budget computers are thriving in comparison with iPads and MacBooks in schools. The former is fine all you want students to experience is WWPP, but if you want them to demonstrate true digital literacy with VITAD and all of the wonderful combinations and permutations between those domains, budget computers can't and don't deliver this. 

References

Hughes, Joan E. and Read, Michelle F. (2018) "Student experiences of technology integration in school subjects: A comparison across four middle schools," Middle Grades Review: Vol. 4 : Iss. 1 , Article 6.
Available at: https://scholarworks.uvm.edu/mgreview/vol4/iss1/6

Zheng, B., Warschauer, M., Lin, C. H., & Chang, C. (2016). Learning in One-to-One Laptop Environments A Meta-Analysis and Research Synthesis. Review of Educational Research, 0034654316628645.

Harlequins: Making It Work

Chopping up yo faces.

So.. my last post about Harlequins might have been a little too negative.  Don't worry though, just because I'm talking real sometimes doesn't mean I'm going to give up.  You guys have to remember that even though I'm a competitive player, I'm not WAAC.  Think about it:  I've been playing pure Kabal Dark Eldar since 3rd.  I have never owned a single Coven unit because I don't like the playstyle and I despise the fluff.  So what does this mean?  That means that I'm going to be playing boatloads of Harlequins and trying to get them to work on the table.

I've been constructing a lot of lists in the last couple of days with the new book and I've had a lot of thought experiments.  Here are some of the topics that I've thought about the most the last couple of days:

• How viable is Harlequins as a standalone army?  They're so expensive and it's really difficult to get them to work from a raw points-effectiveness standpoint.  The more Harlequins you take, the less other "good stuff" you can take from allies.
• Speaking of allies:  What makes a good ally for Harlequins?  Do you take them with Eldar or do you take them with Dark Eldar?  What about both?  Do you even have enough points to take both?
• There are a TON of Strategems that I think Harlequins generally depend on.  Your model count is low, so you really need to spend CP on them every chance you get to make them worth it.  I think Harlequins might be one of the most CP-heavy armies in the entire game from what I've seen.
• For my playstyle, I'm going to keep the army mechanized because I need to be able to preserve the fragile assault units inside while delivering them across the table.  However, I did think about big units of Troupes a few times because of all the overlapping and stacking buffs.
• What is the best Form that I should take with my army?  I'm mainly thinking about Soaring Spite right now because my forces are mostly mechanized, but I'm also eyeing Frozen Stars for damage, Midnight Sorrow for tieing things up, and Silent Shroud for practicality with Eldar shenanigans.
• I'm still working on the best layout for my Troupes, mainly because I'm focusing on 3 key design principles:  The Form matters, but cost-effective units matter more.  The Troupe must be able to be a melee threat to all targets.  The first Fusion Pistol is a must, the rest is luxury.

With that said, I got started working on some basic list principles:

• Build with as much CP as possible because you should be using Harlequin Stratagems at every chance to keep the army alive.  This means double-Bat is a must-have.
• Build with some kind of Black Heart so you can bring in Cunning and introduce Vect so you can repress enemy bull-shittery while having a CP-farm on your side.
• Build as many threats as possible:  Keeping your Troupes alive so they can make a cost-effective return means you have to introduce some serious threats on your side of the table.

Should I take more Dark Eldar?

Here is the first list I came up with after some tweaking:

Soaring Heart
2000 // 13 CP

Soaring Spite Bat +5

HQ:
Troupe Master, Caress, Fusion = 86
Troupe Master, Caress, Fusion = 86

TROOP:
5x Troupe, 5x Caress, 2x Fusion = 118
Starweaver = 99
217

5x Troupe, 5x Caress, 2x Fusion = 118
Starweaver = 99
217

5x Troupe, 5x Caress, 2x Fusion = 118
Starweaver = 99
217

ELITE:
Solitaire = 98

+++

Black Heart Bat +5

HQ:
Archon, Agonizer, Blaster = 91
Cunning, Living Muse

Archon, Agonizer, Blaster = 91

TROOP:
5x Warriors, Blaster = 47
5x Warriors, Blaster = 47
5x Warriors, Blaster = 47
5x Warriors, Blaster = 47
5x Warriors, Blaster = 47
5x Warriors, Blaster = 47

PARTY BOATS:
Raider, Dissie = 80
Raider, Dissie = 80
Raider, Dissie = 80

HEAVY:
Ravager, 3x Dissies = 125
Ravager, 3x Dissies = 125
Ravager, 3x Dissies = 125

>>>

Firepower:
12 Disintegrators at BS3+
24 Splinter Rifles at BS3+
6 Blasters at BS3+
2 Blasters at BS2+
6 Shuriken Cannons at BS3+
6 Fusion Pistols at BS3+
2 Fusion Pistols at BS2+

The list design here was really easy because I think all the right notes.  I originally had Razorwings in the army because I really like having some kind of air, but I didn't have enough boots on the ground for me to be truly influential.  When I first began army list construction, I noticed that I was hesitant to turn my Black Heart Spearhead into a Battalion.  I kept finding that second Archon as a bit of tax, but then I remembered just how many times I'm going to use Harlequin Strategems throughout the game.  While the firepower of the list looks pretty small, one can't remember the absolute monster that is Harlequins in melee once they get there.  With all 5 Players in a Troupe having 4 S5 AP-2 attacks, things are going to get all kinds of disgusting once you actually get in there.  To make things more exciting, I'm planning to make one of the Troupe Masters The Great Harlequin for that tasty re-roll 1s to Hit bubble.

Or should I take more Eldar?

Alaitoc Soaring Heart
1999 // 14 CP

Soaring Spite Bat +5

HQ:
Troupe Master, Caress, Fusion = 86
Troupe Master, Caress, Fusion = 86

TROOP:
5x Troupe, 5x Caress, Fusion = 109
Starweaver = 99
208

5x Troupe, 5x Caress, Fusion = 109
Starweaver = 99
208

5x Troupe, 5x Caress, Fusion = 109
Starweaver = 99
208

+++

Alaitoc Bat +5

HQ:
Farseer Skyrunner = 135
Doom, Mind War

Warlock Skyrunner = 70
Protect/Jinx

TROOP:
5x Rangers = 60
5x Rangers = 60
5x Rangers = 60

FLYER:
Crimson Hunter Ex, Lances = 175
Crimson Hunter Ex, Lances = 175

+++

Black Heart Spearhead +1

HQ:
Archon, Huskblade, Blaster = 93
Cunning, Living Muse

HEAVY:
Ravager, 3x Dissies = 125
Ravager, 3x Dissies = 125
Ravager, 3x Dissies = 125

>>>

Firepower:
9 Disintegrators at BS3+
4 Bright Lances at BS2+
2 Pulse Laser at BS2+
6 Shuriken Cannons at BS3+
3 Fusion Pistols at BS3+
2 Fusion Pistols at BS2+
15 Ranger Long Rifle at BS3+

This one is a bit different and I might be stretching myself too thin.  I've already dropped the Solitaire (which hurts my heart greatly) to make room for some Eldar allies, while greatly decreasing the amount of DE I have in the army.  The Black Heart detachment has been reduced to a small footprint just for the CP farm and fire support, but I've introduced fighters back into the mix with 2x Crimson Hunter Exarchs to give some heavy lances while the Doomseer and Jinxlock go do their thing.  I still have Rangers to be backcap but otherwise, I find this list a bit light on boots on the ground.  Missions might also be a problem, which is why I'm slightly in favor of the first list.

Regardless of which list works out to be better, both lists have a sizeable Harlequin presence with a lot of melee pressure.  The Caress' across the entire army really puts out some good threat, as well as the 22" moving and shooting Shuriken Cannons and Fusion Pistols without BS penalty.  Hell, I even have a pet unit in the first list because I think the Solitaire is the coolest thing ever.  With CP/Ravager farms in both lists, Warrior/Blasters in the first list, and Crimson Hunters in the second, which list do you guys like better?

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Game 321: Star Control II: The Ur-Quan Masters (1992)

Let's not judge this one by its title screen . . .

               

Star Control II: The Ur-Quan Masters

United States

Toys for Bob (developer); Accolade (publisher)

Released in 1992 for DOS, 1994 for the 3DO console; later fan ports to other platforms

Date Started: 23 March 2019

When I started this blog in 2010, I had already played, at least in adolescence--most of the RPGs that everyone else knows. I may not have remembered all of the details, but I at least could remember the basic outlines of The Bard's Tale, Might and Magic, Wizardry, Questron, Pool of Radiance, and all of the Ultimas. There were lots of games I had never played--never even heard of--of course, but those were games that most other people my age had never encountered either. It wasn't until about a year into my blog, with Dungeon Master, that I truly felt I was blogging about a game that I should be ashamed for never having played previously.

For the first time since then, I am in that position again with Star Control II, a game that frequently makes "top X" lists of the best games of all time. My commenters have mentioned it so many times that my usual pre-game search of previous comments turned up too many results to analyze. This one, in other words, is really going to fill a gap.

       

. . . even though the first game had an awesome title screen.

        

There has been some debate about whether Star Control II is an RPG, but at least almost everyone agrees that its predecessor was not. That predecessor went by the grandiose name Star Control: Famous Battles of the Ur-Quan Conflict, Volume IV (1990), in an obvious homage to Star Wars. It's an ambitious undertaking--part simulator, part strategy game, part action game. The player has to manage ships and other resources and plan conquests of battle maps, but in the end the conflict always comes down to a shooting match between two ships using Newtonian physics and relying almost entirely on the player's own dexterity. This combat system goes back to Spacewar! (1962) and would be familiar to anyone who's played Asteroids (1979).

The setup has an Earth united under one government by 2025. In 2612, Earth is contacted by a crystalline race called the Chenjesu and warned that the Ur-Quan Hierarchy, a race of slavers, is taking over the galaxy. (Star Control II retcons this date to 2112.) Earth is soon enlisted into the Alliance of Free Stars and agrees to pool resources in a mutual defense pact. The Alliance includes Earth, the philosophic Chenjesu, the arboreal Yehat, the robotic Mmrnmhrm, the elfin Ariloulaleelay, and a race of all-female nymphomaniacs called the Syreen who fly phallic ships with ribbed shafts.

On the other side are the Ur-Quan, an ancient tentacled species with a strict caste system. They make slaves out of "lesser races" and only communicate with them via frog-like "talking pets." Their allies include Mycons, a fungus species; Ilwraths, a spider-like race that never takes prisoners; and Androsynths, disgruntled clones who fled captivity and experimentation on Earth. Each race (on both sides) has unique ship designs with various strengths and weaknesses, some of which nullify other ships. There's a kind-of rock-paper-scissors element to strategically choosing what ships you want to employ against what enemies.

          

No "bumpy forehead" aliens in this setting.

         

The occasionally-goofy backstory and description of races seems to owe a lot (in tone, if not specifics) to Starflight (1986), on which Star Control author Paul Reiche III had a minor credit. There are probably more references than I'm picking up (being not much of a sci-fi fan) in the ships themselves. "Earthling Cruisers" (at least the front halves) look like they would raise no eyebrows on Star Trek, and both Ilwrath Avengers (in the back) and Vux Intruders (in the front) look like Klingon warbirds. The Ur-Quan dreadnought looks passably like the Battlestar Galactica.

The original Star Control offers the ability to fight player vs. player or set one of the two sides to computer control (at three difficulty levels). In playing, you can simply practice ship vs. ship combat with any two ships, play a "melee" game between fleets of ships, or play a full campaign, which proceeds through a variety of strategic and tactical scenarios involving ships from different species in different predicaments.  The full game gives player the ability to build colonies and fortifications, mine planets, and destroy enemy installations in between ship-to-ship combats.

         

The various campaign scenarios in the original game.

      

The "campaign map" in the original game is an innovative "rotating starfield" that attempts to offer a 3-D environment on a 2-D screen. It takes some getting used to. Until they reach each other for close-quarters combat, ships can only move by progressing through a series of jump points between stars, and it was a long time before I could interpret the starfield properly and understand how to plot a route to the enemy.

         

Strategic gameplay takes place on a rotating starmap meant to simulate a 3-D universe.

             

I have not, in contrast, managed to get any good at ship combat despite several hours of practice. I'm simply not any good at action games. At the same time, I admire the physics and logistics of it. You maintain speed in the last direction you thrust even if you turn. You have limited fuel, so you can't go crazy with thrusting in different directions. You can get hit by asteroids, or fouled in the gravity wells of planets. And you have to be conservative in the deployment of your ships' special abilities, because they use a lot of fuel. Still, no game in which action is the primary determiner of success is going to last long on my play list. For such players, the game and its sequel offer "cyborg" mode, where technically you're the player but the computer fights your battles, but I'd rather lose than stoop to that.

             

One of my lame attempts at space combat.

          

Star Control II opens with a more personal backstory. In the midst of the original Ur-Quan conflicts, the Earth cruiser Tobermoon, skippered by Captain Burton, was damaged in an ambush and managed to make it to a planet orbiting the dwarf star Vela. As they tried to repair the ship, crewmembers found a vast, abandoned underground city, populated with advanced technology, built by an extinct race known as the Precursors.

        

The backstory is reasonably well-told with title cards.

      

Burton reported the find when she returned to Earth, and she was ordered to return with a scientific team led by Jules Farnsworth. Shortly after they arrived, they received word from Earth that the Ur-Quan had learned about the Precursor city and were on their way. Burton balked at Earth's orders to abandon and destroy the base with nuclear weapons. Instead, she sent her ship back to Earth under the command of her first officer and remained behind with the scientific team, planning to detonate nuclear weapons should the Ur-Quan ever arrive.

         

        

The team ended up spending 20 years on the planet, which they named Unzervalt, with no contact from Earth. During that time, the scientists discovered that the city had been created to build ships, and eventually they were able to activate the machines, which put together a starship. The machines shut down just as the ship was completed, reporting that there were insufficient raw materials to continue. About this time, Farnsworth admitted that he was a fraud, and all the success he'd experienced getting the machines up and running was due to a young prodigy born on Unzervalt--the player character.

         

They're not kidding about the "skeleton" part.

         

Burton assembled a skeleton crew for the new starship, with the PC manning the computer station, and blasted off. Three days out, they discovered the derelict Tobermoon, damaged and bereft of any (living or dead) crewmembers. Burton took command of the Tobermoon while the PC was promoted to captain of the new ship. Tobermoon was soon attacked and destroyed by an unknown alien craft, leaving the new ship to escape to Earth. Here the game begins.

         

What "plight"? You live on a technologically-advanced Eden where your enemies seem to have forgotten about you.

         

The player can name himself and his ship, and that's it for "character creation." He begins in the middle of the solar system, in a relatively empty ship with 50 crew and 10 fuel. I intuited that I needed to fly towards Earth, so I headed for the inner cluster of planets.  

            

"Character creation."

             

As the screen changed to show Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars, a probe zoomed out and attached itself to our ship. It played a recording from an Ur-Quan (with the "talking pet" doing the talking), informing me that approaching Earth was forbidden, as was my status as an "independent" vessel. The probe then zoomed off to inform the Ur-Quan of my "transgressions," leaving me to explore the planetary area at will. I guess the war didn't go so well for the Alliance.

            

Well, we now know how the first game ended, canonically.

        

As I approached Earth, the screen changed to show Earth, the moon, and a space station orbiting Earth. Earth itself seemed to have some kind of red force field around it, so I approached the space station.

As I neared, I was contacted by a "Starbase Commander Hayes of the slave planet Earth." He indicated that his energy cores were almost depleted and asked if we were the "Hierarchy resupply ship." At this point, I had a few dialogue options. One allowed me to lie and say I was the resupply ship. Another had me introduce myself. A third--more reflective of what I was actually thinking--said "'Slave planet?!' 'Hierarchy resupply vessel?!' What is going on here?'" The commander said he'd answer my questions if we'd bring back some radioactive elements to re-power the station. He suggested that we look on Mercury.

        

I like dialogue options, but so far they've broken down into: 1) the straight, obvious option; 2) the kind-of dumb lie; and 3) the emotional option that still basically recapitulates #1.

          

I flew off the Earth screen and back to the main solar system screen. At some point during this process, I had to delete the version of the game that I'd downloaded and get a new one. None of the controls worked right on the first one I tried. I particularly couldn't seem to escape out of sub-menus, which was supposed to happen with the SPACE bar. The second version I downloaded had controls that worked right plus someone had removed the copy protection (which has you identifying planets by coordinates). The controls overall are okay. They're much like Starflight, where you arrow through commands and then hit ENTER to select one. I'd rather be able to just hit a keyboard option for each menu command, but there aren't so many commands that it bothers me. Flying the ship is easy enough with the numberpad: 4 and 6 to turn, 8 to thrust, 5 to fire, ENTER to use a special weapon. There's a utility you can use to remap the combat commands, but using it seems to run the risk of breaking the main interface, which I guess is what happened with the first version I downloaded.

            

Running around Mercury and picking up minerals. The large-scale rover window (lower right) is quite small.

           

When orbiting a planet, you get a set of options much like Starflight. You can scan it for minerals, energy, or lifeforms, and then send down a rover (with its own weapons and fuel supply) to pick things up. Minerals are color-coded by type, and at first I was a little annoyed because I can't distinguish a lot of the colors. But it turns out that the explorable area of planets is quite small, and you can easily zoom around and pick up all minerals in just a few minutes. In that, it's quite a bit less satisfying than Starflight, where the planets were enormous and you'd never explore or strip them all, and you got excited with every little collection of mineral symbols. 

The rover doesn't hold much, but returning to the ship and then landing again is an easy process, so before long my hold was full of not just uranium and other "radioactives," but iron, nickel, and other metals. In mining them, the rover was periodically damaged by gouts of flame from the volatile planet, but it gets repaired when you return to the main ship.

        

Returning to base with a near-full cargo manifest.

         

We returned to the starbase and transferred the needed elements. With the station's life support, communications, and sensors working again, the captain was able to scan my vessel, and he expressed shock at its configuration. Rather than give him the story right away, I chose dialogue options that interrogated him first.

              

This seems to be everybody's reaction.

          

Commander Hayes explained that the Ur-Quan had defeated the Alliance 20 years ago. They offered humanity a choice between active serve as "battle thralls" or imprisonment on their own planet. Humanity chose the second option, so the Hierarchy put a force field around the planet, trapping the human race on a single world and preventing assistance from reaching them. But they also put a station in orbit so their own ships could find rest and resupply if they happened to pass through the system. The station is maintained by humans conscripted from the planet for several years at a time.

          

Humanity's fate didn't seem so bad until he got to this part.

          

When he was done, I (having no other choice, really) gave him our background and history and asked for his help. Pointing out that starting a rebellion and failing would result in "gruesome retribution," he asked me to prove my efficacy by at least destroying the Ur-Quan installation on the moon, warning me that I would have to defeat numerous warships.

We left the station and sailed over to the moon. An energy scan showed one blaze of power, so I sent the rover down to it. The report from the rover crew said that the alien base was abandoned and broadcasting some kind of mayday signal, "but great care has been taken to make it appear active." My crew shut the place down and looted it for parts.

           

My crew files a "report from the surface."

         

Lifeform scans showed all kinds of dots roaming around the moon, most looking like little tanks. I don't know if I was supposed to do this or not, but I ran around in the rover blasting them away in case they were enemies. I also gathered up all the minerals that I could.

I returned to the starbase, and the commander accepted my report. Just then, an Ilwrath Avenger, having found the probe, entered the system. The arachnid commander threatened us. There were some dialogue options with him, all of which I'm sure resulted in the same outcome: ship-to-ship combat.

           

They're not just "spider-like"; they actually spin webs on their bridges.

        

This part was much like the original game, although with the ship icons larger and against a smaller backdrop. I (predictably) lost the battle the first two times that I tried, but won the third time. In my defense, the game's backstory specifically said that I had minimal weapons. It was also a bit lumbering--slow to turn, slow to thrust.

         

The alien ship destroys me in our first encounter.

       

When I returned to starbase after the battle, Commander Hayes said he would join my rebellion, and the starbase would be my home base. He asked what we would call our movement, and there were some amusing options.

           

The last option tempted me, but I was boring and went with the first one.

           

Through a long series of dialogues, I learned that as I brought back minerals and salvage, the base could convert them into "resource units" (RU) which I could then use to build my crew, purchase upgrades for the Prydwen (improved thrusters, more crew pods, more storage bays, more fuel), get refueled, and build a fleet of starships. I can even build alien ships if I can find alien allies to pilot them.

         

My own starbase. Why can't I name it?

         

Hayes had a lot more dialogue options related to history and alien species, but I'll save those for later. It appears that the introduction is over and I now have a large, open universe to explore, where I'm sure I'll do a lot of mining, fighting, and diplomacy. In this sense, Star Control II feels like more of a sequel to Starflight than the original Star Control.

            

One part of a nine-page starmap that came with the game. I'm tempted to print it out and assemble it on the wall in front of my desk. I suppose it depends on how long the game lasts.

         

I appreciate how the game eased me into its various mechanics. I'm enjoying it so far, and I really look forward to plotting my next moves. I suspect I'll be conservative and mine the rest of the resources in the solar system and buy some modest ship upgrades before heading out into the greater universe.

Time so far: 2 hours

How To Download Gta Liberty City Stories For Free On Android Only 390 Mb

GTA Liberty City stories On Android For Free Only 390 MB

To Play This Game Successfully You Need To Download ZArchiever App From Playstore.

Then After Downloading The App Follow These Steps: 

Step 1: Download The Apk And Data File Of This Game, From Below Link.          

 Apk: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B7OH8brU-ZHYbl9nRnAtZHZhY28       

DataFile https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7OH8brU-ZHYVldmUi1GVm1PRkE/view?usp=sharing

Step 2: After Downloading Both Files Open The ZArchiever App And, First Install The Apk File. And Then Extract The Data File To Internal storage>Android>Obb Folder.

Step 3: After Extraction Open The Installed Apk And Your Game Starts. ENJOY.

?DOWNLOAD APK

?DOWNLOAD DATA [OBB]

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