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.
In late October of 1873 the government of Japan decided against sending a military expedition to Korea to force that nation to open trade relations. Across the government supporters of the expedition resigned immediately. The spectacle of revolt by disaffected samurai began to loom over Japanese politics. In January of 1874 disaffected samurai attacked a senior minister in Tokyo. A month later, a group of pro-Korea expedition and anti-foreign elements from Saga prefecture in Kyushu revolted, driven in part by high food prices stemming from poor harvests. Their leader, according to Edward Drea’s classic Japan’s Imperial Army, was a samurai
Approaching her mid-30s, Xiong Yidan reckons that most of her friends are on to their second or even third babies. But Xiong has more than a dozen. There is Lucky, the street dog from Bangkok who jumped into a taxi with her and never left. There is Sophie and Ben, sibling geese, who honk from morning to night. Boop and Pan, both goats, are romantically involved. Dumpling the hedgehog enjoys a belly rub from time to time. The list goes on. Xiong nurtures her brood from her 8,000 square meter farm in Chiang Dao, a mountainous district in northern Thailand’s
Located down a sideroad in old Wanhua District (萬華區), Waley Art (水谷藝術) has an established reputation for curating some of the more provocative indie art exhibitions in Taipei. And this month is no exception. Beyond the innocuous facade of a shophouse, the full three stories of the gallery space (including the basement) have been taken over by photographs, installation videos and abstract images courtesy of two creatives who hail from the opposite ends of the earth, Taiwan’s Hsu Yi-ting (許懿婷) and Germany’s Benjamin Janzen. “In 2019, I had an art residency in Europe,” Hsu says. “I met Benjamin in the lobby
April 22 to April 28 The true identity of the mastermind behind the Demon Gang (魔鬼黨) was undoubtedly on the minds of countless schoolchildren in late 1958. In the days leading up to the big reveal, more than 10,000 guesses were sent to Ta Hwa Publishing Co (大華文化社) for a chance to win prizes. The smash success of the comic series Great Battle Against the Demon Gang (大戰魔鬼黨) came as a surprise to author Yeh Hung-chia (葉宏甲), who had long given up on his dream after being jailed for 10 months in 1947 over political cartoons. Protagonist