For so many of us, I reckon EVE Online remains a distant curiosity: “oh it’s the space spreadsheet game where cold-blooded operators are always Enron-ing each other.” And you know what? God bless the corporate samurai of EVE Online, it’ll never not rule when they pull off another Heist of the Century (opens in new tab) amidst a supernova (opens in new tab) or alien invasion (opens in new tab).
First reported by Massively Overpowered (opens in new tab), EVE developer CCP is giving its boardroom sharks of the far future another opportunity to prove they really do care though, reactivating its PLEX for Good (opens in new tab) initiative. For those not in the know, PLEX (short for “Pilot’s License Extension”) is one of EVE’s two in-game currencies. PLEX is the premium option, purchasable with real-world money or EVE’s other currency, ISK. PLEX can also be traded as an in-game commodity, and is a key building block in EVE’s famously intricate and reactive virtual economy.
CCP has been running PLEX for Good on-and-off for almost 18 years now, activating the initiative and raising money for victims of humanitarian crises like the 2010 Haitian earthquake, the Fukushima nuclear disaster, and most recently the war in Ukraine. Since 2005, PLEX for Good has raised over $1.2 million.
EVE Online players can take PLEX out of their vault and contract it to a special in-game NPC (opens in new tab), with CCP tallying up the proceeds and converting it to real life currency at the end of the drive. Funds will go to Doctors Without Borders (opens in new tab) and the Turkish charity Ahbap (opens in new tab), and players have until February 21st to make a contribution. If you’re a PLEX-less pleb like myself, you can donate directly to these organizations at those preceding links.
https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/1676152967_EVE-Onlines-far-future-boardroom-sharks-are-using-their-powers-for.jpg6751200Carlos Pachecohttps://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngCarlos Pacheco2023-02-11 21:32:482023-02-11 21:32:48EVE Online’s far-future boardroom sharks are using their powers for good with an in-game charity drive
From 2010 to 2014 Richard Cobbett (opens in new tab) wrote Crapshoot, a column about rolling the dice to bring random games back into the light. What happens when a company wants to make an interactive movie long before the technology is available? Pain, mostly. Pain, and regret.
I’ve always had a bit of a soft spot for FMV. I remember it when it was the impossible technological dream, the future of gaming, the disappointing present, and then the best-forgotten past, and honestly it made the jump to the second half of that with good cause. Still, there’s something so endearing about the goofiness of a green screen—amateur actors desperately trying to carry stories by first-time scriptwriters and all. I still look back on them a little fondly. But Amazon: Guardians of Eden? Amazon was an interactive movie that couldn’t even wait for CD-ROM. Be afraid.
OH MY GOD I AM EXPRESSING SURPRISE BECAUSE I WAS JUST SURPRISED AND THAT IS WHAT I WOULD DO!
Access Software, as we’ve seen before, was a weird company. Their bread and butter ended up being golf simulators, the Links series, which was ultimately why the company got picked up by Microsoft and closed a few years later after everyone realised golf is boring. What made them interesting were the other games they did, most famously the Tex Murphy interactive movies that saw employees (led by writer/director/star Chris Jones, Access’s money guy turned green screen detective) joining such high-powered names as Margot Kidder to truly redefine the word “starring”.
OK, so that’s a bit catty. They were hammy, but really fun with it, as well as bringing a 3D element to adventure gaming I’m genuinely sad never took off more than it did. Unless you count Normality and Conspiracies. (But don’t.) Before those games though, Access had a couple of other cracks at the whip, including the original, much less advanced Tex Murphy games, spy thriller Countdown, and this, a tribute to the classic adventure serials of old that somehow managed to have slightly worse acting and technology.
I’d explain, but I think you really need to see. The background is simply that our heroes, Jason and Maya, are escaping from the baddies, with the only route being to cross a broken bridge. The result is, I think we can agree, the Citizen Kane of gaming. Movie technology gets no better than this.
You probably need a moment to recover from the drama. It’s OK. I’ll wait.
Amazon, an adventure designed in wilful disregard of everything ’90s adventures did to not suck.
But wait. Who’s Jason? Who is Maya? We should probably go rewind a little, or indeed, a lot. Amazon is the story of Jason Roberts, man with no real personality, whose more interesting brother Allen has been having adventures in the Amazon while Jason works in a lab. Allen gets attacked and goes missing, with Jason’s boss sympathetic enough to offer him some time off to get over it. “Take the whole day if you feel it’s absolutely necessary.” But! When Jason gets home, he discovers a mysterious package that with a mysterious message with a mysterious code all wrapped in mysterious twine, and—
“Dear Jason, If you’re reading this your mouth is open. You look ridiculous. Allen.”
Wow. And people say Telltale game episodes are short. Well, see you next week!
No, of course not. In trying to be an adventure serial, each of Amazon’s chapters is split up as if you walked off for a week between chapters, as opposed to reality, where you’d probably never have gone into the cinema ever again. Even this short burst brings more headscratching than some whole games.
My favourite is that every time you die, the game restarts with Jason in the parking lot of work and the caption “Six weeks later…” making it feel like every time he dies, a clone is taken out of a tank and sent to go pick up his work where he left off, only to find the secret message and get killed and trigger the next clone that goes in and finds the message and gets killed and then triggers the next clone that goes in and finds the message and gets killed and then triggers the next clone that goes in and finds the message and gets killed and then the sane player screams and goes to a temple to meditate on how much better the world would have been if they’d bought Monkey Island instead.
Largely it’s the little things that make it so unpleasant to play, from the increasing number of deaths that can best be described as “bullshit” to the footstep sound that makes it sound like Jason is farting his way through the entire Amazon, to moments of design that just confuse and bewilder. When he gets back to his house for instance, a package is waiting inside. But you can’t pick it up, because that makes sense. Instead, you have to find a letter opener and bring that to the parcel, at which point Jason just dumps everything out on the floor exactly like a sane person wouldn’t. And then there’s my favourite bit of weirdness. When you die, you get a death screen. But before that… you get this.
Wow. These death scenes must be brutal! Dare we witness one?!
Therapy is available if anyone feels particularly mentally scarred.
Yeah, not exactly Waxworks, is it? What’s that? You don’t know what Waxworks is?
This. This is Waxworks. You’re welcome.
All of this comes together to make a game that has absolutely no idea what it is, being too silly to be a thriller, not silly enough to be a comedy, and not trying to be so bad it’s good. Which is lucky, because it is absolutely horrible. It’s a game where your brother’s secret message is encoded using—seriously—a “Little Orphan Annie decoder ring”, as if that counts as cryptography, and the main character’s comments… well, just take a look at how he sees two guards blocking him from a secret base. I quote:
“The blonde haired, ruggedly handsome, powerful guard. He strikes fear in the hearts of those who would steal American technological secrets. His life, however, is missing the love of a good hearted woman.”
Very precise. And the other guard? Psychic powers activate!
“This fun loving woman is a credit to her community. Her heart is filled with love and desire for the male guard, but he is dedicated to his career and seeks no romantic ties. Is there a way to get them together?”
And here’s the thing. That’s a puzzle clue. The puzzle being to take this information the main character couldn’t possibly know, and make a love potion. Which he administers—wait for it—with a blow gun.
You know, I have no idea what’s going on any more.
Then? Then he has to deal with a robot. Which you do by putting a rubbish bin on your head so that it thinks you’re its replacement and walks away. This chapter is called “Heavy Metal Monster” incidentally, presumably because “Stupidest Shit Ever” had to be saved for the later chapters.
Just wait. Juuuuust wait. The idea of Amazon is clearly to combine all the hamminess and tropes of these serials, but the result is really more like someone ate them, stuck a finger down their throat and vomited them up.
But, plot. It takes a while to get going, partly because all Allen explains in his letter is “I’m in trouble”, but mostly because the magic decoder ring you need to find out details is a single pixel in a cluttered living room because Access hates you. Even then, all it really says is “Go to Cuzco, Peru, and all will be explained.” Which is a bit rubbish. Surely a “Sorry for making you fight a robot” wouldn’t have gone amiss. There’s also a bit of a clue dropped about the final goal with talk of giant emeralds called “The Eyes of the Jaguar”, which seem relevant for two reasons—being on a heavily protected microfiche guarded by 1950s robot monsters, and more importantly, being in the game’s logo. Ahem.
Well, one is. Otherwise this would be Amazoon, and that would just be silly!
Whenever you have treasure, though, you have arseholes who want that treasure. In the case of Amazon: Guardians of Eden, that duty falls to one Colonel Sanchez, who the game describes as “a tall, fat policeman”, and players as “Wait, this is our villain? Seriously? This guy?”
I’d put in a clip, but his accent is so bad, so stereotyped, so painful that it actually manages to transcend the audio itself. We’ll see him later, but for now, just imagine how he’d talk—worst case scenario stuff—and later on, we’ll see if you were right.
Truly, a villain so greasy, it’s a wonder he can keep a grip on his gun.
The weird thing about Amazon’s pacing is that it’s simultaneously really quick and super-slow, the former because it whisks you from thing to thing without the time to think, and the second because it’s full of pixel hunting and bullshit deaths where failing to find the necessary pixel in a previous chapter rears up and bites you hard out of absolutely nowhere.
Most puzzles are also on an insanely brutal timer, and largely pointless. From leaving Jason’s workplace in Chapter 2 for instance, it’s not until the end of Chapter 6 that he finally completes his destination to find someone who can tell him about Allen’s disappearance. And what does she do then? Ask questions about him, including what year he won a trophy, that you’d only know from having anally examined every pixel back at the very start of the game, because this is Amazon: Guardians of Eden and Amazon: Guardians of Eden is pure goddamn evil in a can.
On the plus side you do get to feed this baddy enough peppers to make his face explode.
After a needlessly awful trek involving chartering a plane with a pilot who by the sheerest of crappy luck turns out to be on Sanchez’s payroll and sorting out the guy above in his little village, Jason finally does discover his brother Allen. Allen has a life expectancy of exactly four scenes at this point, because there’s a pretty girl with him and absolutely nothing is going to get in the way of a romantic sub-plot. Not even the fact that both she, Maya, and Jason are as charismatic as decapitated Ken and Barbie dolls.
While he lives though, he does explain the plot—that he was sent to the rainforest to investigate forest regeneration in previously destroyed parts, and along the way heard about a valley with magical rejuvenating water. Unfortunately Sanchez was on their trail, and soon enough attacked the camp. Allen got away, demonstrating that against all odds he actually can act as if his life depends on it. Now that the brothers are together though, nothing will stop them saving the day together.
That Maya is a native of these parts? You’re right. All the bullshit.
Or, not. Because this is where we came in. Remember the bridge?
If you don’t use the vine before crossing the bridge you die, despite not being able to see the hole you need to repair before you cross. You repair the bridge with a vine because… uh… um… uh… no, I’ve got nothing. The vines are only holding up the sides of the bridge, the bridge itself is, well, wood. And so what if there’s a hole? If it can be fixed with a vine, it can be stepped over. This is the worst demonstration of bridge maintenance since the one that couldn’t support the weight of the fat guy in Where Time Stood Still (opens in new tab).
Allen is arguably the lucky one, because at least he’s spared the rest of the game. It’s mostly just Stuff rather than actually telling a story, best shown by how it immediately gets side-tracked by slave traders who want Maya for their collection. This being Amazon: Guardians of Eden though, it couldn’t stick with just basic sexism. No, it had to go racist as well. Access was based on Salt Lake City, Utah, which isn’t exactly the most multicultural place on the Earth. So what do you do when you’re making a game where you need lots of ethnic people? Apparently, you watch Short Circuit 2 and then go out and buy some boot polish, possibly with the money from pawning your last dregs of shame.
In the words of Socrates: What the shit, people?
Later on, you find a tribe of natives who insist you prove that you’re a god. How do you do that? Fireworks. You launch fireworks, and for the millionth time the credulous natives don’t respond “Good trick, but we know what tools are and we saw you doing stuff with your hands. You know what our favourite trick is? Making impossibly sized cooking pots to turn charlatans into soup. We know it’s a little bit living down to expectations, but sometimes you can’t beat the classics. Do us a favour and shove this carrot up your arse for flavouring.”
But, like Allen’s fate, this would still have been better than the alternative.
This is what Hell looks like. Right there. That is where the bad people go when they die, to forever be trapped in a minigame that makes an eternity of dental work, a saxophone reed under every finger nail, a complete copy of the Myst series, look like a blessed joy. It doesn’t look like much. It’s slow-paced. It’s quite pretty. All you have to do is travel down the river. But no. Hell. Actual, literal Hell.
You see, the river is full of rocks which you have to avoid, and you might notice that the canoe you have to do it with is practically the size of the screen. There’s no health bar. One touch means instant death, and instant death in Amazon means an unskippable “SHOCK WARNING!” message, death picture, and then intro screen and shot of Jason going to work. Every. Single. Time.
But it gets worse. The foreground completely obscures everything you have to avoid, the few pixels of it that you actually can, when the perspective doesn’t fool you into thinking you’re fine rather than on a collision course with death. WHICH IS ALL THE TIME. All to a soundtrack of screeching monkey noises. Isn’t this the most dickish thing ever?
Yes! But it gets worse! Because this is Amazon, many of the rocks in the river actually set up traps—dead-ends that you can’t see until you’ve sailed into them and have no choice but to crash. You also have to follow a set of directions given in the previous chapter, or you just magically die for having gone the wrong way. Gone the wrong way? On a linear river? No, it doesn’t seem possible. But they found a way! And yes, it’s a really long sequence. Of course it is. But wait! There’s more! Because later, you have to do it again, by goddamn trial and funking error. At least, if there’s any way to get directions, I have no idea how and every walkthrough I checked just says “We don’t know, just do this.”
And the final cherry on the shit sundae? After this first canoeing bit, you’re taken to a conversation where you… can die. Autosaves? This game came out in 1991. There have been war crimes less deserving of a firing squad armed with torture guns. Do those exist? Invent them! I have need of their services!
Oh, and if you were hoping for a reward… this is the best that the game has to offer. Fan service.
Hiring some busty blonde models for the day: possibly the reason this game was made.
Oh, and that waterfall? The canoeing ends with the boat going right over it, and both Maya and Jason crashing down into a pool. Which Maya knew about and kept to herself as—wait for it—a practical joke. “I suppose I should have warned you, but I thought you might like the surprise!” she tells him. This game. I’m starting a campaign to have every copy of this game loaded onto a rocket and fired into the sun.
By gaming law though, Jason has now seen her naked, and therefore it is Love. It’s just the rule. Max Payne 2, Broken Sword 4, there’s no arguing with science. She finally comes clean on who she really is, which is a member of a tribe charged with protecting the land against all those who might destroy it, which of course means, “men”. She promises however that she’ll be the one to say “not all men” and vouch for him, giving him at least a slight chance that they won’t just cut off his dick, make him eat it, and then stab him through the dick-wound with a spear. Jason is thrilled.
And then Sanchez appears and shoots her.
I can’t do justice to what happens next with just text. But wow. If you thought the bridge was good…
And now we know what the opposite of a ‘special effect’ looks like.
With the villain of the piece deadwho has appeared maybe twice in this whole game and Jason has never actually met directly—it’s time to end this turkey by meeting her tribe, the titular Guardians of Eden. And by ‘titular’, I mean of course…
…that their name is in the title of the game.
Also, if you check the credits, you find that their names include—quoting here—Denise Goodbod, Candy Barr, and Dixie Kupps. Also Kerri Sluge, who really should have considered looking into a stripper name even if she worked in data processing or something. Anything but that.
Incidentally, I know it can’t be easy to stand in front of a screen wearing ridiculous Amazon costumes and actually say the line “Take him to the pit of death!”, but it really says something about Amazon’s attention to detail that the lead Amazon actually cracks a smile during it and nobody could be bothered to do a second take. Or, maybe it’s more appropriate than it seems. Let’s find out. What’s in the Pit of Death?
A… killer ant. Of course. Of course a giant killer ant. Totally sensible!
In time-honoured tradition, Jason demonstrates to the suspicious Amazon women that he is not one of those violent, murderous kinds of men who means harm to Mother Nature and all her children by spearing the ant through its fucking thorax.
As such, instead of killing him right back, they decide “OK, sure, whatever,” and give him the greatest gift that not much money in the 1990s could buy—a little more fan-service, and an ending so toe-curling, an army of podiatrists won’t be able to help you walk straight after watching it.
Oh. Good. Grief. So much awful, such little time. It’s somewhat hard to imagine Jason making an awesome life for himself in the City of Misandry here, single solitary tear or not, and if you’re wondering if Maya has done anything in this adventure to warrant him choosing her over the emerald, the answer is “haha, no.” The whole game ends with everything resolved but nothing actually accomplished; the secret of the Amazons remaining exactly that, when the whole thing could have been sorted out by shooting Sanchez in the neck with a blow-dart. And even then, it’s only a half-secret, since Allen was paid to come on this trip and his employers have no reason not to send another explorer.
Really, I suspect that Jason’s main reason to stay is that if he went back, he’d have to take another trip on a canoe. And suddenly his decision makes perfect sense. Goddamn, that minigame.
Not that there’s any shortage of ways to die elsewhere. SHOCK WARNING!
Be grateful that just a few years later, Access finally managed to twist its desire to create movie games into a genuinely great one—The Pandora Directive—and carve out a cult following that would ultimately allow for a new Tex Murphy. Amazon was a dreadful dreadful game, but as a series-killing Australian once said, things could get worser.
https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/This-is-Amazon-Guardians-of-Eden-another-entry-for-your.jpg6751200Carlos Pachecohttps://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngCarlos Pacheco2023-02-11 21:14:352023-02-11 21:14:35This is Amazon: Guardians of Eden, another entry for your worst games of all time list
Hands up if you like it when there’s magic and also a gun. Right, then, y’all get on over and check out Dark Envoy, a game with an hour and a half demo out now in the Steam Next Fest that’s an ismoetric, real-time with slowdown and pause RPG with the interesting twist of being available both for single-player and online cooperative play.
The demo lets you play out two missions as a “party of relic hunters in a tale of destiny set in a conflict-torn world.” Across the two missions you explore a variety of environments as one of four classes: ranger, adept, engineer, and warrior, and control two other characters as well. You also get to explore two side locations, tweak your skill trees and perks, and futz around with crafting and enchanting.
In addition, Dark Envoy has a few features you might not expect right off the bat. It’ll let you vary the speed of play, either pausing or slowing down play. It also has an emphasis on changing and using terrain. Cover lets your ranged characters defend themselves, and abilities let you do things like raise stone walls. Certain spots on the battlefield also regenerate your health or mana, so controlling them is key to victory.
“Throughout Steam Next Fest we will be listening very closely to our community” said Event Horizon CEO Krzysztof Monkiewicz in a press release. “We are so excited to share the Dark Envoy Demo with Steam players and look forward to shaping the game with their feedback during this exciting stage of development, aiding us in our mission to invigorate the genre with more dynamic gameplay.”
For me, the coolest bit in the demo is that some of the spells are hand-drawn. You can make a path of electric zaps, for example, that follow your cursor as you draw them onto the battlefield.
You might recognize Event Horizon’s style from their previous game, Tower of Time (opens in new tab), which launched into Early Access in mid-2017 before an early 2018 release. That pioneered some of the things you see in Dark Envoy, like the larger-scale combats that are more akin to a miniature RTS.
You can find out more about Dark Envoy on Event Horizon’s website (opens in new tab). You can also find Dark Envoy on both GOG (opens in new tab) and Steam (opens in new tab). You can find Event Horizon’s previous game, Tower of Time, on GOG (opens in new tab) and Steam (opens in new tab).
https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/1676149253_Guns-and-spells-clash-in-real-time-cooperative-RPG-Dark-Envoy.jpg6751200Carlos Pachecohttps://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngCarlos Pacheco2023-02-11 20:49:532023-02-12 22:19:13Guns and spells clash in real-time cooperative RPG Dark Envoy
Most recently updated in July of last year, Jedi Academy Enhanced (opens in new tab) might just be my new go-to for nostalgic replays of the classic FPS-come-lightsaber duel simulator. The mod primarily adds new character customization options and quality of life additions, all while building on prior open source mod work for Jedi Academy. Some of the marquee additions include:
Full RGB-style lightsaber color tweaking
Custom character models
Fully modular lightsaber hilts
New weapon and lightsaber effects, including Darksaber (opens in new tab) and Kylo Ren’s unstable lightsaber
New NPC models and fixed HUD elements
For those not in the know, the Dark Forces/Jedi Knight series developed from straight (if excellent) “Doom clone with a Star Wars skin” territory into some of the best lightsaber fighting games ever made, combining a classic FPS level design sensibility with a unique take on the physics of a lightsaber. These things feel like they could cut through anything in the Jedi Knight games, and combat is more positioning-focused than most 3D brawler/hack n’ slash systems.
The final game in the series, Raven Software’s Jedi Academy, makes for a perfect Jedi playground. It’s just a brainpower-free Star Wars-shaped amusement park, complete with saberstaves and a rich assortment of Star Wars-y backdrops from Corellia to Korriban. Jedi Academy Enhanced comes in with new niceties to freshen up the experience, here helpfully outlined in the mod’s version 1.1 trailer (opens in new tab).
The addition of fully modular lightsaber hilts is a real killer for me—the base game has you selecting from a collection of stock hilts, so the new mix-and-match goes a long way to fulfilling that sabercraft fantasy. Similarly, the mod introduces full RGB color control for your blades, letting you dial in that perfect color (Or just immediately opt for a Corran Horn/Ahsoka Tano silver).
I’d also be remiss if I failed to mention the mod’s new, thoroughly yassified Luke Skywalker model, and it also offers new customization options for charisma void protagonist Jaden Korr. I don’t care how pretty you make them, they’ll still be the same old room temperature glass of water I have merely tolerated since 2003. Jedi Academy Enhanced builds on the prior work of the OpenJK engine modding team (opens in new tab), and you can try either project for yourself over on JKHub (opens in new tab). For further Jedi Academy modding fun, the Movie Duels (opens in new tab) team has recreated a bevy of classic Star Wars fights in Jedi Academy, while PC Gamer contributor Rick Lane wrote about the continued excellence of the Jedi Knight series’ first entry (opens in new tab) back in 2021.
https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/1676171408_20-years-on-this-mod-adds-new-lightsabers-character-models.jpg5801030Carlos Pachecohttps://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngCarlos Pacheco2023-02-11 20:21:512023-02-11 20:21:5120 years on, this mod adds new lightsabers, character models, and quality of life fixes to one of the best Star Wars games
What is Starfield’s main quest about, and how does the space RPG begin? Over the years Bethesda games have had some pretty iconic openings. Most notably—it became a meme—is Skyrim’s “Hey you, you’re finally awake” intro, where you begin the game as a prisoner on a wagon carrying you to your execution. Fallout 3’s introduction, meanwhile, begins with your actual birth that leads into a tutorial as you grow from a child into an adult in Vault 101.
These memorable intros lead to the start of the games’ main quests, and Bethesda fans have been speculating about the beginning of Starfield, too: How it introduces players to the world, what you’re doing at the very start of the game, how the main quest begins, and what that quest actually is about.
There’s not a whole lot of official information out there to go on, but just based on the 15-minute Starfield gameplay reveal (opens in new tab) from last year, fans have come up with some pretty convincing theories.
Here’s how some Starfield fans suspect the game begins, how the main quest kicks off, and even how you acquire your first spaceship and robot companion. While this is all speculation and only uses the gameplay trailer as a source, I’ll still give you all a spoiler warning for Starfield’s main quest.
You begin Starfield as a space miner
Miners shown at 8:12 (opens in new tab) in the gameplay reveal (Image credit: Bethesda)
Most of the speculation about the start of the game and how the main quest begins was put together by Reddit poster Exo_soldier, and to follow their theory you have to rearrange the footage shown in the gameplay reveal. Most of the information is there, but it’s not shown in chronological order.
For instance, the first look we get at Starfield’s character creation system is near the end of the gameplay video (at 8:40 (opens in new tab)), but it’s a good place to start when speculating about the beginning of Starfield.
The most important thing to note in this footage is that “Argos Extractors” and “record locator” are shown in the top left corner of the character creation screen at all times. Why would the name of some corporation be displayed during character creation? It’s because you begin the game already working for them. You’re not just building your character, customizing your appearance, and selecting your attribute—you’re also creating an employee profile for Argos Extractors. There’s even an employee number shown at the bottom of the character creation screen.
Argos Extractors shown in character creation at 8:40 (opens in new tab)(Image credit: Bethesda)
So, what is Argos Extractors? It sure sounds like a mining company, and probably the very place where you learned to extract minerals with a mining laser, which we see the player doing earlier (at 3:33 (opens in new tab)) in the video. Even the player’s HUD shows a planetary survey as they first step off the ship at the 2:45 (opens in new tab) mark.
That fits in with a mining operation’s goals: detecting what resources a planet contains. This all indicates that you begin the game as a miner, and following the game’s intro you take your mining gear with you on the rest of your adventures. Some of this is also confirmed by Starfield’s description on Steam (opens in new tab).
You dig up a mysterious artifact while on the job
Artifact uncovered at 6:52 (opens in new tab)(Image credit: Bethesda)
So, you begin Starfield as just another employee of a big mining company. That’s supported in footage you can see by skipping forward to 8:12 (opens in new tab) in the gameplay video. This clip is most likely from the earliest scenes in the game, where several people are seen using mining lasers underground. One of them says to you “Most dusties don’t even make it this far.” This could be a veteran mining employee noting that “dusties” (which could be a nickname for mining newbies) don’t last very long at the job—or that you’ve gone much deeper into the planet than most miners do.
Another Reddit commenter, XannyLarusso (opens in new tab), speculates that you might be working off a prison sentence in the mines. Others suggest you could be working off a debt. Both would tie in with the starting points of Bethesda’s The Elder Scrolls series where you always begin as prisoner. Even in the Fallout series you begin in a Vault, which is a lot like a prison in some ways.
While you were minding your own business as a simple space miner, drilling for minerals and resources, you dug up a strange alien artifact. You touched it, which gave you strange visions (shown very briefly at 6:52 (opens in new tab)). Afterwards, you apparently told some of your coworkers about it, and they called Constellation, which is a guild representing “the last group of space explorers.”
A member of Constellation is dispatched to talk to you about the artifact
Constellation pilot arriving at 7:05 (opens in new tab)(Image credit: Bethesda)
Constellation then sent someone out to meet with you about the artifact you found. We can guess this because at 7:03 (opens in new tab) we see a ship landing, and a pilot in a spacesuit walks out and says to a miner “So, you found something?” The miner says “The new guy found it,” an indication you haven’t been working for Argos Extraction for very long.
The pilot then speaks to you and says “You dug up the artifact, right? That means you saw it. The visions.” Whatever it is you discovered, Constellation has also discovered similar artifacts in the past.
Your meeting is interrupted by space pirates
Crimson Fleet battle shown at 7:35 (opens in new tab)(Image credit: Bethesda)
Skip to 7:35 (opens in new tab) and we see a different ship landing, as someone yells “That’s the Crimson Fleet,” who are described by another character a few moments later as “cut-throat pirates.” Then there’s a battle. This probably isn’t just a random skirmish from some other point in the game: It looks like this appearance by the Crimson Fleet, and the gunfight that follows, interrupts your meeting with the Constellation pilot.
Are the space pirates also there for the artifact, or is this just a random raid? We don’t know. However, other clues suggest that it’s likely that the Constellation pilot you meet doesn’t survive the battle.
You inherit your first ship from the dead Constellation member
Constellation pilot’s ship arriving at 7:03 (opens in new tab)(Image credit: Bethesda)
It’s a bit grim, but it seems likely that your first ship in Starfield is that Constellation pilot’s ship. It’s just a guess, but it’s possible that as he lay dying, the pilot tells you to take his ship and use it to reach Constellation’s headquarters. More evidence supports this: the wristwatch you use to unlock the door to the Constellation headquarters (earlier in the video, at 6:23 (opens in new tab)) probably belonged to the pilot, too. That pilot doesn’t seem to be in attendance at your introduction to Constellation, which supports the theory that he was killed in the skirmish with the Crimson Fleet. If he was alive, he’d probably have come with you.
Well, it’s not like you don’t spend a lot of time in Bethesda games looting dead bodies, right? This time, lifting items from a corpse got you your first spaceship and a key to Constellation’s front door. Heck, even your companion robot, Vasco, probably belonged to the dead Constellation pilot. Everything you get early on in Starfield is a hand-me-down, or to be more accurate, a loot-him-up.
You take over the Constellation pilot’s mission
Artifacts at Constellation shown at 6:43 (opens in new tab)(Image credit: Bethesda)
At 6:26 (opens in new tab) you see the player reaching the Constellation building with Vasco, using the watch to get inside, and meeting with the guild’s members. They show you the other artifacts that have been discovered, which they hope will answer the question “What’s out there?” That’s the mystery Constellation is trying to solve. Since you’ve seen the visions, you’re now “part of solving that puzzle” too.
And most likely that is the main quest: finding more artifacts, figuring out “what they are [and] what they’re building,” and finding what we can assume is either alien life or (as happens in a lot of science fiction) the remnants of some sort of ancient alien civilization. The stuff the pilot was doing—flying around, investigating artifacts, and talking to the people who found them—is now your job.
Construct shown at 8:22 (opens in new tab)(Image credit: Bethesda Game Studios)
Finally, at 8:22 (opens in new tab), we see the player walking toward some sort of construct, which could be part of the vision you have at the start of the game, or possibly an event near the ending of the main quest.
That’s a lot of speculation and guesswork, but it all sounds pretty darn plausible to me. Starting as a common space-miner, stumbling across a mysterious artifact, inheriting your first ship and robot companion from a dead pilot, and becoming the one person who can unravel the mysteries of the universe feels on par with the main quests in earlier Bethesda games. We’ll see how accurate this theory is when Starfield comes out.
https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/1676138475_Starfield-fans-already-have-some-very-convincing-theories-on-how.jpg6751200Carlos Pachecohttps://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngCarlos Pacheco2023-02-11 17:15:012023-02-12 22:20:00Starfield fans already have some very convincing theories on how its main quest begins
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive launched on 21 August, 2012, and on 11 February 2023 it has just surpassed its all-time record of concurrent players: At the time of writing, 1,320,219 players are in-game. The previous record was 1,308,963 players around three years ago.
Counter-Strike dates back to 1999, and began as a mod for Half-Life that became popular enough for Valve to take notice. Valve made one of the best decisions in its history: It bought the rights and hired the co-creators to work on making it into a standalone release. Counter-Strike 1.0 is now 23 years old (opens in new tab).
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive is the latest iteration of what the official twitter account, quite rightly, calls “your favourite first-person shooter’s favourite first-person shooter.” It has features that the older versions didn’t but remains fundamentally the same game and, while there are dozens of different ways to play, the quintessential CS experience is five terrorists trying to plant a bomb at one of two sites, while five counter-terrorists fan-out to stop them.
CS: GO didn’t launch in the best of conditions, and the first few years saw big changes. You can make a very good argument that, as well as the rock-solid core of the game, what really saved it was $400 knives (opens in new tab). But something that rather unbelievably began as a console port (opens in new tab) now stands as the greatest competitive FPS of all time, as well as Steam’s most popular game by a great distance.
I think I’ve probably played more CS: GO than any other game, ever. That doesn’t mean I’m good at it. Recently in PCG towers we were discussing trash talk, and I had to mention the time when my team lost a match of CS: GO and a gentleman who sounded Russian on the opposing team noticed my 10-year veteran coin (a little trinket Valve doles out to long-term players) in the lobby afterwards. Through voice chat he boomed “this guy’s been playing since I was little baby and we still slap him” and everyone started laughing uproariously. I’ve never psychologically recovered from that burn but, as you can perhaps tell, these are the moments I live for.
https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/1676131056_Counter-Strike-Global-Offensive-smashes-all-time-player-record-11-years-after.jpg6751200Carlos Pachecohttps://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngCarlos Pacheco2023-02-11 14:55:112023-02-12 22:20:28Counter-Strike: Global Offensive smashes all-time player record 11 years after release like the boss it is
Win every Wordle (opens in new tab) game with our helpful tips, daily clues, and game-changing guides. And if you’re short on free guesses, or simply time, just scroll or click straight to the February 11 (602) answer and keep your win streak going.
I squeaked over the finish line today, mostly because the few yellows I found early on didn’t start falling into place until the halfway point. Luckily for me, by the time my final go came around, there was only one possible word left to build out of the remains of today’s guesses, although I still breathed a sigh of relief when the letters finally turned green.
Wordle hint
A Wordle hint for Saturday, February 11
If you were to remove the errors—the bugs—from a computer program you would…? There are two vowels to find today.
Is there a double letter in today’s Wordle?
There are no double letters in today’s Wordle.
Wordle help: 3 tips for beating Wordle every day
If there’s one thing better than playing Wordle, it’s playing Wordle well, which is why I’m going to share a few quick tips to help set you on the path to success:
A good opener contains a balanced mix of unique vowels and consonants.
A tactical second guess helps to narrow down the pool of letters quickly.
The solution may contain repeat letters.
There’s no time pressure beyond making sure it’s done by midnight. So there’s no reason not to treat the game like a casual newspaper crossword and come back to it later if you’re coming up blank.
Today’s Wordle answer
(Image credit: Josh Wardle)
What is the Wordle 602 answer?
You’re just about to win today’s Wordle. The answer to the February 11 (602) Wordle is DEBUG.
Previous answers
The last 10 Wordle answers
The more past Wordle answers you can cram into your memory banks, the better your chances of guessing today’s Wordle answer without accidentally picking a solution that’s already been used. Past Wordle answers can also give you some excellent ideas for fun starting words that keep your daily puzzle solving fresh.
Here are some recent Wordle solutions:
February 10: HEADY
February 9: STAGE
February 8: FLAIL
February 7: APPLE
February 6: NINTH
February 5: DANCE
February 4: UNLIT
February 3: TASTY
February 2: SHIRK
February 1: SCOLD
Learn more about Wordle
Every day Wordle presents you with six rows of five boxes, and it’s up to you to work out which secret five-letter word is hiding inside them.
You’ll want to start with a strong word (opens in new tab) like ALERT—something containing multiple vowels, common consonants, and no repeat letters. Hit Enter and the boxes will show you which letters you’ve got right or wrong. If a box turns ⬛️, it means that letter isn’t in the secret word at all. 🟨 means the letter is in the word, but not in that position. 🟩 means you’ve got the right letter in the right spot.
You’ll want your second go to compliment the first, using another “good” word to cover any common letters you missed last time while also trying to avoid any letter you now know for a fact isn’t present in today’s answer.
After that it’s just a case of using what you’ve learned to narrow your guesses down to the right word. You have six tries in total and can only use real words (so no filling the boxes with EEEEE to see if there’s an E). Don’t forget letters can repeat too (ex: BOOKS).
If you need any further advice feel free to check out our Wordle tips (opens in new tab), and if you’d like to find out which words have already been used you can scroll to the relevant section above.
Originally, Wordle was dreamed up by software engineer Josh Wardle (opens in new tab), as a surprise for his partner who loves word games. From there it spread to his family, and finally got released to the public. The word puzzle game has since inspired tons of games like Wordle (opens in new tab), refocusing the daily gimmick around music or math or geography. It wasn’t long before Wordle became so popular it was sold to the New York Times for seven figures (opens in new tab). Surely it’s only a matter of time before we all solely communicate in tricolor boxes.
https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/1676105328_Wordle-hint-and-answer-602-Saturday-February-11.jpg6751200Carlos Pachecohttps://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngCarlos Pacheco2023-02-11 08:05:442023-02-12 22:20:55Wordle hint and answer #602: Saturday, February 11
The great thing about Steam Next Fest (opens in new tab) is there are literally hundreds of free demos to play. The downside comes when you find one that you want to keep on playing long after the bite-sized demo is done.
That’s where I’m at with Fabledom (opens in new tab), a charming and laid-back city builder with storybook looks and loads of charm. In a medieval-inspired fantasy world, become the founder of a tiny little town, then put your cute little peasants to work chopping down trees, mining stone, farming vegetables, and building homes. Your goal as ruler isn’t just to grow and oversee a bustling little village but contact other kingdoms out in the world, establish diplomacy and trade with them, and eventually find yourself a prince or princess to share your castle with.
One thing that immediately grabbed me in the demo is the way houses are built. As in most city builders, you plop down a square for the house and one of your workers will come along and hammer away until it’s built. But you also designate a dynamic little plot of land around each house, and your citizens will add little structures in their yards. Maybe they’ll build a chicken coop or a dog house, or plant a tree that will bear fruit, or maybe a couple of clotheslines for drying their laundry will appear behind their homes. It’s nice because the random nature of what citizens do with their yards means even in a neat row of houses, each will wind up looking a little different.
As your town grows you’ll earn gold by completing objectives and collecting taxes, and new buildings will unlock. I built a granary to store food, an inn to attract visitors, and a messenger building where I can employ one of my citizens to take greetings to other kingdoms on the overworld map to establish diplomacy and trade.
Naturally there are monsters in fairy tales, so you’ll eventually want to attract a hero to your little town, and as you expand your territory you’ll find ruins for your hero to explore, enemies to contend with (a large rock troll is shown in one screenshot), and an army to lead as you clash with other less-friendly factions. Not all of this is available in the demo, but based on Fabledom’s vibes I suspect that even dealing with giants and witches won’t be particularly stressful.
The demo isn’t all that long, which is a shame because I’m digging it pretty hard. Steam Next Fest lasts until Feb 13 (opens in new tab), so there’s still a few days to check out the Fabledom demo (opens in new tab) if you haven’t yet. And if you do miss it, not to worry: the early access release is planned for the first quarter of this year.
https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/1676076036_Im-loving-this-chill-city-builder-with-storybook-looks-and.jpg6751200Carlos Pachecohttps://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngCarlos Pacheco2023-02-11 00:26:542023-02-12 22:21:21I’m loving this chill city builder with storybook looks and fairytale charm
You’re racing to class in the labyrinthian halls of Hogwarts and look up on the wall to see a framed portrait of an anime girl doing the 🥺 emoji. That’s right, Hogwarts Legacy has VTubers now.
The Moving Frames – Anime VTubers – Hololive mod (opens in new tab) replaces the school’s magical, moving paintings with GIFs and clips of popular Hololive VTubers, streamers who use animated 2D avatars.
According to modder xBloodTigerx, history’s legendary witches and wizards pale in comparison to VTubers like Inugami Korone, Usada Pekora, and Amelia Watson. The anime girls known for streaming games and occasionally performing at concerts can entertain you while completing door puzzles (opens in new tab) and exploring (opens in new tab) in the game’s central location.
You’ll need a Nexus Mods account to install the VTuber mod. xBloodTigerx recommends backing up the Atlas folder where the game is installed on your PC. The default location should look like this: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Hogwarts Legacy\Phoenix\Content\Movies\Atlas. Once you’ve done that, download the zip file, then unzip it in the game’s directory to replace the existing Phoenix folder. The default location for that should resemble this: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Hogwarts Legacy.
xBloodTigerx has a video (opens in new tab) that gives you an idea of which VTubers are included in the mod. It looks like it’s an assortment of stars from Hololive’s global roster, many of whom have also started streaming the game on their YouTube channels (opens in new tab). Most of them appear to show up on the walls, but a screenshot on the Nexus Mods page has one in place of the goblin in the Daily Prophet newspaper. If you don’t have time (or a second monitor) to break for a stream, you can remember they exist in-game, I guess.
People are already suggesting VTuber clips to add to the mod. xBloodTigerx says they’re gathering more to include, but they need GIFs and clips at a high fps. As a VTuber fan myself, I would urge xBloodTigerx to include the viral dance from Houshou Marine’s I’m Your Treasure Box (opens in new tab) music video (slight NSFW warning for the content of the song). The animation of the pirate VTuber shaking her hips to the beat exploded on TikTok last year, and the rumor is that Undertale composer and Pope Francis’ favorite musician (opens in new tab), Toby Fox, produced the song under the pseudonym U.Z. INU.
Our Hogwarts Legacy review (opens in new tab), by associate editor Morgan Park, praised Hogwarts Legacy for the whimsical details in Hogwarts castle: “You can’t walk 10 feet without a part of Hogwarts castle coming alive: books reorganize themselves on shelves, suits of armor salute passersby, hedges trim themselves to perfection, ghosts float around telling jokes, textbooks flutter above passing students, and paintings animate or conversate as if the MOMA switched to the .gif standard.” xBloodTigerx is simply suggesting to Morgan that VTubers could fit on that list.
Hogwarts Legacy’s story may take place in the 1800s before anyone could even conceptualize computers, let alone anime girls streaming Minecraft, but what are VTubers if not moving paintings, really? Let’s just say a Seer accurately saw our anime future and call it canon.
https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/1676083368_Hogwarts-Legacy-modders-wasted-no-time-adding-VTubers-to-it.gif167298Carlos Pachecohttps://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngCarlos Pacheco2023-02-10 23:47:092023-02-12 22:21:49Hogwarts Legacy modders wasted no time adding VTubers to it
If you act fast, you can preorder the System Shock remake on PC for $34 (normally $40) through Fanatical. As an added bonus, all preorders include a code for System Shock 2: Enhanced Edition on PC. The 15% preorder discount ends at 12 AM PT / 3 AM ET on February 17.
Along with the two games, you also get a coupon code for 5% off a future purchase at Fanatical.
Both the System Shock remake and System Shock 2: Enhanced Edition are currently in development by Nightdive Studios. The System Shock remake is a ground-up recreation of the original 1994 sci-fi RPG featuring fully-3D graphics, modernized controls, and more. Developer Nightdive Studios have been working diligently on the remake since 2015, and it’s finally set to launch in March. Check out our hands-on impressions of the latest System Shock Remake demo for more info on the game.
Technically, the System Shock remake doesn’t have a definite release date; the Fanatical listing says preorder codes will be delivered “before March 31, 2023,” and the Steam store page lists the release date as “March 2023.” This preorder deal makes it seem they’ll hit their window. So, barring any last-minute delays, it should arrive on PC within the next few weeks.
The System Shock remake will also launch for PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X|S, and Xbox One, but it’s unclear if the console versions will arrive in March as well, or at a later date.
On the other hand, the System Shock 2: Enhanced Edition is an upgraded PC port of the original System Shock 2 from 1999. It retains the original game’s gameplay, level designs, and graphics engine, though with higher fidelity textures and modern display options, plus integrated mod support and VR compatibility. There is currently no release date for System Shock 2: Enhanced Edition, but this preorder deal is a great way to secure your copy so you can play once its available on PC.
Disclaimer: GameSpot and Fanatical are both owned by Fandom.
The products discussed here were independently chosen by our editors.
GameSpot may get a share of the revenue if you buy anything featured on our site.
https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/1676182508_System-Shock-Preorders-Are-Discounted-At-Fanatical-Includes-System-Shock.png7201280Carlos Pachecohttps://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngCarlos Pacheco2023-02-10 23:18:002023-02-10 23:18:00System Shock Preorders Are Discounted At Fanatical, Includes System Shock 2: Enhanced Edition
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