Spacebase Startopia
''Startopia'' is a video game by Mucky Foot Productions (formed by ex- Bullfrog employees) and published by Eidos in June 2001, in which the player administers various space stations with the task of developing them into popular hubs. The game has a comical overtone, with lighthearted humour and cartoonish aliens. The game was re-released on GOG.com in September 2012 and was added to the Steam catalogue in October 2013. ''Startopia'' was shortlisted for BAFTA PC Game of the Year in 2001. Gameplay The player is tasked with developing a series of space stations according to the wishes of various employers. The game is set after an apocalyptic galactic war, and many of the stations are in a state of considerable disrepair. It is hinted that these space stations are essentially the last few space-based environments available to the denizens of ''Startopia'', as most of them had been destroyed during the galactic war. The player has no direct control over the aliens that wander ab ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Mucky Foot Productions
Mucky Foot Productions Limited was a British video game developer, which existed from 1997 to 2003. History The company was founded in 1997 in Guildford, United Kingdom by three ex- Bullfrog developers: Mike Diskett, Fin McGechie and Guy Simmons. They intended to avoid the expansion and corporate atmosphere that had taken over at Bullfrog. Another ex-Bullfrog stalwart, Gary Carr, joined as the fourth director shortly afterwards. A worldwide publishing deal with the UK publisher Eidos was announced in October 1997. That announcement was also used to announce Mucky Foot's first game ''Urban Chaos''. At this point the game was referred to by its earlier work in progress name of ''Dark City''. Over their lifetime Mucky Foot went on to release two more titles: ''Startopia'' and '' Blade II''. Despite high initial expectations, the company closed its doors in late 2003. This company closure saw six further games cease development while still only part produced like ''Bulletproof ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Toroid
In mathematics, a toroid is a surface of revolution with a hole in the middle. The axis of revolution passes through the hole and so does not intersect the surface. For example, when a rectangle is rotated around an axis parallel to one of its edges, then a hollow rectangle-section ring is produced. If the revolved figure is a circle, then the object is called a torus. The term ''toroid'' is also used to describe a toroidal polyhedron. In this context a toroid need not be circular and may have any number of holes. A ''g''-holed ''toroid'' can be seen as approximating the surface of a torus having a topological genus, ''g'', of 1 or greater. The Euler characteristic χ of a ''g'' holed toroid is 2(1-''g'').Stewart, B.; "Adventures Among the Toroids:A Study of Orientable Polyhedra with Regular Faces", 2nd Edition, Stewart (1980). The torus is an example of a toroid, which is the surface of a doughnut. Doughnuts are an example of a solid torus created by rotating a disk, and s ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Metacritic
Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc Doyle, and Julie Doyle Roberts in 1999. The site provides an excerpt from each review and hyperlinks to its source. A color of green, yellow or red summarizes the critics' recommendations. It is regarded as the foremost online review aggregation site for the video game industry. Metacritic's scoring converts each review into a percentage, either mathematically from the mark given, or what the site decides subjectively from a qualitative review. Before being averaged, the scores are weighted according to a critic's popularity, stature, and volume of reviews. The website won two Webby Awards for excellence as an aggregation website. Criticism of the site has focused on the assessment system, the assignment of scores to reviews that do not ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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GameRankings
GameRankings was a video gaming review aggregator that was founded in 1999 and owned by CBS Interactive. It indexed over 315,000 articles relating to more than 14,500 video games. GameRankings was discontinued in December 2019, with its staff being merged with the similar aggregator Metacritic. Rankings GameRankings collected and linked to (but did not host) reviews from other websites and magazines and averages specific ones. While hundreds of reviews may get listed, only the ones that GameRankings deemed notable were used for the average. Scores were culled from numerous American and European sources. The site used a percentage grade for all reviews in order to be able to calculate an average. However, because not all sites use the same scoring system (some rate out of 5 or 10, while others use a letter grade), GameRankings changed all other types of scores into percentages using a relatively straightforward conversion process. When a game accumulated six total reviews, it w ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Future US
Future US, Inc. (formerly known as Imagine Media and The Future Network USA) is an American media corporation specializing in targeted magazines and websites in the video games, music, and technology markets. Headquartered in New York City, the corporation has offices in: Alexandria, Virginia; Minneapolis, Minnesota; and Washington, D.C. Future US is owned by parent company, Future plc, a specialist media company based in Bath, Somerset, England. History The company was established when Future plc acquired struggling Greensboro ( N.C.) video game magazine publisher GP Publications, publisher of '' Game Players'' magazine, in 1994. The company launched a number of titles including '' PC Gamer'', and relocated from North Carolina to the San Francisco Bay Area, occupying various properties in Burlingame and South San Francisco. When Chris Anderson, the founder of Future plc, sold Future to Pearson plc he retained GP, renamed Imagine Media, Inc. in June 1995, and operated ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Next Generation (magazine)
''Next Generation'' was a video game magazine that was published by Imagine Media (now Future US). It was affiliated to and shared editorial with the UK's '' Edge'' magazine. ''Next Generation'' ran from January 1995 until January 2002. It was published by Jonathan Simpson-Bint and edited by Neil West. Other editors included Chris Charla, Tom Russo, and Blake Fischer. ''Next Generation'' initially covered the 32-bit consoles including 3DO, Atari Jaguar, and the then-still unreleased Sony PlayStation and Sega Saturn. Unlike competitors ''GamePro'' and '' Electronic Gaming Monthly'', the magazine was directed towards a different readership by focusing on the industry itself rather than individual games. Publication history The magazine was first published by GP Publications up until May 1995 when the publisher rebranded as Imagine Media. In September 1999, ''Next Generation'' was redesigned, its cover name shortened to simply ''NextGen''. This would start what was known ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Douglas Adams
Douglas Noel Adams (11 March 1952 – 11 May 2001) was an English author and screenwriter, best known for ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy''. Originally a 1978 BBC radio comedy, ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'' developed into a "trilogy" of five books that sold more than 15 million copies in his lifetime. It was further developed into a television series, several stage plays, comics, a video game, and a 2005 feature film. Adams's contribution to UK radio is commemorated in The Radio Academy's Hall of Fame. Adams also wrote '' Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency'' (1987) and '' The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul'' (1988), and co-wrote '' The Meaning of Liff'' (1983), '' The Deeper Meaning of Liff'' (1990), and '' Last Chance to See'' (1990). He wrote two stories for the television series '' Doctor Who'', co-wrote ''City of Death'' (1979), and served as script editor for its seventeenth season. He co-wrote the sketch " Patient Abuse" for the final episod ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy
''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'' (sometimes referred to as ''HG2G'', ''HHGTTG'', ''H2G2'', or ''tHGttG'') is a comedy science fiction franchise created by Douglas Adams. Originally a 1978 radio comedy broadcast on BBC Radio 4, it was later adapted to other formats, including novels, stage shows, comic books, a 1981 TV series, a 1984 text-based computer game, and 2005 feature film. ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'' has become an international multi-media phenomenon; the novels are the most widely distributed, having been translated into more than 30 languages by 2005. The first novel, '' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'' (1979), has been ranked fourth on the BBC’s The Big Read poll. The sixth novel, '' And Another Thing'', was written by Eoin Colfer with additional unpublished material by Douglas Adams. In 2017, BBC Radio 4 announced a 40th-anniversary celebration with Dirk Maggs, one of the original producers, in charge. The first of six new epi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Red Dwarf
''Red Dwarf'' is a British science fiction comedy franchise created by Rob Grant and Doug Naylor, which primarily consists of a television sitcom that aired on BBC Two between 1988 and 1999, and on Dave (TV channel), Dave since 2009, gaining a cult following. The series follows low-ranking technician Dave Lister, who awakens after being in suspended animation for three million years to find that he is the last living human, and that he is alone on the mining spacecraft ''Red Dwarf''—save for a hologram his deceased bunkmate Arnold Rimmer and "Cat (Red Dwarf), Cat", a life form which evolved from Lister's pregnant cat. As of 2020, the cast includes Chris Barrie as Rimmer, Craig Charles as Lister, Danny John-Jules as Cat (Red Dwarf), Cat, Robert Llewellyn as the sanitation droid Kryten, and Norman Lovett as the ship's computer, Holly (Red Dwarf), Holly. To date, twelve series of the show have aired, (including one miniseries), in addition to a Television film, feature-length s ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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HAL 9000
HAL 9000 is a fictional artificial intelligence character and the main antagonist in Arthur C. Clarke's '' Space Odyssey'' series. First appearing in the 1968 film '' 2001: A Space Odyssey'', HAL ( Heuristically programmed ALgorithmic computer) is a sentient artificial general intelligence computer that controls the systems of the '' Discovery One'' spacecraft and interacts with the ship's astronaut crew. While part of HAL's hardware is shown toward the end of the film, he is mostly depicted as a camera lens containing a red or yellow dot, with such units located throughout the ship. HAL 9000 is voiced by Douglas Rain in the two feature film adaptations of the ''Space Odyssey'' series. HAL speaks in a soft, calm voice and a conversational manner, in contrast to the crewmen, David Bowman and Frank Poole. In the film, HAL became operational on 12 January 1992 at the HAL Laboratories in Urbana, Illinois as production number 3. The activation year was 1991 in earlier scree ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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A Space Odyssey (film)
''2001: A Space Odyssey'' is a 1968 science fiction novel written by Arthur C. Clarke and the 1968 film directed by Stanley Kubrick. It is a part of Clarke's ''Space Odyssey'' series, the first of four novels and two films. Both the novel and the film are partially based on Clarke's 1948 short story " The Sentinel", an entry in a BBC short story competition, and "Encounter in the Dawn", published in 1953 in the magazine ''Amazing Stories''. Resources After deciding on Clarke's 1948 short story "The Sentinel" as the starting point, and with the themes of man's relationship with the universe in mind, Clarke sold Kubrick five more of his stories to use as background materials for the film. These included "Breaking Strain", "Out of the Cradle, Endlessly Orbiting...", "Who's There?", "Into the Comet", and "Before Eden". Additionally, important elements from two more Clarke stories, "Encounter in the Dawn" and (to a somewhat lesser extent) "Rescue Party", made their way into t ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Star Trek
''Star Trek'' is an American science fiction media franchise created by Gene Roddenberry, which began with the eponymous 1960s television series and quickly became a worldwide pop-culture phenomenon. The franchise has expanded into various films, television series, video games, novels, and comic books. With an estimated $10.6 billion in revenue, it is one of the most recognizable and highest-grossing media franchises of all time. The franchise began with '' Star Trek: The Original Series'', which debuted in the US on September 8, 1966 and aired for three seasons on NBC. It was first broadcast on September 6, 1966 on Canada's CTV network. It followed the voyages of the crew of the starship USS ''Enterprise'', a space exploration vessel built by the United Federation of Planets in the 23rd century, on a mission "to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before". In creating ''Star Trek'', Roddenberry ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |