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WarGames is a fascinating take on interactive TV tied to a stereotypical hacker story

WarGames is a fascinating take on interactive TV tied to a stereotypical hacker story

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There’s a scene in WarGames, the latest interactive experience from Her Story creator Sam Barlow, where the main character Kelly is sifting through a series of photos of buff young men. A hacker looking to exact revenge on a journalist, Kelly is hoping to find the right hunk to lure her prey into a trap. As the player, you’re able to cycle through photos and dating profiles, and it really feels like you’re a hacker delving into the private life of another person. In the end, though, the choice is made for you — and I was left to wonder what all that pretend hacking was for.

The idea of merging games and TV shows isn’t exactly new. For years, creators have been trying to fuse together the proven storytelling power of television with the interactivity of games. In most cases the end result has been a sort of choose-your-own-adventure structure, where the likes of 1983’s Dragon’s Lair or Netflix’s Puss in Boots series ask viewers to make choices that influence the outcome. These experiences take a very game-like element — stopping the action to make an explicit decision — and graft it onto the more passive act of watching a show.

WarGames, created by Barlow in collaboration with interactive studio Eko, tries something different. A loosely-connected reboot of the classic 1983 movie of the same name, it’s a story about a group of young hackers venturing into the realm of online activism, using their skills in an attempt to right what they perceive to be wrongs in the world. And for the most part, you experience it like you would a normal TV show. You sit back and watch the action unfold, without any breaks for interaction. Instead, the show presents you with multiple viewpoints, all playing simultaneously, and you decide which one is the focal point. This, in turn, subtly nudges the story in different directions.

WarGames is unique in that it hides its game-like elements beneath an unassuming live-action show. It’s a fascinating take on interactive TV, one that turns your attention into a game mechanic — unfortunately, it’s connected to a story where it never feels like you have much of an impact.

The show is centered on a young woman named Kelly, the daughter of two high-ranking military officers, who spends most of her time hanging out online with a small group of hacker friends. You see their world through their cameras, getting an intimate look at their lives via their computers and phones. At any given point in WarGames there are usually four or five windows on the screen, so you can see each character as they chat with each other.

Early on, Kelly and her friends act like stereotypical young hackers, kids more interested in pulling off pranks than creating real societal change. In an early scene, Kelly and her crew decide to punish a pop star who recently played a private show for a known war criminal — by flying a drone into his house to make an embarrassing video, laughing the whole time. But things get serious later when Kelly’s mother is accused of deserting the US military to fight for Afghan citizens. Kelly enlists her friends on a quest to both prove her mom’s innocence, and discredit the news sources reporting on her desertion.

When you’re watching, there is one main window that sits in the center of the screen, surrounded by an orbit of smaller windows. When Kelly and her friends are discussing their next caper, for instance, you’ll probably have her webcam in the middle, surrounded by live feeds of her buddies. But the focus can change whenever you want. If you’re more interested in another character, you can move your attention to one Kelly’s hacker friends. When something new happens — say, someone calls Kelly via FaceTime — a new window is added to the group, and you can choose to move your focus to that if you want.

Nothing obvious happens when you do move shift your attention, other than the windows rearranging; the feeds through each window will still play no matter what order they’re in. But the game says that it “adapts to you,” using your attention as a way to guide the story. The main effect, according to the show’s creators, is that your choices can alter Kelly’s personality.

“I wanted it to feel like you were just one other person hanging out online with these kids.” – creator Sam Barlow on the new WarGames

It’s all very subtle, and it feels natural. Clicking around WarGames feels a lot like clicking around on my desktop. In both cases I’m paying attention to multiple things simultaneously, and constantly shifting my focus between them. This is especially true during some of the show’s investigative sequences, where you have to do things like watch a series of private videos in an attempt to find someone’s password, or dig through a dating site to find incriminating details. Unlike most games, WarGames offers little in the way of feedback; you never really know how your attention is impacting the story. At the end of each episode, you’ll see a handful of points where the narrative could have diverted, but it doesn’t reveal any of the alternate routes.

For the most part, I really enjoyed this more intuitive take on interactive storytelling, especially because the other route — the explicit choices popularized by games like Telltale’s The Walking Dead — is so prevalent. The drawback, though, is that it never felt like my actions had much influence on the story; because of the lack of direct feedback, I was never sure if I was doing anything useful. Even still, WarGames feels like something new — but that only extends to the structure of the show, not the story itself. In that regard, the show feels like a mishmash of stereotypes held together by a not especially compelling cast of characters.

Kelly herself is somewhat believable as a hacker — even if sometimes she devolves into chugging Mountain Dew in a hoodie — but her friends are larger-than-life caricatures. There’s the green-haired Romanian “Torch,” who always wears oversized headphones and lives in a dark room filled with monitors, as well as the goofy high school kid “Zane” who makes perverted comments pretty much non-stop. At one point he complains to Kelly, “You have no respect for the lols.” Compared to Her Story, which was anchored entirely by the gripping performance of Viva Seifert, WarGames feels like a letdown.

Watching through the first three episodes (there are six in total), I found it hard to care much about anything that was happening. The show touches on plenty of relevant topics, in particular the ethics of invading the privacy of an individual in order to potentially help society at large. But it never dives into them deeply enough to make it truly gripping, and the goofy dialogue and often flat acting made it hard to take things seriously. It didn’t help that the interactive elements didn’t make me feel very involved

I really enjoyed the idea of WarGames, but my interest waned pretty early on, and so did my desire to interact with it. There’s definitely something to this format — I’m just not sure Kelly’s hacker story is the ideal showcase for the future of interactive TV.

В 1995 году вышла родоначальница одной из известнейших серий RTS всех времён – Command & Conquer Tiberian Dawn. Мало кто не слышал о противостоянии GDI и Nod (ГСБ и Братства Нод по-нашенски) за инопланетный ресурс с названием «тиберий». Ну или же о проделках Советов и Альянса, что были представлены нам в ответвлении Red Alert. С момента выхода первой части свет увидели многочисленные продолжения. Была и попытка показать действие от лица простого солдата в FPS Command & Conquer: Renegade, – весьма удачная попытка, стоит сказать. Но серия, как бы ни было печально, уже долгое время не подавала признаков жизни. Однако в этом году фанаты получили приятный подарок от бывших сотрудников Westwood Studios в виде ремастера двух самых первых частей: Tiberian Dawn и Red Alert.

Разработчики остались верны классическому и довольно простому в освоении геймплею, механики которого были заложены Westwood ещё в Dune 2. При сохранении старых игровых механик аудио- и видеосоставляющие были выведены на новый уровень. Ставшие визитной карточкой Вествудов ролики с живыми актёрами, великолепная графика и профессиональная работа художников, прекрасный звук и саундтрек сегодня предстают пред нами в обновлённом виде! Ну разве можно было найти более подходящий повод для выпуска полной локализации? А поддержка звука в высоком качестве позволила сделать русский дубляж максимально качественным и в чём-то даже лучше оригинала.

Локализация началась в прошлом году с попытки сделать закадровую озвучку для оригинальной версии 1995 года. Абсолютно с нуля был переведён текст, работа над которым началась за год до выхода ремастера (я вообще не ожидал, что в нём официально будут доступны на русском субтитры в катсценах).
Позднее реплики были записаны актёрами, однако всё приостановилось на этапе обработки звука. Работа была возобновлена лишь в июне этого года, когда я обратился к ребятам из R.G. MVO , которые помогли с технической частью, а также взяли на себя ВСЮ работу со звуком! Была проведена более серьёзная укладка текста, а на смену закадру пришло полное дублирование. Вдобавок были перезаписаны внутриигровые реплики Е.В.Ы. и всех юнитов. Результатом моего совместного с “Механиками” труда стал релиз озвучки! Ссылка на пост о релизе в группе Механиков.
Также русификатор адаптирован и доступен для оригинальной версии игры. И да, дубляжу к Red Alert тоже быть!

WarGames is a fascinating take on interactive TV tied to a stereotypical hacker story

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There’s a scene in WarGames, the latest interactive experience from Her Story creator Sam Barlow, where the main character Kelly is sifting through a series of photos of buff young men. A hacker looking to exact revenge on a journalist, Kelly is hoping to find the right hunk to lure her prey into a trap. As the player, you’re able to cycle through photos and dating profiles, and it really feels like you’re a hacker delving into the private life of another person. In the end, though, the choice is made for you — and I was left to wonder what all that pretend hacking was for.

The idea of merging games and TV shows isn’t exactly new. For years, creators have been trying to fuse together the proven storytelling power of television with the interactivity of games. In most cases the end result has been a sort of choose-your-own-adventure structure, where the likes of 1983’s Dragon’s Lair or Netflix’s Puss in Boots series ask viewers to make choices that influence the outcome. These experiences take a very game-like element — stopping the action to make an explicit decision — and graft it onto the more passive act of watching a show.

WarGames, created by Barlow in collaboration with interactive studio Eko, tries something different. A loosely-connected reboot of the classic 1983 movie of the same name, it’s a story about a group of young hackers venturing into the realm of online activism, using their skills in an attempt to right what they perceive to be wrongs in the world. And for the most part, you experience it like you would a normal TV show. You sit back and watch the action unfold, without any breaks for interaction. Instead, the show presents you with multiple viewpoints, all playing simultaneously, and you decide which one is the focal point. This, in turn, subtly nudges the story in different directions.

WarGames is unique in that it hides its game-like elements beneath an unassuming live-action show. It’s a fascinating take on interactive TV, one that turns your attention into a game mechanic — unfortunately, it’s connected to a story where it never feels like you have much of an impact.

The show is centered on a young woman named Kelly, the daughter of two high-ranking military officers, who spends most of her time hanging out online with a small group of hacker friends. You see their world through their cameras, getting an intimate look at their lives via their computers and phones. At any given point in WarGames there are usually four or five windows on the screen, so you can see each character as they chat with each other.

Early on, Kelly and her friends act like stereotypical young hackers, kids more interested in pulling off pranks than creating real societal change. In an early scene, Kelly and her crew decide to punish a pop star who recently played a private show for a known war criminal — by flying a drone into his house to make an embarrassing video, laughing the whole time. But things get serious later when Kelly’s mother is accused of deserting the US military to fight for Afghan citizens. Kelly enlists her friends on a quest to both prove her mom’s innocence, and discredit the news sources reporting on her desertion.

When you’re watching, there is one main window that sits in the center of the screen, surrounded by an orbit of smaller windows. When Kelly and her friends are discussing their next caper, for instance, you’ll probably have her webcam in the middle, surrounded by live feeds of her buddies. But the focus can change whenever you want. If you’re more interested in another character, you can move your attention to one Kelly’s hacker friends. When something new happens — say, someone calls Kelly via FaceTime — a new window is added to the group, and you can choose to move your focus to that if you want.

Nothing obvious happens when you do move shift your attention, other than the windows rearranging; the feeds through each window will still play no matter what order they’re in. But the game says that it “adapts to you,” using your attention as a way to guide the story. The main effect, according to the show’s creators, is that your choices can alter Kelly’s personality.

“I wanted it to feel like you were just one other person hanging out online with these kids.” – creator Sam Barlow on the new WarGames

It’s all very subtle, and it feels natural. Clicking around WarGames feels a lot like clicking around on my desktop. In both cases I’m paying attention to multiple things simultaneously, and constantly shifting my focus between them. This is especially true during some of the show’s investigative sequences, where you have to do things like watch a series of private videos in an attempt to find someone’s password, or dig through a dating site to find incriminating details. Unlike most games, WarGames offers little in the way of feedback; you never really know how your attention is impacting the story. At the end of each episode, you’ll see a handful of points where the narrative could have diverted, but it doesn’t reveal any of the alternate routes.

For the most part, I really enjoyed this more intuitive take on interactive storytelling, especially because the other route — the explicit choices popularized by games like Telltale’s The Walking Dead — is so prevalent. The drawback, though, is that it never felt like my actions had much influence on the story; because of the lack of direct feedback, I was never sure if I was doing anything useful. Even still, WarGames feels like something new — but that only extends to the structure of the show, not the story itself. In that regard, the show feels like a mishmash of stereotypes held together by a not especially compelling cast of characters.

Kelly herself is somewhat believable as a hacker — even if sometimes she devolves into chugging Mountain Dew in a hoodie — but her friends are larger-than-life caricatures. There’s the green-haired Romanian “Torch,” who always wears oversized headphones and lives in a dark room filled with monitors, as well as the goofy high school kid “Zane” who makes perverted comments pretty much non-stop. At one point he complains to Kelly, “You have no respect for the lols.” Compared to Her Story, which was anchored entirely by the gripping performance of Viva Seifert, WarGames feels like a letdown.

Watching through the first three episodes (there are six in total), I found it hard to care much about anything that was happening. The show touches on plenty of relevant topics, in particular the ethics of invading the privacy of an individual in order to potentially help society at large. But it never dives into them deeply enough to make it truly gripping, and the goofy dialogue and often flat acting made it hard to take things seriously. It didn’t help that the interactive elements didn’t make me feel very involved

I really enjoyed the idea of WarGames, but my interest waned pretty early on, and so did my desire to interact with it. There’s definitely something to this format — I’m just not sure Kelly’s hacker story is the ideal showcase for the future of interactive TV.

WarGames is a fascinating take on interactive TV tied to a stereotypical hacker story

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There’s a scene in WarGames, the latest interactive experience from Her Story creator Sam Barlow, where the main character Kelly is sifting through a series of photos of buff young men. A hacker looking to exact revenge on a journalist, Kelly is hoping to find the right hunk to lure her prey into a trap. As the player, you’re able to cycle through photos and dating profiles, and it really feels like you’re a hacker delving into the private life of another person. In the end, though, the choice is made for you — and I was left to wonder what all that pretend hacking was for.

The idea of merging games and TV shows isn’t exactly new. For years, creators have been trying to fuse together the proven storytelling power of television with the interactivity of games. In most cases the end result has been a sort of choose-your-own-adventure structure, where the likes of 1983’s Dragon’s Lair or Netflix’s Puss in Boots series ask viewers to make choices that influence the outcome. These experiences take a very game-like element — stopping the action to make an explicit decision — and graft it onto the more passive act of watching a show.

WarGames, created by Barlow in collaboration with interactive studio Eko, tries something different. A loosely-connected reboot of the classic 1983 movie of the same name, it’s a story about a group of young hackers venturing into the realm of online activism, using their skills in an attempt to right what they perceive to be wrongs in the world. And for the most part, you experience it like you would a normal TV show. You sit back and watch the action unfold, without any breaks for interaction. Instead, the show presents you with multiple viewpoints, all playing simultaneously, and you decide which one is the focal point. This, in turn, subtly nudges the story in different directions.

WarGames is unique in that it hides its game-like elements beneath an unassuming live-action show. It’s a fascinating take on interactive TV, one that turns your attention into a game mechanic — unfortunately, it’s connected to a story where it never feels like you have much of an impact.

The show is centered on a young woman named Kelly, the daughter of two high-ranking military officers, who spends most of her time hanging out online with a small group of hacker friends. You see their world through their cameras, getting an intimate look at their lives via their computers and phones. At any given point in WarGames there are usually four or five windows on the screen, so you can see each character as they chat with each other.

Early on, Kelly and her friends act like stereotypical young hackers, kids more interested in pulling off pranks than creating real societal change. In an early scene, Kelly and her crew decide to punish a pop star who recently played a private show for a known war criminal — by flying a drone into his house to make an embarrassing video, laughing the whole time. But things get serious later when Kelly’s mother is accused of deserting the US military to fight for Afghan citizens. Kelly enlists her friends on a quest to both prove her mom’s innocence, and discredit the news sources reporting on her desertion.

When you’re watching, there is one main window that sits in the center of the screen, surrounded by an orbit of smaller windows. When Kelly and her friends are discussing their next caper, for instance, you’ll probably have her webcam in the middle, surrounded by live feeds of her buddies. But the focus can change whenever you want. If you’re more interested in another character, you can move your attention to one Kelly’s hacker friends. When something new happens — say, someone calls Kelly via FaceTime — a new window is added to the group, and you can choose to move your focus to that if you want.

Nothing obvious happens when you do move shift your attention, other than the windows rearranging; the feeds through each window will still play no matter what order they’re in. But the game says that it “adapts to you,” using your attention as a way to guide the story. The main effect, according to the show’s creators, is that your choices can alter Kelly’s personality.

“I wanted it to feel like you were just one other person hanging out online with these kids.” – creator Sam Barlow on the new WarGames

It’s all very subtle, and it feels natural. Clicking around WarGames feels a lot like clicking around on my desktop. In both cases I’m paying attention to multiple things simultaneously, and constantly shifting my focus between them. This is especially true during some of the show’s investigative sequences, where you have to do things like watch a series of private videos in an attempt to find someone’s password, or dig through a dating site to find incriminating details. Unlike most games, WarGames offers little in the way of feedback; you never really know how your attention is impacting the story. At the end of each episode, you’ll see a handful of points where the narrative could have diverted, but it doesn’t reveal any of the alternate routes.

For the most part, I really enjoyed this more intuitive take on interactive storytelling, especially because the other route — the explicit choices popularized by games like Telltale’s The Walking Dead — is so prevalent. The drawback, though, is that it never felt like my actions had much influence on the story; because of the lack of direct feedback, I was never sure if I was doing anything useful. Even still, WarGames feels like something new — but that only extends to the structure of the show, not the story itself. In that regard, the show feels like a mishmash of stereotypes held together by a not especially compelling cast of characters.

Kelly herself is somewhat believable as a hacker — even if sometimes she devolves into chugging Mountain Dew in a hoodie — but her friends are larger-than-life caricatures. There’s the green-haired Romanian “Torch,” who always wears oversized headphones and lives in a dark room filled with monitors, as well as the goofy high school kid “Zane” who makes perverted comments pretty much non-stop. At one point he complains to Kelly, “You have no respect for the lols.” Compared to Her Story, which was anchored entirely by the gripping performance of Viva Seifert, WarGames feels like a letdown.

Watching through the first three episodes (there are six in total), I found it hard to care much about anything that was happening. The show touches on plenty of relevant topics, in particular the ethics of invading the privacy of an individual in order to potentially help society at large. But it never dives into them deeply enough to make it truly gripping, and the goofy dialogue and often flat acting made it hard to take things seriously. It didn’t help that the interactive elements didn’t make me feel very involved

I really enjoyed the idea of WarGames, but my interest waned pretty early on, and so did my desire to interact with it. There’s definitely something to this format — I’m just not sure Kelly’s hacker story is the ideal showcase for the future of interactive TV.

Вышел перевод игры Dune

Бюро переводов Old-Games.ru с радостью сообщает об успешном завершении очередного “долгостроя” – русификации приключенческой (и немного мультижанровой) игры Dune, первого цифрового воплощения культового одноимённого романа Фрэнка Герберта, в котором игроку предстоит бросить вызов безжалостному клану Харконненов.

Работа над этим релизом началась с дискетной версии игры – а завершилась русификацией CD-версии, причём переведена была в том числе внутриигровая графика, за импорт которой хочется сказать отдельное спасибо товарищу @supin’у. Здесь же следует отметить, что коллективом переводчиков был создан, по сути, собственный глоссарий специфических терминов из вселенной “Дюны”, пусть, естественно, и основанный на различных переводах романа на русский язык.

Как известно, кто владеет Пряностью – тот владеет миром. Ну а все те, кто владеет великим и могучим и предпочитает знакомиться с компьютерными играми на родном языке, в качестве приятного бонуса теперь могут завладеть и данным переводом, скачав его с соответствующей странички сайта. Приятного путешествия по миру Арракиса – и поосторожнее с Шаи-Хулуд!

Скачать русскую версию игры можно на странице игры на нашем сайте.

WarGames is a fascinating take on interactive TV tied to a stereotypical hacker story

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There’s a scene in WarGames, the latest interactive experience from Her Story creator Sam Barlow, where the main character Kelly is sifting through a series of photos of buff young men. A hacker looking to exact revenge on a journalist, Kelly is hoping to find the right hunk to lure her prey into a trap. As the player, you’re able to cycle through photos and dating profiles, and it really feels like you’re a hacker delving into the private life of another person. In the end, though, the choice is made for you — and I was left to wonder what all that pretend hacking was for.

The idea of merging games and TV shows isn’t exactly new. For years, creators have been trying to fuse together the proven storytelling power of television with the interactivity of games. In most cases the end result has been a sort of choose-your-own-adventure structure, where the likes of 1983’s Dragon’s Lair or Netflix’s Puss in Boots series ask viewers to make choices that influence the outcome. These experiences take a very game-like element — stopping the action to make an explicit decision — and graft it onto the more passive act of watching a show.

WarGames, created by Barlow in collaboration with interactive studio Eko, tries something different. A loosely-connected reboot of the classic 1983 movie of the same name, it’s a story about a group of young hackers venturing into the realm of online activism, using their skills in an attempt to right what they perceive to be wrongs in the world. And for the most part, you experience it like you would a normal TV show. You sit back and watch the action unfold, without any breaks for interaction. Instead, the show presents you with multiple viewpoints, all playing simultaneously, and you decide which one is the focal point. This, in turn, subtly nudges the story in different directions.

WarGames is unique in that it hides its game-like elements beneath an unassuming live-action show. It’s a fascinating take on interactive TV, one that turns your attention into a game mechanic — unfortunately, it’s connected to a story where it never feels like you have much of an impact.

The show is centered on a young woman named Kelly, the daughter of two high-ranking military officers, who spends most of her time hanging out online with a small group of hacker friends. You see their world through their cameras, getting an intimate look at their lives via their computers and phones. At any given point in WarGames there are usually four or five windows on the screen, so you can see each character as they chat with each other.

Early on, Kelly and her friends act like stereotypical young hackers, kids more interested in pulling off pranks than creating real societal change. In an early scene, Kelly and her crew decide to punish a pop star who recently played a private show for a known war criminal — by flying a drone into his house to make an embarrassing video, laughing the whole time. But things get serious later when Kelly’s mother is accused of deserting the US military to fight for Afghan citizens. Kelly enlists her friends on a quest to both prove her mom’s innocence, and discredit the news sources reporting on her desertion.

When you’re watching, there is one main window that sits in the center of the screen, surrounded by an orbit of smaller windows. When Kelly and her friends are discussing their next caper, for instance, you’ll probably have her webcam in the middle, surrounded by live feeds of her buddies. But the focus can change whenever you want. If you’re more interested in another character, you can move your attention to one Kelly’s hacker friends. When something new happens — say, someone calls Kelly via FaceTime — a new window is added to the group, and you can choose to move your focus to that if you want.

Nothing obvious happens when you do move shift your attention, other than the windows rearranging; the feeds through each window will still play no matter what order they’re in. But the game says that it “adapts to you,” using your attention as a way to guide the story. The main effect, according to the show’s creators, is that your choices can alter Kelly’s personality.

“I wanted it to feel like you were just one other person hanging out online with these kids.” – creator Sam Barlow on the new WarGames

It’s all very subtle, and it feels natural. Clicking around WarGames feels a lot like clicking around on my desktop. In both cases I’m paying attention to multiple things simultaneously, and constantly shifting my focus between them. This is especially true during some of the show’s investigative sequences, where you have to do things like watch a series of private videos in an attempt to find someone’s password, or dig through a dating site to find incriminating details. Unlike most games, WarGames offers little in the way of feedback; you never really know how your attention is impacting the story. At the end of each episode, you’ll see a handful of points where the narrative could have diverted, but it doesn’t reveal any of the alternate routes.

For the most part, I really enjoyed this more intuitive take on interactive storytelling, especially because the other route — the explicit choices popularized by games like Telltale’s The Walking Dead — is so prevalent. The drawback, though, is that it never felt like my actions had much influence on the story; because of the lack of direct feedback, I was never sure if I was doing anything useful. Even still, WarGames feels like something new — but that only extends to the structure of the show, not the story itself. In that regard, the show feels like a mishmash of stereotypes held together by a not especially compelling cast of characters.

Kelly herself is somewhat believable as a hacker — even if sometimes she devolves into chugging Mountain Dew in a hoodie — but her friends are larger-than-life caricatures. There’s the green-haired Romanian “Torch,” who always wears oversized headphones and lives in a dark room filled with monitors, as well as the goofy high school kid “Zane” who makes perverted comments pretty much non-stop. At one point he complains to Kelly, “You have no respect for the lols.” Compared to Her Story, which was anchored entirely by the gripping performance of Viva Seifert, WarGames feels like a letdown.

Watching through the first three episodes (there are six in total), I found it hard to care much about anything that was happening. The show touches on plenty of relevant topics, in particular the ethics of invading the privacy of an individual in order to potentially help society at large. But it never dives into them deeply enough to make it truly gripping, and the goofy dialogue and often flat acting made it hard to take things seriously. It didn’t help that the interactive elements didn’t make me feel very involved

I really enjoyed the idea of WarGames, but my interest waned pretty early on, and so did my desire to interact with it. There’s definitely something to this format — I’m just not sure Kelly’s hacker story is the ideal showcase for the future of interactive TV.

В 1995 году вышла родоначальница одной из известнейших серий RTS всех времён – Command & Conquer Tiberian Dawn. Мало кто не слышал о противостоянии GDI и Nod (ГСБ и Братства Нод по-нашенски) за инопланетный ресурс с названием «тиберий». Ну или же о проделках Советов и Альянса, что были представлены нам в ответвлении Red Alert. С момента выхода первой части свет увидели многочисленные продолжения. Была и попытка показать действие от лица простого солдата в FPS Command & Conquer: Renegade, – весьма удачная попытка, стоит сказать. Но серия, как бы ни было печально, уже долгое время не подавала признаков жизни. Однако в этом году фанаты получили приятный подарок от бывших сотрудников Westwood Studios в виде ремастера двух самых первых частей: Tiberian Dawn и Red Alert.

Разработчики остались верны классическому и довольно простому в освоении геймплею, механики которого были заложены Westwood ещё в Dune 2. При сохранении старых игровых механик аудио- и видеосоставляющие были выведены на новый уровень. Ставшие визитной карточкой Вествудов ролики с живыми актёрами, великолепная графика и профессиональная работа художников, прекрасный звук и саундтрек сегодня предстают пред нами в обновлённом виде! Ну разве можно было найти более подходящий повод для выпуска полной локализации? А поддержка звука в высоком качестве позволила сделать русский дубляж максимально качественным и в чём-то даже лучше оригинала.

Локализация началась в прошлом году с попытки сделать закадровую озвучку для оригинальной версии 1995 года. Абсолютно с нуля был переведён текст, работа над которым началась за год до выхода ремастера (я вообще не ожидал, что в нём официально будут доступны на русском субтитры в катсценах).
Позднее реплики были записаны актёрами, однако всё приостановилось на этапе обработки звука. Работа была возобновлена лишь в июне этого года, когда я обратился к ребятам из R.G. MVO , которые помогли с технической частью, а также взяли на себя ВСЮ работу со звуком! Была проведена более серьёзная укладка текста, а на смену закадру пришло полное дублирование. Вдобавок были перезаписаны внутриигровые реплики Е.В.Ы. и всех юнитов. Результатом моего совместного с “Механиками” труда стал релиз озвучки! Ссылка на пост о релизе в группе Механиков.
Также русификатор адаптирован и доступен для оригинальной версии игры. И да, дубляжу к Red Alert тоже быть!

Сразу два квеста от Coktel Vision переведены на русский

На этот раз Бюро переводов Old-Games.ru торжественно представляет вам два перевода приключенческих игр от французской студии Coktel Vision, подарившей нам легендарных «Гоблинов». Речь о Woodruff and the Schnibble of Azimuth, или же The Bizarre Adventures of Woodruff and the Schnibble, как её назвали в США («Невероятные приключения Вудраффа и Шнибла»), и Bargon Attack («Баргон атакует»).

Над Woodruff and the Schnibble of Azimuth работали дизайнеры «Гоблинов» Пьер Гийод и Мюриэль Трами. Игра перенесёт вас в гипертрофированный и причудливый постъядерный мир. В потаённом уголке Земли осталось убежище, где возникла новая раса мудрых и миролюбивых существ – бузуков. Люди их угнетают и эксплуатируют, а конец этому должен положить именно Вудрафф.

Игра была издана компанией Sierra On-Line в 1994-1995 годах, но во всех изданиях под Windows 3.x отсутствовала возможность включить субтитры; они присутствовали в ресурсах, но были заблокированы. И только через много лет благодаря программисту Свену Хессе, известному как DrMcCoy, появилась возможность запускать игру с субтитрами с помощью интерпретатора ScummVM. Этим в Бюро переводов Old-Games.ru и воспользовались.

Вторая игра, Bargon Attack, увидела свет несколькими годами ранее. Англичанин-компьютерщик, застрявший в захваченном инопланетянами Париже, вынужден бороться за свою жизнь – и по пути спасать мир. Зловещие баргонцы выпустили компьютерную игру, на которую подсадили всё население планеты, – а потом игроки начали пропадать. Тут уже иной стиль графики, ведь художником выступил автор комиксов Рашид Шебли. И да, эта игра основана на одноимённом комиксе. Ну и раньше никогда не переводилась.

Тут стоит вспомнить умельцев, благодаря которым этот двойной подарок оказался сегодня перед вашим взором: @kirik-82, @Gunslinger7, @Grongy, @Quester, @Pyhesty, @MAN-biker, @Dimouse, @kreol и @Uka.

Игры и русификаторы доступны по адресам: The Bizarre Adventures of Woodruff and the Schnibble (1995, Windows 3.x) и Bargon Attack (1992, DOS). Обязательно прочитайте сопроводительную документацию, ведь переводы поддерживают не все версии игр и имеют свои особенности.

Как обычно, чтобы переводы работали в ScummVM, нужно скачать свежую сборку программы с официального сайта.

WarGames is a fascinating take on interactive TV tied to a stereotypical hacker story

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There’s a scene in WarGames, the latest interactive experience from Her Story creator Sam Barlow, where the main character Kelly is sifting through a series of photos of buff young men. A hacker looking to exact revenge on a journalist, Kelly is hoping to find the right hunk to lure her prey into a trap. As the player, you’re able to cycle through photos and dating profiles, and it really feels like you’re a hacker delving into the private life of another person. In the end, though, the choice is made for you — and I was left to wonder what all that pretend hacking was for.

The idea of merging games and TV shows isn’t exactly new. For years, creators have been trying to fuse together the proven storytelling power of television with the interactivity of games. In most cases the end result has been a sort of choose-your-own-adventure structure, where the likes of 1983’s Dragon’s Lair or Netflix’s Puss in Boots series ask viewers to make choices that influence the outcome. These experiences take a very game-like element — stopping the action to make an explicit decision — and graft it onto the more passive act of watching a show.

WarGames, created by Barlow in collaboration with interactive studio Eko, tries something different. A loosely-connected reboot of the classic 1983 movie of the same name, it’s a story about a group of young hackers venturing into the realm of online activism, using their skills in an attempt to right what they perceive to be wrongs in the world. And for the most part, you experience it like you would a normal TV show. You sit back and watch the action unfold, without any breaks for interaction. Instead, the show presents you with multiple viewpoints, all playing simultaneously, and you decide which one is the focal point. This, in turn, subtly nudges the story in different directions.

WarGames is unique in that it hides its game-like elements beneath an unassuming live-action show. It’s a fascinating take on interactive TV, one that turns your attention into a game mechanic — unfortunately, it’s connected to a story where it never feels like you have much of an impact.

The show is centered on a young woman named Kelly, the daughter of two high-ranking military officers, who spends most of her time hanging out online with a small group of hacker friends. You see their world through their cameras, getting an intimate look at their lives via their computers and phones. At any given point in WarGames there are usually four or five windows on the screen, so you can see each character as they chat with each other.

Early on, Kelly and her friends act like stereotypical young hackers, kids more interested in pulling off pranks than creating real societal change. In an early scene, Kelly and her crew decide to punish a pop star who recently played a private show for a known war criminal — by flying a drone into his house to make an embarrassing video, laughing the whole time. But things get serious later when Kelly’s mother is accused of deserting the US military to fight for Afghan citizens. Kelly enlists her friends on a quest to both prove her mom’s innocence, and discredit the news sources reporting on her desertion.

When you’re watching, there is one main window that sits in the center of the screen, surrounded by an orbit of smaller windows. When Kelly and her friends are discussing their next caper, for instance, you’ll probably have her webcam in the middle, surrounded by live feeds of her buddies. But the focus can change whenever you want. If you’re more interested in another character, you can move your attention to one Kelly’s hacker friends. When something new happens — say, someone calls Kelly via FaceTime — a new window is added to the group, and you can choose to move your focus to that if you want.

Nothing obvious happens when you do move shift your attention, other than the windows rearranging; the feeds through each window will still play no matter what order they’re in. But the game says that it “adapts to you,” using your attention as a way to guide the story. The main effect, according to the show’s creators, is that your choices can alter Kelly’s personality.

“I wanted it to feel like you were just one other person hanging out online with these kids.” – creator Sam Barlow on the new WarGames

It’s all very subtle, and it feels natural. Clicking around WarGames feels a lot like clicking around on my desktop. In both cases I’m paying attention to multiple things simultaneously, and constantly shifting my focus between them. This is especially true during some of the show’s investigative sequences, where you have to do things like watch a series of private videos in an attempt to find someone’s password, or dig through a dating site to find incriminating details. Unlike most games, WarGames offers little in the way of feedback; you never really know how your attention is impacting the story. At the end of each episode, you’ll see a handful of points where the narrative could have diverted, but it doesn’t reveal any of the alternate routes.

For the most part, I really enjoyed this more intuitive take on interactive storytelling, especially because the other route — the explicit choices popularized by games like Telltale’s The Walking Dead — is so prevalent. The drawback, though, is that it never felt like my actions had much influence on the story; because of the lack of direct feedback, I was never sure if I was doing anything useful. Even still, WarGames feels like something new — but that only extends to the structure of the show, not the story itself. In that regard, the show feels like a mishmash of stereotypes held together by a not especially compelling cast of characters.

Kelly herself is somewhat believable as a hacker — even if sometimes she devolves into chugging Mountain Dew in a hoodie — but her friends are larger-than-life caricatures. There’s the green-haired Romanian “Torch,” who always wears oversized headphones and lives in a dark room filled with monitors, as well as the goofy high school kid “Zane” who makes perverted comments pretty much non-stop. At one point he complains to Kelly, “You have no respect for the lols.” Compared to Her Story, which was anchored entirely by the gripping performance of Viva Seifert, WarGames feels like a letdown.

Watching through the first three episodes (there are six in total), I found it hard to care much about anything that was happening. The show touches on plenty of relevant topics, in particular the ethics of invading the privacy of an individual in order to potentially help society at large. But it never dives into them deeply enough to make it truly gripping, and the goofy dialogue and often flat acting made it hard to take things seriously. It didn’t help that the interactive elements didn’t make me feel very involved

I really enjoyed the idea of WarGames, but my interest waned pretty early on, and so did my desire to interact with it. There’s definitely something to this format — I’m just not sure Kelly’s hacker story is the ideal showcase for the future of interactive TV.

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