USA Games News Dec. 20, 2008
Introduction: Hello, and welcome to another edition of the USA Games News Letter. We at USA Games Interactive want to wish you a very wonderful and joyous holiday season this year. We at USA Games are pretty excited about the progress of Mysteries of he Ancients, and we will be telling you all about that later in this news letter. First, we have a bit of bad news to break to you. Earlier this month our web host has discontinued service with one of their associates who runs the current USA Games web server. As a result all of our account information needs to be moved to a different web server our web host uses. Ordinarily this process wouldn't take more than a couple of days, but we have encountered some problems. It seams our domain registrar, the company we purchased the USA Games web address from, is having difficulties working with our web host's new web servers. We don't know when the problem will get resolved, but we expect the USA Games web site and lists will be down for quite some time. So stay tuned to the Audyssey mailing list for news of when the USA Games web site will be back up and running. Second, we at USA Games want to give our fans a big thanks and thumbs up. WE recently have been told that one of our games, Star Trek Final Conflict, has reached the top 10 list of accessible games in the U.K. This news is very exciting, and we want to thank all of you who voted for Final Conflict for this 2008 top 10 list. Now, we are certain you want to know what is in store for you with our future titles such as: Mysteries of the Ancients, Raceway, Star Trek, and our other projects. Without delay here we go. Mysteries of the Ancients: As far as development goes this certainly has been a long year for us, but we are happy to say that Mysteries of the Ancients is coming along nicely. We have worked long and hard to produce a rock solid game, and this game is better than ever. I don't even think we could have imagined this game turning out so well when we first started production on the project. For those who have not yet heard of Tomb hunter Mysteries of the Ancients here is the basic premise of the game. In, "Tomb Hunter Mysteries of the Ancients," you must guide famous archeologist Angela Carter to the long lost Orb of Wisdom. As legend has it Athena, Goddess of Wisdom, wanted to preserve the wisdom of the gods in an orb so that when mankind was ready they could possess the wisdom of the gods. Athena took the orb, and placed it in a temple deep underground and set magical creatures to guard it from thieves and any others who were unworthy to possess it. Only the mightiest or cleverest mortal would be able to retrieve the Orb of Wisdom from its resting place. Now, after nearly three millennia news of the orb's existence has reached daring adventurer and explorer Angela Carter. She has set out for Greece in hopes of retrieving the Orb of Wisdom. However, her mission will not be an easy one. She must face several deadly magical creatures such as flying harpies, charging centaurs, and sword wielding skeleton warriors. She must avoid such deadly traps is pits of boiling lava, towering fire, metal spikes, deep chasms, and poison darts. Along the way she will collect gold coins, ancient scrolls, enchanted weapons, and healing potions. She will also discover dropped weapons and ammo left behind by previous adventurers. If Angela makes it to the Hall of Wisdom she must face her greatest challenge. Besides a great story line Mysteries of the Ancients will be completely unlike any side-scroller you have ever played before. One of the best features of Mysteries of the Ancients is that it is now almost fully randomized. Most of the monsters and items are randomly placed in the level making each and every game slightly unique. In addition, we have introduced various boss creatures you must defeat to advance to the next level of the game. This we feel has dramatically increased the games over all replay value. Something else we have been doing is creating a more traditional side-scroller type level. By this we mean that the levels tend to be long, running from left to right, but there is still a fair amount of climbing and jumping involved as well. You will need to climb up and down ropes, stone staircases, and jump from ledge to ledge, etc. As the levels increase so will the difficulty in navigating the level become. Level 1 will begin very basic and by level 10 we expect it to be quite challenging. At this current point in time USA Games is about to release Alpha 3 to our private testers. Alpha 3 seams quite stable, is pretty far along in development, and is one more important step towards a public beta. However, with that in mind there is still quite a bit to do. At this point we have been focused on level 1 and even when we get the game stable enough to play we will have the rest of the levels to complete. We can't honestly expect anything coming out for the public until mid spring or so. As always we can't promise a date and time, but just stay tuned for news. Final Conflict: : Some of you are no doubt wondering about the status of Final Conflict 2.0. Well, seeing how popular STFC has become we have decided to let you in on what is happening with Final Conflict 2.0. WE have every reason to believe Star Trek Final Conflict will be better than the 1.x series you have now. About the most important news we have for you regarding this title is that we have completely revamped the game from the ground up. One of the major changes is that Final Conflict has been renamed Star Trek Deadly Alliance. From this point on we will refer to this title as Star Trek Deadly Alliance, (STDA,) for short. It offers several new changes, several updates, and lots of new features that Final Conflict lacks. The Federations three greatest enemies the Romulan Tal Shir, Cardassian Obsidian Order, and the Klingon House of Duras have formed an alliance and have openly attacked the Federation. Captain Picard of the U.S.S. Enterprise has assembled a task force of top of the line Federation commanders and ships in hopes of stopping the alliance before the galaxy breaks out into all out war. As fleet commander of this special task force it is up to you to lead the Federation to victory or defeat. You will command two starbases, a shipyard, as well as the USS Enterprise, USS Monitor, USS Phoenix, USS Sutherland, and USS Venture. Perhaps the most exciting new feature in Star Trek Deadly Alliance is the shipyards. With a fully equipped shipyard under your command you can rebuild destroyed starships, replenish photon torpedoes, and upgrade various ship systems such as: upgrade your warp drive, phasers, shields, sensors, and add additional photon torpedo bays. As if that was not enough to really get you interested in playing Deadly Alliance we have also completely redesigned the games universe. One of the nicest features of Deadly Alliance is the asteroid fields, neutral zones, nebulas, etc. The asteroid fields, nebulas, etc are excellent places to hide Federation ships where they can not be easily located by enemy vessels. The area known as the Badlands is also a great place to hide if you wish to avoid enemy attacks or to prepare for a strike into Cardassian, Romulan, or Klingon space virtually unnoticed. Another feature many of you have requested is also coming in Deadly Alliance. New In Deadly Alliance you will now be able to save and restore a total of 10 missions. As a result you will no longer have to abandon games currently in progress. Just save it and continue at a later time. One of the features I especially like about STDA is the enemy artificial intelligence has been completely redesigned to coordinate attacks. If the enemy decides to mass a force against your shipyard chances they will send multiple ships to that specific location to reinforce each other. As a result it is possible to have full fleet engagements rather than just single ship encounters. The Borg have also been completely revised in Deadly Alliance. After you defeat the alliance forces a Borg ship will appear in Federation space bent on finishing the Federation of Planets. Unlike previously where you could only face off with a Borg Cube Deadly Alliance features Borg Spheres and Borg Scouts as well. Which one you unlock depends on the skill level that you have selected. As we said earlier Deadly Alliance is going to surpass Final Conflict by far. There are many things we need to do in order to get this game ready for the public, but it is definitely more exciting and more challenging than STFC. If you voted for STFC this year then Deadly Alliance is going to really be a treat. USA Raceway: As much as we would like to be able to give you an update on this title there isn't much to report presently. Most of our efforts have been spent on Mysteries of the Ancients and we have worked on Deadly Alliance from time to time. As a result development has temporarily stalled. Once we get finished with Mysteries of the Ancients development on Raceway will continue. Summary: Again we at USA Games interactive would like to wish you a happy holiday season. Events of this year have really put us off schedule, and we were not able to meet our own release dates. However, 2009 is just around the corner and we expect you will see some really great titles from us soon. The future looks bright and very exciting. So merry Christmas and a happy new year. --- Gamers mailing list __ [email protected] If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to [email protected]. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to [email protected].
