Review of computer chess online::Which Programs Allow Me to Play Chess against the Computer ...
Review of computer chess online::Which Programs Allow Me to Play Chess against the Computer ...
Time of Defiance puts a new spin on an old videogame genre. It could even be said that this game from UK developer, Nicely Crafted, is in a hybrid genre all its own; it is a massive multiplayer online real time strategy game. This game takes place in a persistent online world where the player begins as a fledgling empire and tries to expand its reach amongst dozens of other players. Time of Defiance's fundamental game play makes it an acquired taste. Whether you are online or not, your empire is fair game to any other player. The game plays out over a designated time ranging from a few days to 28 days. There are always several games running at once so you can join the one that best suits your time commitment and skill level. Special league games award points for finishing in the top ten empires, which are added up and displayed on the Nicely Crafted webpage. Given the length of one game, the pace is slower than all previous real time strategy games. Constructing one Destroyer class warship takes 45 minutes. Sending the Destroyer from one edge of your empire to the other could take a few hours and may even require stopping to refuel. On average, a ship will take between 20 to 45 minutes to get from point to point. The game takes place in the world of Nespanona. The players are members of a people called the Cog. Before the Cog came into power there was a mysterious race that possessed a much higher tech level. Their vehicles, Nespan relics, can be found randomly on the map and captured by players. Another race of people, the Shadoo, also existed. Shadoo buildings and vehicles can eventually be built by players who have bought the ability to access advanced Shadoo technology. Rather than a planet or land map that the player systematically conquers region by region, Nespanona is a post-cataclysmic world that has fragmented into hovering islands. Islands take the place of the standard real time strategy game territory. These islands are held stationary by energy beams connecting them to the former planet's core. Each of these planetary fragments contain varying amounts of resources, such as coal, wood, metal, stone, water, and moss. These resources are used to construct different types of buildings and vehicles. Moss is used as fuel for Nespan and Shadoo vehicles and as currency for purchasing vehicles from the Eighth House, the computer-controlled governing body of Nespanona. For the right amount of moss the player can buy some really powerful hardware from the Eighth House. Among the vehicles are Super Transports that are able to move large quantities of resources, Nespan Probes that are fast and stealthy, Ballistic Missile Launchers that launch long distance attacks on enemy islands, Motherships that act as carriers for squadrons of fighters, and Battle Platforms which are very much like mobile islands. Battle Platforms can construct their own resource mines, vehicle constructors, ballistic missile launchers and other modules. The basic goal of Time of Defiance is conquest. The player starts with control of one map square and a couple of islands within its boundaries. You also begin with a small fleet of ships. From these meager beginnings you will spread out your empire's borders by colonizing new islands and constructing new bases. These island structures consist of headquarters, mines, resource storage silos, weapons platforms, warp gates, and devices used to beam resources island to island. Your fleet will grow as well. Scout ships will seek out resource rich islands to colonize and probe borders of other players' empires. Mining ships can be sent to collect resources from islands not worth fully colonizing. Transports are used to shuttle your valuable goods to production and banking facilities. Equally important are the empire's warships. The smallest vessel is the Pioneer, which is an armed scout with small mining capabilities. The largest warship your vehicle constructor can build is the Destroyer. The Destroyer has immense range but requires a lot of coal for fuel. It is capable of firing a triple salvo of heavy missiles. There are several classes of warships between the Pioneer and Destroyer, each with its own level of weaponry, armor, and range. The construction of new buildings and ships is very streamlined. The player simply clicks on a construction unit and selects what they want to build from the menu. Since this is a persistent world, the designers made it possible to automate all essential actions. Mines automatically unload to resource storage silos. Vessels can be ordered to auto-fuel at certain locations. Transports can be programmed to trade routes, taking on resources at mining points and offloading them at production or storage buildings. This gets rid of some of the pain of micromanaging an empire that could grow to hundreds of islands and over a thousand units by game's end. The fact that your empire continues to operate even when you are logged off makes strategy that much more important. If you hope to even slightly deter an invasion while you are offline, placing defensive weapons and warships on key islands is tantamount. It is also a good idea to make sure transports and mining fleets have a strong military escort. It is encouraged that you create diplomatic alliances with other emperors who can keep an eye on your empire while you are away. A nice touch by the developer is that you can receive emails notifying you of any attack while away from the game. On the face, combat seems straightforward. A player can select a large fleet of warships and send them off to an enemy island and watch as they overwhelm the defenses. If you delve deeper into the complexities of the game you will realize attacking and defending require a lot of planning and anticipation of your enemy, if in fact the interloper has hostile intentions. Is that unknown Scout that popped up on your detectors just looking for new islands to colonize or is it a precursor to a major attack? Part of the fun of this game is predicting your opponents' moves and positioning your war fleets in anticipation. Groups of lightly armed but fast Small Warships usually make up quick reaction fleets that can get to any point in the sector swiftly. They slow or confuse the attacking fleet long enough for the heavy hitters to arrive. If the player has planned accordingly, a number of Transports carrying fuel and Mining ships will be nearby to keep the war fleet operational. The decision to attack another empire is not one to be taken lightly. War fleets require vast amounts of fuel to keep moving and resources to repair and rearm. Many an attacker has initiated battle only to lose momentum as fuel ran short. Their once vast fleet would then be annihilated by defenders that had a secure supply line. It is also possible for the emperor to buy intelligence from the Eighth House. This can be the score of a certain player, the location of a resource rich island, or warp coordinates. The latter can be used to plan sneak attacks on other empires. For the right amount of moss, you can find out where a specific player has a colonized island. Move a group of warships to a warp gate and punch in the coordinates to the enemy's island and your fleet is teleported to that location. Time of Defiance is not without fault. Being an online multiplayer game, there is a small subscription fee of about $6 a month. The graphical quality can be described as retro. Ships and buildings are visually unimpressive. There is hardly any audio save the occasional ship thruster or sound of machinery from a production building. Since the game world is persistent you will find other players that log in during the wee hours of the night, when everybody else is offline, to initiate an attack. The player may wake up to find their empire, which took hours to build up, decimated by a late night invasion. Despite these negatives, Time of Defiance is a unique and charming game that motivates the player to become a better strategist in the world of Nespanona. The mechanics of the game make every decision critical from sending a probe into unknown territory or colonizing an island in the same sector as another player. The game software can be downloaded from the Nicely Crafted website and includes a free trial period. It can also be found in the bargain bin for under $10 at most electronic stores if you would like to have a retail hardcopy. It will be interesting to see what improvements Nicely Crafted will make on this solid and promising game in the future. |
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Review of learning chess::What Is a Draw in Chess
Review of learning chess::What Is a Draw in Chess
Chess is a very odd game. Everyone sees it a little differently, and due to social backgrounds, personality types or school study habits we have formed, we all learn a little differently. Some of us are readers, some of us learn by repetition, and some of us learn best by simply observing. If you have been beating your head in trying to figure out why book after book about chess is confusing and uninteresting to you, maybe the answer is video chess. It could be that you are the type of person who has an extremely mathematical and creative mind, and can picture the chessboard 10 or 15 moves into a combination just by reading the sequences in a book. My best bet is that most of us aren't that person, and have to work out the more complicated chess stuff over a real board or on the computer using a chess program. Do you find that after a few pages of studying chess from a book, you are looking all over the room, fidgeting, or losing your place? That's because for some of us, reading out tiresome chess combinations in the pages of a book is not only boring or rather difficult, but almost impossible. It's just not effective learning for everybody. Have you tried video chess? If not, maybe you should give it a shot. In the media-driven world we live in today, it only makes sense that chess study should move in that direction, as well. You can find these video lectures in a plethora of places, especially on the Internet. They can be ordered from Chessbase.com for Fritz, you can view and download them from chesslecture.com, and some Internet chess sites like ICC and World Chess Live have video lectures linked right from the interface! The video chess lectures I would like to focus on here are the ones offered for the Fritz interface on DVD, but many others are similar. Learning chess, in my opinion, has never been so easy. You simply order a DVD, pop it in and press play. Immediately a strong Master appears on the right-hand side of the screen and begins talking about the theme of the chess DVD you purchased (a certain opening, middle game tactics or endgames, for instance). The pieces move by themselves on the chessboard as the Master talks and explains what is going on, and the ideas behind each move and position. Arrows are drawn by the Master to show threats and ideas, as he goes over variations and lines that are sometimes absolutely awe-inspiring. All you do is watch and learn! One of the best things about video chess lectures is that they are there whenever you want them. Forgot how a certain line in Alekhine's Defense goes? Simply find that chess DVD and watch it again! Did you lose a Sicilian game because of a tricky poisoned-pawn variation, and know for a fact you've seen a chess lecture on it? Simply go back and have a strong Master tell you where you went wrong! Video chess lectures probably aren't for everyone. There are still a large number of people who learn very quickly and thoroughly by going over page after page in chess books, and that is excellent! However, in the day and age where the video game has taken over as a favorite past time, I believe that watching chess games on a screen may be a viable alternative for both children and adults to learn faster and more efficiently. Try a video chess lecture soon, there really is nothing to lose! |
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Review of chess online computer::how to play chess for kids
Review of chess online computer::how to play chess for kids
So most of us have all seen or been invited by friends to try out and install another new Facebook application on Facebook.com. These applications number in the thousands and do everything from super poke people and compare movie tastes to playing chess against others in facebook and tracking views. They range in complexity from basic text applications to full feature and fully interactive applications. But lets admit it, most of these applications are useless, flawed, and completely frivolous. Ok, being frivolous isn't always a bad thing , after all we all need some dumb entertainment to give us a laugh or entertain us without us thinking every now and then. But most of these applications do nothing of real value and some in fact borderline on the stupid. So how does one go about creating a Facebook application that is both fun and useful without it being too serious or too pointless? The way to do so has nothing to do with coding and everything to do with creating what the people want. Will people love your app and use it often or it will become a quickly forgotten trend application? Will it do something to enhance the experience of Facebook and the level of interaction among friends or will it be a hassle to use, ugly on a profile, and be invasive? You need to figure out first what your application will do to enhance interaction and entertainment on Facebook, look around and see if other applications already do it and of course look around to see if there is a possible demand for your application. Asking friends or researching online is a great way to find this information out. Because lets face it, the world doesn't need another Super Poke application, but maybe we could all use a better Event creator or online pet! As you begin to figure out what kind of application would become useful and popular on the site you need to make sure your application is ready and running fully before rushing to post it. Nothing is more frustrating then downloading and using a flawed application and a bad first impression is all it will take to tarnish your reputation as a new developer on Facebook. Consider also if you'd use the application you've created. After all the creator of Facebook made the site in part because he wanted a better way to communicate with his friends and fellow students at Harvard. Meeting demand for a new need or feature is also a great way to get your application into Facebook popularity status quickly. So now you may have your killer app idea, a true enhancement of the Facebook experience. But now you'll need to create it. For that part, all you need to do is head over to http://developers.facebook.com where you'll find suggestions, guides, and of course the all important code to help create your great application. Facebook has really made it easy for anyone to get started making their own application so go there and you'll find everything you'll need to get started. Just remember one other key feature here. You'll be responsible for hosting your application, which means you'll need to find a server to host the program and all of the users who use it. The more popular it gets, then the more bandwidth you'll be responsible for. So before you dive in make sure you can cover the server issue and have enough bandwidth to host your application. After creating it, simply begin promoting it through your Facebook friends and hopefully it will spread like wildfire! |
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