Lace Mamba Global announces that it will publish DARKSTAR – The Interactive Movie, a Science Fiction adventure game for PC and Mac, developed by J. Allen Williams at Parallax Studio.
“DARKSTAR is an extraordinary adventure game. It has been in development for over ten years, and has finally found its international publishing home. DARKSTAR is a perfect addition to our 2011 line up of independent adventure game productions”, says Jason Codd, European Managing Director at Lace Mamba Global. “DARKSTAR, with its extensive use of Full Motion Video, its famous cast and its eclectic mix of science fiction and dark comedy is a real gem in the adventure game genre. We’re confident that legions of PC and Mac players will truly enjoy this absolutely unique interactive movie experience. By publishing DARKSTAR, we once again prove that Lace Mamba Global is dedicated to the adventure game genre and are keen to bring the most exciting developments to our customers worldwide”, he adds.
J. Allen Williams, Producer, Director and Writer of DARKSTAR recently said “Lace Mamba Global is a perfect fit for a project like ours. Their commitment to bringing unique and cutting-edge entertainment to gamers everywhere while providing an unparalleled classic gaming experience is second to none. Their team knows how to take a release and put it out there with all the value-added extras that players want — they listen to the fans.”
DARKSTAR is set in the post-apocalyptic future in the year 2499. Captain John O’Neil awakens from cryogenic sleep aboard the lost and damaged starship Westwick. The ships’ computer voice informs O’Neil that he has been asleep for over 312 years, such a long time that his memories are gone — a side effect of being in hibernation centuries too long. A breath-taking journey through space and time begins as the player explores the haunted starship searching for answers and clues as to what the true mission is. Backstory cinema is unlocked as areas are unlocked and made accessible, and the epic story unfolds on this drifting and broken starship somewhere on the other side of the Galaxy as it orbits a strange, alien planet. Players must utilize their wits and ingenuity to discover what has happened to the Earth, the starship, and its crew. They must find out what has happened to O’Neil’s partner Ross Perryman, why Pilot Paige Palmer still slumbers in her cryo-chamber and who savagely murdered Navigator Alan Burk during his long session in suspended animation. O’Neil soon discovers that the Earth has been destroyed and the crew of the Westwick are the sole surviving members of the human race… or are they?
DARKSTAR, both an adventure game and an interactive movie, features more than 13 hours of Full Motion Video sequences to tell its amazing story. More animated footage than any other game in history is packed into this adventure with over two-dozen exhilarating alternate endings. The cast of live actors features Clive Robertson starring as Captain John O’Neil (Sunset Beach/StarHunter), as well as the original cast of the American cult television comedy series Mystery Science Theater 3000, including Trace Beaulieu, Beth “Beez” McKeever, Joel Hodgson, Mary Jo Pehl, Frank Conniff and J. Elvis Weinstein. DARKSTAR is narrated by the late, great Peter Graves (Mission: Impossible/Airplane/A&E’s Biography Series), his final performance.
DARKSTAR combines the best of the adventure game genre with science fiction filmmaking in this ground-breaking production. With elements of dark humor, horror, and classic sci-fi, DARKSTAR introduces you to live-action characters in a pre-rendered, fully animated storytelling tool that allows you to wander, search, discover, and enjoy this refreshing and strange world at your own pace.
Lace Mamba Global will publish DARKSTAR worldwide, starting in the UK in Q2 2011.
Pull out sound clips from RiffTrax MP3s and create your own remixed video! It can be a movie, TV show, video game cut scene, virtually anything will work! You have until the end of January to upload your clip to YouTube and tag it with “rifftraxremix2011”. (You must use this tag for your video to be eligible!)
There is no minimum length requirement, just make it funny!
Our favorite video will win a prize of $100 cash and $100 credit for purchases at RiffTrax.com! For more info, visit RiffTrax Remix Contest!
Mystery Science Theater 3000 (MST3K) fans (or MSTies for short) have been waiting a long time for this game, and I think I speak for all of them when I say it was well worth the wait. When J. Allen Williams first came up with the idea of creating a game, he called in his friends and started the decade-long labor of love that is DARKSTAR. It’s not just a game though, it’s an interactive movie, with your decisions leading to various outcomes, some continuing the story and others bringing you to a dead end (sometimes literally).
As Captain O’Neil, you’ve just awoken from a 312-year sleep that has robbed you of all of your memories, including your identity. You immediately discover a gruesome murder, a sleeping beauty and a missing shipmate. As you begin to explore your surroundings, you discover things about yourself, your crewmates and your mission. You also discover something has gone very, very wrong.
DARKSTAR is similar to the King’s Quest or Myst games in feel and style of play, and features high-quality graphics and textures. There is a mixture of interactive environments, exploration and puzzles, but it’s the video that really sets it apart from traditional adventure games of this style. Hours of video woven throughout turn it from a game into an interactive movie. One of the key parts of the story is a series of short, historical films that have been created for your mission, to be presented at your final destination. These films document the reason for your mission and stress the importance of your success. I can’t give much more information than that without providing spoilers, but I can say that the films are broken up into pieces and you can only access it as you unlock different parts of the game, typically by activating or restoring power to a part of the ship. Each of these, if you pay close attention, will provide hints and clues that will help you with the next step of your exploration.
At first, I found myself spending a lot of time exploring, but not accomplishing much. Then I realized I wasn’t looking hard enough. There are many hidden items, hidden clues and hidden panels. Once you find a few, you start to know where to look and will progress faster. Because there are so many variable outcomes of the game, based on where you explore and in what order, you may miss a large amount of the game without realizing it the first time around. I took a look at the All Revealed Guide (which is in PDF format) and realized that there are several videos I missed out on, especially relating to SIMON, the ship’s smarmy maintenance robot. I was having a bit of a problem with my video being choppy (more on that later) and at one key point, I missed out on an interaction with SIMON that affects his appearances throughout the game. The lesson I learned was that if the game seems to pause, don’t start clicking right away; give it a moment just in case it’s changing from a stationary scene to an animated one.
On that note, I should point out my video-related issues with the game. Here’s my specs:
Windows XP Pro, Service Pack 3
NVidia GeForce 8200 Motherboard with integrated graphics
AMD Athlon 64×2 Dual Core 5000+ (2.6Ghz)
3.25 GB RAM (XPs limit)
When I first installed the game, I couldn’t play it. I would receive an error message during the splash screen that informed me that iShell had crashed. I tried visiting the website for help but, at the time, there wasn’t any information there or patches available to fix the issue. I spent a few days off doing some web searches and the best suggestion I found was to roll back Quicktime. I uninstalled Quicktime (I was running 7.6.8) and reinstalled 6.0, and then installed updates up to version 7.6.5. The game finally ran properly but still had a few hesitations when switching to a video or animated scene. I saved the game frequently and it helped relieve the stress of lost progress in case of game crashing. I did discover that Quicktime tries to automatically update to the newest version, so while you are playing the game, it may interfere with your iTunes account. Hopefully they will be able to patch this soon, as I did have to go through the process of rolling back Quicktime several times because I had other multimedia programs that required the latest version.
Other than the video issue, which I finally figured out, I had no problems with the game and truly enjoyed playing it. It took me a little longer than I thought it would, but part of that is because I took the time to zoom in on what I’d consider Easter Eggs in the game, such as the bookshelves and personal items in the crew’s cabins. While SIMON’s room is blatantly an homage to MST3K, as is SIMON himself, there are lots of other more subtle touches throughout the game, but if you have no previous knowledge of the MST3K universe, you won’t feel like you’re missing out on anything. Well, maybe you will a little bit, but hopefully that will just encourage you to learn more about the DARKSTAR folks and their previous and current projects.
In addition to the 13 hours of video, the soundtrack includes 38 compositions featuring several genres of music. Much of the music is ambient with a dark, brooding and ominous feel, but you’ll also find classical piano scores in a few “scenes”, and the battles and other action sequences are backed by high-power rock. As my cohort here at ÜberSciFiGeek said, “The soundtrack is great! It has a hint of heavy metal sound that gets the adrenaline pumping, without being distracting.”
DARKSTAR: The Interactive Movie for PC and Macintosh
2-disc Sountrack Album with 38 songs by Progressive Sound and MetalWorx
PDF downloads of the All Revealed Guide and DARKSTAR Coffee Table Book
Pre-printed (not hand-signed) Cast Glossy
XL DARKSTAR T-Shirt
The All Revealed Guide definitely came in handy. While I tried playing most of the game without it, I did have to check through it a few times to see what I was doing wrong. It listed events out of the order in which I explored the ship, so I did get a few spoilers that I wasn’t looking for. Since it’s a PDF picture format, you can’t search for keywords, so be careful because you may see something you don’t want to know yet! If you stumble through DARKSTAR the first time around without the guide, check it out for your second round of gameplay to make sure you get to see all the cool death scenes and Easter Eggs you may have missed.
The DARKSTAR Coffee Table Book may be a PDF file, but it looks like one of those “The Art of…” movie books you see for Hollywood blockbusters. It’s a behind-the-scenes look at the creation of DARKSTAR and includes some beautiful images that I can imagine on high-gloss, archive quality paper. I think some of them should be available as prints, they are so impressive. In addition to images of the creation process, you’ll find information about the cast and crew and all the hard work that went into creating DARKSTAR. I think maybe they should make this available on Amazon or some other Print-on-Demand service. It’s really a gorgeous book and, as much as I love my computer, nothing beats holding a real book in your hands.
The Cast Glossy and T-Shirt are a nice bonus. The photos are high-quality photos printed on heavy card stock and the black t-shirt is made of 100% cotton, nice and thick — not the flimsy stuff you often find printed shirts made of. It’s sure to stand up to lots of wear and washing.
The only thing about DARKSTAR that needs improvement, as my cohort pointed out, is that the game is packaged in a large, bulky case with both discs on one side, resting directly on each other, instead of a 2-disc streamline case. While most games include printed material, and the larger case would be perfect for holding that stuff, everything is digital with this game so it takes up more space on your bookshelf than it really needs to and you have to be a bit more careful not to scratch a disc while removing one to get to the other.
Overall, DARKSTAR is a fun and funny game, and a fabulous addition to any adventure gamer or sci-fi geek’s collection. Unlike most games where, once you play it, you put it away, the film-like aspect, hours of footage, and multiple outcomes, death scenes and other scenarios ensure that you’ll most likely play this game several times and, rather than give it away, tell your friends to get their own copy.
New J!NX Design Arcade Winner
The Design Arcade continues to run rampant with awesome designs. This time around, mike reisel honors the legendary battle at Thermopylae. Of course, even the most valiant of warriors can succumb when faced with overwhelming odds. Luckily, the odds were in his favor this round, and he takes home some WINSAUCE for his OMGWTFBBQ.
Vote for Your Favorite Designs EVE Online players from around the world have gathered their creative genius and submitted dozens of designs into the J!NX EVE Online Design Contest. Score the submissions and you can help decide which will turn into the next wave of EVE shirts from J!NX.
Who could forget the first Back to the Future videogame? You remember, it came out in 1989 for the NES. It was the one where Marty walked down a street while dodging swarms of bees and hula-hooping girls who shot darts. The one where he rolled bowling balls at his enemies. You know, the one that had ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH THE MOVIE?!!?
It’s high time someone pulled a McFly and fixed the mistakes of our videogame past.
Enter Back to the Future: The Game, a new adventure prepared to make up for the earlier incarnation’s biffs. Now available for Mac and PC (and at some point in 2011 for PS3 and iPad), the new game picks up six months after the conclusion of the third BTTF movie. Set to unroll in multiple episodes over the coming months, the game finds Marty rescuing Doc Brown in the past… with the help of Doc’s teenage self. And don’t worry, this time the storyline was created in consultation with BTTF’s co-creator Bob Gale. Plus the producers found an amazing Michael J. Fox soundalike to voice Marty and, most awesomely, Christopher Lloyd returns as Doc Brown. Great Scott!
The impressive trailer gives a feel for the game’s looks and only leaves one concern left to address. Like the original game, does this one include a jump button even though there’s nothing you can actually jump? Get the game and find out, slackers!
We managed to sneak in some last minute re-stocks of our most popular shirts, so if you missed the boat over the last few weeks the final sailing is set to depart! We’ll be offering 20% OFF all fares until January 5th, 2011. Enter the promo code LASTMINUTE during the check-out process to knock 20% off the block of your order total. (With a Tiger Uppercut, no doubt.) You can also send gift certificates via email, an excellent “Plan B” if you missed a special geek during the holiday shopping madness!
We’d like to send a special thanks to all of our customers, Facebook fans, and Twitter followers for a great year and look forward to cooking up more great products, contests, and geeked-out adventures in 2011. It’s also awesome to say “2011” for the first time, which means we’re nearly one year away from the end of the world. It’s cool, if we’ve learned anything from Minecraft it’s how to build a shelter.
Have fun, be safe, and frag as many noobs as possible in the allotted timeframe. We’ll be running Win Wednesday and Facebook Friday during the holidays so if you need a break from WoW, COD, or your obsession of choice, stop by and try to win some stuff!
Free 2-Day Shipping
Been putting off your holiday shopping? You can still order and receive it in time for Christmas with FREE 2-Day shipping. Just use code NOT2LATE during checkout when you spend $55 or more.
EVE Design Contest
Think you can design the next wave of EVE Online shirts? You have one week left to submit your entry, so don’t wait!
Free 2-Day Shipping with orders $55+
Use Promotion Code: NOT2LATE
This offer expires Wednesday, December 22, 2010 at 11:59AM PDT, so don’t wait!
*can’t be combined with any other offers, sale prices, or discounts
Now Accepting Submissions for Contest #78: J!NXCEPTION
This contest is about movies. And endings. A bad ending can ruin an otherwise brilliant film. A good ending can save a mediocre film from cinematic obscurity. We’re very passionate about our movies, and often wish we could be in charge of how they end. Your assignment is to use the photos provided (or any other photos of the J!NX Crew) to create an alternate ending to a well-known movie. For example: what would have happened at the end of Inception if Nooch had been around to knock that top over? See? Completely different. So let’s see your alternate endings! Submit Yours!
The limited-edition Star Wars R2-D2 Droid 2 collector’s set is now only $199! Get one for yourself and your favorite scruffy-looking nerf-herder.
Strong is the FORCE in one who commands the R2-D2 Droid 2 collector’s set. You can take on the whole Empire yourself with the powerful device preloaded with extensive content.
Limited Edition Gift Set:
R2-D2 Desk Charger
Ear buds
Interactive wallpapers
Feeds, SFX and scenes
Apps and games
Get yours now for only $199. Delay and the limited-edition Star Wars Droid 2 collectors set could be put into carbon-freeze forever. To find out more, click here.
New EVE Online Tees
Just in time for your holiday shopping, we’ve come together with our friends over at CCP Games to bring you awesome new EVE Online tees! These are perfect for all you space-faring pilots. To celebrate their release, we’re also giving you a chance to design the next wave of EVE tees. Think you have the creative mojo to take on an EVE Design Arcade contest? Oh, did we mention there’s Titanloads of prizes to be had?
20% off orders $50+
Use Promotion Code: EVEARCADE
This offer expires Monday, December 13, 2010 at 11:59PM PDT, so don’t wait!
*can’t be combined with any other offers, sale prices, or discounts
As anyone currently playing World Of Warcraft knows, the expansion World of Warcraft: Cataclysm goes on sale tonight at midnight. To say Cataclysm is so addictive that gamers will dream about it is an insult. That implies they might actually stop playing long enough to sleep.
For anyone who has strayed from WoW or is wondering if now is the right time to jump in, here’s what you need to know:
The Story — A particularly nasty dragon named Deathwing has escaped from the fiery depths to trash Azeroth, leaving a path of unprecedented destruction in his wake. Here’s the cinematic of Deathwing’s getaway. His voice sounds very raspy. Maybe he’d be in a better mood if someone just got him a people-flavored lozenge.
The Build-up — Over the past few weeks, everyone who plays WoW — regardless of whether they’ve bought Cataclysm — has watched their land get ravaged by Deathwing. That’s the new reality. If you ever played WoW in the past, every place you visited is pretty much gone now, never to return. Hope you took screenshots!
The Expansion — Even WoW players who don’t buy Cataclysm have this reshaped world to explore. Those who pop for the expansion can take full advantage of a host of new features. Most excitingly players can now become two new races: Goblins, and the werewolf-like strain of humans known as Worgen.
The Implications — They are far-ranging, but the most basic one is this: in the following weeks, WoW gamers will probably see very, very little sunlight.
Oops! No, those are your post-Thanksgiving pants. We have ours on, too. While the rest of the world was getting trampled by enthusiastic zombie shoppers at 5 am on Friday, we were snug in our beds with our iPads. That’s real ultimate shopping power. When you’re an online shopping ninja, nobody even sees you snatching up the deals.
We hope you had good luck, too, but just in case there’s someone left on your list, here are some suggestions for geektastic gifts.
Buy 2 BuckyBalls, Get 1 Free!
City sidewalks, busy sidewalks, dressed in holiday style, in the air there’s a feeling… of neodymium. That’s right, add 2 sets of original Buckyballs to your cart, enter the code BUCKYBELLS and a third set will appear for free! Offer expires 12/4/2010 at 11:59pm ET.
Magic d20 of Destiny
Magical oversized d20 tells the future… RPG style. Close that compendium and banish your rules lawyer to the abyss. The ThinkGeek Magic d20 of Destiny is here to solve all of your RPG disputes. Give it a little shake, then turn it up and peer into the invisible 20 to receive your message. The infinite wisdom of the Magic d20 of Destiny will be a boon to every dungeon dwelling dragon slayer. Quicker than a ritual and more accurate than the village tarot reader, it’ll surely bring good luck and laughter wherever it goes. Throw one in your Bag of Holding today.
A Category at ThinkGeek Dedicated to Cool Stuff Cheap
Whilst you are browsing our virtual aisles, we are here in our secret underground bunker dropping prices on select choice geek products. Using a highly complicated and proprietary process involving quantum chemistry and molecular bananology, our Chief Science Officer, Timmy R Simian has distilled a portion of a mole of merchandise at amazing discounts, but only for a limited time. There are plenty of delicious gifts to go around but some of these deals won’t last. Be sure to check out the entire list and let the shopping games begin!
The history of video game development is littered with failed gaming systems. There was the Nokia N-Gage, a game system/cell phone that actually required you to remove the phone’s battery to switch game cards. Remember Nintendo’s Virtual Boy? Everyone loves an eyepiece on a stand that produces 3D images… and ocular damage in young children. How about the RDI Halcyon? Price? $2500. Total number of games released? Two.
You can forget the aforementioned. The eggheads at OnLive have engineered what may finally become button-mashing’s next great leap forward. Today marks the debut of their OnLive Game System, a device that lets you stream video games for the Xbox, PC and PS3 while owning almost no hardware.
OnLive’s new MicroConsole is about the size of a deck of cards and it does little processing work on its own. Instead, it connects your TV to the company’s servers, which stream games that you’ve bought or rented. What’s the catch? You need a pretty speedy internet tap to avoid diminished graphics and controller lag. For max performance, OnLive recommends an internet connection speed of 5Mbps, although it should still function at 3 Mbps. The best part? Because the console is portable and the games live in the computing cloud, you can start playing a title on your home PC, pick up a saved game on your laptop and maybe finish on the TV at your hotel. (Although why you’d be playing a game at a hotel and not watching Skinemax is beyond us.)
