Games - Dystopia

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	Games - Dystopia

Dystopia is a cyberpunk-themed modification of the 2004 first-person shooter Half-Life 2. Its first playable demo was released on September 9, 2005, after a year of planning and nine months of development. Dystopia's popularity is quickly growing within the Half-Life 2 community, the demo having already been downloaded more than 90,000 times.

Overview

Dystopia is a total conversion multiplayer-only mod that takes place in a futuristic world where two factions battle for control - the Punk Mercenaries and the Corporate Security Forces. Dystopia is a first-person shooter, and like many other mods, it is team-based. Though player models are markedly different between teams and each team has a different set of objectives, both teams are identical in terms of attributes and available equipment.

Dystopia's most unique feature is perhaps its cyberspace gameplay. Players who equip themselves with a "Cyberdeck" implant can "jack-in" to the cyber-world (called "decking") and use special virtual terminals to control electronic systems in the regular game world, thus helping their teammates meet objectives. Cyberspace in Dystopia adds an interesting layer of strategy and complexity to the gameplay. For an example of Dystopia's rendition of cyberspace, see the screenshot below.

Another feature of note is Dystopia's "Awards" scoreboard, which is displayed at the end of each round. Humorous awards are presented to players who excelled in certain areas, such as "Minions do my Bidding" for the player with the most spider grenade kills.

Whether or not Dystopia will remain a free mod is still under consideration. As the team member "Fuzzy" puts it:

"If Dystopia's demo is a huge hit (which we obviously hope it will be), with help from Valve we will investigate the possibility of turning Dystopia into a stand alone game ... I can honestly state however; we have no intention of charging for Dystopia unless it's a stand alone product."

With the September 26th Steam update that introduced Day of Defeat: Source and the new HDR code, Dystopia users began to experience problems such as malfunctioning game options, crashes, and for some players, an inability to load the game at all. Three days later, an update for the Dystopia demo was released, resolving issues created by the Steam update.

Gameplay

Implants

Dystopia features a system of "implants" which allow players to tweak their abilities to match their playing style or role within their team. Implants give players special abilities, such as thermal vision or cloaking. There are two categories of implants: HeadSpace implants and BodySpace implants. Each class has a different amount of HeadSpace and BodySpace available for implants; the heavier the class, the less space for implants. The implants are as follows:

HeadSpace:
*CyberDeck - allows user to jack-in to cyberspace via terminals throughout the map.
*TAC Scanner - sweeps area for targets, displaying enemies on the player's HUD
and minimap as well as those of his teammates.
*Thermal Vision - counters the Stealth implant by allowing player to see heat emitted from bodies, but removes the player's ability to distinguish friend from foe via the HUD.
*Sound Wave Triangulator (SWT) - displays the position of enemies' footsteps on the HUD as red triangles, enemy fire as yellow triangles and grey triangles for bullet impacts. In addition, a blue circle provides an all-around diagram of nearby sounds and their intensity. Can be countered by using the Sound Suppressor.
*Cortex Bomb - a self-destructive explosive device that triggers after the player has reached 20 health points or below. It takes time to explode, and if the player is killed or healed to above 20 health points before this time, it deactivates. The explosion deals massive amounts of damage.

BodySpace:
*Stealth - cloaks a player to a degree; when standing still, the player becomes almost completely invisible. Visibility increases with movement.
*Sound Suppressor - Counters SWT by disabling sound for all enemies in range.
*MediPlant - heals nearby teammates for 10 health every second, but drains energy very quickly. Also heals the user, but only for 4 hitpoints per second.
*Leg Boosters - allows "charged" jumps, and turns the shift key into sprint.
*Superconductor Capacitor Storage (SCS) - increases player's energy storage by 25 units.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Dystopia (computer game) ]

Games - Dystopia

Overview

Gameplay

Implants

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