The Natural Selection 2 team has just released a pretty big update to their game. The jetpack, Onos, and Prototype Lab have been added into the game, as well as a new map called mineshaft. To celebrate the release of their biggest update yet, they created a new trailer to highlight some of the new additions:
Pre-order NS2 for $34.95 and get access to the beta at http://www.naturalselection2.com/buy
The full change log can be found below:
Star Trek Online is going Free to Play tomorrow. I have been looking forward to playing this game for a while now. There is only so much World of Warcraft I can take in a given year, and other MMOs like The Old Republic are not different enough from WoW to give me the break I am looking for. Star Trek Online looks to be significantly different, and they have been updating it for months to get the game ready for the F2P crowd.
What really has me interested in the game is how it has the standard ground combat and character building of most MMOs, but then also has a really deep space combat system that is pretty tactical. So in addition to your standard character building, you are also customizing a ship and crew – way more variety then most MMOs.
While combat in most MMOs comes down to mashing on buttons (in the correct rotation for whatever your fighting), STO’s ship combat is a bit different and much more tactical. One really simple example is that all of the ships have shield segments. The simple tactic is to target a single point on an enemy ship with energy weapons to drop that section of their shields. At that point you can hit the exposed hull with torpedoes. So positing actually matters in Star Trek Online, you need to keep your ship facing weakened points of the enemy’s shields while trying to keep your weak points out of their line of fire.
Check out some of the videos below to see how space and ground combat work:
Pretty Lights (Derek Vincent Smith) is my current musical addiction. I recently ran into his music on Amazon, bought an album, and then later found out that all of his music is free. I don’t mind paying though. In fact, I suggest throwing some money his way as these albums are pretty awesome. I have downloaded 8 or so albums so far from his website and they are all great. Some really chill music with great beats and interesting sampling. From Wikipedia:
Smith’s music relies heavily on digital sampling and crosses many genres, forming a combination of “glitchy hip-hop beats, buzzing synth lines, and vintage funk and soul samples, sometimes grime.”. Pretty Lights’ sound is generated by synthesizing samples and organic beats using the Novation X-Station, monome and the Akai MPD32. Smith uses these digital controllers to program the music production software Ableton Live 8. Due to the sample-based nature of his music, Smith releases all his music for free with a recommended donation, so as to avoid having to clear samples. When performing live, Smith uses two Macbook Pros running Ableton Live 8 and two Akai MPD32s
If you like it, be sure to visit the website: http://prettylightsmusic.com
Makes some pretty good Electro House:
MartinSolveig – Hello (Charles Deluxe Remix) 320Kbps due popular demand ! by Charles Deluxe
End of Line.
The touchscreen on my Samsung Impression stopped working recently so I have been looking for a new phone. I was all set on getting a HTC Titan next week, when they announced the Titan 2 at CES today. I am certainly glad they announced this now instead of next week. The Titan 2 looks pretty good and will probably be my next phone. I just hope I don’t have to wait too long before its available.
