Westwood Associates
Westwood Studios, Inc. was an American video game developer, based in Las Vegas, Nevada. It was founded by Brett Sperry and Louis Castle in 1985 as Brelous Software, but got changed after 2 months into Westwood Associates and was renamed to Westwood Studios when Virgin Games (later Virgin Interactive Entertainment) bought the company in 1992. The company was bought by Electronic Arts alongside Virgin Interactive's North American operations in 1998. In January 2003, it was announced that Westwood, alongside Westwood Pacific (EA Pacific), would be merged into EA Los Angeles. The main studio location closed in March of that year. Westwood is best known for developing video games in the real-time strategy, adventure and role-playing genres. It was listed in ''Guinness World Records'' for selling more than 10 million copies of ''Command & Conquer'' worldwide. History Early history and company name Brett Sperry and Louis Castle met in late 1983 in Las Vegas. Sperry had a background ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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EA Los Angeles
Danger Close Games (formerly DreamWorks Interactive LLC and EA Los Angeles) was an American video game developer based in Los Angeles. The company was founded in March 1995 as joint venture between DreamWorks SKG and Microsoft (later moved to Microsoft Games) under the name DreamWorks Interactive, with studios in Redmond, Washington, and Los Angeles. In February 2000, the Los Angeles studio of DreamWorks Interactive was acquired by Electronic Arts and renamed EA Los Angeles, and to Danger Close Games in 2010. The studio's sole responsibility after 2010 was to develop games in the ''Medal of Honor'' franchise. When the series was put on hold in January 2013, Danger Close was shut down, with some staff moving on to DICE LA (now Ripple Effect Studios), a Los Angeles studio of DICE, another subsidiary of Electronic Arts. History As DreamWorks Interactive (1995–2000) DreamWorks SKG and Microsoft announced on March 22, 1995, that they were establishing a videogame developme ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Role-playing Video Game
A role-playing video game (commonly referred to as simply a role-playing game or RPG, as well as a computer role-playing game or CRPG) is a video game genre where the player controls the actions of a character (or several party members) immersed in some well-defined world, usually involving some form of character development by way of recording statistics. Many role-playing video games have origins in tabletop role-playing games Adams, Rollings 2003, p. 347 and use much of the same terminology, settings and game mechanics. Other major similarities with pen-and-paper games include developed story-telling and narrative elements, player character development, complexity, as well as replay value and immersion. The electronic medium removes the necessity for a gamemaster and increases combat resolution speed. RPGs have evolved from simple text-based console-window games into visually rich 3D experiences. Characteristics Role-playing video games use much of the same terminology, s ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Mars Saga
''Mars Saga'' is a role-playing video game developed by Westwood Associates and published by Electronic Arts for the Commodore 64 in 1988. Following a legal battle against Electronic Arts for rights on the franchise, Westwood turned to Infocom to publish the Apple II and MS-DOS ports. Plot The player takes the role of Tom Jetland, a down-on-his-luck space traveller trapped on Mars Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and the second-smallest planet in the Solar System, only being larger than Mercury. In the English language, Mars is named for the Roman god of war. Mars is a terrestrial planet with a thin at ... after crashing his ship. While searching for jobs to make enough money to get back off the planet, he discovers a conspiracy hiding contact with what seems to be alien life. The player visits the four Martian cities of Primus, Progeny, Parallax, and Proscenium, traverses the Martian surface, and visits abandoned mines. The combat system features a b ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Atari ST
The Atari ST is a line of personal computers from Atari Corporation and the successor to the Atari 8-bit family. The initial model, the Atari 520ST, had limited release in April–June 1985 and was widely available in July. It was the first personal computer with a bitmapped color GUI, using a version of Digital Research's GEM (desktop environment), GEM from February 1985. The Atari 1040ST, released in 1986 with 1 MB of RAM, was the first home computer with a cost-per-kilobyte of less than US$1. "ST" officially stands for "Sixteen/Thirty-two", referring to the Motorola 68000's 16-bit computing, 16-bit external bus and 32-bit computing, 32-bit internals. The system was designed by a small team led by Shiraz Shivji. Alongside the Macintosh, Amiga, Apple IIGS, and Acorn Archimedes, the ST is part of a mid-1980s generation of computers with 16- or 32-bit processors, 256 Kilobyte, KB or more of RAM, and computer mouse, mouse-controlled graphical user interfaces. The ST was ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Amiga
Amiga is a family of personal computers introduced by Commodore in 1985. The original model is one of a number of mid-1980s computers with 16- or 32-bit processors, 256 KB or more of RAM, mouse-based GUIs, and significantly improved graphics and audio compared to previous 8-bit systems. This includes the Atari ST—released earlier the same year—as well as the Macintosh and Acorn Archimedes. Based on the Motorola 68000 microprocessor, the Amiga differs from its contemporaries through the inclusion of custom hardware to accelerate graphics and sound, including sprite (computer graphics), sprites and a blitter, and a pre-emptive multitasking operating system called AmigaOS. The Amiga 1000 was released in July 1985, but production problems kept it from becoming widely available until early 1986. The best-selling model, the Amiga 500, was introduced in 1987 along with the more expandable Amiga 2000. The Amiga 3000 was introduced in 1990, followed by the Amiga 500 Plus, and Am ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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16-bit
16-bit microcomputers are microcomputers that use 16-bit microprocessors. A 16-bit register can store 216 different values. The range of integer values that can be stored in 16 bits depends on the integer representation used. With the two most common representations, the range is 0 through 65,535 (216 − 1) for representation as an (unsigned) binary number, and −32,768 (−1 × 215) through 32,767 (215 − 1) for representation as two's complement. Since 216 is 65,536, a processor with 16-bit memory addresses can directly access 64 KB (65,536 bytes) of byte-addressable memory. If a system uses segmentation with 16-bit segment offsets, more can be accessed. 16-bit architecture The MIT Whirlwind ( 1951) was quite possibly the first-ever 16-bit computer. It was an unusual word size for the era; most systems used six-bit character code and used a word length of some multiple of 6-bits. This changed with the effort to introduce ASCII, which used a 7-bit code and naturally led ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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8-bit
In computer architecture, 8-bit Integer (computer science), integers or other Data (computing), data units are those that are 8 bits wide (1 octet (computing), octet). Also, 8-bit central processing unit (CPU) and arithmetic logic unit (ALU) architectures are those that are based on processor register, registers or Bus (computing), data buses of that size. Memory addresses (and thus address buses) for 8-bit CPUs are generally larger than 8-bit, usually 16-bit. 8-bit microcomputers are microcomputers that use 8-bit microprocessors. The term '8-bit' is also applied to the character sets that could be used on computers with 8-bit bytes, the best known being various forms of extended ASCII, including the ISO/IEC 8859 series of national character sets especially ISO/IEC 8859-1, Latin 1 for English and Western European languages. The IBM System/360 introduced byte-addressable memory with 8-bit bytes, as opposed to bit-addressable or decimal digit-addressable or word-addressable memory ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Strategic Simulations, Inc
Strategic Simulations, Inc. (SSI) was a video game developer and publisher with over 100 titles to its credit from its founding in 1979 to its dissolution in 1994. The company was especially noted for its numerous wargames, its official computer game adaptations of ''Dungeons & Dragons'', and for the groundbreaking ''Panzer General'' series. History The company was founded by Joel Billings, a wargame enthusiast, who in the summer of 1979 saw the possibility of using the new home computers such as the TRS-80 for wargames. While unsuccessfully approaching Avalon Hill and Automated Simulations to publish wargames, he hired programmers John Lyons, who wrote ''Computer Bismarck''—later claimed to have been the first "serious wargame" published for a microcomputer"Titans of the Computer Gaming World"''Computer Gaming World'', March 1988 p.36.—and Ed Williger, who wrote '' Computer Ambush''. Both games were written in BASIC as were many of SSI's early games. Although Billings e ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Epyx
Epyx, Inc. was a video game developer and publisher active in the late 1970s and 1980s. The company was founded as Automated Simulations by Jim Connelley and Jon Freeman, originally using Epyx as a brand name for action-oriented games before renaming the company to match in 1983. Epyx published a long series of games through the 1980s. The company is currently owned by Bridgestone Multimedia Group Global. History Formation In 1977, Susan Lee-Merrow invited Jon Freeman to join a Dungeons & Dragons game hosted by Jim Connelley and Jeff Johnson. Connelley later purchased a Commodore PET computer to help with the bookkeeping involved in being a dungeon master, and came up with the idea of writing a computer game for the machine before the end of the year so he could write it off on his taxes. Freeman had written on gaming for several publications, and joined Connelley in the design of a new space-themed wargame. Starting work around August 1978, Freeman wrote the basic rules, missio ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Westwood, Los Angeles
Westwood is a commercial and residential neighborhood in the northern central portion of the Westside region of Los Angeles, California. It is the home of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Bordering the campus on the south is Westwood Village, a major regional district for shopping, dining, movie theaters, and other entertainment. Wilshire Boulevard through Westwood is a major corridor of condominium towers, on the eastern end and of Class A office towers, on the western end. Westwood also has residential areas of multifamily and single family housing, including exclusive Holmby Hills. The neighborhood was developed starting in 1919, and UCLA opened in 1929, while Westwood Village was built up starting in 1929 through the 1930s. Geography According to the Westwood Neighborhood Council, the Westwood Homeowners Association, and the ''Los Angeles Times'' Mapping L.A. project, Westwood is bounded by:''The Thomas Guide: Los Angeles County,'' 2004, pages 63 ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Computer Gaming World
''Computer Gaming World'' (CGW) was an American computer game magazine published between 1981 and 2006. One of the few magazines of the era to survive the video game crash of 1983, it was sold to Ziff Davis in 1993. It expanded greatly through the 1990s and became one of the largest dedicated video game magazines, reaching around 500 pages by 1997. In the early 2000s its circulation was about 300,000, only slightly behind the market leader ''PC Gamer''. But, like most magazines of the era, the rapid move of its advertising revenue to internet properties led to a decline in revenue. In 2006, Ziff announced it would be refocused as ''Games for Windows'', before moving it to solely online format, and then shutting down completely later the same year. History In 1979, Russell Sipe left the Southern Baptist Convention ministry. A fan of computer games, he realized in spring 1981 that no magazine was dedicated to computer games. Although Sipe had no publishing experience, he formed ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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GameSpy
GameSpy was an American provider of online multiplayer and matchmaking middleware for video games founded in 1996 by Mark Surfas. After the release of a multiplayer server browser for the game, QSpy, Surfas licensed the software under the GameSpy brand to other video game publishers through a newly established company, GameSpy Industries, which also incorporated his Planet Network of video game news and information websites, and GameSpy.com. GameSpy merged with IGN in 2004; by 2014, its services had been used by over 800 video game publishers and developers since its launch. In August 2012, the GameSpy Industries division (which remained responsible for the GameSpy service) was acquired by mobile video game developer Glu Mobile. IGN (then owned by News Corporation) retained ownership of the GameSpy.com website. In February 2013, IGN's new owner, Ziff Davis, shut down IGN's "secondary" sites, including GameSpy's network. This was followed by the announcement in April 2014 that G ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |