|
The Asian Dynasties
''Age of Empires III: The Asian Dynasties'' is the second expansion pack for the real-time strategy video game ''Age of Empires III'' developed through a collaboration between Ensemble Studios and Big Huge Games, and published by Microsoft Game Studios. The Mac version was ported over, developed and published by Destineer's MacSoft. The game is the second expansion pack following '' The WarChiefs''. The game introduces three new civilizations; China, Japan, and India. It also introduced minor people, campaigns, maps, and game modes. ''Age of Empires III: The Asian Dynasties'' for PC was released in North America on October 23, 2007. The Mac version was released on August 5, 2008. The game was generally received well by critics, mostly praising graphics, and sometimes criticizing predictable aspects of the game. It earned a 79% score on GameRankings and an 81% on Metacritic. A mobile game of the same name was released in 2010 for J2ME. It is a sequel to the 2007 mobile game ' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ensemble Studios
Ensemble Studios was an American video game developer. It was founded by Tony Goodman in 1994 and incorporated the following year. It borrowed the name of Ensemble Corporation, a consulting firm founded by Goodman in 1990. It was acquired by Microsoft in 2001 and operated as an internal studio until 2009, when its development capabilities were officially disbanded. Ensemble developed many real-time strategy games, including the '' Age of Empires'' game series, ''Age of Mythology'', and ''Halo Wars''. In addition to game development, Ensemble Studios also made the Genie Game Engine used in '' Age of Empires'', '' Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings'', and '' Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds''. The studio sold 20 million games and was worth an estimated $500 million. Games Ensemble Studios developed the '' Age of Empires'' game series of real-time strategy titles, comprising '' Age of Empires'', '' Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings'' and ''Age of Empires III''. They also rele ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Expansion Pack
An expansion pack, expansion set, supplement, or simply expansion is an addition to an existing role-playing game, tabletop game, video game or collectible card game. These add-ons usually add new game areas, weapons, objects, characters, or an extended storyline to an already-released game. While board game expansions are typically designed by the original creator, video game developers sometimes contract out development of the expansion pack to a third-party company, it may choose to develop the expansion itself, or it may do both. Board games and tabletop RPGs may have been marketing expansions since the 1970s, and video games have been releasing expansion packs since the 1980s, early examples being the ''Dragon Slayer'' games '' Xanadu Scenario II'' and ''Sorcerian''. Other terms for the concept are module and, in certain games' marketing, adventure. Characteristics The price of an expansion pack is usually much less than that of the original game. As expansion packs consi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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] |
Sakoku
was the Isolationism, isolationist Foreign policy of Japan, foreign policy of the Japanese Tokugawa shogunate under which, for a period of 265 years during the Edo period (from 1603 to 1868), relations and trade between Japan and other countries were severely limited, and nearly all foreign nationals were banned from entering Japan, while common Japanese people were kept from leaving the country. The policy was enacted by the shogunate government (or ) under Tokugawa Iemitsu through a number of edicts and policies from 1633 to 1639, and ended after 1853 when the Perry Expedition commanded by Matthew C. Perry forced the opening of Japan to American (and, by extension, Western) trade through a series of Unequal treaty#Japan, treaties, called the Convention of Kanagawa. It was preceded by a period of largely unrestricted trade and widespread piracy. Japanese mariners and merchants traveled Asia, sometimes forming communities in certain cities, while official embassies and envoy ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Japan
Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north toward the East China Sea, Philippine Sea, and Taiwan in the south. Japan is a part of the Ring of Fire, and spans Japanese archipelago, an archipelago of List of islands of Japan, 6852 islands covering ; the five main islands are Hokkaido, Honshu (the "mainland"), Shikoku, Kyushu, and Okinawa Island, Okinawa. Tokyo is the Capital of Japan, nation's capital and largest city, followed by Yokohama, Osaka, Nagoya, Sapporo, Fukuoka, Kobe, and Kyoto. Japan is the List of countries and dependencies by population, eleventh most populous country in the world, as well as one of the List of countries and dependencies by population density, most densely populated and Urbanization by country, urbanized. About three-fourths of Geography of Japan, the c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Consulate
A consulate is the office of a consul. A type of diplomatic mission, it is usually subordinate to the state's main representation in the capital of that foreign country (host state), usually an embassy (or, only between two Commonwealth countries, a high commission). The term "consulate" may refer not only to the office of a consul, but also to the building occupied by the consul and the consul's staff. The consulate may share premises with the embassy itself. Consular rank A consul of the highest rank is termed a consul-general and is appointed to a consulate-general. There are typically one or more deputy consuls-general, consuls, vice-consuls, and consular agents working under the consul-general. A country may appoint more than one consul-general to another nation. Authority and activities Consuls of various ranks may have specific legal authority for certain activities, such as notarizing documents. As such, diplomatic personnel with other responsibilities may receive c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pocket Gamer
''Pocket Gamer'' is a video game website that focuses on mobile, portable and handheld games. The site launched in 2005 and is published and owned by UK company Steel Media Ltd. The site covers all major portable and mobile gaming formats, including iPhone, iPod, iPad, MacBook, Pokémon GO Plus, Android, Nintendo Switch and others. It was one of the first to cover the iPhone gaming market. The publication also hands out awards for handheld games to recognize them in several categories. The British newspaper ''The Guardian'' at one time syndicated a list of recommended mobile games from ''Pocket Gamer'', especially the list of recommended games for each month. In the years since launch, Steel Media Ltd has created many brand spin-offs, including the industry-facing ''PocketGamer.biz'' site and a series of conferences called Pocket Gamer Connects. Its publisher Steel Media Ltd. was acquired by Enthusiast Gaming in 2019. History Launched in April 2005 with the subtitle 'play as ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
J2ME
Java Platform, Micro Edition or Java ME is a computing platform for development and deployment of portable code for embedded and mobile devices (micro-controllers, sensors, gateways, mobile phones, personal digital assistants, TV set-top boxes, printers). Java ME was formerly known as Java 2 Platform, Micro Edition or J2ME. As of December 22, 2006, the Java ME source code is licensed under the GNU General Public License, and is released under the project name phoneME. The platform uses the object-oriented Java programming language. It is part of the Java software-platform family. Java ME was designed by Sun Microsystems, acquired by Oracle Corporation in 2010; the platform replaced a similar technology, PersonalJava. Originally developed under the Java Community Process as JSR 68, the different flavors of Java ME have evolved in separate JSRs. Oracle provides a reference implementation of the specification, but has tended not to provide free binary ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Metacritic
Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc Doyle, and Julie Doyle Roberts in 1999. The site provides an excerpt from each review and hyperlinks to its source. A color of green, yellow or red summarizes the critics' recommendations. It is regarded as the foremost online review aggregation site for the video game industry. Metacritic's scoring converts each review into a percentage, either mathematically from the mark given, or what the site decides subjectively from a qualitative review. Before being averaged, the scores are weighted according to a critic's popularity, stature, and volume of reviews. The website won two Webby Awards for excellence as an aggregation website. Criticism of the site has focused on the assessment system, the ass ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
GameRankings
GameRankings was a video gaming review aggregator that was founded in 1999 and owned by CBS Interactive. It indexed over 315,000 articles relating to more than 14,500 video games. GameRankings was discontinued in December 2019, with its staff being merged with the similar aggregator Metacritic. Rankings GameRankings collected and linked to (but did not host) reviews from other websites and magazines and averages specific ones. While hundreds of reviews may get listed, only the ones that GameRankings deemed notable were used for the average. Scores were culled from numerous American and European sources. The site used a percentage grade for all reviews in order to be able to calculate an average. However, because not all sites use the same scoring system (some rate out of 5 or 10, while others use a letter grade), GameRankings changed all other types of scores into percentages using a relatively straightforward conversion process. When a game accumulated six total reviews, it w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mughal Empire
The Mughal Empire was an early-modern empire that controlled much of South Asia between the 16th and 19th centuries. Quote: "Although the first two Timurid emperors and many of their noblemen were recent migrants to the subcontinent, the dynasty and the empire itself became indisputably Indian. The interests and futures of all concerned were in India, not in ancestral homelands in the Middle East or Central Asia. Furthermore, the Mughal empire emerged from the Indian historical experience. It was the end product of a millennium of Muslim conquest, colonization, and state-building in the Indian subcontinent." For some two hundred years, the empire stretched from the outer fringes of the Indus river basin in the west, northern Afghanistan in the northwest, and Kashmir in the north, to the highlands of present-day Assam and Bangladesh in the east, and the uplands of the Deccan Plateau in South India. Quote: "The realm so defined and governed was a vast territory of some , rang ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edo Period
The or is the period between 1603 and 1867 in the history of Japan, when Japan was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and the country's 300 regional '' daimyo''. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengoku period, the Edo period was characterized by economic growth, strict social order, isolationist foreign policies, a stable population, perpetual peace, and popular enjoyment of arts and culture. The period derives its name from Edo (now Tokyo), where on March 24, 1603, the shogunate was officially established by Tokugawa Ieyasu. The period came to an end with the Meiji Restoration and the Boshin War, which restored imperial rule to Japan. Consolidation of the shogunate The Edo period or Tokugawa period is the period between 1603 and 1867 in the history of Japan, when Japan was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and the country's regional '' daimyo''. A revolution took place from the time of the Kamakura shogunate, which existed with the Tennō's court, to the Tok ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
