Be Excellent To Each Other

Introversion are back, with a multiplayer follow up to the incredible Darwinia. Available on PC/MAC/Linux, from Steam, Retail, or directly from the Dev. Demo here

Here's what they say about the game:


Screens and a bunch of really high quality videos here



It's incredibly fun. Very stylistic, and exactly as unique and different as you'd expect an introversion game to be. I'm so up for playing some multiplayer of this, although with my stand alone build I'm not exactly sure how to organise it...

Darwinia was one of the most interesting RTS I've played since red alert 1.

But I just can't play RTSs for the life of me. At all.

So the idea of multiplayer is really beyond me.

I played the beta for this, but soon gave up as my comptuer wasn't powerful enuogh to calculate stuff for the millions of darwinians

However, one thing I did take away from the game was that, at the time, it was very very fragile to balance issues. Especially the mode of gameplay where you capture spawn points. On one of the maps there are three teams, each witha starting spawn, and 4 extra, free spawns. They were position so that if the starting locations were the points of a triangle, then 3 of the spawns would be on the sides between the players and the additional fourth spawn in the middle.

Anyway. point it, ti was a horrible map as you had a 50/50% chance of going to a capture a spawn the enemy was also going for. And if you and him are going for the same one, then the third player has two uncontested spawn points fore free. Loseeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

The whole game was like that, even in the other play modes. Only the first 40 seconds counted. After that it was just a slog to assert your already gained right to win. Though they've added a lot more "crate" style drops since then. But I don't have high hopes for it

The crate system really does balance it. I was speaking to Chris from Introversion, and he was saying that although the contents of crates is entirely 'random', where they land is not, and there is a slight skew towards helping out whoever is loosing.

I really loved Darwinia, but my computer won't handle this. Any chance of an XBLA release?

No doubt that would chug as badly as the recent Supreme Commander 360.

Is SC really that bad on the 360?

Eurogamer reckons so, and it doesn't surprise me if it's true. Total Annihilation was always about having a stupidly big army (we're talking hundreds of units) and Supreme Commander is the same thing, but on a bigger scale AND in full 3D. It's notorious for bringing uber PCs to their knees.

My (pretty) old PC runs it fantastically. What graphics card do you have (aparently this uses very little CPU/RAM)

BIBBLE BIBBLE, WHERE'S MY FISH!

Sorry, that was aimed at myoptika about Multiwinia.

Yep.



Unfortuantly the review does describe it as the exact opposite of what I want from an RTS (I want a very, very slow game - as I'm rubbish.)

Wow, we must have just missed each other on the IV forum/meta-megaspace.

It's not a RTS in the traditional sense, definitely give the Xbox/Mac demo a try.

I have.

Like it. But know that as soon as it got hard I would hate it.

With Uplink and Defcon, Introversion are my most favoritist software house.

I was terrible at Uplink, I just got too scared even with the simplest of hacks and jittered.

But ahhh, Defcon. See my review for the reasons why I love you. Also, it's the only multiplayer game where I almost always win on 1vs1, yup - I am awesome at Defcon. Time on target! Yay!

That's why I love Uplink, I really sould break it out again sometime.

We should have a Bessie DEFCON game sometime, especially as it's one of the few games I can run on this laptop now...

This is a great idea.

Yes. It is a great idea.

I also dreamt last night that I was in Alaska in Summer, driving through with two unknown friends. Missile vapour trails criss-crossed the sky. There were distant flashes. We skirted the cities and ended up passing through a refugee camp, where at the behest of a mum we rescued this kid. Went up a hill to go to a newsagents and grab supplies of Toffos. We then drove off to a mountain, where it sort of turned into an isometric Fallout type cave-vault - and I had to impress the new feudal ruler by killing a big monster with a cardboard tube.

Post-apocalyptic dreams are awesome.

So yes, Defcon please.

I might be able to do tomorrow.

Survival of the flattest means Keira Knightley wins, surely?

Anyone up for a game of Defcon tonight, then?

I am! What time and who will be hosting? Will the game be called BETEO and the password be EXCELLENT? That seems a good default for online games.

I'm about whenever, tonight. I've got the Steam version, so if you have that my Steam name is SheepehToo.

Fancy a quick game right now?

I need to reboot to Windows and check it's all up to date, still.

Give me a minute, and I shall do so.

Heh. *Cough*

That comment may bite me in the ass.

Updating Steam. DEFCON updating. EVERYTHING updating.

Cool, I've set up a new game - Server: BETEO
Password: excellent (lowercase)

I can't connect. Have you opened the DEFCON ports?

Er, 'Defcon Ports'?

There's a space open for one player. I've set password to excellent. Is there something else I need to click on?

You need ports 5009 to 5011 open on your router so I can connect to it.

Or I can try hosting.

Probably best if you do then.

Plus tips on how I can do this router opening in the future will at some point be welcome.

You tend to log onto your router (which will be either 192.168.0.1 or 192.168.1.1 unless you've set it up in a strange way) with your browser and then you can set up 'rules'... which is to say, to allow certain types of traffic in or out through the firewall on certain ports. You could probably do it with just one rule... a rule allowing inbound traffic on ports 5009-5011. You can probably even name it 'Defcon' so you know what it's specifically allowing.

There'll be guides with pictures both online and in your router's manual.

We're in and playing should anyone want in.

I lost. A lot.

Rematch in 60 minutes, all welcome. As long as you hurt Pete. A lot.

Wowsers! What a match!

Sheepeh was Europe, I was South America. Tensions had been rising for weeks, due to Sheepeh buying up all my coffee companies and refusing to allow me my morning cup-of-joe fix. In retaliation I was renaming all my island colonies to 'Fuck Sheepeh'. Anger reigned. We were growling at each other across the ocean.

Sheepeh steamed straight ahead with his task force of battleships and carriers. They engaged my fleet near my shore. Radars snowed with blips, zig-zagging destroyers were dived on by fighters and bombers, spewing fire. Carriers became outflanked and hit from all sides by exocets. After a day's fighting Sheepeh's fleet was destroyed, and I limped out of the conflict with my destroyers sunk but my all important carriers intact.

Both our sub fleets were still intact, having only lost a sub apiece. I moved mine off Greenland. Sheepeh moved his down to Buenos Aires and off Jamaica. Unfortunately for him I was bloody minded, and scanned the waters tediously with my depth charge yielding carriers. I sunk his Jamaica fleet just as he was launching nukes. The two or three he got off posed no threat, and I had the moral advantage. More disturbingly, his Buenos Aires fleet managed a respectable salvo. I miscalculated reckoning the carriers would sink them, but because they were on the surface launching now I could do nothing but launch fighters. The delay cost me, and the coast of Brazil and Argentina glowed with radioactive fire. Some twenty five million perished that night, and the desire for revenge smouldered in the eyes of NervousPete high command.

I loaded up my carriers with extra land-based bombers, moved my carriers to mid-Atlantic and launched every bomber I had. Just as the missiles were dropping from the bomber's bellies and spurting into rocket-powered life I launched every MIRV I had from my eleven surviving submarines. I lost a couple, and a fair few bombers to his land fighters, but a massed cloud of over sixty warheads was descending upon Europe.

Worst yet, Sheepeh was retaliating with his own bombardment. But in doing so his silos were unable to protect and his cities went up in columns of nuclear fire. London and Manchester were the first to go, then Lisbon and Madrid. A rolling wave of fire lit across the continent from West to East. I did not escape the exchange unscarred however, Mexico suffered grievously with two cities reduced to rubble. My casualties rose to 28 million.

I scraped together every remaining nuke I had and launched again. This time his silos were ready, only a couple having perished in the attack. But still, city after city fell. Kiev, the crown jewel, was still intact, but all around was devestation.



The second strike:

The final score was around 28 million dead on my side to eighty million on Sheepeh's. A radioactively-glowing win for me!

However, I stupidly gave Sheepeh all my top tips afterwards, so he's going to kick my arse next time.

An excellent write-up!

I suspect, however, I will need a bit more practice.

I forgot how much I like this game though, and a full-on Bezzie Session will rock my face off.

I'll be ready for 8:10. Anyone out there want to play? Anyone?

Righto: Online and eating a sarnie, see you when I see you!

Don't miss out you t'others!

I'll set the server up after I've worked out why DEFCON now doesn't want to load.

Damn PCs.

Ouch! Your computer really took that second missile strike personally, didn't it?

It's up. A reboot sorted it.

I'm in.

C'mon, Beteo! Join in!

EDIT: EH?

I'm trying to install game on this laptop at the moment, it's going slowly, so might not make it tonight, but, I'd like to make a Mutual Destruction Date, soon.

Let us know when it's done mate.

Is this still going?
I have defcon. It's one of the new games that survived THE HARD DRIVE DEATH

B'oh!

We've just finished a second game. I'm about to do a write-up of it. It was most amusing.

I tried to join, but I had a capital E. I tried to join a game but noticed taht this time it was (finished) and then the server closed

So close! Sorry mate.