text:
L. A. Banks
No Naked Ads -> Here! $urlZ Minion, p.1
Minion, p.1
Part #1 of Vampire Huntress Legend series by L. A. Banks
First Edition: June 2003
DEDICATION AND SPECIAL ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book is dedicated to those people who believe in things unseen and have walked by faith for so long that it's second nature. All of us know the elders who have that unshakable belief that there's a spiritual plane, and without those individuals holding the line, who knows what shape this world would be in? And yet while predators come in all forms, and have besieged our communities on many levels, there still seems to be a force that keeps a total eclipse of the light at bay. These elders teach, impart quiet wisdom, and ready another generation to take the baton as they pass it.
On the surface it may appear that the battle is a hopeless cause, and that there are no young, strong replacements. . . one could easily buy into "the illusion" that all is lost. Not so, because there are so many young warriors out there whose names we have yet to learn, and so many old guardians still keeping the lantern lit. Some say it's myth, others call it legend - but I have seen these people moving in mysterious ways. Therefore, do not believe in the smallness of things, believe in the light within.
In his inauguration speech, Nelson Mandela said it best: "Our worst fear is not that we are inadequate, our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our dark-
ness, that most frightens us. . . . As we are liberated from our own fear our presence automatically liberates others. " Keep your lights on!
To my spiritual team of women warriors of light, I thank you: Mom, Aunt Julia, Aunt Hettie, Aunt Ruby, Aunt Ruth, Grandmom Pete, Grandmom Thornton - y'all were awesome while on the planet! Count them . . . there were seven, who have now crossed over into the light. . . and who keep me there in my darkest moments. Thank you, Father God.
Special acknowledgments go to: My editor, Monique Patterson - whose creative vision and chutzpah allowed this project to be realized; my agent, Manie Barren of William Morris Agency, Inc. - the crazy man who dreamt up and pitched the concept! To the Evening Star writers of Philadelphia: Hilary, Kamal, Karen, Jenice, and Sheila . . . thanks, guys, for guiding me and reading scary stories that nobody wanted to read. To my sister, Liza Peterson, a spoken-word, hip-hop artist/actress extraordinaire! Thanks, sis, for keeping it real. Last, but not least, thanks to my husband and children for putting up with my dark side, my late nights, and total immersion in the realms of otherworld-liness while I went into the mind-set and half-turned personae of vampiri in order to create a story about keeping the light.
sarah richardsstood in the middle of her bedroom try-ing to console her infant who was wailing at the top of her tiny lungs. Yes, she knew what pain was, and wanted to cry out as much as her baby was carrying on right now. Instead, silent tears slid down the sides of her face as she turned her chin up to the ceiling and shut her eyes. How, Lord, was a preacher's wife supposed to deal with the fact that her husband was having an affair?
For months she'd denied the obvious. But now her husband's lies regarding his whereabouts had been found out. He'd even violated the sanctity of their home by bringing this woman to their bed - their marital bed. Evidence, in the form of the marriage-violator's perfume and blood, still clung to the sheets. She'd only been gone an hour on a church errand her husband had contrived for her to do. One hour, and now this?
Sarah covered her mouth and turned away, hastening from the sight and stench of the filth, taking her baby girl to lay her in her crib. With her hands trembling, she left the screaming infant, whose wails intensified as she turned away from her. Shame burned through her. How could she call the church elders, or talk to Mother Stone about something like this? How did a preacher's wife, the first lady of the church, force her lips to say that her husband, the Reverend Richards, had lost his natural black mind?
Amid the now hiccupping bleats from the nursery, Sarah became very still as she heard movement in the small clapboard house below her. There were two voices. One soft, seductive; the other was that of her husband. He'd brought this whore back to his home again! Once was not enough? Did he think she was so foolish as to run another church errand to an elderly neighbor, at night, again, so he could be doing God knows what? Couldn't he hear his own child screaming her lungs out - and wouldn't he know that his wife was upstairs? Did he have so little respect for her, or was it that this whore's pull was that strong?
Tears of bitter rage and hurt stung Sarah's eyes, the pain of her acknowledgment almost crushing her rib cage as the muscles around her heart constricted. This woman, this transgressor, had a hold on her husband that not even the Lord could seem to break . . . because, Father God knew, she'd prayed on it from the first inkling of doubt. Now, her husband had brought a violator back into his house? Her house. A home designed for a minister, his wife, and children, across the street from hallowed ground? Sarah felt her knees begin to buckle as she envisioned the faces of loyal parishioners who hung on the good Reverend's every word . . . just as she once had. This house was not a home, nor was it a place where she or her child could find peace.
She resisted her first instinct, which was to barrel downstairs to confront her husband and the heifer that had crossed her threshold. But something slithered inside Sarah's soul and gave her pause. The green-eyed monster raised its ugly head. She had to know what this hussy looked like . . . who was this woman that could break up hearth and home using something that all women had? She wanted to spy and know the things her hus-
band said to this home-wrecker. What lies had Armand Richards told?
Silently, like a thief in the night, Sarah Richards crept down the hall, hugging the wall. She knew this house by heart and easily avoided the creaky floorboards. Stretching her body, she clung to the very paint as she peered around the corner of the landing. The baby's cries escalated, her pulse rising along with it. She held her breath as she rounded the corner - and froze.
A tall, handsome, male figure the color of cafe au lait and dressed in an impeccable black suit, ran a palm across her husband's jaw. The caress was sensuality personified. The sight stole the scream from Sarah's lungs, as her husband closed his eyes and dropped his head back in a display of sheer feminine submission. Sarah took the stairs one by one, clutching the handrail to keep from passing out. She couldn't breathe as she watched in abject horror while this man . . . a man . . . not a woman . . . embraced her husband like a lover and lowered his head to Armand's exposed throat.
When she heard her husband groan, something fragile within her snapped.
Everything became a blur. Her feet flew down the stairs; her screams outstripped her infant daughter's. The words became a chant - "God, no! Not that!" She would crucify this beast, the fouler of her household! There was no rational thought as she hurled herself forward trying to grab hold of his broad shoulders. She wanted blood. A pound of flesh! But the agile intruder simply swept her husband up in his arms as though he were sweeping away his bride, and deftly slipped through the door with him.
Sarah gave chase into the front yard, screaming, crying, hollering behind them, but only the night heard her. She spun in a crazed circle, searching the darkness for them. Where had this lover taken her husband? And so quickly? Sarah fell to her knees in the gravel driveway. The stones cut through her nightgown and pierced her knees. Bloodied, she lay outstretched, sobbing a futile prayer. A man? It was a man. Dear Jesus in Heaven, no! A man, gorgeous, with jet-black, penetrating eyes, a regal carriage, flawless skin, thick, black lashes, onyx curls that would shame any woman . . . a man . . . please no . . . a man that stood six foot two, with a solid frame, and strong enough to lift her husband as if Armand was a baby! No!
She heaved and vomited, wiped her mout
h, and clawed the dirt until she could push herself upright. She stared up at the sky and then at the lit window of her daughter's room. Sarah walked slowly back to the house and reached for the telephone. The church matriarch should send her daughter, Marlene, to look after the baby tonight, she heard her inner voice say. Marlene was good with infants. She "was a nice young woman.
Right now, Sarah Richards had an errand to run. One that she'd put off all these months. She needed something more than prayer. Her husband was with a man, and the church elders didn't know nothing about pain like that. The old lady who lived on the edge of the swamps had potions and such to correct these kinds of abominations. And what Sarah would tell her would stay between her and the old witch.
For three days Sarah sat at the living room window as the church elders held the prayer vigil at her home. Young Marlene had brought them with her when Sarah had hysterically called for a baby-sitter at that odd hour of the night, and had told the girl that her husband was gone. What else had she expected? One didn't call at that hour and think the girl wouldn't have to explain things to a mother, who would then call in church rein-
forcements - not when there was a problem at the church head's house.
But desperation had kept Sarah from thinking things through that far. If they thought he'd just run off, fine. That had been enough for the old folks to mount a prayer posse - Minister was nowhere to be found, his wife and child had been abandoned. Evil was at work. That was all Sarah would say on the matter.
She slept in the parlor chair while she struggled with her plan, unable to ever go back to her own bed, unable to even lie down on the couch. She refused to eat, barely took a sip of water, didn't move, just stared. Who knew what other piece of furniture had been violated within her home? Each day that passed the black bag she'd hidden in the pantry issued a more urgent call for her to take matters into her own hands. Yet, to do so would be a death of all she'd been brought up to believe in. It would be flying directly in the face of the Lord. Three days, and three long nights, Sarah pondered the seductive choice.
She quietly thanked the praying people that had descended upon her house, never saying so out loud, just in her mind. Their eyes remained lowered and she appreciated their discretion, and she said a prayer of thanks that young Marlene Stone was taking such good care of her child while her nerves took leave.
Sarah Richards knew that she had checked out of life. Her eyes simply watched the point of nothing beyond the window. But on this third night, she also knew what she had to do. The elders, for all their prayers, didn't know where her husband's car had disappeared to, or where the good Reverend was, for that matter. But the old seer had spoken of a mansion - a plantation. Had given her directions and landmarks to follow. And she would arm herself with her spell and a butcher knife to right this wrong as soon as the sun set. . . just as the witch had advised.
Without a word, Sarah stood and feigned illness, leaving the prayer warriors who had murmured without relent since the night she'd seen too much. Sarah went to the bathroom and splashed water on her face, then snuck into the pantry to collect her bag that had been secretly readied. In her bare feet and robe, she slipped from the house and into the night without a sound. She was gonna fetch back her husband, or die trying.
Sarah stood in the center of a circle of weeping willows with tears streaming down her cheeks and stared at the expansive estate. Elaborate ironwork graced the veranda that rimmed the entire second floor of the mansion. Tall white columns created a formidable entrance to the place she'd dared to go. Spanish moss billowed from the trees and nary a cricket sounded. Her husband's car was in the driveway, just as the old woman had prophesized. Sarah's hand clutched the satchel and her feet never consulted her brain as she moved forward, rounding the mansion to the back door that was surprisingly unlocked.
The mansion was eerily quiet as she slipped into the darkness within. Money, power. . . what riches had been promised her husband by this wealthy perversion of a lover, she wondered? How could a man she'd loved with all her heart and soul do this to her? How could he live such a lie, allow her to bear a child for him? How could he do this to his baby girl?
New tears replenished the salty stream that had dried on Sarah's face. She'd loved Armand Richards since they were children, and had never known any other man in the world but him.
Her footsteps took her through the house, each room making her walk more quickly as she saw sumptuous wealth - but not her husband. She hurried up the winding staircase toward the upper levels of the mansion, listening intently for the sounds of her husband in the throes of passion, but heard nothing. Every well-appointed room was vacant. The seer had been wrong. Armand was not here. But it was clear that her husband had been here at one time. Perhaps he and his man-friend were out on the town, or secluded in another love nest? Sarah's mind took a sinister turn; she squeezed her eyes shut as she saw them naked together. Bile rose within her throat as images of her husband with this seductive man lacerated her spirit. No. This had to be fixed! This was the only way.
The opportunity their absence provided was perfect. She would do what she had to do - go into the wine cellar, the base of the house, and cast the spell. Sarah covered her heart and said a prayer for her child, and asked for forgiveness. She knew her prescription was wrong as she tiptoed down the long hallway, found the stairs, and descended to the first floor. The long walk gave her time to explain with contrition that she had to do something, could not just sit and wait for this to be made right. All she asked was that Father God would understand and spare her baby girl - despite what it said in the Good Book about soothsayers and spell-casters. . . or taking matters into one's own hands. This was a special case, and He had to understand her desperation.
Her bare feet stung with the cuts and abrasions she sustained from walking, crazed, through the woods, over bramble, across driveway gravel for five miles in the dark. The bag of black magic weighed heavily in her hand as she shifted the bulk of it onto her hip, extracted a black candle and a small box of stick matches, lit the candle, then clumsily stowed away the matches, and resumed her slow descent down into the damp cavern of the first level of the mansion.
Slick stone walls reflected the light from the sputtering flame, and the coolness of the room belied the humidity that made her summer robe and gown cling to her skin. Perspiration due to her shattered nerves seeped from her pores, sending a rivulet of adrenaline-filled sweat between her breasts and down her back. Undaunted, she began making the circle in the dirt, using the butcher knife to carve the strange star shape that the old woman had drawn for her on a crumpled piece of paper. Sarah's lips moved with purpose as she opened the Mason jar and splashed blood from the gutted rooster upon each point of the star. And as she set each black candle in place, and closed her eyes, constantly murmuring, the floor beneath her began to move.
Immediately plumes of thick, yellowish smoke rose, choking her in a sulfuric, blackening haze. The rack of wine bottles on the wall began to explode, sending shards of glass to cover her. Splinters from flying wood and glass cut into her skin like shrapnel. A scream choked by spit, terror, and smoke was torn from her throat as she ran and huddled in a corner against the wall.
He could not believe his good fortune. Fallon Nuit contained his amusement as his strategy took root. Providence of this magnitude couldn't have been conjured by the highest sorcerers of old. A fluke. A variable. A tiny rip in the fabric of supernatural law, all caused by a frightened, but foolish, woman. Jealousy had ironically released the green-eyed monster within her - along with another, more dangerous entity that the poor human creature obviously hadn't anticipated . . . nor had the Vampire Council. Pity. A gross oversight. They couldn't keep him incarcerated for a violation of their staunch, outdated High Council rules, as they had planned. There were things that even vampires frowned upon. Then again, there was this variable called luck. <
"You have inadvertently been summoned to my lair," Nuit crooned in a seductive tone toward the demon that arose with him from the billowing cloud of smoke.
"I was called, yes. That gives me the right - "
"No," Nuit replied with a lethal warning between his teeth. "You have no rights, but you do have the misfortune to be a demon trapped in a master vampire's lair. "
Two formidable adversaries stared at each other for a moment. The snakelike creature appeared stunned, then outraged. However, when it offered no rebuttal, Nuit pressed on, his hunger for the fresh taste of blood, stoked by the scent of the frail female human trying to hide herself in the corner of his wine cellar, notwithstanding.
"Cohabitation without cooperation is not an option. " Nuit studied his manicured nails and sighed. "Do remember that I am of the more evolved order of the dark realms, and now freed, I could make existence for you here torturous. But I am a man of reason. "
The demon looked at him, and then glanced at the cowering woman on the floor. "We could come to terms. Fair exchange is no robbery. "
Fallon Nuit threw his head back and laughed. "Indeed!"
Being unconquerable lies within yourself; being conquerable lies within the enemy.
- Sun-tzu, The Art of War
Nighttime, summer
damali richardscould still feel the electricity of the crowd and the adrenaline rush of her spoken-word performance pulsing through her veins as she entered the backstage dressing room. The club was jumping so hard it seemed like even the walls were sweating. The bass thumping from the extensive speaker system was like an insistent heartbeat that she could feel vibrating through the floor and smoke-thickened air until it entered her body through the soles of her feet. Dirty aqua-colored paint peeled at the corners of the cramped space, as though it was trying to escape the throbbing scene.
She glanced around at the ugly, stained brown sofa, and the sparse collection of wooden and metal chairs, immediately opting to stand rather than flop on any of the seating choices. How many performers' body funk had been permanently tattooed on that sorry excuse for a couch, she wondered? Even the one mirror in the room was covered with a white, filmy layer of grime. Yuck. And people thought this was the glamorous life? She, Mar-lene, and a five-man squad crammed into a dump. Pullease.
Sweat, icy yet burning, made her clothes stick to her skin. Her heavily beaded, Nzinga queen warrior headdress had suddenly become an intolerable weight on her damp scalp. Damali roughly removed it, tossing it onto a chair, and she held her shoulder-length locks up off her neck to give her overheated body a much-needed waft of air. The semiprecious stone and lion's teeth adornments, affixed to her locks with silver and copper wire, gently clinked as she moved her hair. She grimaced at the sound that was now too close to her skull. All five feet seven inches of her felt on fire. Being an artist was great, but this was no way to live.
"Lot of activity on radar tonight," Marlene said in a near whisper, as though talking to herself. "Most times we get a visit from one or two vampires. I'm sensing many. "
"Yeah," Damali croaked. Her vocal chords still ached from the intense performance, so she kept her response short. Besides, what else was there to say to her manager, who was like a surrogate mother to their group?
Damali and Marlene shared a glance. They both knew what had to be done. Things were heating up. Before, one vamp might follow them, at most two. But ever since they'd turned the tables and went on the offensive a couple of times, seeking out the action instead of waiting for it to come to them, nothing had been the same. The rare random ambushes were now becoming a regular phenomenon. Valuable junior team members had been lost because if it. Irritation coiled within Damali. She'd told Marlene this shit would go down like that once they started hunting. Shoulda let sleeping dogs lie.
Marlene shot her a look that said don't start. Screw Marlene and her pious yang. Not tonight. Sure, she loved Mar like a mom and all, but wasn't feeling sister-girl right now. Yeah, they only went after vampires that were acting up. But that wasn't the point.
"You didn't hear me, did you?"
Damali cut Marlene a hard glance, then looked away. "No. What did you say?"
Marlene waited until the two women's eyes met again. "I didn't say anything. I thought it, and you didn't hear me in your head. But I'm able to read you loud and clear. That concerns me. "
Total annoyance wrapped itself around Damali and she gave Marlene another glare to make her back off. She felt invaded. "I'm just tired, that's all. The past is the past. It's done now, anyway. Drop it. "
"You need to tell us when you're having sensory blackouts. They're becoming more frequent, aren't they? You could have sent that to me without a word. "
The other members of the team gave Damali a quick look of concern, but were wise enough not to get in the middle of the brewing dispute. More than likely they'd let the bullshit pass, because she and Marlene were always at it. Whatever.
Instead of answering Marlene, Damali forced her attention toward the Native American flutes, cowbells, and chimes that rested against large conga drums in the corner of the room. Her gaze scanned the sharp, titanium-based, silver-plated anchors that held the drumhead skins in place. She refused to answer Marlene's question. She didn't feel like dealing with that crap right now. There was something making the hair stand up on the back of her neck.
Tonight, the drum anchors were going in her belt, even if that music gear was Jose's, a. k. a. Wizard. He was da bomb in concert, but he didn't know how to use the disguised weapons as well as she did out in the streets. Summoning inner strength, Damali blocked Marlene's intrusion into her thoughts. She'd give Marlene a mental blank to consider while taking her time to figure out how to better arm herself.
The crew was so quiet it was eerie. Nobody said a •word, and all were simply packing gear. That was not her team's normal behavior after a gig. The walls of the tiny room felt like they were closing in on her, swallowing her crew whole. Damali studied her weapons options.
Maybe a few silver-plated chimes would be a safe bet, too? Jose could do his thing on crossbow, his favorite weapon anyway. A sister could back somethin' up off her with the dagger-edges off the drum anchors and chimes, if it got crazy out there - same deal with the cymbals. Even though she reminded herself that when a cymbal disc was thrown dead-aim the edge was sharp enough to slice paper without hearing it rip, that fact didn't make her feel better tonight. Why not?
Her gaze instantly went to the Fender- - Jake Rider's electric guitar, and to Shabazz's bass, and then to Marlene's electric violin. Marlene's line of vision followed Damali's for a moment before Marlene began assisting the others with equipment breakdown.
As Marlene moved to work with Shabazz, renewed tension wound its way up Damali's spine. Yeah, they'd better restring the instruments and put in the steel cables across the reinforced metal bridges. Tonight felt like a crossbow-necessary night, and the string instruments were easier to roll with. She might even get Wizard to hook up the light poles through the phony strap loops to lock and load additional crossbows. But Marlene needed to give up the walking stick as her only protection. Sistah better recognize, and deal with her violin like it had been designed - put the steel-based bow across the bridge and be ready to rock.
It felt like they'd need the light cannons out there, too, although at the moment, she couldn't exactly say why. Nah . . . this was no way to live.
She walked over to the drums and ignored the look Marlene cast in her direction. The dense scent of frankincense, sage, and myrrh had trailed into the room behind her from the stage. Damali licked her parched lips, tasting salt on them, and tried to inhale the protective fragrance, but felt herself almost retch.
Usually the aroma calmed her, its elements anointing her stage space - a required opening before a purple haze of dry-ice smoke was released as she'd enter a performance and claim it. The ring of holy water which
had been poured around her in libation to bring forth the ancestors to channel-speak through her, and to encircle her while she spat out the truth of injustice, did not infuse her marrow with unshakable confidence tonight. Heavy bass still throbbed in her skull, now cranking the growing headache to a new decibel level with the ongoing club music that quaked the walls. Being a vampire huntress was no way to live.
"You all right?"
Marlene's question hung in the air as the other crew members paused in their tasks for a moment, considered her, and glanced at each other as though waiting for the green light to continue their equipment breakdown.
Damali just nodded. The crew resumed motion, but kept glancing at her from the corners of their eyes. She wanted to get back to the compound, where they stowed off the hook weapons. The equipment they took on the road was disguised enough to get through new airport security screenings, which meant it wasn't the real heavy artillery. And, yeah, it would be enough to stop a few predators. But if her senses were right, they were in for sho 'nuff action tonight.
The problem was, she couldn't half see. Her normal sight was fine, but inside her head, everything was blurry. Her third-eye was down. Had been that way for a couple of weeks, like static on a television. Intermittent static. Sometimes her mental radar was crystal clear, but at other times, like tonight, it was all snow. She hated this bull.
"We need to hurry up," Damali said out of the blue. Her crew stared at her. One by one they nodded, but nobody said a word. Damn, it was hot in there.
For some reason, the air-conditioned confines didn't cool her off either. Her skin-tight, thigh-slit leather pants felt like they were suffocating her, while the ropes of semiprecious amulets and stones set in thick silver around her wrists, and especially about her neck, began feeling like a humid noose. She began stripping them off, ignoring Marlene's expression of disapproval. The necklaces were practically strangling her. She'd have to chance having her throat exposed, just so she could breathe.
Unable to bear the weight of it, Damali cast off her wide silver belt, and the clatter of it against a nearby coffee table almost made her cringe from the piercing sound of metal connecting with the wood. The ankh earrings of amber and silver and onyx had to come off - they were all too heavy, no matter what Marlene said about the protective talismans that hung as guards to her jugular. Everything felt like it was holding on to her, grasping at her. She couldn't breathe!
"You're sure you're all right?" Marlene had stopped working over an equipment bag to hold her in a steady gaze.
"I'm cool, y'all. For real, for real," Damali finally muttered. There was no need to bring her foul vibe to the group. It wasn't their fault. Why alarm them if this was only a case of raw nerves? She studied the drum anchors one last time and then walked away from them. "Guess I'm just tired from giving it a hundred and fifty percent tonight. "
The others in the room simply stared at her, their silence filling in the gaps with quiet apprehension. Yeah, they all felt it, she could tell. Oh, well, shit happens. They knew that, too. None of them wanted to do this destiny thing, especially her. They were trapped as guardians, just like she was trapped as a vampire huntress. There was only one choice that they'd all learned the hard way - band together or die, or worse.
"Let's just keep moving, people. Anybody seen my Tims?"
Marlene extracted the flat-heeled, amber-colored suede boots Damali had requested from a corner in the room and tossed them to her. Damali caught each shoe and bent to put them on. Slowly, her crew resumed their packing.
The sleek high-heeled boots she'd worn during the performance had become like anvils on her legs. This was not a high-heel, be fly and cute kinda night. This was a possible kick ass after a show deal. Despite the sheerness of the color-splashed, tie-dyed duster and embroidered midriff brassiere she performed in, they too felt like they were cutting off her blood flow, and made her want to scream. Her breasts, which she had always believed to be too small, now felt oddly pendulous, heavy, too constricted by her costume. The fragile silver waist-chain she donned seemed to push bile up from her gullet and into her throat. If she weren't almost twenty-one years old, and in top athletic form, she would have sworn that she was having a mild heart attack.
Damali peered in the mirror, appraising her once-bronze complexion that now seemed pallid - but was eerily relieved to see that at least she still had a reflection. What the hell was wrong with her?
"Somebody throw me a T-shirt. "
Shabazz complied, and flung a shirt with the band's logo on it in her direction.
"Thanks. " Damali gave her crew her back and stripped off the offending sheer top of her stage costume. The guys averted their eyes, as was normal, and as soon as she pulled on the cotton, she sighed. "That's much better. Now I'm good. "
"You put a lot of energy into the show," Marlene said after a long pause while the group resumed breakdown. But she spoke in a calm voice, one almost too calm.
"Got a reputation to maintain, Mar. " Damali made eye contact with Marlene and held her with a brief stare. Read the double meaning in that, sis. Don't front on me - not with my crew standing around. Address it later.
Marlene nodded but said nothing.
Minion by L. A. Banks / Horror / Mystery & Detective have rating 2.1 out of 5 / Based on31 votes
L. A. BANKS SERIES:
Vampire Huntress Legend
The Thirteenth
The Cursed
The Wicked
The Forsaken
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June 1 Which of the following does not fall in the "technology services" category?
June 2 Which of the following is not another term for a desktop computer?
June 3 What key is commonly used to jump between form fields?
June 4 What is the maximum data transfer rate the 802.11a Wi-Fi standard supports?
June 5 What is a 3D model that only includes vertices and lines called?
June 6 Which of the following statements best describes a computer chip?
June 7 Which acronym refers to command designed to run on a remote computer?
June 8 Which of the following connectors is the largest?
June 9 Which of the following is considered DAW software?
June 10 Which of the following causes a page fault?
June 11 Which of the following file types is commonly used in web design?
June 12 What is required to send digital data to a device that only accepts analog input?
June 13 What is a LAMP setup commonly used to create?
June 14 Which standards organization was founded under the name "SGML Open?"
June 15 Where are you most likely to see a favicon?
June 16 Which of the following display connectors is designed for an analog signal?
June 17 Which language was designed as a cross-platform, parallel programming standard?
June 18 What word can be used synonymously with outline, diagram, or model?
June 19 What term describes a value as either odd or even?
June 20 How many megabits per second can a 6 Gbps connection transfer?
June 21 Which online service transmits data over NNTP?
June 22 C++, PHP, and Swift are examples of what?
June 23 What is another name for a wireless router?
June 24 Isolating applications from critical system resources is also called what?
June 25 What type of data does the CLOB data type store?
June 26 Which of the following systems uses a repository to store files?
June 27 What does connecting two or more computers together create?
June 28 H.264 and H.265 are what type of standards?
June 29 Which HTML object opens another location when you click or tap it?
June 30 Programmers often format function names using what type of font case?


text:
WINNER are Lonely Souls in "Baby Baby"
With the release of three new music videos after a long hiatus, WINNER has a lot to prove. Not only do they have to live up to expectations, but as a boy group from YG Entertainment, they have to distinguish themselves from the huge shadow cast by Big Bang. Although they have already set a tone for themselves with their previous releases "Empty" and "Color Ring," WINNER's EXIT Movement is a great opportunity for the group to cement their mature, mellow style onto the K-pop industry.
Not only does the release of E accomplish this, it exceeds expectations. The five members, mostly Taehyun for E, were heavily involved in composing this album to ensure that it had their thumbprint on it. WINNER continue with their soft rock/ballad style, while still being able to show musical variety in each of the songs. One of the most unique sounding songs is "Baby Baby."
Artists like Taeyang and Lee Hi participated in a cover project for the song, which built up a lot of hype for "Baby Baby." Now that it's been released, reactions from fans have been nothing but positive. While "I'm Young" is a soft ballad and "Sentimental" is a more upbeat song with the familiar melancholy feel, "Baby Baby" establishes the chill sound that we associate with WINNER.
With an old school soft rock feel, "Baby Baby" mixes in elements of soul music. The song is about the feeling of loneliness and the desire to be with somebody whether that be friends, family, or a significant other. The music video opens up with footage from WINNER's actual speech during the 2015 Melon Music Awards playing on several devices and televisions. Just from this opening sequence, we are emotionally hooked in. By brilliantly using real footage, the viewer becomse more emotionally invested because now we know that we aren't going to be watching fictional characters — we're going to be watching WINNER go though what are probably real life experiences. This is apparent when we see Taehyun in the next scene walking out with cameras and reporters all around him.
In the music video, each of the members deals with feeling alone in their own way. Jinwoo drinks his sadness away at the bar. Seunghoon and Seungyoon seem to party their emotions away. Mino deals with it by sleeping with a woman, but we see that it doesn't satisfy him emotionally. This dissatisfaction is also expressed in the lyrics:
Girls come down like rain pouring on the streets
But I am never hit by them
Put down the umbrella above my head
For Taehyun, it's a little more interesting. Upon first watch it, it seems very simple; he's just a lonely guy like the rest of them. But then you see his flashbacks of "I'm Young." And at the end, Taehyun rolls his suitcase along with the sound of an airplane flying by.
Taehyun's storyline in this video actually bridges a time gap we see in the music video for "I'm Young." So if you've seen the video for "I'm Young," Taehyun's scenes in this video have a lot more context and weight to them — his backstory and motivation for leaving at the end is explained in a lot more detail.
The story might be a little simple, but it's the amazing use of cinematography to tell that story that makes this video worth watching. The cinematography is used as an element to portray the ongoing theme of loneliness. In the beginning of the video, we see a moving drone shot of a city eventually revealing Seungyoon in a wide shot having a drink all by himself above the city. It's an absolutely beautiful shot and it effectively establishes the feeling of loneliness by showing us how tiny we can feel when we're alone.
Another excellent use of cinematography is the wonderful use of vivid colors and contrast. By using colors, the video is able to convey the theme of isolation throughout the video. Most of the time, the boys are not lit very much, and when they are lit, the rest of the background is dark. Using fluorescent colors really separates them from their surroundings making them look even more secluded from everyone else. It's also very alluring to the eyes creating a very appealing video to watch.
The song is perfect to listen to at night if you're alone or just feeling down. WINNER has stated that the message they wanted to show was that if you're feeling alone, just know that you aren't the only one; there will always be someone there with you. This foreign old school sound combined with WINNER's modern sensibility in the music video makes "Baby Baby" the perfect remedy for anyone who's alone. This is a strong comeback for them and it's going to be really difficult to top this release.
Song: 4.5/5
Video: 4/5
What are your thoughts on WINNER's "Baby Baby?"
(YG Entertainment, Youtube, With Winner)
Tags: Winner
Show Me The Money 5: What Can We Look Forward To?
SB Week in Review: 1/30 to 2/5

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Geeks Gear Up To Fight Online IP Bills, PIPA, SOPA
BY Sarah Lai Stirland | Wednesday, January 11 2012
Picture: Isaac Mao
Activists advocating an open Internet and worried that the Senate could fast-track a controversial online intellectual property protection bill are coalescing on the web and getting together to set up meetings with their members of Congress and staffers in states across the U.S. to express their concerns with the legislation.
The meetings are taking place over the next couple of weeks either with congressional staffers, or at town hall meetings that the activists plan on attending. They're going armed with talking points prepared by digital rights group Public Knowledge, which ask the members of congress to vote no on the Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act (PROTECT IP, or "PIPA.")
"SOPA really angers people," says 31-year-old Tiffiniy Cheng, director for the Media Democracy Fund's Center for Rights, which is the non-profit behind Americancensorship.org, where the organizing among the grassroots opponents of the legislation is going on. Cheng and her colleagues have been working with Public Knowledge, the Center for Democracy and Technology, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and the the Mozilla Foundation to gin up public attention to the measure. The senate could vote as soon as January 24, a day after it returns from recess, to approve it.
SOPA is the House version of the Senate bill. It's an acronym for the Stop Online Piracy Act.
"This is not a copyright issue, this is not about Hollywood," Cheng says with indignation on the phone. "This is about who controls the internet. And that issue is just so big. People love the internet, and they want it to be open and accessible to them, and they love the idea of the free flow of information."
AmericanCensorship.org launched its current initiative to get people out to town halls to lobby their members of congress a week ago.
"People will be going to these meetings up until January 24th, and then out of that, we're hoping to get people to understand that this is a real issue that people care about, and that they're going to take in real life to their senators," Cheng says.
Public Knowledge is holding two briefing teleconferences this week with people organizing at Americancensorship.org's site.
By the end of this week, Americancensorship.org is going to launch a petition to the major web companies to follow the link-sharing community Reddit's lead. Reddit announced Tuesday afternoon that it plans to go black on January 18 for 12 hours and simply stream a hearing that Alex Ohanian, one of its co-founders, will participate in that day on Capitol Hill. It's being held by the House Oversight and Investigations Committee, and its chairman Darrell Issa, (R-Calif.) is sponsoring a competing House version of a bill that attempts to tackle the issue of online piracy and counterfeiting i from foreign-run web sites through the International Trade Commission instead of having the Justice Department unilaterally seize web site domains. Domain name filtering is not part of the bill's proposal.
Americancensorship.org isn't the only group with plans to get members of the public to speak out against the legislation in its current form.
There's also talk about raising money for candidates who oppose the legislation.
"There are already all these campaigns happening that have to do with fundraising for senator heroes who have been fighting to stop SOPA, and targeted campaigns against senators supporting SOPA, and those are taking off, and we're supporting those," Cheng says.
Most recently, members of the Reddit community appeared to have successfully elicited a statement from Congressman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) to commit to opposing the proposed House version of the legislation in its current form.
Though Ryan isn't on the House Judiciary Committee where the legislation is being crafted, a group of Redditors launched a campaign called "Operation Pull Ryan."
The idea was to persuade Ryan to state his opposition to both SOPA and the provisions in the National Defense Authorization Act that included provisions to officially allow the indefinite detention of Americans, or to face the Redditors' campaign to boot him out of office this year.
The group took the first step by inviting Ryan's Democratic challenger Rob Zerban at the end of December to participate in an "Ask Me Anything" session. Zerban answered many policy questions, but he also wrote an open letter to domain name registrar GoDaddy telling them that he was transferring his domain name away from the company because of its support for SOPA (GoDaddy has since reversed its position.) Zerban also launched a section of his campaign web site to collect signatures to oppose the legislation.
In return, Redditors rewarded him with $15,000 in 48 hours. Zerban also told Redditors that his campaign had signed up hundreds of volunteers after his AMA session.
Cheng says that Sens. Al Franken, (D-Minn.) and Chuck Schumer, (D-New York), both –co-sponsors of the senate bill, are next on her organization's contact list.
Though they're not up for re-election this year, both are high-profile figures who should care about this issue, she says. Franken in the past has been a supporter of net neutrality, and Schumer's state, New York, is now the home of many start-ups in the technology and media industry.
"They have the ear of public discourse and should care about public opinion," she says.
The Americancensorship.org coalition aren't the only ones out there organizing a campaign against the legislation in its current form.
Engine Advocacy, a new digital advocacy group in New York City for tech start-ups, plans to set up "a new PIPA-focused web tool on our site in the coming days and we hope to drive a lot of traffic against PIPA," co-founder Michael McGeary tells techPresident.
The Americancensorship.org coalition's last major action was Nov. 16. Called American Censorship Day, the event featured participating sites blacking out their logos. Tumblr used new messaging tools to connect users with their members of Congress to oppose the legislation. For their part, Cheng says that more than 50,000 calls were made through the Mobile Commons calling app on AmericanCensorship.org's web site since it was made available on the site Nov. 16.
Will these and other campaigns have any effect? It's difficult to say, but they might help in putting the brakes on the passage of the legislation while they may not kill it outright.
As this graphic based on data from the Center for Responsive Politics shows, the traditional media, entertainment and business groups' spending in 2010 and 2011 on lobbying dwarfed the spending by web companies and a tech industry trade group: In 2011 alone, the entertainment and business groups spent $94.1 million on lobbying compared with a paltry $15.1 million by Amazon, Facebook, the Computer and Communications Industry Association, the Consumer Electronics Association, eBay, Google, the NetCoalition and Yahoo.
Even if activists do use Reddit to raise money, it would probably be up to the tech companies to lay out the kind of cash needed to mount a credible traditional lobbying challenge against the bill. And doing so against an already established, massive coalition that, to some observers' dismay, includes an array of big labor unions on the same side as the megacorporations that employ their members, would be a heavy lift.
The fortunes of SOPA and PIPA are uncertain, but it's clear that this fight is part of a growing political consciousness among the ever-increasing number of people in Internet-powered industries.
Engine Advocacy
SOPA/PIPA
StopAmericancensorship.org
Tiffiniy Cheng


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text:
Outcast ist ein futuristisches Action-Adventure des belgischen Spieleentwicklers Appeal. Es wurde im Sommer 1999 durch den französischen Spielepublisher Infogrames veröffentlicht. Der Spieler übernimmt darin die Rolle eines Einzelkämpfers, der auf dem fremden Planeten Adelpha die Mitglieder eines Forscherteams beschützen und die Bewohner des Planeten von einer Tyrannenherrschaft befreien muss.

Seit November 2017 ist ein Remake genannt Outcast: Second Contact erhältlich. Überarbeitet wurden Waffen, Kampf, Steuerung, Grafik, Künstliche Intelligenz, sowie die Benutzeroberfläche. Die Gebiete wurden erweitert und enthalten neue Aufgaben.

Am 17. September 2021 kündigte THQ Nordic einen Nachfolger mit dem Titel Outcast 2 – A New Beginning an.

Handlung

Handlungsverlauf
Im Jahr 2007 startet die amerikanische Regierung eine Raumsonde, die die Existenz eines Paralleluniversums beweisen soll. Das Experiment unter Leitung der Wissenschaftler William Kauffman und Anthony Xue gelingt und die Sonde sendet für kurze Zeit Bilder eines fremden Planeten. Doch kurz nach der Landung beschädigt eine offensichtlich intelligente Lebensform die Sonde und verursacht so einen gewaltigen Energierückstoß zur Erde. Dieser Energierückstoß lässt ein ständig wachsendes Schwarzes Loch auf der Erde entstehen und droht so die Welt zu zerstören. Cutter Slade, Einzelkämpfer und Commander der US-Navy, soll daher das dreiköpfige Wissenschaftler-Team, bestehend aus Kauffman, Xue und der Exo-Biologin Marion Wolfe, in die unerforschte Welt begleiten, um die beschädigte Sonde zu reparieren. Alle Expeditionsteilnehmer werden einzeln im Abstand mehrerer Minuten in die neuentdeckte Parallelwelt transferiert.

Doch es kommt beim Transfer zu Komplikationen. Cutter kommt ohne Ausrüstung und getrennt von den Wissenschaftlern auf dem fremden Planeten mit dem Namen Adelpha an. Nach seinem Erwachen in einem Dorf der einheimischen Bewohner Adelphas, den sogenannten Talanern, gilt seine Suche fortan den Wissenschaftlern. Cutter muss sich dabei mit der für ihn fremden Kultur auseinandersetzen. Seit Ermordung ihres spirituellen Führers Kazar wird das talanische Volk beherrscht vom tyrannischen Faé Rhân. Einige Talaner halten Slade für den Ulukai, den von Kazar prophezeiten Befreier des talanischen Volkes. Slade soll für die Einwohner Adelphas als Gegenleistung für ihre Unterstützung fünf heilige Gegenstände, die sogenannten Mons, finden, bevor sie den Kriegern Faé Rhâns in die Hände fallen. Slade bleibt keine Wahl, als den Einwohnern in ihrem Kampf zu helfen, da auch er ihre Hilfe benötigt.

Im Verlauf der Handlung erkennt Slade, dass Kazar identisch ist mit dem verschollenen Wissenschaftler William Kauffman und es sich bei Faé Rhân um dessen Assistenten Anthony Xue handelt. Die fünf heiligen Mons stellen sich als Chipkarten heraus, die für die Reparatur der Sonde notwendig sind. Weiterhin muss Slade feststellen, dass er und die Wissenschaftler aufgrund eines Zeitparadoxons beim Weltenübergang in die Vergangenheit Adelphas reisten, in eine Zeit vor Eintreffen der irdischen Sonde. Und obwohl zwischen den einzelnen Übertritten der Expeditionsteilnehmer auf der Erde nur wenige Minuten lagen, vergingen auf Adelpha in diesem Zeitraum mehrere Jahre. Diese Zeit hatte Xue genutzt, um seinen alten Rivalen Kauffman zu töten und sich zum Alleinherrscher des Planeten aufzuschwingen. Da er nicht mehr vor hat, seine Stellung aufzugeben und zur Erde zurückzukehren, versucht er eine Reparatur der Sonde mit allen Mitteln zu verhindern. Slade muss alle fünf Chipkarten an sich bringen und verhindern, dass Xue die ankommende Raumsonde vernichtet.

Hauptcharaktere
Cutter Slade

Cutter Slade ist die Hauptfigur und Spielercharakter. In der deutschen Version wird er von Manfred Lehmann gesprochen, bekannt als deutsche Synchronstimme von Bruce Willis. Auch die französische Sprachausgabe Cutter Slades wurde von einer Synchronstimme von Bruce Willis eingesprochen: Patrick Poivey. Cutter ist ein ehemaliger Navy Seal und Nahkampfspezialist. Der tragische Tod eines Kameramannes während einer von ihm überwachten PR-Aktion, der ihm zu Unrecht zur Last gelegt wurde, führte zum Rauswurf aus der Spezialeinheit. Slade versinkt im Alkoholkonsum und entwickelt eine ausgeprägt zynische Ader. Durch seinen Vertrauten und Mentor Doug Dawson, Admiral der Navy, findet Slade in der geheimen Sondereinheit PROWLER eine neue Einheit. Über seine Verbitterung kann ihm dies jedoch nicht hinweghelfen.
Cutters Aufgabe während der Adelpha-Mission ist es, das Team zusammenzuhalten und zu schützen. Die Talaner sehen in ihm den "Ulukai", der nach der Prophezeiung vom Himmel herabsteigen wird, um Faé Rhân zu vernichten und das Volk der Talaner zu befreien.

Marion Wolfe
Marion Wolfe, Tochter der US-amerikanischen Senatorin Clare Fitzgerald, gehört zu dem dreiköpfigen Wissenschaftlerteam, das die Parallelwelt Adelpha erkunden und die Sonde reparieren soll. Sie und Cutter lernten sich schon während einer anderen Mission kennen, bei der Cutter zu ihrer Aufsicht abgestellt worden war. Der durch Marion verschuldete Tod eines Kameramannes wurde auf Bestreben der Anwälte ihrer Mutter Cutter Slade zur Last gelegt. Seitdem hegt Slade eine große Abneigung gegen Wolfe, obwohl Wolfe das Vorgehen ihrer Mutter scharf verurteilt. Wolfe wendet sich deshalb vom Journalismus ab und geht in die Forschung. Sie wird zu einer weltweit anerkannten Kapazität auf dem Gebiet der Bio-Ethnologie und Exobiologie. Zum Handlungszeitpunkt ist sie Leiterin des exobiologischen Labors der Universität von Chicago.

William Kauffman
William Kauffman entstammt einer alteingesessenen neuenglischen Familie. Er ist Quantenphysiker in Harvard und Nobelpreisträger. Kauffman leitet offiziell das Projekt "Sidestep", das mit Hilfe einer Sonde erstmals den Kontakt zur Parallelwelt Adelpha herstellen konnte. Sein Leben gehört der Wissenschaft. Er ist stets höflich und steht für den ethisch denkenden Wissenschaftler. Durch eine unvorhergesehene zeitliche Verschiebung beim Transfer kommen er und Xue mehrere Jahre vor Cutter Slade und Marion Wolfe in Adelpha an. Er ist bei Cutters Eintreffen bereits längere Zeit tot, hat jedoch in Form diverser Holovideos Hinweise, unter anderem für die Reparatur der Sonde, hinterlassen.

Anthony Xue
Anthony Xue ist ein schwieriger Charakter und vollkommen konträr zu seinem Kollegen Kauffman. Aus einfachen Verhältnissen stammend ist Xue sehr ehrgeizig und machtbesessen. Nachdem eines seiner Experimente zu Materie/Antimaterie-Reaktion in einer Katastrophe endete und dabei mehrere Forscher ums Leben gekommen waren, wurde er von der wissenschaftlichen Gemeinde ausgeschlossen. Erst beim Militär fand er einen neuen Auftraggeber und erforschte zusammen mit William Kauffman im Projekt "Sidestep" die Möglichkeiten zur Reise in Paralleluniversen. Die beiden arbeiteten zwar wissenschaftlich eng zusammen, kamen auf persönlicher Ebene jedoch nicht besonders gut miteinander aus.

Spielwelt
Der begehbare Teil der Spielwelt Adelpha besteht aus insgesamt sechs landschaftlich vollkommen unterschiedlichen Regionen, die durch sogenannte Daokas miteinander verbunden sind. Daokas weisen eine große Ähnlichkeit mit Sternentoren aus Stargate auf und ermöglichen Reisen über große Strecken ohne Zeitverlust. Die Daokas entspringen keiner talanischen Technik und können von den Talanern auch nicht hergestellt werden. Die Errichtung der Daokas wird den sogenannten Altehrwürdigen nachgesagt, die durch ihr schädliches Wirken auf Adelpha die Rache der Götter (Yods) heraufbeschworen und ausgelöscht wurden. Für die Talaner ist die Nutzung der Daokas notwendig zur Aufrechterhaltung ihrer Kultur, weswegen die wichtigeren Tore von Söldnern Faé Rhâns bewacht werden.

Ranzaar
Ranzaar ist die erste Region, die Cutter Slade nach seinem Durchgang zu sehen bekommt. Ranzaar hat ein arktisches Klima und ist nur durch ein verstecktes Daoka in Shamazaar erreichbar. Es ist die letzte Zuflucht der Rebellen, genannt Dolotaiwächter. Außer den wenigen Rebellen finden sich keine Lebewesen auf Ranzaar.

Shamazaar
Shamazaar wird vor allem landwirtschaftlich genutzt. Die reisartige Rizi-Pflanzen wird hier in den zahlreichen sumpfigen Terrassen angepflanzt und versorgt die Talaner aller anderen Regionen mit Nahrung. Daneben ist Shamazaar das religiöse Zentrum der Talaner. Jeder der vier Gottheiten ist hier ein Tempel geweiht. Ein Daoka im Süden verbindet Shamazaar mit Talanzaar. Weitere, schwer bewachte Tore im Faé-Tempel führen nach Okasankaar und Motazaar. Eine seltsame Barriere im Nordwesten hindert jedes Lebewesen am Betreten dieses Bereiches.

Talanzaar
Talanzaar ist eine unwirtliche Wüstenregion und besteht ausschließlich aus der Stadt Okriana. Aus diesem Grund wird Okriana oft mit Talanzar gleichgesetzt. Diese orientalisch anmutende Ortschaft ist die Hauptstadt Adelphas mit Faé Rhâns Palast mitten im Zentrum. Zahlreiche Händler und Handwerker haben sich in zahlreichen Flachdachbauten um den Palast herum angesiedelt. Zum Schutz gegen die rauen Wüstenstürme wurde rund um die Stadt eine hohe Mauer errichtet. Die insgesamt drei Daokas dieser Region führen nach Shamazaar, Okasankaar und Motazaar.

Okasankaar
Die Region von Okasankaar ist von weitläufigen Meeres- und Sumpfflächen geprägt. Die Bewohner des hier gelegenen Dorfes Cyana sind hauptsächlich Fischer, die ihre Fänge regelmäßig für Faé Rhâns Söldner abliefern müssen. Wichtige Gebäude sind das heilige Darosham, rituelles Zentrum der Faé-Anhänger, und das Inselgefängnis Zorkatraz. Im Osten der Region findet sich, bewacht durch eine Söldner-Kaserne, das einzige Daoka nach Okaar.

Motazaar
Die Minen von Motazaar liefern die Erze (Helidium) und Metalle, die für den Bau der Waffen von Faé Rhâns Söldnern benötigt werden. Die sehr trockene Region wird durchzogen von tiefen, lavagrundigen Erdrissen und besitzt viele heiße Quellen. Hohe Berge begrenzen Motazaar, das damit idealer Ort für Faé Rhâns Gefangenenlager ist.

Okaar
Okaar wird auch "die alte Welt" genannt. Es ist eine mythenumrankte Dschungelwelt, die nur von wenigen Talanern betreten wird, hauptsächlich um zu jagen. Im Südosten unterhalten lediglich die Truppen Faé Rhâns ein Lager. Okaar hat als einzige Region intelligente, im Vergleich zu den Talanern jedoch primitive, Ureinwohner hervorgebracht, die Oogobaar. Auf sie scheinen die Überreste einer fremden Kultur, die sich in Form von Bauten und Artefakten in ganz Okaar finden lassen, jedoch nicht zurückzugehen. Okaar ist zudem identisch mit der Landestelle der Sonde, deren Beschädigung Ursache für die Entstehung des Schwarzen Loches war. Eines der ungelösten Mysterien dieser Welt ist ein defektes Daoka in der Nähe eines Wasserfalles. Es ist nicht aktivierbar und sein Zielort ist nicht bekannt. Die Talaner nennen es "Himmelsdaoka", andere Legenden berichten, es ermögliche die Reise zu den beiden Monden Adelphas.

Kizaar
Eine weitere Region, Kizaar, wird namentlich zwar erwähnt, ist im Spiel jedoch nicht erreichbar. Kizaar ist eine Insel im Meer. Auf ihr leben alle talanischen Kinder und Frauen. Die Männer besuchen ihre Frauen dort im Abstand mehrerer Jahre.

Spielprinzip
Outcast ist ein Action-Adventure, das wahlweise aus einer Third-Person- oder Egoperspektive in einer weitgehend offenen Spielwelt gespielt wird. Das Spiel verknüpft actionorientierte Kämpfe in Echtzeit mit Geschicklichkeitseinlagen wie Hüpfpassagen, kleineren Rätselaufgaben oder Physik-Rätseln. Daneben muss die Spielfigur Cutter Slade viel mit den Bewohnern der Spielwelt kommunizieren, um an Information und Aufträge zu gelangen, die für die Lösung des Spiels erforderlich sind. Der Spieler steuert Cutter Slade direkt mit der Tastatur durch die Spielwelt und richtet die Kamera mit der Maus aus. Für die Echtzeitkämpfe wird die Kamera arretiert und Cutter kann nur noch in vier Richtungen bewegt werden.

Ziel des Spiels ist die Bergung der fünf Chipkarten, die in den fünf Regionen Shamazaar, Talanzaar, Okasankaar, Motazaar und Okaar verborgen sind. Nach einer Spieleinführung und einem etwas längeren Spieleinstieg in der Welt Shamazaar öffnet sich die restliche Spielwelt für den Spieler. Der Wechsel zwischen den Regionen ist ab diesem Zeitpunkt jederzeit über die sogenannten Daokaa-Reiseportale möglich. Der Spieler kann die Regionen mit wenigen handlungsrelevanten Ausnahmen frei erkunden und Aufträge annehmen. Er kann jederzeit die Reihenfolge bestimmen, in der er die ansonsten linear aufgebauten Aufträge löst, es gibt keine Zeitbegrenzung für die Erfüllung.

Die Ausrüstung der Expedition wurde aufgrund des langen Zeitraums über sämtliche Bereiche der Spielwelt verteilt. Das Zusammensuchen entsprechender Munitionspakete, Dynamitstangen und technischer Hilfsmittel ist daher während des Spiels eine ständige Begleittätigkeit. Sobald sich entsprechende Gegenstände in der unmittelbaren Nähe des Spielers befinden, erhält er einen Sprachhinweis. Alternativ kann sich der Spieler Ausrüstungsgegenstände bei Vorlage entsprechender Ressourcen aus der Umwelt Adelphas von Handwerkern anfertigen lassen. Einige talanische Händler bieten Slade außerdem Waffen und Waffenupgrades zum Kauf an.

Technik
Entwickler Appeal verwendete für das Spiel die selbstentwickelte Paradise-Engine. Durch eine Mischung aus texturierter Voxel- und softwareberechneter Polygon-Grafik präsentierte sich die Spielwelt weniger eckig im Vergleich zu zeitgenössischer Polygongrafik und bot Spielern eine vergleichsweise hohe Sichtweite. Die Voxel-Engine basierte auf einem Raycasting-Verfahren zur Darstellung des Geländes (Floating Horizon Algorithm). Die dreidimensionalen Geländeinformationen wurden mit Hilfe einer sogenannten Heightmap gespeichert. Parallel dazu existierte eine sogenannte Farbkarte, die die Farbinformationen jedes Punktes innerhalb dieser Heightmap enthielt. Während des Berechnungsprozesses wurden damit unter Berücksichtigung des Blickfelds des Nutzers erst die sichtbaren Punkte innerhalb der Heightmap ermittelt und anschließend mit Hilfe der Farbkarte mit den entsprechenden Farbinformationen versehen und so für den Nutzer visualisiert. Da es sich um keine echte dreidimensionale Grafikberechnung handelte, war das Vorhandensein einer speziellen 3D-Grafikkarte nicht notwendig, da diese Berechnungen von der CPU erledigt wurden. Auch die Polygongrafik wurde ausschließlich softwareseitig berechnet und war nicht hardwarebeschleunigt. Das Spiel profitierte daher nicht vom Vorhandensein einer 3D-Grafikkarte. Outcast erforderte stattdessen einen für die damalige Zeit sehr leistungsstarken Prozessor.

Für das optische Landschaftdesign kamen hauptsächlich zwei Methoden zum Einsatz. Für konvexe Oberflächen wurden Tiles (engl. für Kacheln) mit Hilfe der Grafiksoftware 3D Studio 4 für DOS entworfen und das optische Ergebnis von oben festgehalten. Aus den Tiles wurden die Höheninformation für die Umsetzung in Voxelgrafik gewonnen. Für konkave Oberfläche, wie Hausdächer oder Brücken über einer Schlucht, wurden Polygonobjekte benötigt. Diese wurden ebenfalls in 3D Studio 4 entworfen und dann mit Photoshop texturiert. Mit Hilfe eines Editors wurden anschließend erst die Voxel-Tiles und darauf die Polygonobjekte platziert. Hinzu kamen Spielobjekte und weitere Programminformationen für Wegfindung und Objektkollisionen. Die Hintergründe in Gestalt des Himmels bestanden aus handgemalten Photoshop-Grafiken.

Charaktere und Figuren wurden mit Hilfe der Software Alias Power Animator und NURBS-Technik als Polygonobjekte entworfen. Um die Drahtgittermodelle mit Texturen versehen zu können, mussten diese exportiert werden. Mit Hilfe der von Infogrames bereitgestellten Software Skymap wurden die für die Texturierung notwendigen UV-Koordinaten erzeugt, wobei die Figuren aufgrund von Programmbeschränkungen in mehrere kleinere Objekte (bspw. Körperextremitäten) aufgesplittet werden mussten. Die Texturen selbst wurden anschließend mit Hilfe von 4D Paint, Vorläufer der Software Deep Paint 3D, im seinerzeit neuartigen 3D-Painting-Verfahren erzeugt. Mit Hilfe des in der Spieleentwicklung ebenfalls neuartigen Bumpmapping-Verfahrens wurde für die Polygonobjekte der Eindruck von natürlichen Unebenheiten und Falten erzeugt. Für die Darstellung eines möglichst realistischen Bewegungsablaufs der Figuren nutzten die Entwickler Motion Capture in Verbindung mit Keyframe Animations und Procedural Animations.

Das seinerzeit fortschrittliche KI-System Game's Artificial Intelligence with Agents (GAIA) versah alle Lebewesen mit einem Tagesablauf und Reaktionsschemata auf Handlungen des Spielers. Outcast nutzte zudem die 1998 erstmals vorgestellte Environmental-Audio-Technologie des Soundkarten-Herstellers Creative Labs, mit deren Hilfe Umgebungsgeräusche und Sounds wie etwa der Hall von Pistolenschüssen an die Umgebung angepasst wiedergegeben wurden.

Das Spiel bot nur drei vorgegebene Bildschirmauflösungen (320×200, 400×300 und 512×384 Bildpunkte). Zu Beginn der Entwicklung setzte Appeal lediglich auf VGA-Auflösung (320×200 Bildpunkte) mit 256 Farben. Im Verlauf der Entwicklung wurde die Qualität auf SVGA-Qualität mit einer Farbtiefe von 24 Bit erhöht. Neben dem Bumpmapping verwendete Outcast als einer der ersten Titel Depth of field, Subpixel-Antialiasing und in Echtzeit berechnete Schattenwürfe.

Musik
Zum Entwicklungszeitpunkt war General MIDI das vorherrschende Verfahren zur Musikgestaltung für Computerspiele. Doch für Outcast wünschte sich Art Director Franck Sauer die Untermalung durch einen symphonischen Soundtrack im Stile der Filmkomponisten John Williams, Alan Silvestri und Danny Elfman. Auf der Suche nach einem geeigneten Komponisten schaltete Appeal 1996 daher in mehreren Musikmagazinen eine Anzeige, in der das Unternehmen explizit nach einem "Hollywood-Filmkomponisten" für eine "orchestrale Begleitmusik" suchte. Unter den Bewerbern befand sich unter anderem der damals in Los Angeles ansässige Lennie Moore, der in einer Newsgroup auf die Anzeige aufmerksam wurde und Appeal daraufhin eine Demo mit seinen Kompositionen für den Dokumentarfilm Trinity and Beyond zusandte. Dieser Soundtrack war unter Federführung des Hauptkomponisten William T. Stromberg in Zusammenarbeit mit dem Moskauer Sinfonie-Orchester entstanden. Mit dieser Arbeitsprobe konnte Moore die Entwickler überzeugen.

Es war Moores erste Komposition für ein Computerspiel. Dadurch, dass er recht früh zur Entwicklung hinzustieß, konnte er eigenen Angaben zufolge ohne den sonst üblichen Zeitdruck ein vollständiges Konzept ausarbeiten.

Moore beschrieb seinen Soundtrack als eine Vermischung von klassischer Musik mit exotischen und esoterischen Elementen. Um die Unterschiede der verschiedenen Welten zu verdeutlichen und ihre Eigenheiten herauszuarbeiten, variierte er beispielsweise bei der Instrumentierung. So verwendet er für die musikalische Untermalung der Stadtwelt Talanzaar etwa eine armenische Flöte (Duduk), um das Flair einer Ortschaft des Mittleren Ostens zu vermitteln. Für die alte Welt Okaar kamen vor allem afrikanische Schlaginstrumente zur Anwendung, mit Talking Drums, Congas und Djembés. In Okasankaar sind hauptsächlich tiefe Holzblasinstrumente in ihrem tiefsten Register zu hören. Weitere Instrumente waren Udu-Trommeln, ägyptisches Tamburin, Tabla und die Tombak (persische Handtrommel).

Grundtöne des Soundtracks
Der Soundtrack ist um ein zentrales Leitmotiv aufgebaut, das sich um den Abenteueraspekt dreht. Dieses Motiv verknüpfte Moore anschließend in allen Stücken mit weiteren Leitmotiven, etwa für die verschiedenen Welten. Daneben legte er gewisse Harmonien fest, die sich durch die gesamte Komposition ziehen und die Verbindung zwischen den verschiedenen Regionen vermitteln sollen. Grundlage war eine hexatonale, symmetrische Tonleiter bestehend aus den Tönen C, Dis, E, G, As und H und daraus resultierend aus den sechs Grundakkorden c-, e- und as-Moll bzw. C-, E- und As-Dur, die als Ausgangspunkt der Stücke dienten. Sie fungierten einerseits als Grundstruktur und Ruhepunkte, konnten andererseits aber auch zu einer komplexeren, polytonalen Harmonie zusammengefügt werden.

Die Chorpassagen sind in lateinischer Sprache verfasst und basieren auf Vergils antikem Epos der Aeneis. Die Texte entstanden in Zusammenarbeit mit dem Vergil-Projekt der University of Pennsylvania. Moore suchte hierfür auf Wunsch der Entwickler zum Spiel passende Textpassagen heraus, die er anschließend mit Hilfe der Übersetzerin Dorothy Stewart per Elision in ein zur Musik passendes Versmaß brachte.

Moore erstellte zuerst MIDI-Demos, die jedoch bereits sehr nahe an der späteren Umsetzungen waren. Die Aufnahmen des Outcast-Soundtracks führte Moore ebenfalls wieder in Zusammenarbeit mit dem Moskauer Sinfonie-Orchester durch, dirigiert von Moores Freund Stromberg. Die Aufnahmen fanden in der russischen Hauptstadt statt, insgesamt bestand das Orchester aus 80 Instrumentalisten, hinzu kam ein 24-köpfiger Chor. Moore selbst war zuständig für die Komposition und die Orchestrierung und agierte während der Aufnahmen als Musikproduzent. Insgesamt konnte Moore rund 60 Minuten an Musik aufnehmen, wohingegen seinen Angaben nach vorherige Spieleproduktionen üblicherweise nur rund 20 bis 40 Minuten Musik umfassten. Dadurch konnte Moore besonders lange, zusammenhängende Einzelstücke entwickeln. Es handelte sich – neben Heart of Darkness (Bruce Broughton) und Medal of Honor (Michael Giacchino) – um einen der ersten Spielesoundtracks, die live mit einem vollwertigen Orchester eingespielt wurden. Der Soundtrack war in CD-Audioqualität (44,1 kHz / 16bit) auf dem Spiel-Medium (CD-ROM) enthalten.

Entwicklungsgeschichte

Entstehung und Prototyp
Outcast befand sich über vier Jahre in der Entwicklung. Ausgangspunkt für das Projekt war die zunehmende Unzufriedenheit der drei Spieleentwickler Yves Grolet, Yann Robert und Franck Sauer mit linearen Adventure-Spielen. 1994 arbeiteten alle drei für den belgischen Spieleentwickler Art & Magic an zweidimensionalen Arcade-Spielen. Allerdings machte das Unternehmen immer weniger Umsatz mit seinen Spielen und das Alter der zugrundeliegenden Hardwarebasis schränkte die Gestaltungsmöglichkeiten der Designer immer stärker ein. Gleichzeitig deutet sich bereits das Aufkommen der 3D-Grafik an, ein Trend, dem auch die Entwickler folgen wollten. Allerdings beschränkte die für Computerspiele durchschnittlich vorhandene Hardwareleistung zu diesem Zeitpunkt die Leistungsfähigkeit von polygonbasierten Grafik-Engines, da nicht genug Rechenleistung vorhanden war, um komplexe, detaillierte Polygonobjekte und damit eine natürlich wirkende Optik zu erzeugen. Eine Alternative versprachen technologische Aufsätze zum Thema Voxel-Engines. Doch die veraltete Hardware von Art & Magic erwies sich für diese Technologie ebenfalls als zu schwach. Daher beschlossen Grolet, Robert und Sauer, ein neues Unternehmen zu gründen. Mit Hilfe ihres Hardwareherstellers Themes wurde die Entwicklung eines Prototyps finanziert. Im Gegenzug erhielt das Unternehmen einen Minderheitenanteil an Appeal. Die restlichen Anteile wurden zu gleichen Teilen zwischen Grolet, Robert und Sauer aufgeteilt.

Das erste Konzept sah eine Handlung in einem fiktiven südamerikanischen Land vor. Die Spielfigur sollte ein Drogenkartell infiltrieren und Geiseln aus der Gefangenschaft des örtlichen Drogenbarons befreien, dazu sollte das Spiel ursprünglich aus der Egoperspektive gespielt werden. Von diesem Konzept wurde jedoch nur die landschaftliche Umgebung übernommen. Schließlich kam Yves Grolet mit dem Konzept der Reise in Paralleluniversen. Mit diesem Konzept begannen die Arbeiten an einem ersten Prototyp. Während Sauer und Robert weiterhin hauptberuflich für Art & Magic arbeiteten, begann Grolet mit Philippe Zondack, einem weiteren Programmierer, die Rendering-Engine zu entwickeln. Sauer entwarf erste Landschaftsgrafiken, die später die Grundlage für die Spielregion Shamazaar wurden. Weiterhin erstellte er 3D-Modelle von Talanern und Twon-has. Im Prototyp wurden die Spielfiguren noch gemäß der ursprünglichen Planung durch animierte, vorgerenderte Sprites dargestellt. Sie wurden im späteren Entwicklungsverlauf schließlich durch Polygonmodelle ersetzt.

Publishersuche und Produktionsverlauf
Mit dem Prototyp begaben sich die Entwickler auf die Suche nach einem Publisher, der die Weiterentwicklung finanzieren würde. Der in Paris ansässige Publisher Ubisoft lehnte das Projekt ab, doch das expandierende Unternehmen Infogrames aus Lyon war auf der Suche nach einem technologischen Leuchtturmprojekt. Auf Vermittlung von Éric Mottet, Infogrames' Produktionsleiter, kam es zu einem Treffen mit Infogrames-Geschäftsführer Bruno Bonnell. Bonnell war von dem Projekt so sehr überzeugt, dass er nach der Präsentation einen Scheck über umgerechnet 150.000 Euro ausstellte. Appeal schloss im Gegenzug einen Vertrag mit Infogrames, der dem Publisher die weltweiten Vermarktungs- und Veröffentlichungsrechte gewährte. Die Entwickler erwarben sämtliche Rechte an den noch von Art & Magic gehaltenen Grafiken und dem Geschäftsteil von Themes. Appeal bezog Geschäftsräume in Namur und begann mit dem Aufbau eines Entwicklerteams, dem sich nach etwa einem Jahr die gesamte verbliebene Belegschaft anschloss. Das Entwicklerteam teilte sich auf in die Abteilungen Künstlerische Gestaltung (engl.: Art) unter Leitung von Franck Sauer und die Programmierung unter Yann Robert und Yves Grolet. Die Verantwortung für das Design der Inhalte (Handlung, Missionen u. Ä.) lag bei der Programmierabteilung. Als Arbeitsmittel dienten SGI Indy Workstations von Silicon Graphics.

Der Protagonist erhielt ursprünglich den Namen Stan Blaskowitz und trug Pluderhosen, ein mantelartiges Obergewand sowie einen vogelartigen Helm. Dieses Erscheinungsbild wurde von Infogrames' Marketingabteilung jedoch als zu absonderlich bewertet und daher überarbeitet. Das Marketing legte schließlich auch Cutter Slade als finalen Namen fest, der von einigen Kritikern später als "dämlich" bezeichnet wurde.

Durch Erschaffung der Sprache Agazork für das Volk der Talaner versuchten die Entwickler eine lebendige Fremdkultur zu vermitteln. Ein ins Spiel integriertes Wörterbuch umfasste über 150 Begriffe für Objekte, Personen oder Glaubensvorstellungen der Talaner. Diese detaillierte Ausarbeitung der talanischen Kultur hob das Spiel von Konkurrenzprodukten ab. Unter dem Namen "Die Sprache der Talaner" entstand ein Fanprojekt, das es sich zur Aufgabe gemacht hatte, die lediglich ansatzweise eingeführte Sprache der Talaner zu vervollständigen. Einige Spieletester hingegen kritisierten die Verwirrung, die durch die vielen Spezialbegriffe entstehen konnte.

Insgesamt kostete die Entwicklung umgerechnet rund 1,5 Millionen Euro.

Marketing
Infogrames behandelte den Titel als eine Flaggschiff-Produktion und bewarb ihn weltweit mit vergleichsweise hohem finanziellen Aufwand, um den Mainstream-Markt zu erreichen. Das Marketingbudget betrug drei Millionen US-Dollar, neben Magazinwerbung, verschiedenen Titelgeschichten und Messeauftritten wurde unter anderem ein Trailer im Vorprogramm von Kinofilmen geschaltet. Das Spiel wurde von 1997 bis 1999 jährlich auf der Computerspielmesse Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) präsentiert. Nachträgliche Kritik äußerte Art Director Franck Sauer an der Vermarktung in den USA. Die Veröffentlichung des Spiels fiel in den Zeitraum nach Aufkauf des US-amerikanischen Publishers GT Interactive durch Infogrames, der eine Umstrukturierung des US-amerikanischen Publishingzweiges zur Folge hatte. Sauer warf Infogrames USA vor, das Spiel aufgrund von Eigeninteressen im Zusammenhang mit der Umstrukturierung nicht ausreichend beworben zu haben und somit hauptverantwortlich zu sein für die enttäuschenden Verkaufszahlen in den USA.

Veröffentlichung
Outcast erschien lokalisiert ursprünglich auf zwei CD-ROMs. Mit dem DVD-Release ein Jahr nach Erstveröffentlichung zählte das Spiel zu den ersten Titeln, die diesen bis dahin noch wenig verbreiteten Datenträger zeitnah zur Erstveröffentlichung nutzten. Darauf enthalten waren neben einer mehrsprachigen Version des Spiels der Soundtrack und Bonusmaterial in Form mehrerer Videos und Trailer.

Zusätzlich zur PC-Version gab es Pläne, eine überarbeitete Fassung des Spiels auf Basis von DirectX für Segas Konsole Dreamcast zu veröffentlichen. Das Projekt wurde jedoch noch vor Veröffentlichung zugunsten des angekündigten Nachfolgers Outcast: The Lost Paradise eingestellt, da sich das Umprogrammieren der Engine als zu zeitaufwändig herausstellte.

Im April 2010 wurde das Spiel über den Anbieter Good Old Games per digitaler Distribution erneut veröffentlicht und dadurch für neuere, bis dahin inkompatible Betriebssysteme ab Windows XP zugänglich gemacht.

Nachfolgeprojekte
Etwa 2001 begannen durch Appeal die Arbeiten am Nachfolger Outcast: The Lost Paradise, der für Windows-PCs und PlayStation 2 erscheinen sollte. Anfang April 2003 wurde jedoch bekannt gegeben, dass die Arbeiten zugunsten anderer Projekte bis auf weiteres ausgesetzt wurden. Am 12. August 2002 musste Entwickler Appeal Insolvenz anmelden, von der sich die Firma nicht mehr erholte. Seitdem gab es von Infogrames keinerlei Bestrebungen mehr für einen Nachfolger. Ein inoffizieller Nachfolger namens open Outcast, der als Modifikation auf Basis der CryEngine 3 umgesetzt wird, ist seit 2004 als Fanprojekt in Entwicklung.

2002 sollte eine von Fans ins Leben gerufene Onlinepetition Infogrames/Atari dazu bewegen, die Outcast-Rechte an Elsewhere Entertainment zu verkaufen, welches von Outcast-Director Yves Grolet und weiteren ehemaligen Appeal-Mitarbeitern gegründet worden war. Allerdings gab Infogrames diesem Wunsch der Outcast-Community nicht statt. Anstelle eines Nachfolgers begann Elsewhere Entertainment die Entwicklung eines Spiels namens Totems, das auf ähnlichen Konzepten basieren sollte. Elsewhere Entertainment wurde 2005 von 10tacle Studios aufgekauft und firmierte seitdem unter dem Namen 10tacle Studios Belgium. Infolge der Insolvenz der Firma im Jahr 2008 wurde das Projekt jedoch nie abgeschlossen.

Revival
Mit seinem Geschäftsbericht 2012/13 gab der zwischenzeitlich in Atari umbenannte und finanziell angeschlagene Rechteinhaber von Outcast bekannt, dass der Konzern zu Beginn des neuen Geschäftsjahres die Markenrechte verkauft habe. Im Juli 2013 wurde bekannt, dass die Marke an die Appeal-Gründer Grolet, Sauer und Robert ging. Am Ende desselben Monates gaben diese an, mit dem von Grolet und Ubisoft-Mitbegründer Christian Guillemot geführten Entwickler AMA Studios zu fusionieren. Unter dem neuen Namen Daoka wolle das Team unter anderem an Spielen zur Outcast-Marke arbeiten. Gegenüber dem deutschen Online-Spielemagazin Gamona gab Sauer im Februar 2014 an, dass er an einer Portierung des Spiels auf die polygonbasierte Fresh-Engine arbeite.

Am 7. April 2014 startete das Team ein Crowdfunding-Projekt über die Crowdfunding-Plattform Kickstarter, um die Entwicklung selbst finanzieren zu können. Jedoch verfehlte die Kampagne das Finanzierungsziel.

Am 18. Dezember 2014 wurde eine Outcast-Neuauflage auf Steam und später auf GOG.com als Outcast 1.1 veröffentlicht. Diese Version wurde aus dem originalen Quelltext rekompiliert, mit Unterstützung von höheren Bildschirmauflösungen, Programmfehler-Korrekturen und kleineren Erweiterungen.

Am 12. August 2016 kündigte das Entwicklungsstudio an, dass das Remake von Outcast im März 2017, unter dem Namen Outcast: Second Contact veröffentlicht werden soll. Die Entwickler hatten ihr Studio zwischenzeitlich wieder zurück in Appeal Studio umbenannt. Als Publisher für den Titel wurde Bigben Interactive bekannt gegeben. Der Release-Termin wurde auf Herbst 2017 verschoben. Inzwischen ist das Spiel erschienen.

2019 verkaufte Appeal die Markenrechte an THQ Nordic, die am 17. September 2021 einen Nachfolger mit dem Titel Outcast 2 – A New Beginning für PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S und PC ankündigten.

Rezeption

Rezensionen
Outcast erhielt überwiegend gute bis sehr gute Kritiken (GameRankings: 81,31 %) und wurde wiederholt für seine Spieltiefe und -welt, seine große Handlungsfreiheit sowie für seine orchestrale Musikuntermalung gelobt. Es wurde in Tests dabei vor allem mit der Tomb-Raider-Reihe, genauer mit Tomb Raider 3, verglichen. Die deutsche Spielezeitschrift PC Player vergab eine Spielspaß-Wertung von 86 Prozent und einen Magazinaward. Rüdiger Steidle von der GameStar verwies auf Parallelen zu Stargate. Gemeinsam mit seinen Co-Testern Jörg Langer und Christian Schmidt bemängelte er ebenfalls die vielen Spezialbegriffe und vielen Dialoge. Er lobte die Kampf-KI, den Abwechslungsreichtum der Missionen und Rätsel, den Detailreichtum der Spielwelt und die Lippensynchronität der englischsprachigen Testversion. Besonderes hob er die Gestaltung des Wassers hervor: "Noch nie wurden in einem Computerspiel spiegelnde Wasseroberflächen so schön dargestellt." Steidle vergab eine Wertung von 87 %, zusätzlich wurde dem Spiel ein Heftaward für besondere Atmosphäre verliehen. Chefredakteur Langer kam ebenfalls zu einem positiven Fazit:

Begeistert zeigte sich auch PC-Games-Autor Peter Kusenberg, der unter anderem die Qualität der Umgebungsgrafik und die künstliche Intelligenz der Gegner hervorhob, eine Unter-90-Prozent-Wertung aber mit den außerordentlich hohen Hardware-Anforderungen und häufigen Grafikfehlern begründete. Dennoch erhielt das Spiel auch von PC Games einen Magazinaward. Weitere Heftawards erhielt das Spiel von den Printmagazinen PC Action und Power Play.

Charlie Brooker vom britischen Spielemagazin PC Zone kam lediglich zu einer durchschnittlichen Wertung 62 %. Obwohl er die technische Leistung lobte, kritisierte er vor allem überlange, mit zahlreichen Wortneuschöpfungen gespickte Gespräche, die gepaart mit einer platten Handlung und schwachen, uninspirierten Kämpfen zu Langeweile führten.

Retrospektiv wurde das Spiel häufig als seiner Zeit voraus bezeichnet. Neben der frühen Verwendung eines vollorchestrierten Live-Soundtracks gilt Outcast bei einigen Kritikern zusätzlich als erstes dreidimensionales Open-World-Adventurespiel.

Soundtrack-Kritiken
Neben dem Spiel fand insbesondere der von Moore komponierte Soundtrack nachhaltigen Anklang.

2003 wurden Teile von Moores Soundtrack zusammen mit anderen Spielekompositionen im Rahmen des ersten symphonischen Spielemusikkonzerts im Vorfeld der Spielemesse Games Convention aufgeführt. Dabei handelte es sich um die erste auf Spielekompositionen spezialisierte Veranstaltung außerhalb Japans. Aufgeführt wurde das Konzert im Leipziger Gewandhaus vom Tschechischen Symphonieorchester unter Leitung von Andy Brick.

Der Spielekomponist Cris Velasco bezeichnete Moores Komposition als ausschlaggebend, sich als Komponist dem Spielesektor zuzuwenden:

Auszeichnungen und Verkaufserfolg
Auf der E3 1999 erhielt Outcast den Sonderpreis der Game Critics Awards für herausragende Leistungen im Bereich Sound. Das Computerspiel-Onlinemagazin GameSpot zeichnete das Spiel als "Adventure Game of the Year" aus, ebenso das Printmagazin Computer Gaming World im Rahmen seiner 2000 Premier Awards. Dies geschah in ausdrücklicher Anerkennung der erzählerischen Qualität des Spiels, da diese Kategorie in beiden Formaten üblicherweise traditionellen Adventure-Spielen vorbehalten war. Von der Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences wurde Outcast für die Interactive Achievement Awards 2000 in den Kategorien "Bestes Adventure / Rollenspiel des Jahres" und den besten Soundtrack nominiert, konnte aber keinen dieser Preise für sich entscheiden. Die DVD-Fassung wurde als Beste Europäische DVD auf der DVD Summit III in Dublin und als DVD Champion des Jahres 2000 in der Kategorie Spiele ausgezeichnet.

Outcast konnte die Gewinnerwartungen des Publishers Infogrames nicht erfüllen. Das Spiel verkaufte sich in der Zeit nach Veröffentlichung lediglich 400.000 Mal, in den USA konnten gerade einmal 50.000 Einheiten abgesetzt werden.

Im November 2017 prüfte das Spielemagazin 4Players das Remake Outcast: Second Contact und vergab die Wertung "Ausreichend" mit 50 von 100 Punkten für die Plattformen PlayStation 4, Xbox One und PC. Die GameStar bewertete das Remake in ihrem Test mit 67 Punkten.

Weblinks

 Kickstarter-Projekt: Outcast Reboot HD
 Franck Sauer: Outcast – Überblicksartikel des Art Directors mit Hintergrundinformationen
 Lennie Moores Website mit Musikstücken aus Outcast

Einzelnachweise

Computerspiel 1999
Action-Adventure
Windows-Spiel
Open-World-Spiel
Science-Fiction-Computerspiel

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Ramsau am Dachstein welcomes you and your family with an impressive winter Ski Show and a spectacular program at Rittisberg. The Ski Show is free of charge.
Between 60 and 100 actors, mostly ski instructors of the Ski School Ramsau, offer a great show. We will enchant you with awesome acrobatics. Action, Snow Bar and Music.


Australian researchers say a world-first method to get an endangered frog species "in the mood to mate" could be a vital way of saving endangered amphibians across the world.
The northern corroboree frog, found in cold, highly-elevated parts surrounding Canberra, are under threat from feral pigs and horses, fire, drought and forestry operations.
An added challenge for boosting numbers of the frog is a strong mating bias in captivity, which has meant less than a third of males have success in mating.
Far from the romantic cues of dimming the lighting or putting on sensual music, this project has involved putting hormones onto the bellies of frogs to boost desire.
As part of a four-year trial, University of Wollongong (UOW) and Taronga Zoo experts administered the hormone topically on the frogs as they were paired for breeding.
So far, more than 800 offspring at different developmental stages — as eggs, tadpoles and young frogs — have been released in the Brindabella Ranges on the NSW/ACT border.
UOW reproductive biologist Dr Aimee Silla said getting frogs in a frisky state was a challenge when breeding them in captivity as they needed "a little bit of a nudge".
"They are so finely-tuned into environmental stimuli to actually get their hormones going and basically get them in the mood to reproduce," Dr Silla said.
"All animals need the right cues, whether that's environmental cues, so temperature, rainfall or humidity. Reproduction is a lot more complex than it might appear to be."
Dr Silla said while the breeding program was only possible in captivity, it would help boost the number of offspring and their potential to adapt to threats.
"It's about putting as many offspring into the wild as possible and with as much genetic diversity as possible so that we can try and recover the species in the wild," she said.
"They can hopefully then do their thing unassisted and once there's enough of them breeding again in the wild then we can kind of take a step back and hopefully we won't have to intervene in the future."
The synthetic gonadotrophin-releasing hormone is the same used in IVF and is traditionally applied as an injection through the skin.
But Dr Silla, who worked alongside Dr Phillip Byrne said putting the hormone straight on the stomach eliminated the need for an injection and was more easily absorbed.
"The really great thing about this protocol is that it's easy, it's user-friendly, cost-effective," she said.
"And we're really hoping that not just for the northern corroboree frogs, but for threatened species globally, this protocol can be taken onboard.
"Particularly in developing countries where they might not have as much access to the training required to inject animals safely."


text:
Cheval Collection announces London expansion
Posted on Jan 22, 2021 by Brides & You 0 Comments
Cheval Collection, the luxury hospitality company currently with serviced apartments across London and Edinburgh, has announced expansion in London as part of a long-term strategic vision for growth.
From Spring 2021, Cheval Collection will have a stylish and luxurious additional property consisting of 30 apartments at Cheval Lexham Gardens. This follows Cheval's expansion into Edinburgh, which took place in July 2020. The all-apartment residence, which will be a luxury, state-of-the-art contemporary, and boutique West London property, will be available to book for any length of stay, from one night to one year or more. The 30 beautifully appointed and fully equipped one- or two-bedroom apartments, spread across six floors, are ideal for relocation, leisure and business. Guests will benefit from modernised finishes and features including a beautiful ground floor reception, a landscaped atrium garden and a state-of-the-art fitness centre, with equipment from Precor including a treadmill, elliptical and stationary bike, amongst others.
George Westwell, CEO of Cheval Collection, said "The entire team at Cheval Collection is extremely excited about the opening of this brand-new residence. The apartments are superbly located, just moments from Royal Parks, The National History Museum and vibrant Kensington, with easy access to public transport from Gloucester Road Station.
Furthermore, this year Cheval Old Town Chambers will see an additional 25 apartments join the 50 we already operate. Being able to develop and grow even further in the UK with Cheval Lexham Gardens and Edinburgh is testament to the strength of the brand. Whilst 2020 has brought challenges for many, I am amazed at Cheval's ability to adapt and grow. We have led the way in hospitality for over 39 years and I'm confident with our expansion, our loyal customer base and our strategic visions, this will continue through 2021."
Cheval Lexham Gardens joins eight additional serviced apartment residences in London and offers a stylish, spacious and private alternative to hotels. With a beautiful collection of serviced apartments, townhouses and penthouses in some of London's most prestigious neighbourhoods, all just moments from key travel networks and transport links, Cheval Residences offers more than just a home and makes life blissfully easy for guests.
Cheval Collection has continued its operations during the COVID-19 crisis and has adapted procedures in line with government and health authority advice to maintain the highest level of cleanliness and hygiene, whilst offering the best service. To prevent the spread of the COVID-19 virus, Cheval Collection has put in place a set of procedures and standards at its Residences to limit the chance of exposure both for team members as well as valued guests and clients.
All Cheval residences are available to book today and Cheval is offering a special 21% New Year discount on their 11 residences based in London and Edinburgh for Pakistani citizens. The offer is valid till the 31st of March 2021 for stays until the 30th of June 2021.
To learn more about Cheval please visit: www.chevalcollection.com
Cheval Collection, Edinburgh, London, lotuspk, Pakistan


The Center for Reading Recovery & Literacy Collaborative offers 2 fully online graduate certificate programs, and several online courses you can take individually.
You can take these online courses in literacy teaching or coaching individually, or as part of one of our 2 online graduate certificate programs. We offer an 18-credit graduate certificate program for teachings in Developing Systematic Language and Literacy Expertise and a 12-credit graduate certificate program in Literacy Coaching and Teacher Leader Expertise. Financial aid is available for both certificate programs.
Contact Kelly Adams at kadams@lesley.edu if you have any questions about these courses or certificate programs.
Here are the courses that make up each program, and when they are offered.
All of our online courses are 8 weeks long and offered for 3 graduate credits.
An 18-credit online graduate certificate program.
A 12-credit online graduate certificate program for literacy coaches and teacher leaders. You can take up to 2 courses before deciding to enroll in the program.


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All Neighborhoods Map About Archer Road
Get to know…Archer Road
The Archer Road section of town (south and southwest of the University of Florida campus) is a large expanse that is filled with a variety of apartments and just as much food and retail. Locals love this area because it provides easy access to I-75, The University of Florida, and restaurants and retail at Butler Plaza and Celebration Pointe. Live anywhere in this neighborhood, and you'll never be far from the grocery store, new restaurants to try, or your favorite stores.
The center of activity is Gainesville's busiest intersection, SW Archer Road and SW 34th Street. This bustling section of town extends from about UF Health (Shands) down to Williston Road and follows Archer Road west all the way to the Tower Road area. Most Gainesville residents visit this area of town regularly, and many students find it a good place to call home.
Living in Archer Road apartments can be very convenient; not only are there many large and popular apartment communities that offer student-focused pool parties and events, but it also encompasses shopping mecca Butler Plaza and is just southwest of the UF campus. It is also very convenient to UF Health and the VA Hospital. You could live in this area and never have to travel anywhere else. There's something for every budget as well. From cheap apartments to more luxurious offerings, you'll find a place to call home.
Butler Plaza, on the north side of Archer Road, is the largest retail center in North Central Florida. It is home to more than 100 stores and restaurants; most of them are familiar chains, while some are local, well-known stores. Celebration Pointe is a newer development in town and is already extremely popular with Gainesville locals and UF Alumni. This breezy, open-air plaza offers retail shops, restaurants, a movie theater, and green space.
(Clockwise from top left) Well-landscaped grounds at the intersection of Archer Rd. and SW 28th Terrace, The Cheesecake Factory, Butler Sign at Whole Foods Plaza, PF Chang's, Tesla Car Charging Station, Shopping Options.
Due to the heavy traffic, you'd probably want to drive (rather than walk) when you go out and about. Luckily, everything is a quick drive away from the apartment communities, and there's plenty of parking. You could also get away with riding the bus.
This area is the most recently developed section of Gainesville, so you wouldn't describe it as having a ton of local character. However, there are some local hot spots unique to Gainesville, you just have to know where to look.
How to Get to School
The center of UF's campus is a 5-15 minute drive away, depending where you live and the time of day. Many students who live just south of campus near Shands ride their bike or simply walk across the street.
Since so many students rent apartments on or near Archer Road, the RTS bus system is pretty well equipped to handle the flow to and from campus. There is also a convenient route from the area to the mall. Routes to possibly use include the 1, 9, 12, 22, 34, 35, 36, 38, 75.
Attractions & Businesses
The retail and restaurant options are Archer Road's attractions. Restaurant chains along Archer Road and in Butler Town Center include everything from Taco Bell to Outback Steakhouse and Olive Garden, while to-go food chains include Chick-fil-A, Bento, Relish, and much more. Celebration Pointe features many exciting restaurants, including Spurriers Gridiron Grill for delicious American food and mouth-watering cocktails inspired by Hall of Famer Steve Spurrier. Try MidiCi's for wood-fired pizza or Hana Sushi for Asian-Fusion cuisine.
As for shopping, Butler Town Center features many big-box stores such as Target, Wal-Mart, Lowes, Publix, Best Buy, Old Navy... you get the idea. Drop by the Alumni Hall for any and all Gator gear! If you're looking for more up-scale shopping, check out Celebration Pointe for stores like Tommy Hilfiger or Nike.
Archer Road is also home to Regal Cinemas, Gainesville's largest movie theatre. For nature, the Kanapaha Botanical Gardens is on Archer Road, just west of I-75. The Historic Haile Homestead is just a few miles further.
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Archer Road
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