Joystiq

Moonbase Alpha update adds competitive and sandbox modes

Xav de Matos — Tue, 07 Aug 2012 01:45:00 EST

Now that Curiosity has landed safely on Mars, it's time to thrust the moon back into the spotlight. The free NASA-released PC game, Moonbase Alpha, from developer Virtual Heroes, has been updated with a new team-based multiplayer mode dubbed "Moonbase Madness." In the mode, two teams of three astronauts compete to repair their own moonbases.

Stop writing that letter to your congressperson asking for peace between those competitive astronauts - there's a story behind the add-on: "Returning from a research expedition, you witness a meteorite impact that cripples the life support capability of the settlement. With precious minutes ticking away, you and your team must repair and replace equipment in order to restore the oxygen production to the settlement."

In addition to the new mode, Moonbase Alpha's recent update includes a sandbox level for your wildest space-based fantasies. So, Mars and the Moon conquered. We're coming for Uranus next! [FIRED. - Ed.]

Gallery: Moonbase Alpha (Competitive Multiplayer Update)

Moonbase Alpha update adds competitive and sandbox modes originally appeared on Joystiq on Tue, 07 Aug 2012 01:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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NASA flinging Portal 2's space core into space, sort of

Jessica Conditt — Sun, 22 Jul 2012 19:30:00 EST

Wheatley, the adorably dumb and delightfully devious space core in Portal 2, is making a real-life trip to space. Kind of.

An anonymous tech at NASA got away with laser-engraving the above image of Wheatley with the quote "In spaaaaaaace!" on the Japanese HTV-3 resupply craft to the ISS. Wheatley and the craft are set to launch on Friday, July 27, at 10:06 EST. You can watch the launch beginning at 9:15 EST on Friday at the NASA TV website.

"NASA in no way officially endorses secretly laser-engraving characters from Portal onto their spacecraft," the Portal 2 blog writes. "Believe it or not, they don't even officially endorse Portal 2, despite the fact that it's a really excellent game." But someone (or some robot) at NASA obviously respects quality entertainment.

Update: As many readers have pointed out, the image is likely not referring to Wheatley as the official Portal 2 blog states, but probably referring to Portal 2's "space core" instead. Or it could be the space core's text below an intended image of Wheatley. Only the stars will know now.

NASA flinging Portal 2's space core into space, sort of originally appeared on Joystiq on Sun, 22 Jul 2012 19:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Angry Birds Space trailer, brought to you by NASA [Update: Screens and details]

JC Fletcher — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 10:30:00 EST

This teaser for Angry Birds Space not only has the cooperation of NASA, it was filmed on the International Space Station, featuring a live Angry Birds demonstration and physics lesson from astronaut Don Pettit.

All right, Rovio, that's pretty damn cool. As a nice bonus, there's gameplay footage at the end too, showing what appear to be weightless environments, many built around small circular planets.

Update: Rovio has sent along some screenshots and some more information. Angry Birds Space will feature 60 levels, new birds, new abilities, secret bonus levels and, of course, the gravity tricks seen in the trailer. The app will receive "regular free updates" and will feature in-app purchases.

[Thanks, Jason]

Gallery: Angry Birds Space (3/8/12)

Continue reading Angry Birds Space trailer, brought to you by NASA [Update: Screens and details]

Angry Birds Space trailer, brought to you by NASA [Update: Screens and details] originally appeared on Joystiq on Thu, 08 Mar 2012 10:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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How Rovio CEO's grandparents saved the space program... wait...

Jessica Conditt — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 19:18:00 EST

Before Apollo 11 made history by successfully shuttling the first humans to the moon in 1969, the space program was in desperate financial condition and President John F. Kennedy had his grandparents mortgage their apartment for the money to keep NASA running. Er, no -- we're getting our stories mixed up here.

The bit about the grandparents mortgaging their home to keep a company running is actually the story behind Rovio, the creators of Angry Birds. Rovio was mainly backed by CEO Mikael Hed's dad and it hadn't produced a hit in years before Angry Birds; it was Hed's dad who proposed the family-mortgage plan.

"He told me that he wanted to mortgage my grandparents' flat so he could put some more money in the company to keep it afloat," Hed told All Things D. "That was pretty tough. I certainly did not want to be the person responsible for putting my grandparents on the street."

Hed doesn't have to worry about that now, as Angry Birds is a smash (HA!) hit and Rovio is valued at more than $6 billion. The next game from Rovio is Angry Birds Space, due out for iOS, Android, PC and Mac on March 22, and whose out-of-this-world adorable trailer you can view above.

How Rovio CEO's grandparents saved the space program... wait... originally appeared on Joystiq on Fri, 24 Feb 2012 19:18:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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NASA totally makes iOS and Facebook games now

JC Fletcher — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 15:30:00 EST

NASA is exploring the strange new world of social and mobile gaming, with two new game apps designed to educate about math, flight, and the history of space exploration.

Sector 33 for iOS is an air traffic control simulator, in which players manage the speed and route of up to five planes coming into San Francisco from the east. Instead of the breezy gameplay of Flight Control, you have to deal with actual wind and other real-life complications.

Space Race Blast Off is a virtual game show on Facebook in which players compete to answer space-related trivia for points, in categories including "technology," "astronauts," and "math." Go learn something!

NASA totally makes iOS and Facebook games now originally appeared on Joystiq on Thu, 02 Feb 2012 15:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Watch space shuttle Discovery's final launch from PlayStation Home premium yacht

JC Fletcher — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 14:00:00 EST

Home users! Be sure to step out of your promotional wastelands and secret subscriber enclaves today, for the sake of history. Space shuttle Discovery is taking off for the last time today at 4:50PM ET, and you can watch the whole thing from the confines of the PS3's virtual world.

However, there is a catch. You can't just watch from your own room in Home or the Central Plaza or wherever -- you can only view the launch from the Loot Sunset Yacht, a "premium personal space" available for purchase (previously known as the "Amaterasu Yacht"). Of course, this makes the event sound a bit less "historic" and more like "paying Sony for the privilege of watching your avatar watch the shuttle launch, instead of just watching it yourself on your whole TV screen for free."

Watch space shuttle Discovery's final launch from PlayStation Home premium yacht originally appeared on Joystiq on Thu, 24 Feb 2011 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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NASA's free Moonbase Alpha now available

Mike Schramm — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 10:00:00 EST

Filed under: Weird But True, Opinions, New In Pop Culture

If the Army can release a free video game to drum up some attention for its cause, why not NASA? That seems to be the argument behind Moonbase Alpha, a free game developed along with NASA that's now available on Steam. With up to six players at a time, the game allows you to experience the surface of the moon while trying to "repair and replace equipment in order to restore the oxygen production to the settlement," after a meteorite causes system failure.

The official page calls it a "First Person Explorer" title, and shows players fixing equipment connections and even building and controlling a Wall-E style repair robot. The graphics even look good, too -- exactly like that television studio NASA filmed those "moon landings" in. Nice try, NASA, but everybody knows it's nothing but green cheese up there.

NASA's free Moonbase Alpha now available originally appeared on Joystiq on Thu, 08 Jul 2010 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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'Richard Garriott: Man on a Mission' premiering at SXSW Film Festival

JC Fletcher — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 15:30:00 EST

Richard Garriott spent years as the ruler of a fictional kingdom before he became a second-generation astronaut. Sounds like the kind of guy you'd want to make a movie about! That's exactly what filmmaker Mike Woolf and his production company, Beef & Pie, has done, and it sounds like it's going to be a treat not only for old-school PC game-types who remember "Lord British," but also anyone interested in the process of going into space.

Richard Garriott: Man on a Mission, a film about the preparation and execution of Garriott's 2008 trip to the International Space Station, will premiere at the South by Southwest Film Festival in Austin, Texas, with showings on Sunday, March 14 and Thursday, March 18. The film includes "never-before-seen training footage in Star City, Russia's secretive cosmonaut training facility," as well as footage of the launch and video taken from space by Garriott. Check out a trailer after the break.

Continue reading 'Richard Garriott: Man on a Mission' premiering at SXSW Film Festival

'Richard Garriott: Man on a Mission' premiering at SXSW Film Festival originally appeared on Joystiq on Fri, 05 Mar 2010 15:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Online gaming between Earth and Mars will be laggy as hell

Griffin McElroy — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 06:00:00 EST

We know that not everyone was blessed with knowledge of aeronautical physics and interplanetary telecommunications, so we'll try and keep this simple. A recent Edge Online article examined the possibility of online multiplayer matches between human Earthlings and human Martians -- as one might expect, the future of galactic Left 4 Dead bouts looks pretty grim.

First off, NASA's two Martian orbiters, through which information is relayed to Earth, can only transfer a single megabit of data per second. Worse still, these orbiters only work in 15 minute increments before they must be repositioned -- a process that takes hours. Furthermore, bandwidth is unsurprisingly limited on the Red Planet -- messages between Earth and Mars usually suffer 4 - 20 minutes of lag, depending on the positions of the conversing planets.

Check out the full article for even more interesting tidbits about extraterrestrial multiplayer. It's all a bit pointless, though. From what we've recently learned, folks on Mars are far too busy causing property damage to play any video games.

Online gaming between Earth and Mars will be laggy as hell originally appeared on Joystiq on Thu, 06 Aug 2009 06:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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NASA may enter game publishing realm with space exploration MMO

Griffin McElroy — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 10:30:00 EST

Filed under: PC, MMO

Though space-themed MMOs have a tendency of hastily going the way of the dodo (sometimes before they're ever released), NASA is considering throwing their lot into the ever-growing MMO market with an online space exploration game that will allow players to "simulate real Nasa engineering and science missions" with thousands of other wannabe cosmonauts. That is, if a thousand people purchase the game -- an unlikely scenario, considering the title doesn't include the words "world", "of", "war", or "craft".

We love the idea of an MMO based on real-life space experiments, however, we doubt the game will appeal to the Barrens Chat crowd without the timely addition of "lazorz" and "totally crazy aliens". Actually, that might be a good thing -- we shudder to think of the implications of the creation of "Uranus Chat".

NASA may enter game publishing realm with space exploration MMO originally appeared on Joystiq on Sat, 19 Jan 2008 10:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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NASA considering reaching out to youth through 3D moon landing game

John Bardinelli — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 19:58:00 EST

Filed under: Culture, Business

In an effort to bolster its declining image and make space exploration cool again, NASA is considering working with game development companies to create a 3D game that simulates landing on the moon. It's little more than idle brainstorming at the moment, but the company is making a considerable effort to reach out to the non-fogey crowd by setting up real estate in Second Life, streaming spacewalk videos on Twitter, and establishing a presence on Facebook.

It's tough to top landing a man on the moon, which is perhaps one reason NASA isn't as popular as it once was. That and what seems like a string of blunders beginning with Challenger and continuing through the Hubble. Other than boosting interest in science, mathematics, and space in general, could a videogame make the public fall for NASA once again?

And for the record, we still love you, NASA. Always have.

NASA considering reaching out to youth through 3D moon landing game originally appeared on Joystiq on Thu, 28 Jun 2007 19:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Video Sandwich: October 28, 2006

Andrew Yoon — Sat, 28 Oct 2006 23:40:00 EST

Filed under: Fan Stuff

Ever want the whole world in your hands? YouTube user zachetus has turned his PSP into a remote control for the NASA World Wind program. This will become really helpful when satellite data gets strong enough so we can peek into showers. Yes, "helpful" is the word I'd use in a scenario like that...

Speaking of creepy, YouTube user EnKeRaDc has a torrid love affair with his PSP. He makes a very disturbing tribute video to his somehow broken handheld. I like my PSP, but this guy took being a fanboy to a whole new, scary, level.

Video Sandwich: October 28, 2006 originally appeared on Joystiq on Sat, 28 Oct 2006 23:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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