Deep Space Tycoon

[Jaunita Rousu]

Asif the idea of launching himself into outer space on his own shuttle was not exciting enough, the British mogul has now launched a project to ride a one-man submarine to the deepest depths of the ocean.

Mr. Branson on Tuesday unveiled Virgin Oceanic, the newest branch of the multifaceted Virgin Group best known for its music and airline companies. The undersea program aims to set some 30 Guinness World Records as it makes five dives in five oceans over two years in the world's only submarine capable of taking a human to the bottom of each sea.

In a sleek CGI video, the fish-like Virgin Oceanic Sub dives deeper than is capable by a sperm whale (3,000 meters) or the most advanced currently operating Russian submersible (6,000 meters), nearly seven miles below the surface to the Marinas Trench in the Pacific Ocean, which at 36,201 feet is the deepest known point in the ocean.

Until now, Branson has shown more interest in flying high than in going deep. A leader in the emerging space tourism industry, Branson in December 2009 unveiled the SpaceShipTwo, Virgin Galactic's commercial spaceliner built to fly passengers on suborbital thrill rides. Over the past year it has conducted a number of successful test flights.

As the Monitor reported recently, the billionaire has bemoaned that today's schools fail to teach future entrepreneurs how to take risks while wasting time "overeducating" them on less practical things.

Monitor journalism changes lives because we open that too-small box that most people think they live in. We believe news can and should expand a sense of identity and possibility beyond narrow conventional expectations.

Microsoft Studios and Frontier worked together to ensure fans of the series felt at home, while providing new and exciting features only possible on the Xbox platforms. Zoo Tycoon was praised by critics as the best title in the series to date!

In LostWinds, the player controls a young boy named Toku, taking the power of the wind in the palm of their hand. Players guide Toku and Enril through a magical, award-winning adventure using playful controls to smash enemies, solve puzzles, and explore a beautiful fantasy world in this classic platform adventure.

In November 2004 Frontier and publisher Atari brought the RollerCoaster Tycoon franchise into dynamic 3D. RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 quickly went on to become a Number One PC title and continues to be enjoyed by players all over the world on PC and mobile over a decade later.

In this new adventure players are able to instantly transform Mistralis between Summer and Winter, harnessing the brilliance of nature: frozen winter ponds and waterfalls become deep, teeming summer pools and chambers in which to dive and unlock secrets, enemies can be frozen or doused, and the very air itself used to form snowballs or moisture-laden clouds.

This game features stunning high definition graphics, hundreds of customizable building components, physics-based destruction, cinematic collisions, unlockable levels, in-game leaderboards, global rankings and more. ScreamRide is the home of limitless innovation. Push the boundaries of thrill seekers everywhere. Take on your perfect role to complete each level in multiple ways. Scream seekers can prove their precise piloting skills, engineers can solve cunning construction puzzles and demolition experts can ignite the most explosive carnage possible. The path you choose is up to you!

Tales from Deep Space is a comic adventure set on Big Moon, the most eccentric space station in the galaxy. Players help E, a traveling salesman, and his loyal luggage drone CASI escape when Big Moon is thrown into lockdown.

Coaster Crazy offers a fun, easy and compelling way to build coasters using a touchscreen, allowing players to build a coaster empire in iconic locations around the world, and to share coasters with friends and players online.

The Frontier-developed expansion pack provides 17 additional scenarios and loads of new scenery items, rides and other attractions, many of which are animated. The new content is themed around the world's seven continents, for example allowing players to build themed parks in and around the Great Wall of China, at the European Cultural Festival, a high rise US skyscraper city, an Australian beach party, an African diamond mine, ancient South American temples or the vast snowscapes of the Antarctic!

In single-player action-adventure Wallace and Gromit in Project Zoo, gamers take on the role of lovable dog Gromit and attempt to liberate the Zoo from the evil clutches of maniacal penguin Feathers McGraw. While racing through six massive action-packed levels, with 24 missions and 12 mini arcade games, players will master loads of special moves from Gromit such as back flips, somersaults and even break dancing. Wallace's wacky inventions - including the Springy Boots, Banana Launcher, Porridge Gun, Turnip Gun and Coal Flinger - add to the fun.

The technical achievement in making a true-3D, fast-paced game for mobile platforms is compelling enough, but Darxide EMP also has a truly exceptional gaming pedigree - it is the result of a collaboration between Frontier's David Braben and Peter Irvin, who each co-authored the games Elite and Exile respectively.

Infestation is a vehicle-based combat and exploration game with a large emphasis on diverse gameplay. The single player game features a mission-based campaign where the player is able to freely travel between twenty two different worlds, researching new weapons and vehicle modes as they progress.

The sequel to Virus, "V2000" was published by Grolier Interactive on PC and Playstation in October 1998 and was very well reviewed (PC Zone Classic 90%, and five full pages in Edge magazine). It then went on to be one of only three nominees for best game of the preceding few years in the first BAFTA Awards in 1998.

The game very much shows it's traditional gaming heritage in that the later worlds are very difficult to complete, but contain a feast of novel game play features. There has been some criticism of the difficulty, but also huge praise from hard-core gamers.

Zarch and Virus very much raised the ante for games on the 16 bit platform. It was one of the first solid 3D games. It was the first to have 3D lighting effects and shadowing. In fact it generated the shadow silhouettes on the fly - also a first.

First released on the Sega Megadrive 32X console, "Darxide" was written in association with Peter Irvin and was published as a SEGA own-brand title. It is one of the few games on the 32X to do texture mapping, and as such looks better than many Saturn games for the machine SEGA chose to push instead of the 32X, the Saturn. This is because we were able to get software rendered textures at a higher rate on the 32X than the hardware could manage on the Saturn.

Zarch was exceedingly well reviewed at the time, as most other games were either 2D platformers, or wire-frame 3D - hence the now seemingly amazing tag line on the cover of ACE magazine (now Edge) SOLID 3D - the future of games? Zarch was reviewed with a score of 979 - the highest rating ACE had given at that time.

"Frontier" also set a number of firsts. It was the first game to have real-sized planets, where cities could be viewed from orbit, it was the first to use curved surfaces (Bezier), the only game to do a palette-fit every frame to get best use of colours (Amiga and ST only), and (apart from First Encounters and Elite: Dangerous) is the only piece of software (games or otherwise) that attempts to simulate our entire galaxy.

Planets... READ MORE PC AMIGA ATARI Elite "Elite" was written by David Braben and Ian Bell starting in 1982 while the authors were still at Cambridge University. It was first published by Acornsoft on the BBC Micro in September 1984 to huge critical acclaim. The rights to other computer platforms were then auctioned by Jacqui Lyons of Marjacq, and British Telecom then went on to publish on many other platforms under the name of Firebird.

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