I love Steam for their occasional deals, such as the recent Indie Game Pack they had on sale for $7.99. The pack came with a number of independent games, including Galcon Fusion. If not for that deal I would have never known what a great game I was missing.
The game play is fairly simple, in theory. Galcon Fusion is a RTS game set in space. Games start with each player controlling a planet (or multiple planets, depending on the settings). The number shown on controlled planets represents how many ships you have on that planet. Controlled planets also generate new ships, the larger the planet, the faster it generates ships. Neutral planets that are not owned by any player show a number on them, representing the number of ships you need to take over the planet. Clicking on one of your controlled planets and then right clicking a neutral or enemy planets sends a percentage (which can be changed from %5 to 100%) of ships, represented as triangles, from your planet to the neutral/enemy planet. If you send more ships then the neutral/enemy planet has, you take it over. The goal being to take over all the planets on the map.
Normally it’s not a big deal when someone updates a game and adds a single new achievement (Transmission Received), but it’s Valve and Portal might be one of my favorite games of all time. I also love a crazy video game mystery, which it turns out this update is. Along with the achievement Valve also added in a bunch of radios through out the game, probably in reference to the achievement, with Morse code and what sounds like a bunch of random noise. Not that interesting, but then people decoded the Morse code (the sound files are all called Dinosaur 1, 2, etc. so that’s what they are referencing):
1-Dinosaur 1
INTERIOR TRANSMISSION ACTIVE
EXTERNAL DATA LINE ACTIVE (Presumably the telnet number)
(Which sanitysama says is “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog”)
3-Dinosaur 12
SYSTEM DATA DUMP ACTIVE
USER BACKUP ACTIVE
PASSWORD BACKUP ACTIVE
4-Dinosaur 17
B-E-E-P
B-E-E-E-E-P
B-E-E-P
B-E-E-P
B-E-E-E-E-P
B-E-E-E-E-P
B-E-E-E-E-P
B-E-E-P
B-E-E-E-E-P
B-E-E-P
B-E-E-P
And if you turn all those Beeps into individual morse code it spells LOL.
- The other 22 are all images after decoding with SSTV software. Click for a Steam Forums thread with all of them.
- Some of the images clue letters/numbers; each has a number out of 32 in the bottom right of it. Putting these together leads to an md5 hash of a BBS number. Figuring out the login is what we’re currently stuck on.
Getting interesting, but not amazing. It started to get really good when another poster decided to run the stuff that sounded like random noise (not the Morse code) through a program called SSTV (I don’t know what that is) and got a bunch of random images.
So, that’s pretty awesome, Valve didn’t put in random noise it’s actually images. And someone far smarter then me figured it out. Even better, some of the images had numbers and letters on them. Combined, they formed an MD5 hash, which normally you shouldn’t be able to decode (that’s the point), but somehow someone figured it out (Googling the hash is a good start for common passwords). Turns out it’s a phone number, specifically a number to a computer running BBS that you can Telnet to. The number is (425) 822-5251 which (apparently someone looked this up, too) is located in Kirkland, Washington. Don’t call it from a standard phone, it won’t do anything, and you’ll just clog up the machine for people trying to figure out the login. No one is sure yet what the login / password is.
I more amazed that people figured all of that out in less than 24 hours.
Bioware will be releasing more DLC for Mass Effect 2, featuring the Hammerhead, a vehicle that hovers over the battlefield and shoots stuff. The Firewalker pack features five new missions and all original owners of Mass Effect 2 (or, all those with access to the Cerberus Network) will be able to download the content at no charge.
Download the Firewalker pack and gain access to 5 new missions featuring the Hammerhead. The Hammerhead is a heavy assault vehicle that hovers over the battlefield at up to 120 kilometers per hour and features a guided missile system ensuring accuracy even during aggressive maneuvering. Coming late March, free to all Cerberus Network members!
The Secret Armory of General Knoxx, the third DLC for Borderlands will be out tomorrow for the XBLA (for 800 Microsoft points). It will be available Thursday on PSN and PC ($9.99). The DLC raises the level cap to 61, adds in a whole bunch of new weapons, almost 30 new enemy types, and improved enemy AI. It’s a pretty big update, coming in at almost twice the size of previous DLC, The Zombie Island of Dr. Ned.
Bioware has released a new character trailer for their upcoming expansion Dragon Age: Origins Awaking.
Redwood Shores, CA – February 20, 2010 – The Darkspawn are evolving, becoming more skilled and treacherous opponents. Faced with the task of eliminating this new threat, you will be happy to have on your team someone who isn’t just willing to die in battle – she has to. Sigrun’s fate is sealed – she will do penance by giving her life on the battlefield. But she also has a huge chip on her shoulder, and she plans on taking out as many enemies as possible before she does.
There is only one way to leave the Legion of the Dead: by fulfilling a vow to die in battle against the enemies of Orzammar, a sacrifice that absolves any guilt. Sigrun craves a chance to prove she is more than a worthless gutter-rat, but it’s hard to rush headlong into a battle you won’t survive. After all, when you grow up casteless, you learn to fight for everything. You learn that you have to watch out for yourself, because no one else will, and the Stone knows no one’s going to miss you when you’re dead. Sigrun’s a survivor, and old habits die hard.
I’ve never really been a fan of the Command and Conquer series. Maybe it was the horribly cheesy cutscenes. Maybe it was lame units from previous entries in the series, such as the armored attack bear units, or the transforming mechas and ninjas. Something about the whole series just doesn’t sit well with me.
I can’t think of two more dissimilar games…if you pre-order The Dawn of War II expansion, Chaos Rising, you’ll get a copy of Saints Row 2 for free. I wonder who came up with that idea. Regardless, free is always good and apparently you can sell sex in Saints Row 2 for respect, which is interesting.
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