“Janna” Opens to High Acclaim

Caitlin Forster, ExpoEntertainment Magazine

Developer Rainlight Studios and publisher Aspire Softworks, who were behind the “Fade”, “Messiah” and “Zero Rate” franchises, have released their newest game “Janna” to critical and commercial acclaim. An estimated 24 million copies have sold within the first week, breaking several Opening Day sales records.

The IP in question is a science-fiction shooter with role-playing and co-op elements set in the far future whose appeal lies with its “Interactive Worldbuilding” system, which allows players to alter the world based on decisions throughout the course of the campaign.

President of Rainlight Joel Aronson commented that the game’s success “...provides the ultimate sandbox experience for gamers”. Liam MacDonald, COO of Aspire Softworks, stated that within one week Janna has registered an estimated 11 million users online and over 496 million hours of playing time.

Janna has now claimed the #1 sales spot from social-combat RPG “Voluntas 8: The Query,” which has held the spot for three weeks. Third place goes to new developer Clan Charot’s fighter release “Blades of Aralakh.”

I have to get my preorder on the way back from work.

Looking forward to getting this.

Every gaming website and magazine have been hyping this since it was first announced. Personally, I'm skeptical as to whether the promised features this game matches Rainlight's lofty ambitions, though I will admit it looks very pretty.

Also, a bit surprised it's had such a mammoth release, I was assuming the war would have made the market for shooters undesirable for publishers at this time.

I may give this a try once I get some income rolling in. Meantime, V8Q is enough to satisfy my gaming needs

A shame I may never get around to playing it, what with me being in a real-life shooter game for the next few years. I have to admit, though: far future, and that "interactive worldbuilding" thing? It sounds like something I could get behind.

Okay, I know I'm late to the party here, but...

HOLY SHRELL THIS GAME

.

Okay, I was lucky enough to get in on one of the demos of it during the Illum Tech Show before the Reaper War, and even then I thought it was pretty awesome. Immersive gameplay, solid mechanics, impressive visuals, yadda yadda yadda. It was fun to be able to literally bend bullets with your mind, but nothing revolutionary.

Or so I thought...

Welcome to The Station:




So any of you playing the Kal'per or Othea story lines know about the Kal'Per resistance. Ex-slaves that form a resistance dedicated to taking down the Dominion and their synthetic armies(blah blah blah, just quarian self inserts without the suits, blah blah blah. this is me not caring, extranet whiners :l).

Anyways, if you play the story line, you will undoubtedly hear about the Station, a supposed hidden city for the Kal'Per. What's awesome about this is that the station did not exist in the original game. That city up there? Completely player built. And the game's VI has reacted by having the Othea Dominion actively searching for and planning to destroy a player introduced city. That. Is. Awesome. I'm not going to say much more, because I don't want to compromise the Stations security, but we Kal'Per are ready.

Seriously though, I don't know how they did it, but this is the most fun I have had with a holo game in a looooooooong time.

Viva la revolucion!

Hey, hey Jeral, this is Custodian Raeta'Iral of the Othea Dominion, sending a message to your Kal'Per friends.

"There is no refuge in the galaxy where you can hide from us, there is no hope you have of prevailing against us. Each day that you resist only prolongs the inevitable.

When we find this Station, and we will, there shall be no mercy.

And when your city is reduced to ashes, as your comrades fall before us, you will realize the truth.

The Dominion always prevails."

(Playful banter aside, glad you're having as much fun as I.)

See, I might have to roll an alt now. I originally stayed far away from that storyline because-well, like you said, quarian self-inserts without the suits, blah blah blah, and it's poor taste to have the quarians playing the ex-slave role in a fight against synthetics.

Yes, I'm taking something entertaining too seriously.

I'm about of a third of the way into the Dovok Corporation story, and I'm loving it. I want to know who's being so devious as to load comets with nano-assemblers and then launch them at distant planets, but I don't actually want to be spoiled.

It always surprises how profitable these games can be. Not that I'm complaining.

See, you misunderstood me a bit here. I'm not agreeing with the "quarian self insert" complaints you see flying around the Internet, I'm totally opposed to that. I mean, just because Jil'Feler, a *gasp* quarian, is one of the main writers of the Kal'Per plot lines you had instant seething rage about "Oh noes, bucket whining in r gamz guyz, srsly."

The fact of the matter is, Jil is one of e most talented writers out there right now. And he openly stated that, yes, certain parts of the story of the Kal'Per plot was influenced by his own life experiences like slavery and the geth. But, you know what, all games are influenced by the expeinces of their writers.

In the end, he balanced well between telling a personal enough story that you can empathize with it, while avoiding breaking the fourth wall. All in all, he wrote a great story line, and that's all that matters. /rant

As far as the Dovok plot... HO BOY, are you in for some fun.

*Adjusts Dovok Inquisitor badge*

Oh you have no idea.

After action report for you all:

So, the Dominion Seventeenth Order has spent the past week trying to find the Station when we got a request to help aid an attack on the world of Uriwan, an backwater that the Kal'Per had recently occupied and had completed construction of an orbital dock yard.



The fleet emerged out of FTL, with orders to retake the dockyard, intact, we go in, at first glance, doesn't appear to be much resistance aside from a squadron of frigates and an old destroyers. Seemed too easy to be true right?

Of course, the Kal'Per fleet was lying in wait to ambush us, and we had soon learned they had placed a lot of anti-ship weaponry at the anchorage. To make matters worse, some of the ships were empty vessels programmed to ram into our capital ships.

Me and the other Custodians were ordered to assault the docks with a few dozen Striker platforms and get the AS guns offline. Give credit to the Kal'Per players, they had certainly done their homework for this one. We get off the dropship and they tried to vent the hangars into orbit, successfully did it to one squad of Custodian's unfortunately. Nevertheless, thanks to my character's Slicer skill, we managed to get through the hangar defenses and make our way to the Defense Mainframe. The defenders tried their hardest to keep us out, but unfortunately for them we had a Judicator mech alongside us, which is basically a heavy anti-infantry platform designed for insertion assaults, and the Crafter who designed her had given her some nice shield buffs.

End result, we reach the Mainframe and turn the guns on the Kal'Per fleet, forcing them to retreat. Bad news though is that we lost six ships including two cruisers to the ambush. Our fleet commander's currently asking other players if they're willing to loan ships as we continue to search for the Station.

Anyway, that's all for now.

Holy crap, this is amazing. My fiancée picked it up from a friend and I stole it (:D) and just-wow. I haven't had this much fun since Sons of Dust (say all you want about the glitches, the story was brilliant and the combat addictive). if you haven't picked this game up yet, get it! It's worth it. I haven't gotten too far into the storyline, due to my poor over-taxed, three year old terminal and power restrictions, but I'm sold.

Above poster: your time will come.

Also local chat was hilarious when we pulled that ambush off.

Maybe I wasn't clear either. Of course I want quarian experiences reflected in games, but any plot where it's heroic quarians against disposable synthetics puts kinks in my tubing. I don't want to hear it, ever again (alas, this means a lot of my favorite childhood HV shows are ruined now). I don't for a minute think the writers intended anything bad. There is inevitably a twist somewhere. But really? :\

...I'm rolling a dominion character. :P


Sounds awesome.