Dystopia (video game)
Dystopia is a cyberpunk-themed modification of the 2004 first-person shooter Half-Life 2. Its first playable demo was released on September 9, 2005, after a year of planning and nine months of development. Dystopia's popularity is quickly growing within the Half-Life 2 community, the demo having already been downloaded more than 90,000 times.
Overview
Dystopia is a total conversion multiplayer-only mod that takes place in a futuristic world where two factions battle for control - the Punk Mercenaries and the Corporate Security Forces. Dystopia is a first-person shooter, and like many other mods, it is team-based. Though player models are markedly different between teams and each team has a different set of objectives, both teams are identical in terms of attributes and available equipment.
Dystopia's most unique feature is perhaps its cyberspace gameplay. Players who equip themselves with a "Cyberdeck" implant can "jack-in" to the cyber-world (called "decking") and use special virtual terminals to control electronic systems in the regular game world, thus helping their team mates meet objectives. Cyberspace in Dystopia adds an interesting layer of strategy and complexity to the gameplay. For an example of Dystopia's rendition of cyberspace, see the screenshot below.
Another feature of note is Dystopia's "Awards" scoreboard, which is displayed at the end of each round. Humorous awards are presented to players who excelled in certain areas, such as "Minions do my Bidding" for the player with the most spider grenade kills.
Whether or not Dystopia will remain a free mod is still under consideration. As the team member "Fuzzy" puts it:
"If Dystopia's demo is a huge hit (which we obviously hope it will be), with help from Valve we will investigate the possibility of turning Dystopia into a stand alone game ... I can honestly state however; we have no intention of charging for Dystopia unless it's a stand alone product."[1]
With the September 26th Steam update that introduced Day of Defeat: Source and the new HDR code, Dystopia users began to experience problems such as malfunctioning game options, crashes, and for some players, an inability to load the game at all. Three days later, an update for the Dystopia demo was released, resolving issues created by the Steam update.
Gameplay
Implants
Dystopia features a system of "implants" which allow players to tweak their abilities to match their playing style or role within their team. Implants give players special abilities, such as thermal vision or cloaking. There are two categories of implants: HeadSpace implants and BodySpace implants. Each class has a different amount of HeadSpace and BodySpace available for implants; the heavier the class, the less space for implants. The implants are as follows:
- HeadSpace:
- CyberDeck - allows user to jack-in to cyberspace via terminals throughout the map.
- TAC Scanner - sweeps area for targets, displaying enemies on the player's HUD and minimap as well as those of his teammates.
- Thermal Vision - counters the Stealth implant by allowing player to see heat emitted from bodies, but removes the player's ability to distinguish friend from foe via the HUD.
- Sound Wave Triangulator (SWT) - displays the position of enemies' footsteps on the HUD as red triangles, and projectile impacts as yellow or grey triangles. In addition, a blue circle provides an all-around diagram of nearby sounds and their intensity.
- Cortex Bomb - a self-destructive explosive device that triggers after the player has reached 20 health points or below. It takes time to explode, and if the player is killed or healed to above 20 health points before this time, it deactivates. The explosion deals massive amounts of damage.
- BodySpace:
- Stealth - cloaks a player to a degree; when standing still, the player becomes almost completely invisible. Visibility increases with movement.
- Sound Suppressor - Counters SWT by disabling sound for all enemies in range.
- MediPlant - heals nearby teammates for 10 health every second, but drains energy very quickly. Also heals the user, but only for 4 hitpoints per second.
- Leg Boosters - allows "charged" jumps, and turns the shift key into sprint.
- Superconductor Capacitor Storage (SCS) - increases player's energy storage by 25 units.
Except the SCS, all implants require energy to function. Energy regenerates over time.
Classes
Dystopia is class-based, and as such, each class is unique in terms of weapons, implants, and overall performance during gameplay. Classes are identical for both factions. Each class has three unique weapons, only one of which can be carried at a time. All players are also outfitted with a silenced sub-machine gun, a mêlée weapon, and some type of hand grenade.
There are three classes:
- Light - the quickest, most agile class, with the least amount of armor
- Weapon choices: Shotgun, Laser Sniper Rifle, Boltgun
- Implants: 3 HeadSpace implants, 3 BodySpace implants; all implants are open
- Grenades: EMP grenades (hinder the vision and hearing of enemies while disabling their implants along with slight damage)
- Medium - class with average speed and average amount of armor
- Weapon choices: Assault Rifle, Grenade Launcher, MK-808 Semi-auto Rifle
- Implants: 2 HeadSpace implants, 2 BodySpace implants; all implants except Stealth are open
- Grenades: Frag grenades (does moderate damage)
- Heavy - the slowest of the classes, but with the greatest amount of armor
- Weapon choices: Rocket Launcher, Minigun, Ion Cannon
- Implants: 1 HeadSpace implant, 1 BodySpace implants; all except CyberDeck, TAC Scanner, Stealth, and MediPlant are open
- Grenades: Spider grenades (crawl along the ground, seeking out an enemy if it "sees" one)
Cyberspace
Overview
The gameplay in cyberspace is significantly different than that of the "real world." When players jack-in to a cyberspace terminal, they merely project an avatar of themselves in cyberspace; that is, their real world body is still sitting in front of the cyberspace terminal, completely vulnerable to enemy fire.
Movement is faster and more agile in cyberspace; players are able to move in giant leaps and bounds that would not be possible in normal gameplay. As for weapons, there are two "attack programs" in cyberspace, each fired from the Avatar's hands: Hitscan, which fires a narrow bolt of energy that hits instantly, and Projectile, which launches an orb of energy that acts like a straight line projectile. Hitscan is fired with the primary fire button, and Projectile with the secondary fire button. The Hitscan attack takes twice as long to cooldown as the Projectile attack. Damage is drawn directly from a Hacker's energy pool; when they run out of energy, they are dumped out of cyberspace.
As previously described, the purpose of cyberspace is to complete objectives not normally available through real-world gameplay. Such options include hacking turrets, opening doors in the real world, and capturing spawn points. This is done by accessing special terminals in cyberspace. Often, these terminals are protected and must be "hacked" into - this is a simple process which consists of using the number keys to run "hacking" programs. However, these programs take time and energy. Once a player has accessed a terminal in cyberspace, that player can encrypt or otherwise protect the terminal with similar programs (again using the number keys) to prevent an opponent's access attempts.
It is generally accepted that people new to the game should figure out decking by themselves in a private server, as an inexperienced Decker can almost certainly keep even the best of teams from winning.
Energy
While in cyberspace, a Decker's energy will drain at a slow but constant rate. Any hacking programs initiated by the Decker (password breakers, wedges, etc.) will drain a Decker's energy for as long as the program is running. This is especially evident when running multiple hacking programs at the same time. When more than one instance of the same program is running, the progress bar on the User Interface will show only the most recently run instance of that program. However, it does not cancel the previous hack, and will continue to drain energy based on the number of programs actually running. Any programs being run will continue to do so as long as the Decker remains in cyberspace. This means that a Decker can begin one hack and move on to another to save time. Being hit by an enemy Decker's attacks also drains energy. If the player's energy is depleted, the Decker is forcibly ejected from cyberspace.
Programs
Deckers can install either password protection or encryption on terminals to give two different levels of protection against enemy access. ICE barriers can also be erected at the entrance to a terminal room, blocking enemy access to that room. A wedge can be used to temporarily lower an ICE barrier, while an ICE breaker will remove it entirely. ICE barriers can be enhanced by adding an ICE mine. Any Decker attempting to wedge an ICE barrier that contains an ICE mine will release the mine, which will then seek them out and do severe damage to their energy pool. An ICE breaker will safely remove both the barrier and the mine without any extra energy loss to the Decker.
Maps
As of the demo release, there is only one official map: Vaccine. Vaccine pits the Punks as offense against the defensive Corporates. The Punks' objectives are to capture the docks, hack middle spawn, and destroy the core, in that order. The Corporates must defend against each of these objectives, and can retake middle spawn after it has been captured at any time, however the other objectives remain permanently in the Punks' possession. There are several maps currently in development by fans of the game, two being "dys_Fortress_v2" (the most current version) and "dys_well." There are also two maps available for Deathmatch, "dys_nadewarfare" and "dys_streetwar2proof."
Slang
Just like any game, Dystopia has slang of its own. Here is a list of slang terms seen ingame:
- Stealther/Cloaker - a player with the Stealth implant
- Decker/Hacker - a player with the CyberDeck implant
- Gibson - the terminal in the security room on the second level of Vaccine (possibly a reference to the movie Hackers or an homage to William Ford Gibson, one of the first authors to write in the cyberpunk genre of literary fiction.
- Labia - the hallway just outside of the doors for the stairs from L1 to L2 in Vaccine, named for "Lab 1A," a room in this hallway
- Ninja - a player who uses the katana and stealth implant in combination, usually rushing or sneaking to take out enemies.
- Therm - thermal vision, allowing a player to see stealthed opponents.