Dark Horizons Lore: Invasion

Dark Horizons Lore: Invasion
File:Boxshot.jpg
Developer:	Max Gaming Technologies
Publisher:	GarageGames
Series:	Dark Horizons Lore
Engine:	Torque 3D
Platform:	Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, Linux OS
Release Date:	April 2004
Support Discontinued:	November 2008
Genre:	1st / 3rd Person Shooter, Mech Simulator
Mode:	Single Player, Online Multiplayer
Budget:	$4,000
Succeeded by:	Lore: Aftermath

Dark Horizons Lore: Invasion (often abbreviated to DHL or DHL:I) is a 1st / 3rd Person shooter Mech Simulator video game, developed my Max Gaming Technologies. It was first released in April 2004, purchasable on GarageGames.com, rpgnow.com and several other websites. There was also a demo version released, which heavily limited the player.

The game uses GarageGames' Torque 3D engine.

Online support for the game was dropped in November 2008, in favor of the game's sequel - Lore: Aftermath, however it was announced on the early fall of 2009, that a free version of the game, that will let players still use the online play, with servers hosted by themselves, will be released, by the Skunkworks team, including also, new weapons, maps and foot infantry units.

An early release of the new Skunkworks version, was posted on PlayMech.com, by Slingshot, on December 14th, 2009.

GamePlay

File:NewMenu.png

The Main Menu, of the New Skunkworks release of Invasion.

Invasion is generally played as a multi-player skirmish game (such as Quake 3 Arena), with no real Single Player campaign included. Instead, in Single Player (entitled Instant Action), the game is played, as it would be in a regular Multi Player game, only with AI Bots.

The players in the game are divided into two political factions at war with each other - The Federated States and the Eastern Confederation

MAV's

MAV's (or Mechanized Assault Vehicles) are the mechs that the player takes control of in the game. Each side has 4 MAV types (Scout, Infantry, Heavy and Tank). Each MAV can be equipped with a variety of weapons and Missles. The Armor / Speed ratio for the MAV can also be configurated.

According to the story of Invasion (given in the manual, and several other sources) the MAVs are radio controlled by their pilots from special control pods, where the pilots have full control of their MAVs, but if their MAV destroyed, they are still alive, thus giving an explenation on how players can keep respawning after death, in the game.

Earlier versions of the game had drasticly different external designs for the MAVs (most notably - the Federated States MAVs)

The list of MAVs in Invasion include:

File:Stagginarea.jpg

An example of a MAV being configurated.

Federated States:

Hunter Scout (Scout Class)
Shaddrack (Infantry Class)
Liberator (Heavy Class)
Abolisher (Tank Class)

Eastern Confederation:

Locust (Scout Class)
Mantis (Infantry Class)
Predator (Heavy Class)
Juggernaut(Tank Class)

A Federated States Infantry soldier, sitting on a Jetbike.

Infantry

Ever since early releases of Invasion, MGT had planned an expansion pack, that would include playable foot soldiers, for Invasion. The files for the infatry themselves, were actually in the game directory of Invasion, but no implemented in the actual game, until Skunkworks team worked them in, as playable units. Both the EC and FS Infantry units have their own set of weapons for use. They can use jump-packs, for Quick flights, and they can spawn Jet-bikes, for Quick movement, around the maps.

The infantry include:

Federated States Infantry
Eastern Confederation Infantry

The Infantry use:

Jetbike

Controlling The MAV

File:Dark-Horizons-Lore 2.jpg

A Federated States' MAV HUD

The controls in this game work, for the most part, like they would in any 1st Person Shooter. You can move your MAV around in any direction, and all MAV's (except Tank Class) have jetpacks, so they can fly for short periods of time (also little jets on their sides, for strafing).

All MAV's have a Health Bar and an Energy bar, on their screen. The Energy bar is decreased by the usage of the Jetpack, or energy weapons (such as the Flamethrower, or the Brimestone Laser).

Each MAV, also has a HUD, showing all the necessary components for gameplay, such as a radar, objectives and the chat area.

Also, each MAV type has its own special weapon. Scout Class can deploy mines, Infantry Class can call in air-strikes, Heavy Class have Flamethrowers, and Tank Class can deploy mines.

MultiPlayer

When entering multiplayer mode, the game would connect the player to a lobby with an IRC chatroom, a map of the North American Sector, with icons for the map locations, and stats for each location. The player could also access stats information, such as player listings, squads etc. all supported by ComCent - a service on DHL's official site that records all stats and scores from server games. Players can read even story information, such as faction backtstory and MAV information. Of course, this is also where players came to choose a Dedicated server to play in (or host their own server). Fighting in the maps actually had affect on the game, since if a faction collects enought points in battle, it takes control over an area on the large map, thus changing the outcome of the war. After MGT shut down multi player support in November 2008, both the dedicated servers and the IRC server were shut down. And Due to an unforseen problem, without any IRC server to connect to, players couldn't even join the lobby to host their own servers, which destroyed all chances of playing Invasion again, online.

Product screenshot dhlore 04 — A Liberator, under fire from enemy Homing Missles

However, early fall of 2009, Adrian Wright launched playmech.com, as the new official website for supporting both Invasion and its sequel - Aftermath, and he announced that there will be a new free version of Invasion released, patched up so players can host their own servers again. The new version will also include several new features and add-ons from the Skunkworks team (mainly Slingshot).

This new version, was released on December 14th, on PlayMech. It seems to keep the Multiplayer lobby intact, with a new IRC server, the large North American Map and even Pilot data. Players can now also, host their own servers for the game.

Game Types

Product screenshot dhlore 08 — Two MAVs, fighting in Team Deathmatch

The Game consists of five game types - Team Deathmatch, Capture the Core and Assault, Raid and Arena.

In Team Deathmatch, you choose a side (Federated States or Eastern Confederation) and with your team, you simply kill enemy team members. The team with the most kills at the end of the game wins.
In Capture the Core, you choose a side and you have an objective - grab the core at the enemy team's base, and simply carry it to the core at your team's base. For each captured core, your team scores a point, and the team with the most points at the end of the game, wins.
In Assault, there are generally a set of objective locations that your team has to capture and hold. For every time you capture an objective and kill an enemy, you get points. The team with the most points at the end of the game wins.
Arena is a variant of Team Deathmatch, that simply closes both factions into a small, closed space, for battling.

Maps

The game, originally comes with a set of 9 playable maps (some with slight variations for different game-types):

Coastal Flood Plains
Crash Site
Danger Pass
Island Thunder
King of The Hill
MAV Arena
Range
River Fortress
Sector 1

However, later in Lore's lifespan, the Skunkworks team, released a map pack, that included several additional maps.

A new array of maps was also made for the new Skunkworks released version of Invasion.

Media / Downloads

Dark Horizons Lore : Invasion / Materials

Development

Mech1 — Concept artwork for the Hunter Scout

Adrian Wright is credited as the creator of the Dark Horizons Universe, and as the main leader of the Invasion development team. In several interviews, he describes the process of working on several aspects in Lore as "a fun challenge". He and the rest of MGT wanted to make a mech game that was indeed a simulation of Mech combat, but still easy enough to pick up and play. And so he describes Lore as "about a 60/40 hybrid of FPS/Mecha".

The main reason for the usage of Mecha in the game was due to Adrian's and the other MGT members' passion for Mech games and series.

A problem during development was making sure that during online play, data can be sent to the master server, but the erroneous data couldn't make it in.

According to several interviews, a port of Invasion was made avaliable for the Phantom game console and was shown during E3 2004, but as the system was canceled, the version never saw the light of day.

In the earliest public release of Invasion, it was quite different in cosmetics. The MAVs were quite different, from what they are now. The reason the MAVs were changed in design, was because later versions of Invasion used a Lighting add-on to the Torque engine, so MGT wanted to change the designs of the MAVs to better suit the add on.

Skunkworks

At one point, during Invasion's lifetime, a community member Slingshot formed the Skunkworks team with several other members of the DHL community, and they started work on several mods for Invasion, adding new features and finishing ones, that were left in the game folder, but not implemented in the game itself (such as the Infantry, Jetbikes etc.). There were several weapons and other features added, and Skunkworks even had a dedicated server running, that used all the these features.

After the announcement of Lore's new free version, Slingshot was added on, to help bypass problems caused by the IRC scripts and to add some new features to Invasion.

The new version, was released on December 14th, on PlayMech.com. It includes a return of the Multi-player lobby, new weapons, maps and even Infantry.

Reception

GameShark.com:	B
GameTunnel.com:	9/10
Computer Games Mag:	3.5/5
PC Zone UK:	70/100
The-Junkyard.net:	9/10
IGN.com(User rating average)	8/10
Gamespot.com (User rating average)	7.9/10

Dark Horizons Lore: Invasion was launched in April 2004. Ever since then, it has received mainly positive reviews from several critics and websites.Reviews praise the fun and the fast pace of Multiplayer in Invasion, and the focus on head to head fighting, as opposed to other more popular mech online games. Also praised, is the customization option, for changing your MAVs stats, for personalized style of gameplay, and the implementing of ComCent for recording stats. Though, criticized was the lack of variety in MAV types, since there are "really only 2 different types of vehicles" and the fact that the game was lacking in Single Player, with no real campaign, only InstantAction which is simply playing a match with bots.

External Links

Websites:

Interviews:

Reviews: