ShockWave
From FSDB
| ShockWave | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Game | Zero Hour |
| Type | Partial Conversion |
| Developer(s) | SWR Productions |
| First release | 0.8 (16 March 2005) |
| Latest release | 0.951 (1 April 2008) |
ShockWave (also SHW and commonly misspelled as Shockwave) is a modification for the RTS game expansion pack Command & Conquer: Generals - Zero Hour, created by SWR Productions and hosted on Fallout Studios. It started development in 2004, and there have been several released versions to date, with version 0.951 being the latest. It is quite critically acclaimed and is played competitively online by fans. It also has dual platform support for both Windows and Macintosh operating systems.
In February 2008 it was one of the ten mods to receive the ModDB Editor's Choice Award.
Contents |
Features
ShockWave adds a number of new units and abilities to each of the nine Zero Hour generals and their normal 'vanilla' factions. It also adds three completely new generals: General George D. Ironside (armour), General 'Tigress' Leiong Leang (special weapons) and General Mohmar 'Deathstrike' (salvage). These three new generals are of original design, but their names are derived from the 'boss generals' of the original Zero Hour, which were originally announced but removed during Zero Hour's development. The main goal of the modification is to make the game more interesting to play by creating more diversity and balance between the different sides. The modification features mostly skirmish and multiplayer gameplay improvements.
ShockWave is a partial conversion, and thus aims to not change the feel and backstory of the original game. It is comparable to most expansion packs for RTS games in its initial setup, but without changes to hard coded elements of the game. The development team stated that they want the mod to change Zero Hour into what it could have been if developer Electronic Arts had put more time into the development process. [1].[2]
Releases
A list of all versions of ShockWave released so far:
- 0.8 - 16 March 2005
- 0.9 - 10 August 2005
- 0.91 - 21 August 2005
- 0.92 - 16 March 2006
- 0.93 - 4 September 2006
- 0.95 - 22 December 2007
- 0.951 - 1 April 2008
Future
ShockWave has two scheduled/confirmed major releases left.
- 0.96 is scheduled to be mostly a 'polishing' release, adding relatively little new content, but improving upon the content - mostly models, skins and other effects - in version 0.95.
- 1.0 is slated to become the first 'complete' release, with all the finished content - including navies for all the factions. [3] It has been stated that ShockWave development will likely continue after version 1.0 [4], though at the moment nothing else is known.
In January 2008 the ShockWave team announced that they would be releasing more frequent updates in the form of small patches. This was done to be able to fix pressing issues and bugs as they are found rather than making users wait for the next major release. These patches will also occasionally contain small enhancements such as graphical improvements. [5]
Trivia
- ShockWave has a rather large following in Germany, mainly due to the fact that ShockWave unintentionally bypasses the heavy censorship localized German versions of Generals.
- In December of 2006 ShockWave was nominated for the ModDB Mod of the Year awards. [6]
- In March of 2007 the "Lockdown MRLS" unit from ShockWave was awarded second place in a "Create a Unit" competition sponsored by EA. [7]
- In June of 2007 ShockWave 0.93 was included on a CD in the German magazine GameStar, along with an article and a short gameplay video. [8]
- On August 29th, ShockWave's ModDB score rose from 9.5/10, which was already the highest score in the Zero Hour mods section, to the perfect 10 out of 10.
- On December of 2007 Shockwave was nominated for the ModDB Mod of the Year awards. [9] It also received the Editor's Choice Award. [10]
- The 1 April 2008 release of version 0.951 was initially believed to be an April Fools joke, but it was in fact planned this way by the development team.
- ShockWave was also the subject of the fan made ShockWave comic
- Due to ShockWave's popularity online Wi-Ta maintains a list of active ShockWave players. [11]
Easter Eggs
ShockWave in its various releases has contained a number of Easter eggs.
- The Speaker Tower will occasionally play All your base are belong to us when selected.
- The Exo Suit unit used has keke chalked onto the skin, this is done to allow players to use the phrase Exo-rush kekekeke.
- In version 0.95 The_Hunter added the Executioner unit which is incredibly overpowered, it can only be accessed from the worldbuilder and appears on no official maps.
![[8]](http://img475.imageshack.us/img475/6858/schockwavearticleqp7.jpg){kind=link}