Software:Adrenix

Short description: 1998 first-person shooter game

Adrenix
Developer(s)	Digital Dialect
Publisher(s)	Playmates Interactive
Platform(s)	Windows
Release	May 1998
Genre(s)	First-person shooter
Mode(s)	Single-player

Adrenix is a 1998 first-person shooter video game created by developer Digital Dialect and published by Playmates Interactive Entertainment.

Plot

Adrenix is set in a dystopian post-apocalyptic setting following environmental and nuclear disaster, leading the United States to enter a state of martial law. The game is played from the perspective of pilot Scott Griffin who is wronged by The General, a commander who implicates Griffin in scandal and kidnaps his fiancé Maria. The General is involved with Medtech, a government-run facility conducting medical experiments on humans. Griffin joins a rebel insurrection he formerly fought against as a policeman to rebel against Medtech, infiltrate the facility and rescue Maria.

Gameplay

In-game screenshot of the first-person view camera in Adrenix.

Adrenix is a 3D shoot-em-up game in which the player navigates a fighter craft in a first-person perspective with six degrees of freedom. Players destroy enemies using a variety of primary and secondary weapons collected throughout the game, including shields and missiles. The game is broken into 24 missions set in open-ended areas providing different mission goals such as protecting convoys, launching covert extractions or destroying specific targets.

Development

Publisher Playmates Interactive announced the release of Adrenix at E3 in June 1997 with an original release date for January 1998, described by Computer Games Strategy Plus as a "3D shooter (that) takes place over cities and has over 20 levels, missions with multiple objectives, and a story that develops over the course of the game."

In an interview previewing the alpha build of the game for Next Generation (magazine), producer and designer Chris Archer stated that Adrenix was designed "to get away from" the "corridor shooter" genre and towards a game that is "story-driven and provides a lot of strategy and objective-based missions".

Adrenix was noted by publications to be marketed as a budget title at a price point of £19.99 upon release; at half the normal retail price of a new video game at the time.

Reception

Reception
Review scores Publication Score Hyper 79% PC Games 41% PC PowerPlay 72% PC Zone 37% Ultimate PC 70% Power Play 61% / 65%

Reception of Adrenix was mostly positive. March Stepnik of PC PowerPlay praised the story and mission design of Adrenix as its "main difference" from other titles, noting that the "complex, multiple objective missions...closely tie in with the story". Miles Gutter of Ultimate PC highlighted the level design, noting the "wide open areas" and "towering buildings" of Adrenix create "well realised cities", although critiquing the lack of environmental animation and lighting effects to "bring things to life a little".

Critics disagreed upon the handling of the controls. David Wildgoose of Hyper praised the straightforward controls and engine, noting the game "borrows heavily from the Quake model and thus offers a painless way of controlling your ship...half the game isn't being able to master the controls". Miles Gutter of Ultimate PC felt "the controls don't feel very realistic compared to other similar games around at the moment - there's no inertia and therefore no real sensation of flight. You're simply floating around like a ghost."

Critics were divided on the merits of Adrenix compared to the similar first-person shooter series Descent, particularly in terms of gameplay and tone. Richie Shoemaker of PC Zone critiqued the game as a "Descent clone" that lacked its "claustrophobia", arguing the game possessed "no sense of involvement and few surprises". David Wildgoose of Hyper agreed that Adrenix "never scared me like Descent could, nor got my blood rushing like Forsaken did at times, but I enjoyed (it) nevertheless." Ultimate PC disagreed, stating that Adrenix "has been compared favourably (with) Descent...however, it's really a great game in its own right, with superbly detailed graphics...humour, and highly intelligent enemies."

External links

• MobyGames is a commercial database website that catalogs information on video games and the people and companies behind them via crowdsourcing. This includes over 300,000 games for hundreds of platforms. Founded in 1999, ownership of the site has changed hands several times. It has been owned by Atari SA since 2022.

Features

Edits and submissions to the site (including screenshots, box art, developer information, game summaries, and more) go through a verification process of fact-checking by volunteer "approvers". This lengthy approval process after submission can range from minutes to days or months. The most commonly used sources are the video game's website, packaging, and credit screens. There is a published standard for game information and copy-editing. A ranking system allows users to earn points for contributing accurate information.

Registered users can rate and review games. Users can create private or public "have" and "want" lists, which can generate a list of games available for trade with other registered users. The site contains an integrated forum. Each listed game can have its own sub-forum.

History

Logo used until March 2014

MobyGames was founded on March 1, 1999, by Jim Leonard and Brian Hirt, and joined by David Berk 18 months later, the three of which had been friends since high school. Leonard had the idea of sharing information about computer games with a larger audience. The database began with information about games for IBM PC compatibles, relying on the founders' personal collections. Eventually, the site was opened up to allow general users to contribute information. In a 2003 interview, Berk emphasized MobyGames' dedication to taking video games more seriously than broader society and to preserving games for their important cultural influence.

In mid-2010, MobyGames was purchased by GameFly for an undisclosed amount. This was announced to the community post factum , and the site's interface was given an unpopular redesign. A few major contributors left, refusing to do volunteer work for a commercial website.{{Citation needed|date=June 2025} On December 18, 2013, MobyGames was acquired by Jeremiah Freyholtz, owner of Blue Flame Labs (a San Francisco-based game and web development company) and VGBoxArt (a site for fan-made video game box art). Blue Flame Labs reverted MobyGames' interface to its pre-overhaul look and feel, and for the next eight years, the site was run by Freyholtz and Independent Games Festival organizer Simon Carless.

On November 24, 2021, Atari SA announced a potential deal with Blue Flame Labs to purchase MobyGames for $1.5 million. The purchase was completed on 8 March 2022, with Freyholtz remaining as general manager. Over the next year, the financial boost given by Atari led to a rework of the site being built from scratch with a new backend codebase, as well as updates improving the mobile and desktop user interface. This was accomplished by investing in full-time development of the site instead of its previously part-time development.

In 2024, MobyGames began offering a paid "Pro" membership option for the site to generate additional revenue. Previously, the site had generated income exclusively through banner ads and (from March 2014 onward) a small number of patrons via the Patreon website.

See also

• IGDB – game database used by Twitch for its search and discovery functions