Welcome to this week's Gist List. Although there haven't
been a lot of new and exciting products to come out on store shelves as of late, expect a
lot of announcements to trickle out of developers over the next month as they prepare for
E3. The current philosophy is that a lot of companies want to trump their competitors by
getting their products announced a few weeks ahead of the show. So far we haven't had a
lot of big announcements, but this week's Gist List includes interesting information on a
pair of highly anticipated games that won't be shown. Just what is E3 turning into? Find
out about this, the latest gaming technology, and mini-reviews of a few new releases in
this week's Gist List.
New
Technology in Duke Forever
One
of the most exciting new pieces of technology for games in 1999 will be multi-resolution
geometry, which basically means characters will get incredibly detailed if you look at
them up-close. Hence, as they move away from your eyes or the camera in the game, they
dynamically reduce in detail, sometimes going from hundreds of triangles in the character
model to only a few dozen at far distances. A few weeks ago Valve announced Team Fortress
2 will feature Intel's Multi-Resolution Mesh technology, which is also being used in
Pandemic Studios' Dark Reign II for Activision. A competing technology is Sven's
Multi-Resolution Geometry, which last week was announced as being implemented into 3D
Realms' Duke Nukem Forever. It is also being used in Accolade's Slave Zero. Realistically
this technology should allow for more detailed characters in games as well as more enemies
and characters on-screen at once – Perhaps one day we will see a fully realized city
in a 3D game featuring hundreds of citizens if this technology truly delivers.
Avoiding the E3 Demo
Last year I wrote an editorial that explained why E3 is, in
many ways, a huge waste of time for some developers who have to spend months hacking
together a demo that gets in the way of the real game development. (You can read that
editorial here). With the sheer number
of products being announced at the trade show, publishers and developers know they have to
have something spectacular to catch the eyes of the press and buyers. However there is
starting to be a backlash against the need for an "E3 demo" for well established
game franchises. Take, for example, the fact that both Duke Nukem Forever and Prey from 3D
Realms will be no where on the show floor. And they won't be in a back room or on
videotape either. 3D Realms' made the decision to forgo the madness of E3 a few weeks ago.
Although this news will surely cause speculation about the current status of these
projects,it exemplifies the latest thinking on trade shows: Only show something unless
it's just about to ship or going to blow everyone away. I have no doubt Duke Forever will
blow us away – Just look at the Quake 2 engine demo 3D Realms' showed last year
– but we're going to have to wait a few more months to see it in action!
GT Interactive:
Blaiming the Wrong Games?
The fact that Duke Forever and Prey won't be on display at E3 is probably not very good
news for publisher GT Interactive. The company announced a massive loss for the 4th
quarter of their fiscal year (to the tune of 50 million), and will immediately be
relocating their operations from New York to Los Angeles. Believe it or not, GT blamed
games like Unreal Tournament and TA: Kingdoms not shipping on time for their excessive red
ink. To me this is just hypocrisy – GT needs to stop shipping B-grade titles like
Dark Vengeance and Power Slide if they want to stay profitable. It's not that games are
slipping – It's that they are shipping poor quality games. For proof of this point,
look at a company like Electronic Arts. Sure, games are slipping, but they have such a
strong lineup of titles it's no big deal when Tiberian Sun's ship-date slides to the
summer.
Team Fortress Classic
Although Valve Software still hasn't given any hints of what
they are working on beyond Team Fortress II – Let's hope a Half-Life mission pack is
being planned – you've got to hand it to them for releasing a re-vamped Team Fortress
Classic for Half-Life last week. Released online as a patch, if you haven't heard of Team
Fortress think of it as a blend of Command and Conquer and a first-person shooter in a
team-style setting. The game was originally developed as an add-on for Quake, but now the
developers, some of whom hail from Australia, are working full-time with Valve on the
sequel, due out later this year. But even with the sequel on tap, Team Fortress Classic is
an incredible multiplayer addition to Half-Life that you should definitely check out.
Won.Net Online Game
Although it's not the You Don't Know Jack
Netshow (still my favorite online game, by far), Won.net has quietly been developing some
unique online content. Last year around Halloween they released The Cypher, an online
adventure game that apparently had over 250,000 players. Now the same company behind the
Cypher has created Spite, which is completely free to play online and features excellent
production values including Realvideo content. You enter Rain City in the future and play
either a reporter, detective, lawyer or spy and interact with thousands of other players
online. Best of all, it's completely free – sub for some in-game advertising. The
game releases a new "episode" every few weeks, and it has just started its run.
You can start to play Spite right here.
Nascar Revolution
Ok, I admit I have a pretty souped-up computer with a Riva TNT video card and
Dual Voodoo 2s from 3DFX, so I was shocked when Electronic Arts' Nascar Revolution ran
like a slide-show on my 3D accelerated PC. Even at the lowest resolution the graphics
looked worse than what we saw three or four years ago in the Nascar game from Papyrus.
What happened? I guess we all take for granted the fact that game engines run so well on
high-end PCs, but Nascar Revolution is perhaps one of the worst pieces of programming I've
ever seen. It's a stunning contrast to the splendid graphics in EA's Need for Speed III,
which is an infinitely better game graphically -- and a heck of a lot more fun to play
too.
The E3 Outlook:
Drakan
Although
Psygnosis has gone through a lot of changes in the past year, one game that still remains
in the bullseye of my radar for this year's E3 is Drakan, designed by Surreal Software in
Seattle. Announced at E3 last year (and originally due this past January), the game is a
rich 3D action-adventure that features seamless ground and air-based combat. You play a
character named Rynn who can use his sword on the ground to tear up enemies, but then you
can hop on his dragon Arokh and take to the air to char the ground with your dragon's fire
breath. The game is unique, visually stunning, and the bottom line is that it's just a lot
of fun to fly around with the dragon. The game will be out in full force at E3, so keep
your eyes peeled for information on this game. Here are
five new screenshots to give you a peak at what Drakan looks like.
And that's The Gist of It.
Your Ideas?
Do you have a suggestion about something that should be added to next week's list?
Is there a game that gist doesn't cut it or one that does it gist
right? E-mail gistlist@gameslice.com
and we'll consider your suggestion.
Thanks for reading!
Geoff
Keighley
Editor-in-Chief
GameSlice
