The PC rundown.
Posted: May 21, 2001 @ 04:04AM - By: ivan

• Blue Shift: A new stand alone episode in the Half-Life universe that includes Opposing Force, (the previous Half-Life expansion pack). The main selling point of Blue Shift is that it comes packed with the high definition pack which will upgrade your existing copies of Half-Life and Opposing Force with all new graphically redone models, weapons, and environments, and new, higher quality audio effects. The characters and weapons did indeed look significantly better than the original’s from Half-Life and Opposing Force; however, the textures looked pretty much the same at a glance, but they could have been redone. It’s hard to recall the original Half-Life while standing at the booth watching Blue Shift, but just me being unsure as to whether they were improved or not should give you some indication as to their quality. The HD pack does alter the design characteristics of models and weapons and some would argue that this detracts from the personality of the game. Well, those people should be happy to know that the HD pack is totally optional and can be activated and deactivated at will. Blues Shift, while including a new adventure along with all of this graphical goodness, does not include any new models or weapons (just the redone ones that were mentioned). It looks pretty cool though, and if, like me, you own Half-Life, it might be worth getting, especially if you don’t already own Opposing force.
  
  
• AvP2: The third in a series of critically acclaimed Aliens vs. Predator first person shooters (the first of which appeared on the Jaguar, while the second was on the PC and not considered a sequel to the Jaguar original). This version is not being done by the people who made the first two games, Rebellion, and is instead being developed by Monolith, whom are fondly remembered for other first person shooters such as Shogo: Mobile Armor Division, No One Lives Forever, and Blood. AvP 2 uses a 2.x build of the Lithtech engine (similar to NOLF) but may switch to the upcoming 3.0 build, which promises a bevy of improvements over its 2.x counterpart. The game itself is the same deal as AvP on the PC where there are three controllable races (Aliens, Humans, Predators), each having its own strengths, weaknesses, control schemes, and single player campaigns. Unlike the first game the single player campaigns in AvP 2 are supposed to integrate with one another and be more story driven. The demo I was playing ran a bit choppy and was at the mercy of jerky mouse control, but was ironically being run on an exceptionally powerful system (1 GHz Athlon with a GF2 Ultra or something to that effect). Now, normally I would attribute this to the game simply still being in the working phase, however because NOLF, which also used a similar version of Lithtech, ran quite terribly on even the mightiest of systems (including my own 1.5 GHz P4 with a GF3) I am a bit concerned. While graphically the game was very sleek and impressive it seemed to be a bit too much like NOLF than like AvP. The levels did include destructible lighting like the original, but they just didn’t have the atmosphere or sense of tension the first one did so well to convey. Combat seemed more of a standard shooting affair and not at all like the fearsome, sudden attacks that left you gasping for air as was so often the case in AvP. So, with the game apparently leaning away from a lot of the aspects that made the original so enjoyable, I found myself leaving cautious, yet hopeful.
  
  
• SoF 2: A first person shooter that is the sequel to one of the most violent games of all time; this one ended up surprising me as I came in expecting to see a game that looked similar to Elite Force but played like SoF, and I left having saw a game that looked phenomenal and aimed to incorporate the best parts of Rainbow 6, Half-Life, and the original SoF. I believe this was one of the more impressive uses of the Quake 3 engine we've yet to see, and was generally a very cool looking FPS game. The demo I saw featured a very impressive, highly detailed forest environment with shrubs and trees that swayed in the wind and equally detailed characters that will display very smooth animations and facial animations. Like the first game, this one will incorporate massive amounts of over-the-top gore, which was, strangely enough, not really present in the demo I saw. The guy was shooting all well and good and people were reacting accordingly, displaying the appropriate pain skins (bullet hole decals and such), but there was no decapitation or dismemberment present, (calling cards of the original game). This was because the game is still early and they just wanted to show what they had so far to give people an idea of where they were going. The Raven dev assured me that while the environments themselves would not be destructible a la RF, there would be a ton of objects within the environments that would react appropriately to damage (ATMs, computers, tables, whatever). I was also told that the problems that are inherent with most FPS games such as character clipping and generally poor corpse physics were really going to be getting some hard work in here. He went on with some technicalities on the matter which I couldn’t understand as it was mostly programmer speak, but the basic gist of it was that they would work their best to fix these issues; however, I was under the impression that his was just typical developer boasting. New additions to this game over SoF are the ROAM terrain system which basically adds the ability for vehicles to move on paths in the game (like the train level from the first SoF or the opening helicopter ride in Sin), the Icarus scripting system which is what was used in Elite Force to create the many scripted events and outcomes, superior AI which involves NPCs utilizing each other and the environment to accomplish tasks such as clear, defend, rush, and so forth, and of course, the more advanced gore technology.
  
  
• Bridge Commander: This is a very in-depth tactical space combat game not all that dissimilar from something like Independence War, Klingon Academy, or even Battlecruiser. Based in the Star Trek: The Next Generation universe, players command vessels from the captain’s chair issuing orders to various stations to control virtually every aspect of the ship, just as is done in the show. You'd think this would be kind of hectic in-game, but a lot of micro-management can be done automatically when the correct parameters are set; it also helps that the game’s combat pacing is very authentic to the Next generation, in that both your ship and the enemy ships act as battleships instead of fighters, which gives you the necessary time to react appropriately to whatever situation you may find yourself in. That means the computer won’t be shooting you like crazy, busting out insane maneuvers, and managing every aspect of its ship perfectly as only a computer could. They actually seem to react as if a player were controlling them, taking time to adapt and such, but this is all probably dependent on difficulty settings. The game also features pretty killer models with even better battle damage that allows you to literally blow chunks out of the opposition, and this is especially cool because the weapon effects are dead on with the show. There were a few downsides and those were that with all the hotkeys and comprehensive menu systems it’s actually easier not utilizing the bridge feature at all. In fact, playing from an external view, especially during battle sequences, is generally the preferred method of play, thus negating the whole bridge commanding aspect of Bridge Commander. Also, during battle when it is most important to play from the external view the camera can sadly be a bit erratic. It’s like they tried to make it too cinematic in the way it rotates and showcases your ship so that it often becomes disorientating and hard to manage (I couldn’t even see my opponent for some time during a fight and the dev guy was noticeably embarrassed by the camera system). Another draw back is that the single player story is rather linear and will not feature the sort of character interaction you would expect (like choices in dialog something akin to Star Control or whatever). Instead you fly around accomplishing specific tasks and watch as people talk to you advancing the story line. Independence War 2 looks just as impressive, perhaps more so, but Bridge Commander has the Star Trek appeal going for it. It’s a bit too early to say who’s going to come out on top, but offhand I’d say that if you’re a Trekkie it’ll be BC, but if you don’t really care abut the universe it’ll be I-War 2.
  
  
• Wolfenstein: The original Wofenstein pretty much invented the first person shooter genre (although some could justifiably say it was more recent products like Doom that made it what it is today). Anyway, this new game, Return to Castle Wolfenstein, uses the same hero B.J. Blastkowitz and has him squaring off against generally evil Nazi bastard Heinrich Himmler and an army of bigots, zombies, freaks, and cyber-demon looking things. It looks pretty cool, but graphically both Medal of Honor and SoF 2 seemed to do much more with the Quake 3 engine. This game also didn’t seem all that faithful to the original, which was a gore-fest non-stop action game with kind of campy villains. Now we get Goldeneye style violence, and enemies that take themselves a bit too seriously that make for a more sinister than fun style. It has some cool elements like kicking, which can be used to kick down both doors and people, and plenty of scripted destructible environments and scripting in general. While I thought there were better shooters at the show I was still kind of excited by Wolfenstein (probably just because it’s Wolfenstein). So, while it seemed kind of standard it does look like it’s going to be pretty good romp.
  
  
• Freelancer: A space-sim, but not the kind you’re thinking of, that's been in development since before the company developing it (Digital Anvil) was even announced. This one was a really pleasant surprise. Basically it takes place inside the cockpit of your spacecraft where you aim with a reticule via the mouse, but once the reticule reaches a certain point on the screen it moves the ship in that direction. Turning and aiming is very intuitive and smooth, but that's not what it's all about though. You certainly can play the game entirely like this if you want, but the player is intended to make use of the game’s chase feature where you hit a button on the keyboard and your ship automatically follows the one you have currently targeted. At this point the reticule you move around via the mouse becomes unrestricted and you’re free to move it about the screen without changing the direction of your vessel. You might think this is kind of easy to then aim at and hit people, but it's not just about shooting guys… It's about skillfully shooting guys, as you can target individual portions of their ship (which becomes a necessity and not just a simple extra) with the help of an advanced targeting system and a zoom feature. It all comes together very well, believe it or not. On top of this there are large space structures (sadly, not as big as those found in Tachyon) and 3D astronomical phenomena. That's right homeboys, you can go in, out, and around nebula all in real-time without load transitions and the effect will change from normal space to a kind of thing seen in Klingon Academy (not quite like FreeSpace’s nebula effect); stars and planets are also approachable as well. The graphics were very sharp with an emphasis on very solid, sleek, high polygon models. The game is actually not massively multiplayer as some would have you believe, although it was said to me that they were hoping on getting it in, just not sure about it. All in all I was greatly impressed by the game. I think it will do to the space-sim genre what Diablo did for the RPG scene. Simplify and yet still manage revolutionize everything.
  
  
• Dominion Wars: A mix between an RTS game and a squad based tactical strategy game set in the Star Trek: Deep Space 9 universe in the midst of the Federation’s war with the Dominion (post Romulan intervention). You can control up to six ships at a time from a selection of 20 including Federation, Kilingon, Cardassian, and Jem’ Hadar vessels. The game is pretty slick graphically and has some cool combat, although it’s not as authentic looking as Bridge Commander. Battle damage is done in sections unlike Bridge Commander, so it’s like if 50% damaged then show ‘X’ skin. It conveys the feel of DS9 pretty well from the station itself to the bad lands, but because this is a DS9 game and Simon & Schuster own the DS9 rights but not the Next-Generation or Voyager rights that means only stuff that's appeared in or is a part of DS9 can be in there (I don’t know where they draw the line, but I do know Paramount has to approve everything and has the final decision on these types of things). So, that means there is unfortunately no Sovereign or Intrepid class starships, or that kind of thing. This isn’t so bad, because they did add six of their own ships, but on the downside they seem to go a bit overboard at times as a new federation ship seems a little too sleek and decidedly un-Federation; then, there’s also the new Cardassian ship which is completely ridiculous being as big or bigger than DS9 itself. I unfortunately didn't get a chance to play the game, but from what I can tell it plays kind of like an RTS game except you can take control of each of your ships individually and manage them, but not to the degree of Bridge Commander. It had a better external camera than BC, but it still wasn’t perfect. It looks like it could be something pretty cool though, so keep an eye out.
  
  
• Die Hard: Nakatomi Plaza: This is a first person shooter where you take on the role of John McClane from the first Die Hard movie. The game utilizes what seems to be an older version of the Lithtech engine, but it ran like butter and had a very solid look to it. Unfortunately all is not well in the land of one-liner action heroes as this game takes place entirely within the Nakatomi Plaza, and nowhere else (the story is pretty much out of the movie). They’re also going for that movie authenticity crap so your guy uses all weapons from the left-hand, because I guess Bruce did, but who the hell can remember crap like that. There is also wannabe Goldeneye style animation but it was pretty stiff (maybe because the game was early, but I’m thinking that’s just the way it is). The game got boring real fast because when you shot all you heard and saw was your gun shooting. There were no bullet holes, impact sounds, puffs of smoke, and nothing like that because they had yet to implemented. There were also a couple of total bitches demoing the game who were both total donkey nut fondling a-holes. Probably the worst people I met at the show. Yay for Fox and Vivendi Interactive! There was also a PS2 version, but that was a pretty sad affair, especially compared to the likes of Red Faction and Agent Under Fire. The PC one while smooth, didn't look to add anything to the genre let alone anything cool, so don’t even bother with it because there is so much more out there.
  
  
• Loose cannon: This is a game that was formerly being made by Digital Anvil under Tony Zurovec (of Crusader fame) and it’s now switched over to Fever Pitch Studios since Microsoft bought out Digital Anvil and chose not to publish this and Conquest: Frontier wars. It’s a car combat/first person shooter where your character takes on jobs like killing people or whatever, and then subsequently carries them out. The driving element looks pretty cool, but the FPS element was considerably weak, especially considering this game has probably been in development for as long as Freelancer. It’s about 60% driving and 40% shooting and is said to be comparable in style to Shadow Company. The driving was pretty cool, but if they can’t seriously tighten up the FPS element the game might fall pretty hard.
  
  
• Conquest: Frontier Wars: A space-based 3D RTS game that takes place on a 2D plane (like Star Trek: Armada before it). Contrary to what a lot of people believe this game does not take place in the Starlancer or Freelancer universe. Strangely enough, this game (another one of Digital Anvil’s first announced titles) started out as a squad-based action strategy game in space, probably not at all unlike Dominion wars, but maybe on a 2D plane. It was then redesigned and eventually evolved to what it is now. The story has humans traveling through wormholes and stumbling upon a war between two races. Eventually sides are chosen and lines are drawn. The game gives you the ability to control one of these 3 distinctly different races and features some pretty killer battles with each unit displaying some nifty battle damage and reacting well to explosions and such. Astronomical phenomena are also in there; stuff like nebulae and asteroid fields will affect the game (again like Armada before it). Construction of bases and resource management takes place entirely around planets. Units themselves also have limited resources like ammo and fuel and whatnot, but it’s actually not all that hard to handle the micro-management as a lot of tasks can be automated and the units will make you aware of their status via audio signals. Sadly, units do not have configurable behavioral systems like Dark Reign so you can’t tell your guys before hand to retreat if low on ammo or to be aggressive or that kind of stuff. Missions take place within multiple maps and are on a fleet-by-fleet scale instead of a unit-by-unit kind of thing. It’s all pretty cool and is forwarded along in a standard manner with in-game scenarios and about 20 minutes of some pretty high quality CG work. Altogether I’d say that this game looks really promising, but it may unfortunately get overshadowed by things like Emperor: Battle for Dune, Warcraft 3, and Star Trek: Armada 2.
  
  
• Planetside: A massively multiplayer first person shooter featuring a very impressive indoor/outdoor engine, vehicle interaction, and a lot of character advancement. The engine really is quite impressive with enormous outdoor areas where you can see literally miles into the distance. The best part is these enormous environments switch seamlessly into detailed indoor areas without any sort of loading whatsoever. The developer even switched a kind of ‘no clip’ on and flew straight up in the air where you could really see and appreciate how enormous these maps were. Very cool stuff. The engine also promises wind (which will cause the trees and shrubs that litter the landscape to sway accordingly), real-time weather, and day/night cycles, but because the geometry in the map is all pre-calculated nothing will be deformable or modifiable. See, that would pretty much be impossible to calculate, especially with maps these sizes as big as they are and all being done in massively multiplayer environment. They wanted to keep the game fair to all players and as such they’ve made character advancement take place on a secondary level. So, instead of advancing your character in normal RPG fashion and improving your strength and speed making you a practically invincible killing machine (and thus ruining the experience for everyone else) they’ve created it so that the advancements you make are distributed through secondary functions such as improving your medical skills and crap like that. The vehicle interaction also promises to be very cool. I saw a buggy and it ran pretty well; it wasn’t at the physics level of Halo, but it was still quite cool. I was even more impressed when I saw him walk by a whole line of buggies and it made me realize how cool it will be to have a huge fleet of these vehicles flying across the landscapes prepared to do battle. I was so impressed by the engine that I asked whether it’d be licensed and he said they honestly didn’t know and weren’t sure if it would even work like that. He told me that the engine was designed to be the Planetside engine and nothing more, so he wasn’t sure of the feasibility of licensing it out, but he did admit that it was entirely possible provided the right circumstances. I also asked whether they would release editing tools so that people could create their own single player campaigns with the engine. He said no, and everyone got kind of sad. Anyway, the game looks pretty awesome, but it is a massively multiplayer title and I’m skeptical of those because none have yet to really impress me, but still, I find this one might be the exception provided it makes good use of bandwidth limitations and manages to provide lag free play. Totally one to watch.
  
  
• Command and Conquer: Renegade: A pretty cool first person shooter set in the Command and Conquer universe (not Red Alert or Tiberian Sun). The graphics engine gives the illusion of mediocrity at first glance, but this is definitely a case where screens do not do the game justice. Running around and watching vehicles flying above you, rumbling beside you, waiting patiently offshore is pretty cool. It’s not so much how it all looks in a still, but how it all moves in play that makes it nice. I found the indoor environments to be decent enough, but nothing special as were the outdoor areas. Basic hit-detection and animation were present, but again this is not where the focus of the game lies. This is a game that has lots of vehicle interaction and lots of familiar stuff from the C&C universe. It’s also setup kind of like DX in that there is more than one way to win a mission, (shoot your way into the base then blow it up, sneak in and blow it up, or just nuke it from the outside); it’s up to you really. The game does have a bit of stealth play in, but from what I saw I don’t think it’ll be like Thief, but maybe more like NOLF in that you can sneak around but you can just as easily blast your way through. They went for the Project IGI style ladder climbing and such where it switches to the third person view when doing things of this nature (I don’t really like that and don’t think it works particularly well here). The game boasts some killer ideas for multiplayer including vehicle and rudimentary Command and Conquer style play, basically dumb down C&C quite a bit and then play like an action game (a better analogy might be a smarter Return Fire). It was one of the better games at the show.
  
  
• Dungeon Siege: So. I’m not really big on RPGs, which is probably a given by now… Anyway, me and PhaseBurn were going to check out a private screening at the Microsoft booth thinking it was an Xbox demo that had been shown the day before, but it turned out to be a play of Dungeon Siege. You can bet I was overjoyed. Basically, the game looked like Diablo only 3D. Point at stuff and then click to kill and maybe if you’re lucky they’ll drop some armor or whatever. I didn’t see any big character interaction nor was any discussed so it leads me to believe again that this is pretty much Diablo instead of Balder’s Gate. So, it’s like you talk to people, but it’s not really that deep. It had a pretty impressive engine whose main selling point is that it’s never supposed to load from beginning to end, which is really cool if you think about it. It also does some pretty neat effects, but I thought Dark Alliance on the PS2 was the more attractive title and they’re both played pretty much the same way, more or less. The game also had kind of a nifty dying system where none of your party (if you choose to have a party) dies. Instead if they’re taken down in a fight they just kind of go unconscious until the fight is over and then awaken on their own with minimal health once it’s safe. At this point all you have to do is heal them a bit. This is supposed to prevent people from loading a game they had saved just prior to the battle in case they didn’t win it perfectly. Still, I see a bunch of obsessive compulsive people reloading the damn thing every time just because they used that one potion or whatever. You know you RPG goons do it all the time, I know my brother does and it gets really annoying. Damn! I lost my elf’s sword, better reload. Damn! I lost two gold pieces, better reload. And so on and so forth… He’ll play the same battle a hundred times just to get it perfect. Anyway, Diablo buffs should find this one interesting to say the least because it does look cool for that type of game, for the rest of us who aren’t really into that scene, it’s just same old same old, only prettier. Commence flaming.
  

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