Real Player Movie
This looks way better than Twisted Metal 2 -- and
I have the pictures to prove it!
Vigilante
8
Last April, Activision released the popular Interstate '76 for PC. Set
during 1976 in an alternate history, this mission-based driving game
put players in the role of an "auto vigilante," consumed with saving
the American Southwest from gas-hoarding bands of criminals. Almost a
year later comes Vigilante 8 for the Playstation. And while it borrows
several locations, characters, and vehicles from I'76, it is the
furthest thing from a port. "The gameplay is arena-based," says
Activision Associate Designer bryant Bustamante. "Something we found
through focus testing was a lot of these gamers didn't want a mission
based game." Subsequently, the gameplay is more on par with the
vehicular combat of the Twisted Metal series. In the main story mode,
players choose from one of 12 characters, each linked to an individual
car. Players must then successfully survive battel in a preset path of
six arenas before getting their characters' ending sequences. There
are a total of twelve different arenas, ranging from oil fields to the
slopes of a ski resort to the Hoover Dam. In the arcade mode, players
can take any car into any level. The storyline for V8 is actually a
prequel to I'76, taking place in 1975. "The idea is that an evil
consortium wants to cripple the U.S. economy," says Activision
Producer Murali Tegulapalle, "so they can offer $100 million to anyone
who can shut down the Southwest and destroy the oil refineries." Enter
Antonio Malochio and his band of "Creepers" (Malochio is the bad boss
character from I'76), who attempts to destroy the oil fields. Convoy,
who leads the vigilantes, must prevent this from happening. Players
can choose to play one of six Creeper or six Vigilante roles. "Now to
add a little twist to the game, we've allowed these two groups to raid
a secret military base in the southwest. Since they've acquired these
advanced technology weapons, we can make the game's weapons and
special effects over-the-top." Visually, V8 is allready primed for the
job. "We're using a very fast, propritary 3D landscape engine," says
Tegulapalle. "It affords us a lot of cool features - a primary example
is that the enviroments are totally destructible." Tegulapalle is not
stretching the truth - every 3D model in the game is destructible.
Next Generation destroyed oil reserve tanks, oil derricks, big
buildings, planes, and a ski gondola during it's demo, many of which
revealed power-ups of many kinds. "We even have terrain deformation,
so if I launch a projectile and it lands on the ground, it actually
causes a crater and that crater causes some damage to cars that go
over it." Tegulapalle explains that for this technology works out
nicely for the designers, who are using it for burying Easter Eggs
within the game. "If you see a sand dune you think you can destroy,"
he says, "launch a lot of rockets at it and it'll actually start to
crumble down, and you'll find a secret area with some power-ups." But
perhaps the most remarkable aspect of the project is the fact that the
development team consists of just three people! Santa Monica-based
Luxoflux hasn't received any supporting code or technical assistance
whatsoever from Activision's internal teams. "They are actually
individuals who worked on seperate console products for Sega,"
Tegulapalle says of the trio. "This is their first ever Playstation
title and first ever game as a team." Luxoflux has rewritten all of
the libraries except ones for which Sony does not supply the
information regarding direct hardware access. Given this level of
dedication, it's not surprising these talented newcomers have managed
to incorporate two physics models (arcade and realistic) and realtime
reflection-mapping on the windows and windshields, as well as enable a
fairly sophisticated damage model, all while maintaining a 30fps rate
in one-player mode - even before beginning code optimization. While
already a contender for the driving/combat crown, it is a bit
unfortunate that Activision didn't risk a mission-style game on
Playstation, as the system has yet to recieve a quality one. However,
with the fierce level of competition on Playstation right now, and
with royalties and marketing costs being what they are, no third party
will dare take a chance on games that fall outside the proven genres.
Especially Activision, which will miss Christmas with two big-budget
Playstation titles, Pitfall-3D and Apocalypse. Fortunately, Vigilante 8
shows promise and should stay locked on target for release this spring.
This article was written by Next Generation.
Captain Gram
gramster@mediaone.net
