De: Santiago Vidal 4:900/470.3
Fecha:07 Mar 98 14:10:20
Hola All!, Como va todo?
A continuacion les dejo una fotito del juego. No es AAAAAHhh... pero mejor
que el 1 pinta. Aunque aun no vi ni un solo bicho.
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The computer gaming world waits feverishly for the rest of The Magnificent Seven, including Daikatana, Half-Life, Prey, SiN, and Unreal, to be released to the masses like meat tossed to a pack of rabid wolves. Meanwhile, there is yet another 3D thriller you should add to your plate in '98. It's Monolith's Blood II, and Gamecenter has scored an exclusive first look.
That's right, we said Blood II. There's no denying that the original game, based on 3D Realms' Build engine, was a day late and a dollar short, but Blood II could be next year's dark horse in the action category. Equipped with Monolith and Microsoft's DirectEngine and a whole new attitude, not to mention plenty of guts and gore, this Blood won't leave you saying, "Been there, done that."
With this in mind, we've scored a one-on-one interview with Jay "Shade" Wilson, project leader and primary game designer at Monolith, to tell us why Blood II will cause the rest of the competition to hemorrhage next fall.
Bloodlines
The 3D shooter genre has entered a new phase. Beyond high-fidelity 3D graphics, today's first-person action games require consistent level design, sophisticated AI, and compelling stories. Built-in editors and seamless multiplayer support are also an int egral part of any successful first-person action game. According to Wilson, Blood II will live up to all these new standards.
"I can say that Blood II will be a different game experience or I wouldn't bother to be part of it," says Wilson. "I got into this industry to make games that no one else was making." He adds, "I had several other game ideas that I could have run with, a nd after personally working on Blood for two years it took a lot for me to even consider working on Blood II...but [Blood II] was individual enough to go for."
Blood Simple
Blood II's macabre tale picks up right where the original game left off. Once again, you are cast as Caleb, a member of the ancient cult known as the Cabal, which worships the pagan god Tchernobog. If you have played Blood, you know that Caleb isn't exac tly in good standing with this master. Tchernobog betrays and buries Caleb alive at the start of Blood, only to be destroyed by the player at the end of the game.
Alas, Caleb's real troubles have just begun as the Blood saga marches on. Back on Earth, the Cabal is hungry for blood, labeling Caleb the Great Betrayer. With nowhere to go, Caleb spends the next 100 years seeking out the knowledge to resurrect three ot her Chosen Ones murdered by Tchernobog and his sinister minions. Now, in the modern industrial age, these four unite to destroy the Cabal--a soulless corporation acting as a front for its baneful activities.
In the single-player game, you can play as Caleb or any one of the four Chosen Ones, each with different abilities, strengths and weaknesses, and histories. Better yet, during multiplayer rounds, each character can be played by one person to form a four- player party. Either way, Blood II loses the original game's hunting expeditions for key cards and its incongruous levels, items, and objects. In order to advance to the next stage in Blood II, players must successfully solve puzzles and complete specifi c goals relevant to the overall story.
According to Wilson, there will be four episodes with roughly seven levels each. Each episode will unlock a new element of the plot and reveal new information about the main characters, including the Chosen Ones.
And, not unlike Hexen, the player will be able to pass back and forth between levels or nodes. "What starts off as a fairly straightforward action game will quickly turn into a true horror atmosphere, with a haunted house feel," says Wilson. "The player won't know what to expect because they won't know exactly what's going on until they are deep within the story."
Dark and Serious
According to Wilson, Monolith is designing a "dark and gritty" world for Blood II, which pays homage to shadowy, moody films like The Crow. They are completely eliminating the "B movie campiness" that made Blood somewhat trite. "We're going for an authen tic horror feel, with a lot of Clive Barker and H.P. Lovecraft influences," says Wilson.
Blood wasn't exactly a horrifying experience because of 3D Realms' cartoonish, Build engine. GT Interactive's tacky ad campaign and Caleb's Dukesque one-liners didn't help the cause, either. Was Blood trying to be scary or funny? Or both? T hat remains open to debate. Regardless, Wilson promises they're moving away from the slapstick, shock-value gags in Blood II, saying it detracts from the dark and serious feel of the game. Just the same, fans of Blood's controversial carnage can look for ward to plenty of mass butchery in the sequel. It will just be better looking and more realistic. Hey, Monolith didn't choose to keep the word blood in the title for nothing. Monolith's proprietary DirectEngine will create Blood II's haunting environments. Developed in conjunction with Microsoft and debuting in Monolith's 3D shooter Riot: Mobile Armor next spring, DirectEngine is a bona fide true 3D engine with 16-bit colored lighting and support for Direct3D and Glide. All players with 3D accelerator cards will gain faster frame rates and slicker graphics, thanks to Direct3D; those with 3Dfx-based cards will score the biggest boost. DirectEngine also supports translucency a nd transparency for water and glass effects, real-time shadows, scores of monitor resolutions, and all DirectInput devices (namely force-feedback joysticks!).
When asked why the Quake II engine was not considered, Wilson says, "It was, but DirectEngine was the best engine for what we wanted to do...Carmack and crew are top-notch, but we were working on DirectEngine even before the [Quake] engine was a licensin g option." He adds, "Ultimately, we couldn't find any big plus for using it when we had an equivalent engine in-house...Plus, we're adding a lot of features to the base structure that would have been a lot more difficult to add without the main engine pr ogrammer right down the hall from us."
Added Appeal
The second Monolith/Microsoft design in Blood II is the game's level editor, DirectEdit. A full-time programmer is working on this project exclusively. Like DirectEngine, DirectEdit will appear first in Riot: Mobile Armor. Obviously, DirectEdit will prof it from the experience, and be improved in its second implementation. According to Wilson, gamers familiar with the current crop of Quake editors will pick up DirectEdit easily.
As with Blood, Blood II will contain an eight-map multiplayer episode. This happens to be the single best feature of the original game, says Wilson. "I think Blood is the best DM [deathmatch] out there, save maybe Doom 2." Blood II will suppor t TCP/IP, IPX, and modem-to-modem play. Up to 32 players will be able to participate in one deathmatch, although that number may go as high as 64. Wilson notes that some of the large cityscape maps will be excellent playgrounds for 32-player deathmatchs.
That's A Wrap
Blood II promises to be the single-player game that Blood wasn't, with a brand-spankin'-new engine and unearthly world. "The game environment will remain consistent in look and feel from level to level, and will feel very much like a place that could exi st," says Wilson. He adds that was what he liked best about id's Quake II compatibility test. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Adiu...
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