Cutting Edge
Thanks, Collin, for bringing this to my attention, I've always thought this would be a good idea, I'm so happy to hear someone's almost got a copy of it available. DICE will be releasing, this year, a game called Mirror's Edge. It's not on their website yet, but - it looks AMAZING.
Disclaimer: I am not a gamer. I do not call myself a gamer nor do I consider myself a gamer. So - I am not a gamer! don't get on my case for not
knowing much about how games are made or other games that have come out that are similar or have been able to accomplish the same thing..I am not a gamer! but I like games and that's what I'll be discussing when I talk about Mirror's Edge, the characteristics that I like.....
Finally, a action adventure told from the point of view of a first person shooter! I just knew if those two hooked up they'd have a beautiful child. And they have! Mirror's Edge looks amazing. Girl action hero (and oh-so much more stylish than lara croft), whole new take on the first person perspective game, apparently the most realistic physics ever and some SERIOUS attention to detail. it is amazing what these guys have finally been able to accomplish. In the article provided by Next Generation, Tobias Dahl (lead animator for Mirror's Edge) talks about simply animating the hands:
“I would say most of the firstperson shooters just ignore the hands and focus a whole lot on the weapons. We have projects at DICE where we have lead weapon artists and a crew under him or her to develop the shaders for the weapons - but then you have these low-polygon cubic hands holding the weapons. We focused on the hands from the start. So we have no loss of volume, we have veins showing and knuckles that grow depending on how the hand is bent. In a normal firstperson game you have about 30 animations for the hands - right now, I think we’re up to 300.”
even from the screen shots you can already tell the amazing difference of the level of detail they've managed to generate, and that's from a still!
more amazing quotes from the interview:
“A lot of the moves you do are parkour moves,” says O’Brien. “We decided fairly early on in development that we wanted to do a game that was based in an urban environment, positioning it away from military and war and the big open spaces of Battlefield."
"But it’s not only the contact with the environment and the audiovisual feedback that makes the player feel so coupled with the avatar - crucially, DICE has nailed the sense of acceleration and deceleration. The latter is particularly obvious if you hit the crouch button while moving at speed - the avatar throws herself into a slide, feet outstretched in front (useful for evading slowly descending garage doors, for example), and, skidding to a gravellysounding halt..."
I am so freakishly excited to play this game, but the release date isn't even announced yet! /super sad face. However, they have announced that the game is going to be available for PC, 360 and PS3 - huzzah! I really, honestly love when developers do that, and I wish they all would...oh well....
“but when you play this game for a while it changes the way you look at levels in other firstperson games. You stop seeing obstacles and start seeing opportunities: ‘I could wall-run up there and jump there and do this and that’. Even on a very small rooftop everyone approaches it differently.”
that is exactly what I've always wanted, that's why I love Assassin's Creed and Portal so much, because of the amount of freedom you have in the game - you can scope out the terrain and go "I can do this, or this, or try this, and although it's a crazy idea, I'll try this!" and you can move so easily. the very idea of this game excites me, and the more I read, the more I love it.
"The image of civil order that Mirror’s Edge paints is a chilling extrapolation of policies being enacted today for the protection and comfort of citizens but which, all the same, signal a disturbing restriction of liberty."
the back story is also so interesting, that they really tried to propel you forward into a city in the future - but not too far, a city that could exist today, the direction cities today are moving towards - it's just an amazing idea to use color as the "breaking out" indicator. Color is controlled and how the character uses light and color to navigate through a a color-drained world is a fantastic idea, and from what I'm seeing VERY well executed.
Anyway, I'm sleepy, so I'll add more later....
Wikipedia: Mirror's edge
Disclaimer: I am not a gamer. I do not call myself a gamer nor do I consider myself a gamer. So - I am not a gamer! don't get on my case for not
knowing much about how games are made or other games that have come out that are similar or have been able to accomplish the same thing..I am not a gamer! but I like games and that's what I'll be discussing when I talk about Mirror's Edge, the characteristics that I like.....
Finally, a action adventure told from the point of view of a first person shooter! I just knew if those two hooked up they'd have a beautiful child. And they have! Mirror's Edge looks amazing. Girl action hero (and oh-so much more stylish than lara croft), whole new take on the first person perspective game, apparently the most realistic physics ever and some SERIOUS attention to detail. it is amazing what these guys have finally been able to accomplish. In the article provided by Next Generation, Tobias Dahl (lead animator for Mirror's Edge) talks about simply animating the hands:
“I would say most of the firstperson shooters just ignore the hands and focus a whole lot on the weapons. We have projects at DICE where we have lead weapon artists and a crew under him or her to develop the shaders for the weapons - but then you have these low-polygon cubic hands holding the weapons. We focused on the hands from the start. So we have no loss of volume, we have veins showing and knuckles that grow depending on how the hand is bent. In a normal firstperson game you have about 30 animations for the hands - right now, I think we’re up to 300.”
even from the screen shots you can already tell the amazing difference of the level of detail they've managed to generate, and that's from a still!
more amazing quotes from the interview:
“A lot of the moves you do are parkour moves,” says O’Brien. “We decided fairly early on in development that we wanted to do a game that was based in an urban environment, positioning it away from military and war and the big open spaces of Battlefield."
"But it’s not only the contact with the environment and the audiovisual feedback that makes the player feel so coupled with the avatar - crucially, DICE has nailed the sense of acceleration and deceleration. The latter is particularly obvious if you hit the crouch button while moving at speed - the avatar throws herself into a slide, feet outstretched in front (useful for evading slowly descending garage doors, for example), and, skidding to a gravellysounding halt..."
I am so freakishly excited to play this game, but the release date isn't even announced yet! /super sad face. However, they have announced that the game is going to be available for PC, 360 and PS3 - huzzah! I really, honestly love when developers do that, and I wish they all would...oh well....
“but when you play this game for a while it changes the way you look at levels in other firstperson games. You stop seeing obstacles and start seeing opportunities: ‘I could wall-run up there and jump there and do this and that’. Even on a very small rooftop everyone approaches it differently.”
that is exactly what I've always wanted, that's why I love Assassin's Creed and Portal so much, because of the amount of freedom you have in the game - you can scope out the terrain and go "I can do this, or this, or try this, and although it's a crazy idea, I'll try this!" and you can move so easily. the very idea of this game excites me, and the more I read, the more I love it.
"The image of civil order that Mirror’s Edge paints is a chilling extrapolation of policies being enacted today for the protection and comfort of citizens but which, all the same, signal a disturbing restriction of liberty."
the back story is also so interesting, that they really tried to propel you forward into a city in the future - but not too far, a city that could exist today, the direction cities today are moving towards - it's just an amazing idea to use color as the "breaking out" indicator. Color is controlled and how the character uses light and color to navigate through a a color-drained world is a fantastic idea, and from what I'm seeing VERY well executed.
Anyway, I'm sleepy, so I'll add more later....
Wikipedia: Mirror's edge