dr_qwandry
05-11-2005, 10:10 PM
For the curious and skeptical there is a Q&A about the game Prey on Gamespot. Prey's being published by Take-Two and developed by Human Head.
The Q&A can be found HERE (http://www.gamespot.com/pc/action/prey/preview_6124152.html?q=1&tag=gs_hp_topslot_click).
GS: Can you comment on the use of Doom 3 technology to power the game? How are you taking advantage of the engine's particular strengths, like its exceptional lighting and shadow capabilities? What are you adding to the engine to help make sure you can get the most out of it for Prey?
TG and CR: Doom 3 set very high expectations for us to live up to. The engine is the first glimpse into what you can do with next-generation visuals. The engine itself is already capable of some great effects and looks. Doom 3 featured the engine in a way that made sense for the type of experience its developer was trying to deliver. However, our gameplay requirements and desire to create a living world forced us to focus the technology of the engine in some new directions. There are many examples that we will reveal as we go along, but for now, we'll tell you about portals.
Portals were the first thing we focused on. The original Prey made this a prominent feature, and we believed no reintroduction of Prey would be possible without portals featuring prominently in our game. At their simplest level, they are openings from one area of space to another. They are fully dynamic, meaning they can be placed at any orientation and on moving objects. They can even have conflicting physical characteristics (meaning on your side of the portal, gravity is up, while on the other side, it is down). There's so much more to the portals than that, though. We can use them in an obvious fashion--a tear in space appears from which monsters come jumping out of--or we can use them in a way that the player doesn't notice them at all until he or she realizes that something isn't quite the same. Then there's the mind-blowing, messing-with-the-laws-of physics way of using them to create environments that just can't exist in our world.To be honest this game doesn't sound half bad.
The Q&A can be found HERE (http://www.gamespot.com/pc/action/prey/preview_6124152.html?q=1&tag=gs_hp_topslot_click).
GS: Can you comment on the use of Doom 3 technology to power the game? How are you taking advantage of the engine's particular strengths, like its exceptional lighting and shadow capabilities? What are you adding to the engine to help make sure you can get the most out of it for Prey?
TG and CR: Doom 3 set very high expectations for us to live up to. The engine is the first glimpse into what you can do with next-generation visuals. The engine itself is already capable of some great effects and looks. Doom 3 featured the engine in a way that made sense for the type of experience its developer was trying to deliver. However, our gameplay requirements and desire to create a living world forced us to focus the technology of the engine in some new directions. There are many examples that we will reveal as we go along, but for now, we'll tell you about portals.
Portals were the first thing we focused on. The original Prey made this a prominent feature, and we believed no reintroduction of Prey would be possible without portals featuring prominently in our game. At their simplest level, they are openings from one area of space to another. They are fully dynamic, meaning they can be placed at any orientation and on moving objects. They can even have conflicting physical characteristics (meaning on your side of the portal, gravity is up, while on the other side, it is down). There's so much more to the portals than that, though. We can use them in an obvious fashion--a tear in space appears from which monsters come jumping out of--or we can use them in a way that the player doesn't notice them at all until he or she realizes that something isn't quite the same. Then there's the mind-blowing, messing-with-the-laws-of physics way of using them to create environments that just can't exist in our world.To be honest this game doesn't sound half bad.