By:
Acclaim
A quick visit to Acclaim's studios in the UK revealed that Turok 2: Seeds of Evil and South Park are far from being the only titles on said developers books (after all, it's been a while since their last title Forsaken came on to the scene last year). Machines is a third title being developed in-house and due for release in late Q1 of 1999.
Is it a 3D first person shooter? Not quite. Perhaps a Mech style game? Close but no cigar. Instead, Acclaim has decided to mesh the 3D first person shooter genre with another. They've jumped on to the 3D real-time strategy genre bandwagon, in the hope of giving gamers the added feeling of 'realism'. Let us explain, controlling a vast array of units from an isometric view is fairly customary in real-time strategy games but then being able to 'jump' into any particular unit and control them from a first person perspective most certainly isn't. The real-time polygonal world will enable the player to use tactics such as, sneaking inside buildings in preparation for ambushing, or better still planting bombs and sabotaging enemy installations. Will this ambitious mix work or will it be the usual case of trying to stick one bum on two chairs and as a result neither of the two genres being particularly appealing? Although the odds are stacked against the futuristically themed Machines, only time will tell.
As stated earlier, Machines will sport a 3D first person view as well as an Isometric one and hence the game is being programmed to make use of 3D accelerator cards (no surprises there then) via D3D. The visuals will boast the usual blend of dynamic lighting, fogging and environmental snow/sand and dust effects with full polygonal units across the 3D terrain also to be present.
In addition to some 30 single player missions, you'll also have some 30 mechs and 25 tools of destruction at your disposal including, flame throwers, plasma rifles and insanely powerful nukes. Multiplayer support will be possible for up to four players across a LAN or the Internet (via support for The Zone). A demo pre-release demo is certainly in the works although no E.T.A was given.
Alex "Sharky" Ross
Editor-in-Chief