PsFantasy.com Forums - View Single Post

Joe · Jul 9th, 2002, 11:15 AM

SOCOM continued....

Visuals

The world of SOCOM is an interesting one, because it takes place offline and online, making texture work and things like lighting and camera work more challenging. The game is filled with sophisticated lighting techniques, detailed textures, motion captured work, and solid CG work.

Zipper aims to be very realistic with SOCOM, and has prepared the game with a phenomenal amount of authentic detail. Soldiers faces, their weapons, and their clothing have all been scanned in and texture mapped. Using Sony's motion capture studio in Foster City, Zipper has captured soldiers in numerous positions, such as walking, running, rolling, ducking, crawling, aiming, and many others.

The level of detail should be excellent in the final version, with small incidental items, such as belt loops, belt buckles and canteens have been paid attention to. Zipper claims there is three times the amount of typical textures in SOCOM than in the average game of this kind. The Seal camouflage outfits are also totally authentic, realistic and accurate.

The art and design team has constructed the game with full screen anti-aliasing and a texture- paging system that enables many kinds of textures to be used, but efficiently without causing slowdown or glitching. What's normally called LOD, or Level of Detail, Zipper calls DLD, dynamic level of detail. What it means is that, simplistically, the level of detail that's required is called up when needed. So, the engine is calling up every last little for an enemy that's on the other side of the screen, but if you use a sniper rifle to zoom in on him, the detail will appear.

Zipper plans to lock the framerate to 30 fps, in single player and in multiplayer modes, and the versions we played generally stayed in the 30 fps area, give or take. All in all, SOCOM should challenge hardcore online and entice regular console gamers with a whole new third-person shooter, which at this point in the game, looks like a huge undertaking that should be well worth the effort. Zipper has done an excellent job with the visuals and the gameplay looks to engage gamers in a stealthy, authentic military set of missions, online with up to 15 other players, or in a single mission against the computer. SOCOM should be a breakthrough game for SCEA and its online campaign, and we're hoping the game reaches Zipper's high goals in the end.

https://image.com.com/gamespot/images...screen0 03.jpg
[IMG]https://image.com.com/gamespot/images/2002/playstation2/socom/socom_screen014.jpg[/I MG]

Time Splitters 2

From IGN (Progress report) -

Across the street from the GDC Conference in San Jose, Ca., at the Hyatt Regency on the 6th floor, and sitting next to a flat screen TV screen, a table full of muffins and steaming coffee, the two leading architects on Free Radical's second game explain new developments in TimeSplitters 2.

They're excited to show off the latest additions to their first-person shooter, and they know full well they're talking to one of the biggest fans of their games, which include TimeSplitters 1 on PS2, and as part of the Rare team that worked on Nintendo 64, Goldeneye 007.

They begin by telling me that the game now features a story, unlike the first TimeSplitters. As a part of a crack techno-military team, which isn't officially sponsored, but acts more as part of a resistance faction, you and your team members must track down this group of thieving mongrel- types who have discovered a time-portal technology, which they plan to do terrible things with (naturally).

Your two-person team includes one fine chick and a beefy military dude, but each time you transport into a different era, you take on the role of a different character, and in the levels I witnessed, they were females (which adds a little extra love to the game, strangely). You must collect all of the time crystals and return them to your time, before the TimeSplitters do their damage to succeed. Actually, come to think of it, that sounds exactly like the first game, but here, the story is implemented better, with lots of textual prefaces, clues to a larger plot, and the feeling that you're working toward something bigger. The story, I'm told, is bigger, better, and more integrated than before.

In each of the four missions I saw -- the dam level, which was featured on the demo disc, a futuristic robotic level (which is the game's last level), a tropical mission, which features a crossbow, and a mobster-like level that takes place in the '30s -- the game ran at a crisp 60 frames per second, and was filled with the little details that comprise a solid single-player experience.

New information from Free Radical includes the ability to play through the game in a single- player mode, or cooperatively, with extra mission objectives for the co-op modem giving players something extra to look forward to. Other new additions include:

- The reticule has changed drastically and now provides a kind of camera-like look that's high-tech but sleek and simple in design.
- Players can go about their missions in different ways. For instance, if you want to take out all of the cameras one by one, then you can do so. Or, you can find the computer that controls each one, and simply knock that one out, which then defuses all of the cameras. That was very sweet.
- Players now use a Temporal Uplink, sort of like a portable map, which can be toggled to in the weapon cycle. It shows off the area's obstacles and structures and highlights enemy locations and camera locations.
- Players can log onto computers controlling still and moveable cameras, some of which have machineguns attached to them (if you played them demo, then you would remember), and they can control the machine guns. Several of the levels have this ability, and they some of the roving cameras actually move into locations you wouldn't be able to get to otherwise.
- In the nearly-completed dam level, players faced off with annoying, persistent zombies. If you're a good shot you can blow off each of their arms, and if you're extra good, you can take their heads straight off their bodies.
- The demo we saw a few months back is just a smidgeon of the game's actual size and scope. There are tons of levels, all quite large in size, and they're all very different from one another.
- Many of the sounds from Goldeneye 007, such as gun reloads, mechanical sounds such as explosions, and human grunts, to name a few. And if you listen very carefully, the music -- I swear -- contains riffs from Goldeneye, which is fine by me. But it's also eerie, too.

[IMG]https://www.psxextreme.com/screenshots/ps2_timesplitters_2/ps2_timesplitters_2_06.jpg[/ IMG]
[IMG]https://www.psxextreme.com/screenshots/ps2_timesplitters_2/ps2_timesplitters_2_09.jpg[/ IMG]

Jul 9th, 2002, 11:15 AM	#12
Joe Registered User Joined: Jul 2002 Location: Toronto Age: 39 Posts: 49	SOCOM continued.... Visuals The world of SOCOM is an interesting one, because it takes place offline and online, making texture work and things like lighting and camera work more challenging. The game is filled with sophisticated lighting techniques, detailed textures, motion captured work, and solid CG work. Zipper aims to be very realistic with SOCOM, and has prepared the game with a phenomenal amount of authentic detail. Soldiers faces, their weapons, and their clothing have all been scanned in and texture mapped. Using Sony's motion capture studio in Foster City, Zipper has captured soldiers in numerous positions, such as walking, running, rolling, ducking, crawling, aiming, and many others. The level of detail should be excellent in the final version, with small incidental items, such as belt loops, belt buckles and canteens have been paid attention to. Zipper claims there is three times the amount of typical textures in SOCOM than in the average game of this kind. The Seal camouflage outfits are also totally authentic, realistic and accurate. The art and design team has constructed the game with full screen anti-aliasing and a texture- paging system that enables many kinds of textures to be used, but efficiently without causing slowdown or glitching. What's normally called LOD, or Level of Detail, Zipper calls DLD, dynamic level of detail. What it means is that, simplistically, the level of detail that's required is called up when needed. So, the engine is calling up every last little for an enemy that's on the other side of the screen, but if you use a sniper rifle to zoom in on him, the detail will appear. Zipper plans to lock the framerate to 30 fps, in single player and in multiplayer modes, and the versions we played generally stayed in the 30 fps area, give or take. All in all, SOCOM should challenge hardcore online and entice regular console gamers with a whole new third-person shooter, which at this point in the game, looks like a huge undertaking that should be well worth the effort. Zipper has done an excellent job with the visuals and the gameplay looks to engage gamers in a stealthy, authentic military set of missions, online with up to 15 other players, or in a single mission against the computer. SOCOM should be a breakthrough game for SCEA and its online campaign, and we're hoping the game reaches Zipper's high goals in the end. https://image.com.com/gamespot/images...screen0 03.jpg [IMG]https://image.com.com/gamespot/images/2002/playstation2/socom/socom_screen014.jpg[/I MG] Time Splitters 2 From IGN (Progress report) - Across the street from the GDC Conference in San Jose, Ca., at the Hyatt Regency on the 6th floor, and sitting next to a flat screen TV screen, a table full of muffins and steaming coffee, the two leading architects on Free Radical's second game explain new developments in TimeSplitters 2. They're excited to show off the latest additions to their first-person shooter, and they know full well they're talking to one of the biggest fans of their games, which include TimeSplitters 1 on PS2, and as part of the Rare team that worked on Nintendo 64, Goldeneye 007. They begin by telling me that the game now features a story, unlike the first TimeSplitters. As a part of a crack techno-military team, which isn't officially sponsored, but acts more as part of a resistance faction, you and your team members must track down this group of thieving mongrel- types who have discovered a time-portal technology, which they plan to do terrible things with (naturally). Your two-person team includes one fine chick and a beefy military dude, but each time you transport into a different era, you take on the role of a different character, and in the levels I witnessed, they were females (which adds a little extra love to the game, strangely). You must collect all of the time crystals and return them to your time, before the TimeSplitters do their damage to succeed. Actually, come to think of it, that sounds exactly like the first game, but here, the story is implemented better, with lots of textual prefaces, clues to a larger plot, and the feeling that you're working toward something bigger. The story, I'm told, is bigger, better, and more integrated than before. In each of the four missions I saw -- the dam level, which was featured on the demo disc, a futuristic robotic level (which is the game's last level), a tropical mission, which features a crossbow, and a mobster-like level that takes place in the '30s -- the game ran at a crisp 60 frames per second, and was filled with the little details that comprise a solid single-player experience. New information from Free Radical includes the ability to play through the game in a single- player mode, or cooperatively, with extra mission objectives for the co-op modem giving players something extra to look forward to. Other new additions include: - The reticule has changed drastically and now provides a kind of camera-like look that's high-tech but sleek and simple in design. - Players can go about their missions in different ways. For instance, if you want to take out all of the cameras one by one, then you can do so. Or, you can find the computer that controls each one, and simply knock that one out, which then defuses all of the cameras. That was very sweet. - Players now use a Temporal Uplink, sort of like a portable map, which can be toggled to in the weapon cycle. It shows off the area's obstacles and structures and highlights enemy locations and camera locations. - Players can log onto computers controlling still and moveable cameras, some of which have machineguns attached to them (if you played them demo, then you would remember), and they can control the machine guns. Several of the levels have this ability, and they some of the roving cameras actually move into locations you wouldn't be able to get to otherwise. - In the nearly-completed dam level, players faced off with annoying, persistent zombies. If you're a good shot you can blow off each of their arms, and if you're extra good, you can take their heads straight off their bodies. - The demo we saw a few months back is just a smidgeon of the game's actual size and scope. There are tons of levels, all quite large in size, and they're all very different from one another. - Many of the sounds from Goldeneye 007, such as gun reloads, mechanical sounds such as explosions, and human grunts, to name a few. And if you listen very carefully, the music -- I swear -- contains riffs from Goldeneye, which is fine by me. But it's also eerie, too. [IMG]https://www.psxextreme.com/screenshots/ps2_timesplitters_2/ps2_timesplitters_2_06.jpg[/ IMG] [IMG]https://www.psxextreme.com/screenshots/ps2_timesplitters_2/ps2_timesplitters_2_09.jpg[/ IMG]