To sum it up in terms of things you know well, imagine the storyline of Wing Commander IV and the level of complexity that this represents, then throw in a good measure of Blake's 7 (for the acting), couple this with both the original Privateer and a serious dose of Elite before finally adding quite a serious amount of TIE Fighter for the combat sections. Okay, okay, I said I'd seen it and played it. They then set about replacing it with another far more advanced 3D engine based on Argonaut's b-rhnder technology (see panel). The whole bloody thing, along with all the 3D models, all the texture maps and all the other 3D work they'd done. Privateer: The Darkening initially started off with yet another tweak of this engine, but by Christmas 1995 both Erin Roberts and his team of three programmers were far from happy with the results they were getting from the three-year-old dinosaur. By the time Wing Commander IV was released, it had to be said that this engine was getting a little old. This engine then went on to power Wing Armada, Pacific Strike and ultimately Wing Commander III. This particular game did a rather fab job with texture-mapped polygons and the like, and although it ate processor power like a lardy fat-boy in a school dinner queue it was rather impressive. Anyway, the real turning- point among the collection was when Strike Commander was released about three years ago. ![]() Those of you who've stuck with the pc for a while will no doubt be familiar with the Origin back-catalogue: plenty of notoriously over-powered but basically excellent games. Origin have had this 3D engine thing knocking around for ages. I've played it, talked to the producer (Erin Roberts, brother of Wing Commander supremo Chris Roberts) and we now know the reason for the delay. We'd always assumed that it was going to be a bit Wing Commander-y and our suspicions were confirmed when the name of the product was changed to Privateer: The Darkening -but oddly, no screenshots had been made available and no one seemed to be commenting on anything. ![]() We learned that it starred Clive Owen (of Chancer fame among other British tv roles), Brian Blessed (dead famous, but if you're not sure he was the bloke who was the boss of the birdmen in Flash Gordon), David Warner and Christopher 'interactive' Walken, and we also knew that this was another of EA's mega-budget Wing Commander type things - but that was about it.Īfter some considerable time, and lots of reports in loads of magazines, newspapers and even Film 96 (!!!), we've managed to get a look at the gameplay. It's been nearly a year since young Jeremy brought us a report on the filming of a new game from Origin.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |