Future Games from Particle systems (Or new company?)

[FAMS]

Hello.

Are you guys still releasing EXO (I think that was the title). IS the company going to release anything else in the Space combat genre?

I really need a good space sim, cause all the new ones are not that good or run on my machine, cause I don't happen to have a 6x10^9 GHz machine with an infinite amount of RAM and HD space.

[AR81]

I got a PIV 3Ghz, 512Mb RAM. Try me. :D :p

I know what it is not to have the hardware. Before I got that machine I had my P233, 64Mb RAM. To tell you the truth it is a great machine, except if you are going to do some heavy 3D rendering.

It works fine with my old games, ranging from The Dig and Hi-Octane to Drakan and IWDE.

[FAMS]

Well my work computer (The stuff I reduce data etc. on) is fast enough for all new games, but I cannot use it for gaming cause I wouldn't get any work done. But sometimes I wish the super computer that I have access to could run some games though :-(.

I have to build a new system, but I don't have the money, well i could if I could stop buying food and heating etc. But it is amazing that some games are made by lazy programmers, that can't be bothered to optimise thier code. For example the old game Klingon Honour guard was based on the old unreal engine. But the game was slow even on their Ideal machine, because they didn't optimise some aspects of the game.

[Stands on a soap box that is placed next FAMS]

They depend on faster computers and increasing HD space. If I install 4 news games (Tron 2.0, GTA:Vice City etc.) I loose the best part of 10GB. I am sure that contravenes some monopoly comission rules, i.e. unfair to other computer games.

[Uses Soap box to climb on a high horse]

But some of the new nice looking games are like male and female models, good in looks but lack content and substance. I think that games like Frontier/Elite and I-War are better produced and held my intrest longer than some modern day games.

[dodges some thrown glass bottles and fruits/vegtables, but heres some cheers from the unruly mob]

Any back to the point, when are the HARD working PS going to release their fabulous game(s)? and any of them going to be Sfi-fi:SIM?

[AR81]

Optimizing code... what a radical concept.:D

Microsoft Image Composer (MIC) and MicrograFX Picture Publisher 7 (PP7) are an example of optimization.

PP7 runs in a 486DX while MIC needs pentium.

PP7 loads faster than MIC. Indeed MIC takes as much as Photoshop to load... but MIC hardly has half the features of PP7.

Processing anything in MIC is significantly slower than PP7.

Also, MIC costs $15 plus shipping and handling, while PP7 costs about $6 at a local retail store.

[Stephen Robertson]

Hi again!

EXO was canned :cry:

Powerdrome is due for release soon - it's being reviewed in some X-Box magazines right about now.

Other projects I can't tell you about yet. :D

I very much doubt we'll ever release another space sim unless the genre becomes much more popular that it is now. Unfortunately PC space sims aren't selling well enough to make them profitable, and the only space sims that sell well on consoles are Star Wars ones.

[BeerSnorkel]

Stephen Robertson : Other projects I can't tell you about yet.


Do you mean that FPS you are working on which has an elite
SPEC OPS team oddly enough with names like Cal, Lori, Az, Smith,
a toaster named Jefferson Clay and for comedy - Jafs.

They sneak through a previously destroyed jumpgate and do battle
with pink glowy screaming aliens. BTW everyone carries hand-held
Antimatter weapons. The climatic battle is between Cal and some
corporate creep alien that used to be a mean and greedy CEO. :weird:
Is that one of them? :rolleyes:

[FAMS]

Oh well. At least we hope they will be come popular again.

I did think that the market did get saturated ages ago with space sims.

Thanks for th equick reply.

[AR81]

Have anyone at Atari wondered why Star Wars sells so well? It is not the brand... it is the game.

My guess is that Atari managers are financial freaks who know about numbers but not about entertainment. They know what money is but they don't know their business.

It is like having a doctor running a hi-tech computer lab.

[arrrse]

No.
Starwars games were always about the brand.
The early games were also actually reasonably good, but now they are just pap

[Silent Warrior]

Originally posted by Stephen Robertson
Powerdrome is due for release soon - it's being reviewed in some X-Box magazines right about now.
X-Box... Gah... No X-Box enters THIS house!

Other projects I can't tell you about yet. :D
I... I'm... reasonably excited to hear that. Mm-hm. Yes indeed. Very reasonably excited.

Unfortunately PC space sims aren't selling well enough to make them profitable, and the only space sims that sell well on consoles are Star Wars ones.
That's officially scary... *Says the bugger who bagged Jedi Starfighter, another sappy reincarnation of Rogue Squadron with snazzy vfx* :o
Still, who in their right minds would play a space-sim on a CONSOLE of all things? Sims demand keyboard + stick, not some dumbed-down-to-halfwit 10-ish buttons + miniature stick!

[Stephen Robertson]

Originally posted by Silent Warrior
X-Box... Gah... No X-Box enters THIS house!


Powerdrome is also coming for PS2 too, and looks and plays very well indeed :D

[Nanoprobe]

Sweet. Although I'll be waiting a bit until I buy it - brand new PS2 games are ridiculously priced down here.

[Silent Warrior]

Over here as well. I'll present you with a price comparison:

White label and other old thingies typically sell for 149:-, or did last time I saw them.
Expansion packs (well, Warcraft 2 Expansion anyway) sell for 249:-, possibly up to 349:-.
New PC-games go for 349-549:- (349 being almost ridiculously cheap and 549 being insanely expensive).
PS2-games sell for 649:-. All of them, it seems.

I don't think racing-games are my cup of tea though, don't count me in so soon.

[MichaelShane]

Mr. Clark has posted pics of the models at the Newtek forum. They look sweet. Considering the detail and care PS took with the I-War series, I'll be first in line to buy Powerdrome when it's released.

I like a seat-of-the-pants, flying-too-damn-fast-for-my-own-good, race. :D

[Roi Danton]

Originally posted by Stephen Robertson
Unfortunately PC space sims aren't selling well enough to make them profitableX² sold well and the programmers plan to make a Online version of it.
But on the other hand, it's physics and the way of simulating the space disqualify it as a space sim. ;)

On that point, the I-War games are great. :)

[Roi Danton]

Originally posted by Stephen Robertson
PowerdromeLink?

[Stephen Robertson]

http://www.argonaut.com/microsites/powerdrome/index.htm

[Roi Danton]

Oh yes, I can remember that I have visited this site many days ago. Thx for the link! (members of a huge ger hardware forum were interested)

[Silent Warrior]

DUDE! :eek: DUDE, that water is PRETTY! Looks a little aliased, otherwise... 'Oi, is that motion blur that I see? The lighting looks pretty ace, too. *Plowing through the media*

[Arff]

Ooh. Looks quite Prince of Persia-esque to me.

[jonfitt]

Looks interesting.

Been ages since I've played a futuristic racer, I used to really like Wipoeout 2+3 (1 was way too hard on the PC).

I hate to say it though, but your blades do have the lok about them of a more recent futuristic racer, whose name rhymes with bod-facer. I do hope it's nothing like that!

PS here's a little hint which may not need saying: Don't overdo the motion blur guys. A little goes a long way. GTA3 on the PC sometimes looked like it was based in a tub of vaseline.

[pahtih]

why not develloping space sim for console if it is not possible on computer ?

I know there are not many but i am a great player (of iw series sure) of colony wars series on ps1 it was very fun and i always wait for a new challenge !

wipeout fusion is very good (i am mad of the survival mod were the ship is going always faster) i hope it will whallenge it.

[Stephen Robertson]

Apart from the Star Wars games, Space-Sims have not sold very well on consoles at all.

[Nanoprobe]

What was it exactly that caused Exo to get canned? It sounded a lot like Syndicate Wars when I first read about it.

*tries to remember if SW did well or not*

[Celt]

I'll be buying powerdrome for the PS2, if only to get some cash in the hands of PS for all the joy they have given me.

Good luck with the next project.

[Stephen Robertson]

I don't know the full reasons why Exo was canned, but even if I did I doubt I'd be able to discuss them. :rolleyes: :D

[Ranger]

So what was Exo about exactly? Maybe after Powerdrome is released/finished/whatever else, they'll consider un-axing it.

And I've been looking at the Powerdrome site. Looks pretty interesting. Though I'm not much of a racing fan (besides doing the races in SW: KOTOR and playing a demo of Ballistics), I can probably get into it during a lull. Picking up Full Spectrum Warrior soon, and I just finished playing Far Cry on my desktop comp so right now I'm in between games, still trying to get the nerve up to play my 250 dollar total Steel Battalion game (Bigass Controller+Steel Battalion+Line of Contact Online), which I haven't finished nor played in 3 or 4 weeks. For XBOX by the way.

Ok, back on track...Glad to see you're still poking around here, though I expect that someday they're gonna axe this forum or keep wiping it out until we all vanish. I'm still pissed off about the last one, and the fact that Pezit was "promoted" (IE moved on and left a parting gift for us) doesn't help things along.

[Stephen Robertson]

EXO was a squad tactical shooter, set in an abandoned city. You had several team-members all in various sizes of exo-suits, from 2-metre to 3 metre and even 5 metre.

The game would have been one of the first to use realistally rendered lighting and dynamic lighting ranges, and the levels were huge.

[jessica00]

*snickers*
powerdrome as a name, is such a knockoff of an old dynamix mech combat game "battledrome"
:)

oh..got any screenshots of exo laying around? :)

[trevwilson]

to the guy who mentioned elite/frontier.

Maybee its my age but i agree, the best ive played is still arcelite (the archimedes version of elite) and freespace 2.

What i dont undersand is wy back in 1980 ish they had coders
willing to be "tight" with the code ..elite ran on 32k ram
and arcelite with 1 meg to play with had formations of ships
flying around and private battles going on such as vipers fighting pirates etc which had nothing to do with the player.

Yet now the games seem much more demanding for space memory and processor, without the corresponding improvement in gameplay.

[DrCR]

Exo was canned so they could work on IW3, of course. ;)

I haven't played the defiance campaine of IWD so that should hold me over till nexus goes gold.


DrCR


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