Warbie
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"No more restrictions, no more being blocked by simple barriers such as walls and fences. We want to enable the player to move like a real person, with the ability to run, jump, vault and slide in a way that has never been seen before in a first-person game."
Some bits copied from an Edge preview:
'... running is something the most games implement simply as a doubling of camera speed - the character's legs don't actually hammer the ground with greater force, arms swinging in rhythm with each powerful bound. But they do in Mirror's Edge. And this is exactly how DICE hopes to surpass the problems of movement in the past: by creating an actual physical sense of the player's body within the environment.
It's something of a strange paradox that firstperson games, while placing you more directly in the gameworld, mostly offer fewer options for interaction with your environment than thirdperson games. The reason for this, however, is not terribly obscure - there is simply less visual feedback in firstperson to tell the player what his or her digital body is doing. It's no surprise then that most first person games, lacking the ability to convey your physical presence in the environment, tend to reduce the avater to a floating gun ...
...
Games like Unreal Tournament have movement - double jumps, rocket jumps - but it's very abstracted. We wanted to place you in the world and convey the strain and physical contact with the environment'
...
'DICE is aware that its promises of convincing digital embodiment are likely to induce scepticism, but with the 360 gamepad in hand, doubts about the extent of its achievement are rather abruptly demolished. Even just walking feels vividly realised in a way that first person games commonly don't. All too often, looking down, you will see your feet glide over the floor - if you have them at all; here footfalls feel weighty, as though they are actually engendering movement. And when you speed up, the sense of acceleration is well matched by the sway of the camera, your arms pumping visibly, the sound of your trainers impacting concrete with a fluid increase in pace and power.
...
'The result is fluid acrobatic movement - a continuing string of elegant wall-runs, vaults and the likes that turns the uban environment of vertiginous walkways and roofs into an elaborate assault course.
...
"Doing the moves is relatively easy", explains Farrer, "but you have to maintain flow - that's where the skill element is introduced. Coming to the bottom of the zip-line you want to time your landing properly so you can continue to maintain that speed and carry on moving, whereas if you fail you may stumble, slow dow or even fall over"
...
Similarly, when approaching a metre-high wall - which in other firstperson games might be an impassable structure - the velocity in which you hit it will enable you to vault straight over or, failing that, leave you hanging. Maintaining speed via fluid combinations of moves is the central tenet of the gameplay. Your average speed also determines the amount of Reaction Time you have, a slow-motion feature implemented to aid you in the more complex and rapidly chained moves. Although perhaps more obviously a gimmick than the game's other integrated notions concerning movement, it certainly is of some considerable benefit during the more hectic moments; when you launch yourself from the edge of a building and spin mid-air to shoot back over your flying body at your pursuers, Reaction Time gives you a few critical moments to get a bead on your foes before you slam into the ground.'
So, a parkour influenced firtperson shooter/adventure set in a city and focusing on bringing a 'through the person experience' rather than 'through the gun'.
The screenshots in the preview look very solid - detail in the hands, clothing hanging on the legs - it looks weighty and convincing. I'd love to see it in motion. There's also concept art showing leaping over fences, running up slopes, sliding down the other side, wall runs, vaulting over walls etc. Apparently the sense of acceleration and decelerartion has been captured - you can build up speed, slide along the floor under a slowly closing garage door, 'skidding to a gravelly sounding halt, the viewpoint skews with plausible imitation of naturalistic movement. It's all suggestive of a friction with the surrounding world that is simply absent from other firstperson games'.
Obviously i'm quite impressed, otherwise I wouldn't have bothered typing all this out for you toerags
FPS is my main gaming love and I really hope DICE can pull this off. If they don't, I still think this is a sign of things to come. Most fps avoid anything that involves complicated movement and i've yet to play one that doesn't make me feel like a floating gun. Make us feel like the character and the sense of immersion - of being shot at, shooting people, with all the excitement, fear, guilt and culpability that is missing from current fps - can only increase. I want to mistime a landing, hear my leg crack horribly on impact and collapse on the floor, to roll onto my back just in time to see my pursuer pulling himself over the wall and to pop him in the face with a horribly squishy sounding headshot.
One to watch
Some bits copied from an Edge preview:
'... running is something the most games implement simply as a doubling of camera speed - the character's legs don't actually hammer the ground with greater force, arms swinging in rhythm with each powerful bound. But they do in Mirror's Edge. And this is exactly how DICE hopes to surpass the problems of movement in the past: by creating an actual physical sense of the player's body within the environment.
It's something of a strange paradox that firstperson games, while placing you more directly in the gameworld, mostly offer fewer options for interaction with your environment than thirdperson games. The reason for this, however, is not terribly obscure - there is simply less visual feedback in firstperson to tell the player what his or her digital body is doing. It's no surprise then that most first person games, lacking the ability to convey your physical presence in the environment, tend to reduce the avater to a floating gun ...
...
Games like Unreal Tournament have movement - double jumps, rocket jumps - but it's very abstracted. We wanted to place you in the world and convey the strain and physical contact with the environment'
...
'DICE is aware that its promises of convincing digital embodiment are likely to induce scepticism, but with the 360 gamepad in hand, doubts about the extent of its achievement are rather abruptly demolished. Even just walking feels vividly realised in a way that first person games commonly don't. All too often, looking down, you will see your feet glide over the floor - if you have them at all; here footfalls feel weighty, as though they are actually engendering movement. And when you speed up, the sense of acceleration is well matched by the sway of the camera, your arms pumping visibly, the sound of your trainers impacting concrete with a fluid increase in pace and power.
...
'The result is fluid acrobatic movement - a continuing string of elegant wall-runs, vaults and the likes that turns the uban environment of vertiginous walkways and roofs into an elaborate assault course.
...
"Doing the moves is relatively easy", explains Farrer, "but you have to maintain flow - that's where the skill element is introduced. Coming to the bottom of the zip-line you want to time your landing properly so you can continue to maintain that speed and carry on moving, whereas if you fail you may stumble, slow dow or even fall over"
...
Similarly, when approaching a metre-high wall - which in other firstperson games might be an impassable structure - the velocity in which you hit it will enable you to vault straight over or, failing that, leave you hanging. Maintaining speed via fluid combinations of moves is the central tenet of the gameplay. Your average speed also determines the amount of Reaction Time you have, a slow-motion feature implemented to aid you in the more complex and rapidly chained moves. Although perhaps more obviously a gimmick than the game's other integrated notions concerning movement, it certainly is of some considerable benefit during the more hectic moments; when you launch yourself from the edge of a building and spin mid-air to shoot back over your flying body at your pursuers, Reaction Time gives you a few critical moments to get a bead on your foes before you slam into the ground.'
So, a parkour influenced firtperson shooter/adventure set in a city and focusing on bringing a 'through the person experience' rather than 'through the gun'.
The screenshots in the preview look very solid - detail in the hands, clothing hanging on the legs - it looks weighty and convincing. I'd love to see it in motion. There's also concept art showing leaping over fences, running up slopes, sliding down the other side, wall runs, vaulting over walls etc. Apparently the sense of acceleration and decelerartion has been captured - you can build up speed, slide along the floor under a slowly closing garage door, 'skidding to a gravelly sounding halt, the viewpoint skews with plausible imitation of naturalistic movement. It's all suggestive of a friction with the surrounding world that is simply absent from other firstperson games'.
Obviously i'm quite impressed, otherwise I wouldn't have bothered typing all this out for you toerags
FPS is my main gaming love and I really hope DICE can pull this off. If they don't, I still think this is a sign of things to come. Most fps avoid anything that involves complicated movement and i've yet to play one that doesn't make me feel like a floating gun. Make us feel like the character and the sense of immersion - of being shot at, shooting people, with all the excitement, fear, guilt and culpability that is missing from current fps - can only increase. I want to mistime a landing, hear my leg crack horribly on impact and collapse on the floor, to roll onto my back just in time to see my pursuer pulling himself over the wall and to pop him in the face with a horribly squishy sounding headshot. One to watch
