CHECK OUT: Halo 2 trailer!

WWW.SILICON-FUSION.COM

Platform Filters:   All Platforms  Xbox   GameCube   PlayStation 2   PC   Game Boy Advance   Site Sections:   Updates  News   Games   Publishers   Developers   Reviews   Previews   Release Dates   Editorials   Glossary   Contact Us		Editorials:       4th September 2002: Walking With David Dienstbier (Part I)  Conversations with the creator of the award-winning Turok series. Posted by John Grothier - Xbox,GameCube,PlayStation 2 - UK and Europe One rather wet day in London's Kings Cross, I was invited to meet David Dienstbier, the Creative Director of Acclaim Studios, in one of the most spectacular penthouse apartments I've ever been lucky enough to be invited into. David has been likened to the 'Steven Spielberg' of the games industry. He is the creative visionary behind the Turok series including the brand new adventure: Turok Evolution - his biggest and most ambitious project to date. David: When we started talking about what we wanted to do next with Turok, when we went to the next generation of consoles, there were a few fundamental changes that we all came up with. The first was that Turok would come to all the consoles, not just to a single console. The reason that we made that decision was pretty simple, ever since the N64 days, we had thousands of PlayStation owners asking 'Please can we have one?' - but we had an exclusive situation with Nintendo, so it was something we could not do at the time. Also our engine had been developed very specifically for the N64, so porting the game to the PlayStation would have been a bit of a nightmare, and we were pretty content with our situation during the N64 days to release on just one platform. But we decided just about a year before Turok 3 was finished, we made a few fundamental decisions - the first one was that we would release on multi-platform next time around. The second decision was that we needed to get back to what made Turok, Turok. And that was back in to the jungles, back into this raw, brutal primal gameplay. It's obviously a very sophisticated and sexy game but when you see the action in this game, and see the environments and all of the weapons - it's one hundred percent Turok. The first thing I'm going to do is to show you one of the maps that really give you an idea of Turok Evolution. When we make a world, the most important thing to me is to make a living world, to make a world where life is going on around the player. When we made the first Turok, people were amazed to see little things like birds, fish and monkeys and the fact that you could shoot the fish with your bow and arrow if you wanted to, and we had all these little touches in there. What we have here is - (David loads a map from an Xbox debug unit) - I've put together a little map that shows of all the indigenous life that you will see throughout the game. Right away you are seeing a few different things, you're seeing frogs hopping about, one of the nice things is if you see something alive in the game you can interact with it, however you see fit. So if you see a little frog and you want to be mean to the frog... (At this point David fires his rifle at a poor unsuspecting frog, which explodes flinging an alarming amount of blood and gore into the air) Now you are seeing a version that we did not intend to show, prior to E3. So there are few little things that will notice like, why did the frog explode into a hundred pounds of raw meat?! John: Yes I did notice that. David: It's actually a bug that I find so humorous that we are going to leave it in the game. It's just too fun to take out! Now, as you look through the grass here you will notice that a lot of it is swaying in the wind, and if you look through here you will see some gazelles hanging about. (David shoots at the defenceless gazelle) These are the same gazelles that were in the trailer, last year for E3 we made a trailer that was pre-rendered, but did contain game art. So if you see gazelle in the game and you want to be mean to it...(David shoots again at the poor animal, and it crumples to the forest floor). John: And you hunt in real life don't you? David: I do. I got some photos here, this photo here...(David points to a photograph on his desk)...shows a deer that I shot, and that's my Dad with a zebra there. I only hunt things that I eat, I never buy red meat at the supermarket or anything like that - I don't like the hormones that cattle are raised on now. I've been hunting my entire life, you know I'm not hunting every other weekend or anything like that, but everything that I hunt I eat. (David shoots some more at the gazelles). John: Does anything else hunt the other animals in the game? David: Yes, the velociraptors hunt the gazelles and other animals. John: Are there going to be any major differences between the different consoles? David: Right now the PlayStaion 2 and GameCube versions are about three weeks behind this one, (Xbox), so it's a little bit early to tell what little differences there will be. The levels are exactly the same; the enemies are exactly the same, as are the weapons. We have memory concerns with the PlayStation 2 version, because it has less memory than the other two systems. So we've got to go and reduce the size of textures and things like that. But we use detailed maps, we use all the reflection maps that we use with the Xbox, and the environments that we have up and running now on the PlayStation 2 look stunning, better than even we expected them to look. So if we move forward here a little bit more...(David pushes his way through the dense jungle)... Oh look a lemur! (Bang!). John: How many different types of animals are in the game? David: There's a lot! I've actually kind of lost count; we've got - just in the way of indigenous life - lemurs, baboons, chimpanzees, wild boar, gazelles, frogs, fish, snapping turtles - there's stuff everywhere - parrots, toucans, little quails. John: Which one is your favourite to shoot? David: I have to say right now the frog is my favourite thing. He's only a little thing, with not many polygons, he looks like a piece of origami, but he's hilarious. And when they move through the environment they look so lifelike, they're so convincing. Generally the animals tend to run away from the player, because they instinctively know he's dangerous. If you look down here you can see a wild pig...(Bang!) 'Pork chops for everyone!' And over here you can see the chimps...(David shows us a clearing with a group of chimps preening themselves on a rock). In the original game the only animal that you couldn't hurt was the monkey. John: Yes, I did try! David: Everyone was trying! At first we thought 'Ah little monkeys' everyone likes monkeys - but we found out that everyone wanted to be mean to the monkey - they wanted to kill him. So we decided this time, that if it's in the game world we should allow the player to do whatever they want. (David loads another map). Now what you are seeing now is the first level in the game. It will really give you a sense of how the bigger environments pan out. What you see here is a realtime introduction to the game - obviously it's not finished - you won't see a disembodied hand floating in the middle of the air! The build that you are looking at here was finished just three days prior to me leaving. Look how much movement there is in the world, plants sway back and forth, the grass moves in the wind... John: Are there any weather effects in the game? David: There are not really a lot of realtime weather effects in the game right now, but there are a lot of day/night environments. Now if I move through here...(David moves through the jungle)...you can see that I can move all the plants. Why is that important? - Well its important because if you saw that little dinosaur when he went through the bushes they all got disturbed and they moved. Well if there is a little bad guy, if there is a guy crawling on his stomach, or if there's a raptor stalking through with his head down, you can actually see the movement they create. Flip that around and that means that they can see the movement that you make... John: And they will react to that movement? David: You bet! So you have to move really slowly, and that will prevent the plants from moving a lot. So as I move through here, here's a little joke...(David walks up a foggy jungle path) 'Oh no the fogs back!' - 'Jesus not more fog' - 'Every Turok game has fog!' - We decided to have a little fun at our own expense, because as we move up around here you will see that the fog... John: Suddenly lifts! David: We have no fog problem!...(Suddenly the fog lifts to reveal a beautiful dinosaur littered plain, that's very reminiscent of a scene from Jurassic Park). As well as the dinosaurs you can see other animals - there's a family of baboons hanging out on the rock, baboons can also be quite aggressive, they will only attack you in the game usually in groups, so if you kill one baboon and then walk round the corner and his ten friends are there - you're in for it, as they will come after you! (David moves across the plain to where there are a handful of large dinosaurs grazing on the plain). So here you see some of our larger plant-eating dinosaurs, they're not really much of a threat, but if you notice look how its stomach wobbles... John: It's actually breathing! David: Yeah - you can actually see the breathing and you can also see the weight on them. When you look at a brachiosaurus walking you can actually see the muscle tissue quiver every time he takes a step, it's really quite stunning. If you look down this way you can actually see some other dinosaurs having a drink from the river. One of the other most important things in creating a believable environment for the player is what the player can do in it. So if I stand here and fire...(David lines himself up and shoots at a tree, which topples over onto a poor unsuspecting brachiosaurus)...'Timber!' John: Wow! Can you actually kill them?! David: Oh yeah! If you knock the tree over onto them you can defiantly kill them! Now the bigger dinosaurs in the game like these, plant-eating dinosaurs, they really don't have an interest in harming the player or attacking him outright, but if they have a baby they will attack you. So if you walk into an area, and there's a little baby dinosaur and it's mother is nearby - she will come straight after you. And you don't want to get swatted with those tails, because it really hurts! To be continued... Join us for Part II of this fantastic tour of the stunning world of Turok Evolution, on Silicon Fusion very soon! John Grothier             Latest Images:		Related Games:  Turok Evolution for Xbox  28  Screenshots  3  Editorials Click here for All Game Information. Turok Evolution for GameCube  3  Editorials Click here for All Game Information. Turok Evolution for PlayStation 2  3  Editorials Click here for All Game Information.
		Go Back To Main Page        Go To Top Of Page