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Editorials:
4th September 2002:
Walking With David Dienstbier (Part II)
Continuing this fantastic tour of the stunning world of Turok Evolution...
Posted by
John Grothier
- Xbox,GameCube,PlayStation 2 - UK and Europe
The tour of Turok Evolution continues with David Dienstbier, the Creative Director of Acclaim Studios. The larger-than-life American takes us through the next generation of Turok, and we continue by looking at some of the awesome weapons in the game...
John:
Will the 'Cerebral Bore' make an appearance in Turok Evolution?
David:
The Cerebral Bore is back! This time it's called the 'Swarm Bore' - so instead of firing of one drill, this time it fires FIVE!
John:
At five different enemies?
David:
No - just one! It hits each hip joint, each shoulder joint and of course the head. So it will chop both legs off, and while he
(the enemy)
is in his death throes, it will pop the arms off, and while he's still screaming, it blows his head off!
John:
Excellent!
David:
So we are going to showing off the Swarm Bore for the first time this year at E3.
John:
Will there be a flame-thrower in the game?
David:
Oh Yeah! - I'm going to show you the flame-thrower later!
(David loads another stunning map from the Xbox debug unit).
Moving ahead here we can see a velociraptor over there, and also his buddy hiding over there...
(David points to a raptor lying in wait).
There's almost no point in the game where there's a single velociraptor...
John:
They only hunt in packs, don't they?
David:
Yes, so if you only see one - you're in trouble! Now if you look you can see lots of nice little touches in the game; you have little butterflies flitting around the world, if you hear that little...
(David makes a very convincing squawking noise)...
that's actually a macaw sitting up in the tree there, and of course before you ask, yes you can kill them! When the animation is finished it will make...
(David again makes a spine-chillingly accurate squawking sound)...
and then it bursts into feathers! The macaw is actually the animal I want to hurt least in Turok, I've actually owned birds before, so I can't understand while you would want to be mean to it. But then I get tempted and
...(Bang!)...
shoot it anyway!
John:
(Cackles evilly)
David:
You also have a very powerful secondary attack with most weapons.
(David selects a large axe from an impressive arsenal, and attacks a raptor with the butt of the weapon).
There's a really nice disgusting crunching, wet sound when you hit them with the back end of the axe, and if you look the actual weapon itself gets rather messy.
John:
Will the bodies of the dead dinosaurs remain, or will they disappear?
David:
They won't remain indefinitely no, it's a memory issue really. They have to be stored in RAM, but they will stay around for a long time - depending on how many other enemies are around at the time. If you notice here
(David points to the forest floor)
there are some more frogs there, right now the frogs aren't swimming...
John:
So they will jump into the water and swim away?
David:
Oh yeah, we will defiantly have an animation for that. The raptors in this level, as it's the first map in the game, are not the most deadly variants of the velociraptors, so these raptors, while they still are always in groups, will tend to run up and attack the player without any real fear. As you get further into the game you will encounter more dangerous raptors, a lot of them will leap out at you, and some will back away from the player then jump in and attack you with their leap-attack, and then they will back away and circle you and then jump at the player again. So later on the raptors you meet have a much stronger sense of self-preservation. Here you can also see some dragonflies buzzing around, and there's a snapping turtle in the water there, also notice the remains of a dead dinosaur that has died in the bog unfortunately, and you can see little dinosaurs eating off the carcass.
John:
Will you be able to upgrade weapons?
David:
Yes, if I pick up my pistol, this is what it looks like before you upgrade - but it will have a sniper function upgrade. All the weapons have multiple functionalities.
John:
Have you a favourite weapon?
David:
Umm, that's a tough one! I'm actually quite partial to our new mini-gun, but the swarm bores are really amazing! The cerebral bore was always my favourite Turok weapon ever. In case you are wondering you can shoot at the larger dinosaurs,
(David shoots at a huge plant-eating dinosaur)
but because of their huge size, you're are not going to do much damage to them with just a pistol.
John:
Is there any platforming in Turok Evolution?
David:
No there's not much at all, there's little bits and pieces, and we have a little fun with the history of the series; in the first map there is an objective that you have to reach a special token that belongs to a wizard that you meet in the game, it actually belongs to the top of his staff. So when you first collect that, you see these stone columns rise up out of the ground - much like the first game, and people are going to go
'Oh no!' (David contorts his face to one of anger and frustration).
But we made it really easy this time, so you just hop up and you will never see anything like that in the game again! So we are just saying - remember you're playing Turok now! Also we did not want to abandon the notion of collecting things or some of the more arcade elements that were in the original game. These bits are still fun to play today, Mario is still great fun, and he's not going to change anytime soon. So we are not afraid of staying true to some of those aspects that made the game popular in the first place.
John:
Will the dinosaurs fight each other?
David:
Yes, the velociraptors won't just see a triceratops and attack it on sight, but they will attack in groups, as well as going after monkeys and other easy sources of prey. You can even get them to fight the other creatures in the game. So there's a look at how the environments in the game work, how much you can do in them, and how they react to the player and also the enemies. So if we move on...
(David loads another map)
...we added flight to the game, for the first time. I wanted flight since the first day of the first game. So here is a look at the very first flight sequence in the game.
(David shows us a level in which you have control of a flying dinosaur in third-person perspective).
If you look down there you can see herds of dinosaurs as you fly through the valley - and there are some raptors. So what fun is it to fly a dinosaur unless it has homing missiles and a machine gun?!
(David lets rip at the unsuspecting raptors with a stunning barrage of weapons)
As you fly through here you can see there are some turrets and some balloons.
(David points to some large zeppelin-like aircraft).
There are also pick-up points for special weapons upgrades, health and ammunition, hanging from balloons. You can also hear someone giving you help - that's another allied pilot giving me advice.
(David swoops down to collect a pick-up)
Oh that's an overdrive! - Here's what happens if you get the overdrive -
(David fires off the machine gun - which has now turned into a weapon of amazing devastation).
You may have noticed that the machine gun has gone a little bit insane!
John:
Wow! It's rather hard not to notice!
David:
So lets have a look at one of the larger flight sequences in the game, this is still quite early in the game and you can see how big the flight environments are. We have a combination of 'Star Fox style' forward flight, and also completely open 360-degree flight arenas.
John:
Are the levels mostly jungle based?
David:
We have all kinds of levels; we've got the jungle levels that you've seen, night-time jungle, tropical canyons, arid deserts, enemy fortresses, and an entire city that you have to try to defend. So there is a lot of variation and artwork in the game. One of the nice things about the enemy bases is, as you fight your way through, you get two or three distinct graphical looks.
(David loads a 'flight arena' level).
I'm just going to make myself invincible here, as this is tough to fly and talk at the same time!
(David flies around a huge jungle basin, complete with enemy bases and structures).
Here is how you replenish your bird's
(unknown flying dinosaur)
health; if you look there you can see little donkeys hanging from those balloons!
(David swoops down to ingest the poor creature, and then continues flying towards an intricate enemy structure).
Here you can see at this large outpost all the anti-aircraft fire going off now, there are huge zeppelins also, some of which are hundreds of feet long - and when you blow them up...
(David fires a salvo of missiles of at one of the airships, it explodes in a fiery ball, and its scorched crew fall from the sky!).
John:
I just love the people falling from the ship!
David:
Yes, they fall to their doom!
(Another evil cackle echoes around the room)
John:
So you are fighting alongside allies then?
David:
Yes, there is a lot of allied interaction; I will show you some of the squad-based levels later. Here you can see some of the enemies' larger craft, which of course you can destroy.
(David fires again at another zeppelin, and again its singed crew are sent flying!).
John:
How many levels are in the game?
David:
We actually refer to them as maps, and there are over eighty of them -so there's a lot to see in Turok Evolution!
To be concluded...
Join us for the third and final part of this fantastic tour of the stunning world of Turok Evolution - only on Silicon Fusion soon!
John Grothier
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