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Our Previews page has more in depth on the Games making that are making waves in the Interactive Entertainment world. |
The page with its finger on the pulse of online gamingE3 Show Fever 28-30th MayThis Years E3 show is gearing up its media engine for what promises to be one of the most exciting gaming events this year. Much is promised and especially from high rollers such as Nintendo and Sega. However the metamorphosis of the PC as a high-end Games platform is whats going to really set the aisles alight.Over the last few years the PC has gradually been given the hardware wings it needs to be taken seriously as a hard-core gamers machine. These wings have taken the form of 3D acelerator cards. The performance gap has not only closed between the 'next-generation'consoles, the PC + 3d card combo can easily outpeform the N64 and the Playstation as far as pure polygon throughput is concerned. This new hardware leap has given games developers a new lease of life. The first real fruits of true 3D card developement (previously it has been mostly add-on code) should come to bear. Companies such as Dave Perry's Shiny Entertainment, Psygnosis, Ativision, Aklaim (to name but a few) are going to be showing their wares (on the whole 3D card only) to an expectant audience. Shiny are expected to show the first playable demo of their supposedly ground breaking game Messiah. Using a new graphics engine (see the Next Generation web page for details of a seminar Mr Perry gave detailing its capabilities) which supposedly allows complex poygon characters ad animations to be constructed with little performance hit. This basically means no more angular faces and blocky limbs when you are close to character. Ion Storm (headed by one John Carmack of ID fame) will be showing their new first person shooter Daikatana. Now using an enhanced version of the Quake II engine expectations are high from the master of quake level designers. Duke Nukem Forever and Prey will hopefully be given their first playable airing from those busy beavers at 3D Realms. Duke Nukem again uses the Qukae II engine but Prey (not expected before September of this Year) uses proprietary graphics technology developed in-house and is supposed to blow everything else out of the water. At last Unreal will see the light of day and give eager slavering 3D shooter fans a chance to get to grips with what Epics Unreal engine has to offer. Early reports say that it does, as the Americans would say, kick some major ass (dont you just hate 'em). Next Generation Online have a regularly updated site (every 2 hours) covering breaking news regarding the E3 show. |