Star Trek is a pretty lame show, in my opinion, but at least it makes for some decent games. I tried out the Elite Force II demo tonight and left thinking that the weapons were probably nowhere near that wicked in the TV series. Slick graphics - they've done some rather nice things to the relatively venerable Quake 3 engine. The shading is weird, though; it's excellent in some places and lousy in others. The good part of the shading is that models can cast hi-res shadows on themselves, which makes Chris very happy. The bad part is that the dynamic lighting is per-polygon or something, so it's not smooth at all. But the characters are extraordinarily well modeled and textured, and I got a decent framerate considering the levels I had it cranked up to (all the extras except antialiasing at 1280x1024). Lots of scripting (as in, the appearance of just about every enemy you encounter is scripted), but it doesn't come off as contrived. And wicked weapons, as I mentioned earlier. Arc Launcher, heheheh... zapzapzapsplat!
I've got a largish gift card to EB so I may consider getting this game. But... it might be foolish, considering that Deus Ex: Invisible War, Jedi Academy, Half-life 2, Tribes: Vengeance, etc. are all coming out within the next year, and that all have me slavering. Invisible War, especially. I think the mere shock of its glorious lighting engine and brilliant storyline will be enough to blow every single article of clothing off my body.
I think now, being one-ten in the morning or so, would be a good time for me to go to bed.
posted on Saturday, May 31, 2003
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