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Mace Griffin Bounty Hunter Feature Feature
Stephen Leyton
14/03/2003
Paul Chapman, the Producer, spoke with TVG about this exciting multi-format title.
A fine mix of experience and expertise, including Warthog veterans and new faces from many other top UK development houses, make up the team behind this title. With the necessary skill sets needed to make a diverse and interesting FPS game a lot is expected. With added experience from doing space combat titles they believe they will collectively deliver a title that will be accessible to a wider audience, including those who enjoy playing FPSs. Paul Chapman, the Producer, spoke with TVG.
The game revolves around Mace Griffin, a former government ranger, seeking revenge on land and in space. Melding both the first person shooter genre and vehicular combat on land and space, the game reaches far beyond any game currently available. This was eagerly elaborated on. "The obvious elements that Bounty Hunter will bring to the mix are the space combat/flight sections. Flying spacecraft in Bounty Hunter will come as natural as driving cars in GTA3. We've worked hard to develop the areas which cross over between space and ground - jumping into the back of a ship as it takes off, killing the pilot and taking the controls, that type of thing."
Coming with a compelling and pivotal story to set the scene and drive the game. It starts like a classic Western and just gets more and more intriguing. The team wanted to create a story which was wildly compelling and entirely convincing. The mission path is linear but structured in such a way that you will have no idea whether what you are doing will progress you further in the plot or simply earn you a reward.
A condensed summing up of the story goes like this: Hundreds of years in the future, several dominant races (Human, Jaldari, and Velleakan) occupy a host of solar systems and discover new planets on a regular basis. Huge conglomerates vie for rich resources on every new world, resulting in fighting, smuggling and the emergence of pirate clans. To combat this growing trend towards war, the government sets up a group of highly elite Rangers, who are quickly brought down by an unknown traitor. Mace Griffin, the only surviving ranger, becomes a bounty hunter and sets out to discover the truth behind his teamās ruin.
Although billed as a shooter there are many other strong elements to the game. "The game enables players to pilot six different ships, from powerful alien fighters to massive carriers. Each handles differently so you get experiences as far apart as high-speed dog fighting to moving colossal beasts of ships across millions of light years. We worked extremely hard on creating a player interface that feels natural when moving around interiors to piloting ships. I think it works pretty well and people will not have to work too hard to adjust between controlling Mace to piloting a starfighter."
You tend to get a feeling, after only a short while seeing and learning about the game, that Mace could become a brand name like Duke Nukem as you learn more about the character and note the serious attention to his biography. Itās set against a backdrop of corporate, political and religious intrigue, Mace Griffin is framed for being involved in the deaths of his comrades. After a stretch in prison he becomes a bounty hunter, a vocation that gives him access to classified information and a means to aggressively pursue his search for the people who framed him. It is a classic set-up but one which provides us with a great hero. He is essentially a good man but not someone you would want to get on the wrong side of. He is cast as a solitary figure who must overcome the huge faceless giants of commerce, politics and religion. I think people will empathise with this.
As would be expected the technology behind the game is a serious focus for the team, hence the usage of The Tusk 3D Portal Engine allowing for creation of seamless transitions between environments with dynamic lighting and shadows, depth of field and environmental effects, such as fog and water. The engine also allows two key gameplay innovations. Tusk employs scene-graph principles that allow movement within and between different types of environments - currently impossible in other games. Additionally, the advanced portal technology will allow gamers, for the first time ever, to be able to seamlessly transition between first person combat and space flight action.
The game thrust requires exploration, detection and deduction, with a wide variety of objectives and ways in which the player must interact with both organic and mechanical objects. There is however a lot of combat but because of the AI the player must employ a variety of weapons and tactics to be successful. "You will need to think to complete Bounty Hunter. You can approach different situations in different ways - guns-a-blazing may get you there but maybe a little negotiation will help get you there even faster."
The player will be rewarded with new weapons after completing missions and will also find them if they explore hard enough. The diversity of the opponents you face in this game means that you will need a variety of weapons at hand, and choosing the right tool for the job will be a big part of the combat. We have a balance of weapons people will be familiar with, along with some that have never been seen before.
Paul felt the AI within the game was a very important component but should also be transparent. "If you are enjoying the gameplay then the AI is probably good. If it's bad it will look either comical or be frustrating. Ours is neither comical nor frustrating. Our AI is a simulation of what skilled human soldiers do - inflict damage on the enemy whilst protecting one's self with the use of cover, movement and distraction. We have basically applied common sense principles - don't let the NPCs get in each others way, don't attack the player from too many angles at once, basically anything which makes the gameplay realistic but at the same time fun. Our worlds are also inhabited by neutral NPCs, who will panic and scatter at the first sign of trouble."
The environments on offer will contain hundreds of destructible objects, but the main topology will not be deformable, as in Red Faction. However at points large structures like bridges will be destroyed. Altogether there are 15 different levels, from cities to slave mines, along with 50 different character types, including aliens and mechs.
Best described as a First Person Shooter/Adventure (with space flight action) with diverse missions, some story driven, some incidental, to create a dynamic, realistic universe for an immersive experience. With high levels of visual effects, lighting and sound ensures this is top notch.
