LADYDRAGON.COM - MACE GRIFFIN BOUNTY HUNTER

Tuesday February 12, 2002

MACE GRIFFIN BOUNTY HUNTER

Crave’s Presentation of First Person Shooter/Adventure So Good It’s Almost Criminal

Crave Entertainment today released details regarding its future generation title, Mace Griffin Bounty Hunter. Mace Griffin, a former government ranger, seeks 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.

"The focused story combines with our proprietary engine technology to provide gamers an experience they could only dream about until now," said Mark Burke, Senior Vice President, Development at Crave Entertainment. "Mace Griffin Bounty Hunter presents the leap forward the current generation of gamers has been anticipating. With deep and varied gameplay and a rich story, this title fully reflects Crave’s dedication to creating cutting-edge entertainment."

"Mace Griffin Bounty Hunter" is scheduled to ship fall 2002 on Xbox and PC. The Xbox product will be published by Crave, the PC product will be co-published with Electronic Arts. Both games are being developed by Warthog Entertainment.

Backstory

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 team’s ruin.

Technology Behind "Mace Griffin Bounty Hunter"

"Given its ground breaking capabilities and architecture the Xbox game system is the ideal platform to enable this type of advanced game technology. With sprawling space landscapes and vast indoor environments, we are creating immense new worlds for this game," said Paul Chapman, Producer at Warthog.

To make this possible, Warthog developed the Tusk engine. The new engine 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.

Features

"Mace Griffin Bounty Hunter" offers a wealth of innovative features, including the following:

Seamless transitions between first person combat and space flight action

Bespoke animation system allows motion blending and animation of detached parts of objects ("Motion Blending")

Consistent flight control and weapons management systems in both space and on the ground

Modular player vehicle system with a vast array of equipment and upgrades

The ability to pilot a wide range of ships

Lifelike NPC reaction depending on their intelligence, bravery, health, etc. and in combat will adjust their strategy based on their numbers, types of weapons, available cover, and numerous other conditions

Diverse missions, some story driven, some incidental create a dynamic, realistic universe for an immersive experience

Large number of player weapons from low to high tech, many unique to this game

A huge variety of walk-around environments with different physics, obstacles, inhabitants and creatures

High level of visual effects, lighting and sound, utilizing high-spec, optimized Xbox/PC capabilities

Multiple weighted skinned animation system

Per polygon collision systems

Skinned deformable skeletal characters, Skeletal snapping

Pixel shading for stunning graphical effects such as phong lighting, dynamic reflections and refractive transparency (Xbox Only)

Vertex shaders will be used for skinning and dynamic level-of-detail (Xbox Only)