New Gametrailers clip.
And here's an article (although old):
And here's an article (although old):
Looks very interesting.May 10, 2006 - While LucasArts was showing us what was up with its highly-promising Indiana Jones demo prior to the kick-off of E3 this year, its reps had a surprise for us. "Nobody outside the company has seen this yet," proclaimed the team as it walked us up to the second floor of its newly-created facility in the Presidio. "This is the big secret we've been waiting to reveal behind closed doors at the show."
You have to admit, that with a setup like that it's hard not to get curious about what one is about to see. Throw in another element, though -- a carefully shielded walk past the Indiana Jones development team towards another crew that knew you were coming and hid or flipped any and all design documents and artwork in anticipation of your arrival -- and the snooping factor gets that much more intense. "What is it that everyone is so secretive about, anyway?" we wondered.
The answer, in the simplest terms, is pretty much what you'd expect -- it's a new Star Wars game slated for multiple next-generation systems that should appear sometime in the future (2007/ 2008 or so). The kind of Star Wars game that it is, however, isn't what you'd expect at all. The early demo on display wasn't a current-gen game with hi-res graphics and a new coat of paint -- it was much more advanced than that and it left Juan and I (the only journalists in the world to see the thing as of this writing) wanting a whole lot more.
So what is it? Right now the game is known only as Star Wars, but the team members in the demo room (and there were a lot of them in there) kept referring to their new technology as the "Force Unleashed," so that's the term we're going with until we hear otherwise. This unleashed force was first shown to us via pre-prepared movie. Using some good editing and that classic John Williams score, the segment treated us to all manner of cool physical moments -- A Jedi force-pushes a couple of stormtroopers off an elevated platform (taking all the debris and objects around them along for the ride); a second Jedi leapt high into the air and slammed down to the ground with so much force that it created an enormous shockwave that knocked his enemies back with reckless abandon; another Jedi used his force powers to lift multiple stormtroopers in the air, and as they float about in different directions, their blasters fire off as they float helplessly in the sky... moments like those really had us interested, to say the least.
But that wasn't the most impressive moment. That honor belongs to the following scenario: a single stormtrooper investigates a shambled mess while wondering aloud what could have caused it. Then out of nowhere, a Jedi appears and raises the trooper off the ground with his force powers and slams him into the ground. As the Stormtrooper screams, the Jedi repeats his actions and then by the third lift crashes the armored clone horizontally into the bulkhead of a wrecked ship. In pain, the trooper tries his hardest to make the Jedi stop by grabbing onto a piece of metal protruding from the spacecraft... only to be pulled off of it (ship metal still in hand) for one final death blow. As this is happening, an Imperial TIE Fighter soars out of the sky firing at the Jedi -- and it's then that the stormtrooper is used as a human projectile and is thrown at the fighter causing a huge explosion. It was a great way to end the movie.
Afterward, the Lucas team turned our attention to a new Plasma screen located next to the one that showed the trailer. This was to be where most of our time was spent, and where the real-time demo that was about to be given would really win us over. Before it started, however, the LucasArts guys introduced us to Pixelux Entertainment, an animation and interactive technology house that has been working closely with George's videogame branch on the tools that power the next Star Wars game. Used as a companion to NaturalMotion's endorphin AI-based animation tech (the same stuff used in the upcoming Indy game), Pixelux's own "Digital Molecular Matter (DMM)" asset technology really steals the show.
What does DMM do exactly? In the most basic of terms, it simplifies one of the most expensive and time-consuming aspects of videogame production by automating art asset generation. LucasArts and Pixelux claim that the technology will save thousands of man-hours by allowing multiple game assets to be auto-generated from a single mold. Physics, material destructibility, and object fracture are built-in as well, and not only does the tech take advantage of multi-processor hardware, but it can also be used with multiple existing Asset production pipelines.
The good news is that we saw this for ourselves time and time again. Our demo began in the corridors of a ship where two plywood boards sat undisturbed. The first board on the left represented the old way of doing object damage and material simulation, while the board on the right represented DMM. Right off the bat, an R2-D2 unit was hurled at the old board and in rather last-gen fashion it broke apart in a predictable canned manner. But then R2 was thrown at the new plywood board and it reacted exactly like boards we seen in real life do -- It splintered in multiple spots. But just as it works in the physical world, the splinters and damage to the board reacted to multiple things: the weight of the object thrown at it, its velocity, the distance of that object, and its direction all change the way the board reacts. This was shown to us over and over again with multiple boards, and proving the technology's value, was instantly reset (no load times at all) whenever the developers wanted.
As we moved through the room, more physical and material reactions were shown to us using different elements. A stone statue with a crystal base was destroyed and manipulated, a pane of glass with Rebel attack plans was shattered, and various types of woods all reacted differently to the abuse that LucasArts was giving them. The funniest moment by far, though, was when we stumbled upon Jar Jar Binks frozen in carbonite. Not only was it a hilarious image, but it also allowed us to see what the engine could really do. Metal was bending and denting exactly as it was supposed to when struck; on-the-fly changes to other materials like rubber, crystal, ice, and jelly also brought about real-world reactions, and none of these results were scarified the framerate, lighting, or other visual goodies on bit.
The next room was a huge Jedi natural history museum with an enormous Rancor skeleton at its center. Again, the bones of the Rancor reacted just as you'd expect them to (as did the materials around it), and the game's attention to physics really showed off its stuff (we got a quick NaturalMotion AI display here as stormtroopers dangled and fought to maintain position as they fell from high places). What's interesting here is that because materials react so realistically, models have to be built like real-world objects are built too. Once the Rancor was turned to rubber, for instance, its physical properties didn't allow it to support its own weight -- something that bones have no problem doing.
Our favorite section of the entire demo, though, was easily the final pit stop. As we moved through the end of the museum and broke through a stained glass window, it was revealed that we were on the planet of Felucia -- the same world where Aayla Secura (aka Hottie McBlue Boobs) was taken out near the end of Episode III. The amazing thing was that the world was recreated perfectly. Pollen swooshed through the air, flora swayed in the breeze and reacted to provocation, a star Destroyed flew through the sky, and little touches like glistening dew and other such effects made the world feel all the more real (at a very high resolution I might add). LucasArts even claimed that this world proves that LOD was a thing of the past -- as it has incorporated real-time object smoothing as part of the engine.
Unfortunately, that's all we got to see of Star Wars before the demo was over (though we did get to watch that trailer again), but it didn't leave us any less impressed. It's still more than a year or so out (maybe longer) before hitting the retail shelves, so there's a lot of work left to be done. Of course, that just leaves us with plenty of questions -- what kind of a game will it be? What's the story all about? What kind of powers will we have? At least we know one thing -- one of the Jedi powers that the team plans to include for the next iteration is the ability to destroy something from the inside out. Now that's awesome!
Expect more in the coming months.
