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Prince of Persia 3D
...continued

Chris Grun, the incredibly talented visual designer of the game, did a ton of research on ancient Persia in order to capture the essential look and feel of the Golden Age of a major civilization that most Americans know very little about (and care about even less). With a focus on architecture, mythology, art, and warfare, it is already clear that this game captures the essence of the period better than any other. But, as Andrew Pedersen is quick to point out, "This is by no means a history product," as "We are trying to leverage cool elements of ancient Persia (of which there are many) in a contemporary way that will be satisfying to gamers." Thus the game does indeed lean heavily in a fantasy Arabian Nights direction (that decision could not make me happier), with considerable incorporation of magic and mystical means of survival in the form of arrows, potions, power-ups, a magic carpet, and creatures largely linked to ancient Persian mythology.

Wandering through ornate palaces, mystical ruins, mysterious caverns, and dark castles could not be more fun. You get the feeling of a huge, complex, multifaceted environment, rather than just traversing a series of boring closed corridors with single-texture patterns repeated monotonously throughout. There are 15 distinct exotic environments to capture your imagination in the game. As the screenshots indicate, the visuals are breathtaking, and you are in awe of the sensuous indulgence prevalent among the rich in ancient Persia. You are simply overwhelmed by the gorgeous use of color and texture in the game, making the not-that-shabby earlier installments of the game pale by comparison.

The flow of action in the game is largely linear across levels because it is so story-driven, but there is considerable opportunity to move around freely. Within each level you can backtrack if you wish, and on some levels you will need to do so to find a magical potion or a hidden trigger to solve a puzzle encountered later. Although Prince of Persia 3D will not have a timer like its predecessors did, there are occasions where completing a puzzle or vanquishing an enemy is time-based. When playing a game this attractive, I always wish I had all the time in the world just to look around at the dazzling scenery.

But Prince of Persia 3D does not just provide an enticing Byzantine environment to explore serenely at your leisure. There are more than 20 opponents waiting to make your journey unpleasant, including both humans and fantasy creatures lurking in the shadows. The Prince's arch-nemesis Rugnor, who is half man and half tiger, merits special mention here, as do monsters from Persian mythology including Ifrits, Demons, and Genies. Most of these enemies float as opposed to walk and cast deadly spells and projectiles. These adversaries have sophisticated artificial intelligence for fighting that adjusts to match your combat style. However, Andrew Pedersen notes that, "Enemy movement is going to rely more on scripting than AI" because "We want the enemies to move in a believable way and AI usually results in jerky motion." These opponents will guard specific areas, pursue the Prince, call for help, trigger traps, and close off exits.

Adversaries are not the only obstacles you will need to overcome to succeed in Prince of Persia 3D. Highly ingenious traps play an absolutely crucial role in heightening the suspense in the game, posing strategic challenges that will give even the most adept Prince of Persia fan pause. These traps range from classic ones using spikes, darts, slicers, and floor plates, to newfangled ones using catapults and angle blades. Pedersen admits that he is a "trap junkie" -- with traps his favorite part of the game -- and that he loves designing and playing them. These traps broaden the action beyond combat and introduce an intriguing element reminiscent of old side-scrolling platform games.

The Prince himself has undergone a major facelift. While he looks more like a warrior than in the previous games, he is an agile and cunning hero who often would prefer to avoid direct combat if possible. Pedersen calls him "a thinking man's hero," whose first impulse is not to pull out his sword and fight. In one level of the game, the Prince has no weapons and has to use stealth to survive and move on. The Prince merited special attention given to the detail in his appearance and the fluidity of his movement; in technical terms, he ended up representing about 25% to 30% of the game's polygon budget, with tons of time spent tuning and tweaking his design so that he has the traits of the original Prince but looks like a new character. Sophisticated camera movement algorithms were used to make control of the Prince's movement extremely responsive.

To accomplish the combination of amazing visuals and smooth animation in an immersive environment, Prince of Persia 3D requires 3D hardware video acceleration and utilizes an innovative game engine based on two licensed technologies: NetImmerse from Numerical Designs Limited for scene management and rendering, and Motivate from the Motion Factory for animation authoring and process control. Through these technologies the game exhibits astounding special effects. For example, mesh deformation technology allows for the Prince's chest to rise and fall as he breathes, and he is able to reach over and pick up objects, open doors, and grab items of different sizes. Moreover, the game supports dynamic and real-time directional lighting, vertex shading, Gouraud shading, alpha blending, bilinear filtering, Z-buffering, particle-based effects, portaling, several levels of mipmapping, and dynamic level of detail management on models.

The development team looked at a variety of 3D graphics systems before choosing this combination, with NetImmerse providing the most general 3D solution supporting D3D, Glide and OGL; and Motivate being the niftiest tool, providing the most realistic and smooth character animation. Andrew Pedersen claims that, "What is really going to set Prince apart from the other 3D games will be the intelligent use of advanced 3D technology," with "probably the most compelling animation you are ever going to see in a 3D product." But he admits that "If people look at Prince 3D and all they can see is cool technology, then I think we have failed."

Beyond this attention to visuals, Prince of Persia 3D also incorporates the latest in audio technologies. The game makes extensive use of 3D sound effects, and the developers discovered that the increased sophistication of sound hardware made it easy to incorporate 3D sound in the game "without much effort" (then why are so many games that could really benefit from this technology not using it?). Unlike games that simply use 3D audio to enhance the realism of gameplay, in this game this technology actually plays an important role in the design of the puzzles (as well as, of course, as the creation of enthralling ambient sound effects). The music in the game has an enticing Middle Eastern feel to it, magnetically attracting you and making you never want to leave.

With a planned release date in early 1999, this game still has a long way to go, and given the very recent demise of Red Orb (the original publisher) and the probable transmission of the game's distribution to Mindscape, no doubt we will witness a few more delays. Prince of Persia 3D is still at a pre-alpha stage of development, with the basic game engine about 70% complete. Most of the Prince animation and controls are done, and work is now taking place on designing the traps and levels for the game and on the layout for the cutscenes, which link together the levels in helping the story to progress. Red Orb had not usually developed its games in-house, but in this case a tight-knit team of about twenty people, some longtime employees (a few of whom worked on the original Prince of Persia games) and others hired specifically for this product are working feverishly on the project. In terms of this timetable, Andrew Pedersen mentions that his one regret is "If I could turn back the clock a bit, I think I would have started development earlier so I could get the product out for this Christmas and give the Prince fans something for their stockings."

This design team is supremely confident that Prince of Persia 3D is going to be a smashing success, and from what I have seen I share their unbridled enthusiasm. Pedersen believes that the legions of fans of the original Prince of Persia are "going to go crazy" over this product, and I have no reason to doubt this estimate because the team has literally been bombarded by inquiries from all over the world ever since announcing the development of the game. He contends that because the team is "trying to make the game as accessible as possible through the use of intuitive controls, a straightforward fighting model, and an intelligent inventory system," the core gaming audience as well as the fans of the original series will be eager to buy it. Most encouraging is his report that, "A sequel is definitely in our plans; we don't want the Prince fans to wait another 6 years between products," and that the team specifically chose to use scalable technology so as to make it easier to incorporate enhancements in future iterations of the game.

 

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