From [email protected] (Greg Zeschuk)
Organization University of Alberta
Date 1 Oct 1996 14:09:17 GMT
Newsgroups comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action
Message-ID <[email protected]>
References 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
In article <[email protected]>, [email protected]
says...
>
>Which one is better and why?
>
>I played MW2 and thought it to choppy and plain looking. Just got
SS
>and it's darn smooth and looks good. What are the little things that
>could make a big difference between the two? Thanks.
>
>Q.B.M.
Let me start with our famous intro....
Shattered Steel is not and was never meant to be a Mechwarrior clone - it was designed to draw on strong aspects of a number of games to create a hybrid title. The games that we considered when making Shattered Steel were :
Xwing and Tie Fighter - they had the coolest feeling of being a part of the action rather than always at the centre of it. While you battled enemy craft other things happened. The missions didn't simple shoot and kill goals. We tried to capture this aspect in SS.
Doom - hey, what action game can avoid considering this classic - it showed that people played action games for the action, when something blew up it really blew up, not just fell apart. We tried to make sure the action in Shattered Steel was hot and heavy.
Mechwarrior 1 + 2 - if you are making a big robot game you can't avoid
considering these classics; we looked at what they did and tried to specifically
be different. Sure we played them wayyyy to much be we don't think that
altered our attempt to develop a different game.
Anyway, off the soapbox...
There are a number of differences between Shattered Steel and Mech2
Mercs - here are some from our biased perspective (as the developer along
with Interplay):
1) Action - Shattered Steel is primarily an action game. We tried to avoid toe to toe fighting in which the winner is the bot with the biggest armor and weapons; instead Shattered Steel is all about movement and accuracy - you have to be able to take on multiple opponents while running at significant speeds. That's why we call our bots Planet Runners...
2) Network - We don't currently have an online component like Mechwarrior 2 Mercenaries does but we do have a some other rather sassy network features. Specifically - we have Anarchy (same as the usual, run around and blow stuff up, there are 20 specific anarchy missions), Team Anarchy (your allies have different colored call signs and show up differently on the radar), Coop (this is the most impressive thing we have, you can join up with some friends and do the actual game missions just like you do in single player... and yes the objectives are still there and everything - Shattered Steel is likely the first game that provides this), Team Coop (World 1 type - this is really wicked, you can have two teams of your friends, one joins the aliens and acts as their ally and tries to stop the other "good" team from finishing the actual mission objectives - this is definitely a first)(World 5 type - there are 20 missions that feature specific opposite goals so that 2 teams, the Mega-Corps and the N.A.S.C can battle). Oh and one more thing, you can join in to running anarchy games at any time, there are also computer opponents you can add into anarchy. Also, you can join coop games between missions so that you don't have to log out and log back in...
3) Weapons - it would be nice to have FASA's rich arsenal but unfortunately we don't - in spite of this we made some pretty slick weapons including Nukes which obviously have a large kill radius and cause a real time terrain deformation wave that travels outward from the epicentre of the blast. We also have mortars that you can lob at your opponents (both standard and fuel-air varieties) which add a cool long distance dimension to the combat.
4) Bots - as far as the bots themselves we call them Planet Runners - there are 7 different types and they are all very, very different in design and function. Each has a personalized cockpit design and cockpit voice. Mechwarrior definitely has more than we do however ours are perhaps a little more varied.
5) Missions - we have roughly 50 main game missions (there is a story as well!! and mission branching), we have 20 anarchy missions and 20 co-op network missions... that's 90 in total.. wow.
6) Framerate - yes, Shattered Steel runs fast and well, even on slower
machines - Unfortunately being in Canada we haven't got a copy of Mercenaries
yet (and we really wish we did) so I can't comment on this aspect. To check
Shattered Steel framerates during gameplay hit enter and then type in fps
and hit enter again - this will show you how fast it is running. On anything
faster than a P90 it is very playable in 640x480 and frankly, it is downright
smooth!
Anyway I've probably already written too much already, if you have any further questions or problems feel free to write to me either as :
[email protected]
[email protected]
I'll do my best to answer any questions or problems..
Greg Z
BioWare