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Platform: PC Genre: RTS Publisher: Dreamcatcher Developer: Lemon Interactive ETA: Spring 2002
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Project Earth(aka
Starmageddon)
Mention
of real-time strategy almost always brings about mental images of
Warcraft / Starcraft, Age of Empires, and maybe one or two more
franchises in the genre. It’s
consistently been about waging war on a flat plain, concentrating on
length and width, and occasionally height when high ground is thrown
into the equation. However,
playing in a truly 3D field just doesn’t happen very often.
One of the few games to attempt it has been Home World, but after
that things went strangely quiet as most developers stuck with their
flat-tastic approaches to the genre.
Enter Lemon Interactive who simply won’t have anything of it as
they have an RTS of their own in production that takes place in the 3D
battlefield of deep space in Project Earth (Starmageddon in Europe). Taking place well into the future, humans have begun to spread out into space, doing the exploration thing. While computers are handy and have their place in this time, it was discovered that certain people can be neurally connected directly to a ship’s systems so to better control it. Only a handful of people can do this however. With all of this technology only one other planet had ever been discovered that could support human life, Cognita in Alpha Centauri, but now a third Earth-like planet has been discovered. Unfortunately, just before a fleet of human colonists can head out a comet comes hurtling toward the Earth and in its wake comes an alien attack force. This is where the game beings. |
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The
developers want to make it perfectly clear, though, that Project Earth
is by no means trying to re-invent the wheel in how it approaches
real-time strategy. The
game is embracing what has worked for the genre in the past while adding
a little bit here and there to help it stand apart. Controlling your forces will be performed through the traditional point and click methods, so no need to worry about having a completely foreign interface to contend with. One interesting facet of the gameplay that is being included in Project Earth is something being called “parallel |
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battleplanes”.
What this does is allow for battles to take place in more than
one region of space at the same time, where these quadrants would be
connected by black holes and warpgates. Stepping
away from the legions of games that have chosen to use Direct X in them,
Lemon Interactive are instead going the Open GL route for the game.
The game will have real-time particles, which will be present in
things such as the ships’ engine trails as they move about.
Also, while they’re flying around outer space physics will play
a role as the ships behave more as one would expect in terms of momentum
and inertia and how they work in space.
This use of physics won’t make the game play out like a
simulation however; these effects are simply in place for looks.
There won’t be any need to worry about ships inadvertently
gliding into one another.
The
visuals themselves are being designed to have high polygon counts, but
the game runs on what is being called the “Level of Detail” engine,
or LoD, which will help prevent slowdown with all the polys that must be
dealt with. Audio is also
getting a lot of attention in Project Earth.
Each ship type has its own unique sound, passing near objects
that give off radiation will result in communications systems being
interrupted, and the music will change depending on the situation
players find themselves in during the game. Those
of you with a hankering for an RTS with a full-on 3D battlefield
haven’t too long to wait. The
game is expected to be released in the spring. - Mr. Nash (March 2, 2002) |
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