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It's really not as bad as it sounds.
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Let's just assume for a moment that Anachronox looks exactly like Quake 2 in a more realistic setting with NPCs. Is that really such a bad thing? RPGs aren't known for their top of the line graphics and ability to impress the masses with technological might - and for a good reason too. A truly deep role playing experience takes a little longer to program then a game that consists of "shoot all that moves, pick up key, open door." Nevertheless, when you look at Anachronox's graphics, it only partially resembles Quake 2. Not only is the environment and setting completely different, but many improvements have been made to the Quake 2 engine. Due to my profound lack of motivation when it comes to typing up lists of big words someone else already took the liberty of writing out, I'll just quote Hall from our interview:
"The Anox engine has been upgraded with the following: 24-bit color, 8-bits of translucency, complex particle effect generator, directional colored model lighting, skeleton-based models, lipsynching code, controllable AI code, an advanced camera scriptor, and an entire language to do both 2D and 3D interfaces or minigames, called APE (the Anachronox Programming Environment)."
The only part I saw that really made sense was the word APE, and it made me giggle. Aside from that, the other features sound pretty darn cool, and some of them won't be fully realized until you see the game in action. Still photos don't work when it comes to how realistic a movie's special effects are (those big rubber suits can look really realistic as still, thumbnail-sized shots), and by the same token screenshots just aren't going to do Anachronox justice. All of the recent Eidos games I've reviewed have demos and movies of upcoming games, and the "footage" of Anachronox is simply astounding. It whet my appetite more for the game than even interviewing Tom Hall himself, mainly because I'm a sucker for impressive eye candy.
The game will feature cinematics that are done with the game's engine, so you won't have sit through any of that "here's what the game looks like, now here's a grainy FMV that reminds you you're just playing a computer game" crap. The idea is to really keep you "in the game" in hopes of making you forget to shower or something. Maybe it was just that ION Storm wants to prove that they're capable of creating a truly kick ass games people will buy. If it happens to lead to people across the country not showering, so be it.
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