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A role-playing game with graphics you can really sink your teeth into! Well, not literally, it might damage the monitor.
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I'm becoming quite well known for my interview questions about monkeys, at least to the three people that stop in to read an article of mine every month or eight, and I couldn't hold back the temptation to ask about monkeys to Rebel Act. Apparently they don't know if monkeys can be born evil or not, but Costa told me, "In fact we have several races of orcs and they really seem like evil monkeys. So the answer is that you will definitely fight evil monkeys in Blade." One such "monkey" is pictured below in one very impressive screenshot sent to me by Rebel Act. Aw… this is some Christmas gift, I may have to send them greeting cards of me nude to repay them. Er… I didn't just say that. Also note that the screenshot is a 321k uncompressed JPG, because the monkey looks a lot cooler uncompressed. Well, he looks like a "devil monkey," but technically it's a great orc.
As you can tell from the picture to the right, monkey-like creatures are cool. But you can also probably tell a lot of work has been put into Blade's graphics. The enemies can be as large as 30 meters and contain 2,000+ polygons. Thankfully, specs like that almost assure Blade won't fall into the "3D rat killing RPG," because the engine supports such large and complex creatures.
It won't quite take a monster of a system to run Blade, but when asked what kind of system would be necessary to run Blade at 640x480x16 at around 30 frames per second, Costa responded by telling us you would need a PII 450 w/64MB RAM and, as is standard nowadays, a good 3D card. Blade will also feature real-time shadows to add to the already creepy atmosphere. There aren't many RPGs with graphics like this, so even if the worst-case scenario is realized and Blade becomes "quake with swords," it's still going to be a damn impressive looking game.
The engine isn't only being developed with pretty pictures in mind, but it is also being built to be very interactive. You can pick objects up and gnaw on them (at least the edible ones… like charcoal), or just store them for later use. There will be all kinds of items to toy with, but Costa is better at listing them than I, because he refrains from adding in non-existent objects to be "funny." Costa said, "The engine allows you to take all the objects from the levels (bowls, Candelabras, Skulls, Bones, Weapons, Food…), to break almost all the objects (chairs, tables, boxes, barrels..) and some doors." No word as of yet in regards to whether or not you strut into a local tavern, break a chair and use its leg to start a bar brawl with dwarves who are fond of saying, "Pick on someone your own height."
Costa also let us know the PCs would have about 12 different death animations, and the NPCs would have about 8. This pleases me. Maybe I'm just weird, but I've never enjoyed games that would let an enemy shoot my toe with a weak laser, and then my head would pop off. Seeing as you can also rip off the limbs of enemies, I'm looking forward to some blood soaked RPG adventuring fun in Blade!
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