/ Previews / RPG / Revenant / Page 3
	This section is for eye-candy addicts and audiophiles. Oh, and anyone who likes games too.

Graphics and Sound
I've decided to make an analogy that compares fish and graphics. Bear with me here… Ok, let's say a fish is swimming along looking for a worm. Whoa! Did you see that worm over there? It looked awesome, I'll bite. Then the fish gets ripped out of the water by the hook, reeled in, and finally thrown onto the deck squirming and angry. How does this compare to graphics and gamers? Well… some guy (or gal) is out looking for a new computer game. Whoa! Did you see that game over there? It looked awesome, I'll buy it (same as bite, just takes longer to say "buy it"). Then the player leaves the store to go home, gets immersed in the game, and ends up spending countless hours squirming in his chair in perfect bliss playing the game. Now if you haven't caught on yet… I'll spell it out for you. The graphics are what get people's attention, and it's the gameplay that keeps 'em hooked. Without good eye-candy, how do I know which game to slap down $50 for? With the exception of Diablo 2, Revenant has really eye-catching graphics that are sure to grab people's attention.

So what makes an RPG with a third person, isometric view have graphics that will get someone's attention? It's quite simple actually. The backgrounds are beautiful, hand painted 2D settings that are detailed and look great, but… the characters are rendered in full 3D and made up of polygons! This means you get all the lifelike motion found in something like a first person shooter (Revenant uses motion captured animation), but retain the beautiful 2D backgrounds that define this sort of RPG. The graphics are 16-bit, and use Direct3D. The backgrounds also feature day and night cycles as well as dynamic lighting. All spell effects are also done using Direct3D, so they'll look really purty. You can except the hacking and slashing to look realistic as ever with the motion capture, so I'm pretty sure Revenant will stand out over other RPGs of a similar nature.

Sound can either enhance or inhibit a game, so it's something companies need to try and do well to get a few extra sales. Revenant features full 3D-surround sound, yet I'm not sure which API's will be supported. Sometimes sound effects can be a little lackluster, and the player won't mind much as long as it doesn't get too bad. Music, on the other hand, in some ways plays a bigger role. I used to play Doom and wonder how the marine was able to carry around a boom box playing cool music while hopping through radiation and shooting demons. Later, I figured out music was just something put in games that helped enhance the mood and atmosphere. Revenant will feature an all original soundtrack made exclusively for them by Ronie Moorings of Xymox (don't ask me how to pronounce that, it's a European band, and I don't speak European. Yes, yes, I know they speak English. It was a joke… not a very good one, but get over it. Sheesh.) Anyway, the music should enhance the atmosphere, which is always useful in immersing a player in a game.