WANTED: MACE GRIFFIN BOUNTY HUNTER
Crave’s Presentation of
First Person Shooter/Adventure So Good It’s Almost Criminal
LOS
ANGELES, CA – February 12,
2002 – Crave Entertainment today released details
regarding its future generation title, Mace Griffin Bounty Hunter. Mace
Griffin, a former government ranger, seeks revenge on land and in space. Melding
both the first person shooter genre and vehicular combat on land and space, the
game reaches far beyond any game currently available.
“The focused story
combines with our proprietary engine technology to provide gamers an experience
they could only dream about until now,” said Mark Burke, Senior Vice President,
Development at Crave Entertainment. “Mace Griffin Bounty Hunter presents
the leap forward the current generation of gamers has been anticipating. With
deep and varied gameplay and a rich story, this title fully reflects Crave’s
dedication to creating cutting-edge entertainment.”
“Mace Griffin
Bounty Hunter” is scheduled to ship fall 2002 on Xbox and PC. The Xbox product
will be published by Crave, the PC product will be co-published with Electronic
Arts. Both games are being developed by Warthog Entertainment.
Backstory
Hundreds of years
in the future, several dominant races (Human, Jaldari, and Velleakan) occupy a
host of solar systems and discover new planets on a regular basis. Huge
conglomerates vie for rich resources on every new world, resulting in fighting,
smuggling and the emergence of pirate clans. To
combat this growing trend towards war, the government sets up a group of highly
elite Rangers, who are quickly brought down by an unknown traitor. Mace Griffin,
the only surviving ranger, becomes a bounty hunter and sets out to discover the
truth behind his team’s ruin.
Technology Behind “Mace Griffin
Bounty Hunter”
“Given
its ground breaking capabilities and architecture the Xbox game system is the
ideal platform to enable this type of advanced game technology. With
sprawling space landscapes and vast indoor environments, we are creating immense
new worlds for this game,” said Paul Chapman, Producer at Warthog.
To make this
possible, Warthog developed the Tusk engine. The new engine
allows two key gameplay innovations. Tusk
employs scene-graph
principles that allow movement within and between different types of
environments — currently impossible in other games. Additionally the
advanced portal technology will allow gamers, for the first time ever, to be
able to seamlessly transition
between first person combat and space flight action.
Features
“Mace Griffin
Bounty Hunter” offers a wealth of innovative features, including the following:
Seamless transitions between
first person combat and space flight action
Bespoke
animation system allows motion blending and animation of detached parts of
objects (“Motion Blending”)
Consistent flight control and
weapons management systems in both space and on the ground
Modular player vehicle system
with a vast array of equipment and upgrades
The ability to pilot a wide
range of ships
Lifelike NPC reaction
depending on their intelligence, bravery, health, etc. and in combat will adjust
their strategy based on their numbers, types of weapons, available cover, and
numerous other conditions
Diverse missions, some story
driven, some incidental create a dynamic, realistic universe for an immersive
experience
Large number of player
weapons from low to high tech, many unique to this game
A huge variety of walk-around
environments with different physics, obstacles, inhabitants and creatures
High level of visual effects,
lighting and sound, utilizing high-spec, optimized Xbox/PC capabilities
Multiple weighted skinned animation system
Per polygon collision systems
Skinned deformable skeletal
characters, Skeletal snapping
Pixel shading for stunning graphical
effects such as phong lighting, dynamic reflections and refractive transparency
(Xbox Only)
Vertex shaders will be used for
skinning and dynamic level-of-detail (Xbox Only)
About Crave
Entertainment:
Based in Los Angeles, California, Crave
Entertainment is a privately held publisher of videogame entertainment products.
The company’s best-selling line-up features top brands and franchises such as
Ultimate Fighting Championship and Tokyo Xtreme Racer.
Crave produces
games for the major console platforms including Game Boy® Advance, Nintendo
GameCube, the PlayStation® game console, PlayStation®2 computer entertainment
system, the Xbox™ video game system from Microsoft, and for the PC. For more
information about Crave Entertainment, please visit
http://www.cravegames.com.
About
Electronic Arts:
Electronic Arts (Nasdaq:
ERTS), headquartered in Redwood City, California, is the world’s leading
interactive entertainment software company. Founded in 1982, Electronic Arts
posted revenues of more than $1.3 billion for fiscal 2001. The company develops,
publishes and distributes software worldwide for the Internet, personal
computers and video game systems. Electronic Arts markets its products under
four brand names: EA SPORTS™, EA GAMES™, EA SPORTS BIG™ and EA.COMSM.
More information about EA’s products and full text of press releases can be
found on the Internet at
http://www.info.ea.com.
About Xbox
Xbox (http://www.xbox.com/) is Microsoft’s
future-generation video game system that delivers the most powerful games
experiences ever. Xbox empowers game artists by giving them the technology to
fulfill their creative visions as never before, creating games that blur the
lines between fantasy and reality. Xbox is now available in North America at
the suggested retail price of $299.99.*
* Reseller prices
may vary.
# # #
Electronic Arts,
EA SPORTS, EA SPORTS BIG and EA GAMES are trademarks or registered trademarks of
Electronic Arts Inc. in the U.S. and/or other countries. EA.COM is a service
mark of EA.com Inc. Xbox is a trademark of Microsoft Corporation in the United
States and/or other countries.
