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DZNUTZ
04-15-2002, 02:56 PM
been off of the boards for a few...i scan the the threads and while i saw another Mace post...it seemed to be a different interview/article..... sorry if this has been posted.

April 11, 2002 - We're still very impressed with the innovative FPS/space shooter, but some IGN editors like IGN Cube's Matt Casamassina aren't:
"Mixing space battle and ground elements. Who would've thought? This has truly never been tried before. Never! Like in Star Fox Adventures, for example."

All you potential Mace fans should just jump down to the media section to see the first trailer of this impressive looking game and get those furry images of critters in space out of your heads.



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Mace Griffin: Bounty Hunter is Crave's next big Xbox title, scheduled to arrive sometime in the fall of 2002. IGN had a chance to take the controls of this promising shooter that combines the best of space combat and first person action with a science fiction theme. Our individual takes are below.
Hil's take

I have to admit, when I first heard about Bounty Hunter, I wasn't all too thrilled. With the exception of Halo, most first person shooters only hold my attention for a week or two. But having had a chance to actually play an early build, this game's got me hyped. As Mace Griffin, an ex-Ranger convicted of a crime he did not commit, you'll get to fly around the galaxy wasting bad guys on foot and in space. The game features eleven different hand weapons and ten different weapons for your ship. Of the twenty ships found in the game, you can fly seven of them. Some ships you'll get before certain missions, but most you will actually jack yourself.

Mace Griffin does something that seems so simple and so obvious, yet is so unique. You can get up from the ****pit while flying the ship, walk around, and fight folks who've boarded. Or, land on top of another ship and do a little hostile take over of your own. Crave seems determined to make a game that will give gamers things they've always said "hey, this would be cool" but have never had before. Mace mixes ground and space combat seamlessly with no load times. Things are not separated into space missions and ground missions. The two are combined. So in one instance you may be wasting a dozen baddies and the guy your after escapes in a ship. That mission isn't over. Hop in a ship yourself and go after them.



That's a chaingun/grenade launcher.




And how is that ground combat? So far, so good. Though the game doesn't ship till late fall, it's already looking mighty nice. The game is beautiful with rich textures and tons of reflective surfaces. Even the reload animations are cool. And reload you will. All the weapons in the game are fun to use, though the machine gun and rocket launcher were the best we saw. Of course, you have to love the cattle prod as well. My favorite was the guided RPGs. Hold down the left trigger when you fire (by releasing the right trigger) and move the red laser. The projectile will go where you lead it. If you're good enough, you can actually weave around structures and take out enemies waiting in an adjacent room.

Mace promises a deep storyline that doesn't slow down the action constantly a la Metal Gear Solid 2. The baddies we faced were part of the Order of Virtual Light, who wear T.V. masks on their heads that show smiley faces when happy and can change to angered frowns when you pop a cap in their best bud. And these aren't your typical dumb bad guys. They dodge, roll, hide behind cover, and even run when injured. The engine is designed to allow maximum customization for the developers. Each NPC can be individually adjusted to have, for example, more or less bravery. There was no space combat for us to see yet, but Crave promises there will be dog fights aplenty and that we'll get to see that with the next build.

With what I've seen so far, Mace Griffin is shaping up to be a must-have title. Its biggest drawback is a lack of multiplayer and online options. Stil, this is definitely one to look forward to.

Aaron's Take

I guess it's okay for women to drive in deep space since there's so much room out there.

Anyway, the early version of Bounty Hunter we saw was thin in a lot of places, but there was enough going on, visually at least, to stir up some renewed interest in this Warthog developed game. Taking the same great shooter engine used in Starlancer (PC and Dreamcast) and using it for both the space combat sections and first-person combat sections makes so much sense for this game, that I wondered out loud why it hadn't been done sooner. The challenge between now and Bounty Hunter's release this fall, will be to make both gameplay elements fun and interesting on their own yet linked together by Mace Griffin's compelling story.

The story of the cop turned bounty hunter was interesting enough that Crave added his name to the title, which was previously just Bounty Hunter. The in-game cinemas I saw showed Mace standing before a judge and being sentenced to the space penitentiary for some hard labor. The voice acting may need a little adjustment because Griffin doesn't sound nearly as tough as he looks. When he was protesting the judge's sentence, he was way to whiny and mousy. If you've been set up for a crime and you're about to go to the hooskie, there needs to be a little more bass and defiance in your voice when you start giving the judge a piece of your mind. I too enjoyed the brief cinema the showcased the group of religious fanatics that worship technology and who wear television monitors as masks to display their basic emotions (smiley face, frown, etc.). I'm thrilled that, as Mace Griffin, we'll get to put some holes in those freaks and turn those smiles upside down.



You know how to do stuff like this already.




Graphically, MG:BH should impress Xbox owners with lighting and textures that compare to the very best games we've seen on the system so far. And yes this includes the mighty Halo. The weapon animations, such as a slapping another clip into a chaingun or twirling a revolver look so nice because the lighting and shadows are so realistic. The bump mapping on some of the concrete structures is awesome because it looks like a cold slab of a structure from up close or far away. Reflections, shiny walls, transparencies are all of the highest quality.


Are you excited about Bounty Hunter?


The space combat elements of Bounty Hunter should be at least as engaging and solid as what we saw in Starlancer, even though we didn't get a chance to actually shoot down any enemies. The transition between flight and first person shooting segments of the game is going to be the game's biggest hook. You guide Mace through his spaceship towards the ****pit and hit an action button to grab the ship's controls with both hands. The transitions into and out of flight controls are seamless so when you hit action again and Mace lets go of the controls, you're always in first person perspective. It's just a matter of whether Mace is on foot looking around or he's looking out of his ****pit window while flying the ship.

Even with so many missing pieces, we were impressed with the overall direction of Mace Griffin at this point. Check back for more information as we uncover it and enjoy the fresh media of this game.

-- Aaron Boulding

taken from
http://xbox.ign.com/articles/355/355899p1.html

l Maximus l
04-15-2002, 03:15 PM
Yes, this game is shaping up to be one amazing game! But, man!!! I was very disappointed to hear that there will be no multi-player or cooperative play :(