Project Ego. A huge info list on what the game will be. Get those glasses out!
Widely regarded as a Gaming God, Peter Molyneux has most recently received acclaim for his highly innovative PC title, Black & White. Known for his intuitive understanding of what is fun and his willingness to push the boundaries of current technology to achieve his vision, Molyneux has already carved a place for himself in gaming history. However, anyone who thought Black & White was to be his greatest achievement - his magnum opus - could not have been more wrong. Project Ego has been revealed and Peter Molyneux is about to turn the role-playing world on its ears.
"Project Ego" (working title) is, in Molyneux's words, an RPG done in a "completely and utterly different way". When explaining why he decided to make "Ego", Molyneux described two key limitations of current RPGs that he finds aggravating. First is the static nature of much of the game's world. For instance, NPCs never age, never seem to acknowledge changes you have made to their environment (unless programmed ahead of time on a situation to situation basis) and rarely even acknowledge your previous interaction with them except when it pertains to the script. Secondly, he was bothered by the need to select a character at the beginning of many current RPGs as it limits the players ability to adapt naturally to their surroundings later in the game.
To do away with these restrictive features that are so often seen as necessities, Lionhead's satellite, Big Blue Box and Peter Molyneux have begun work on creating the most free-form game world ever, and a character that develops around your playing style. This will be a game that bends and adapts itself around the user's actions and should deliver an experience completely unique to each gamer.
Let's get into the story. You begin your journey. You are a young, inexperienced character, man or woman, at the early adolescent age of 15. Your every characteristic in appearance is of yours to choose, and every one of your actions throughout the game will affect look and personality. You may grow to become a well-respected knight of nobility, who receives praise and honor by doing good deeds for those in need, or you may become a ruthless murderer, spreading evil like a plague throughout the land. Choose which path to take, for the choice is yours.
Depending on what feats you accomplish in the game, your character will respond to it, either mentally or physically. Let's say you refrain from doing work, and your sole activity consists of eating, you will quickly gain weight. If you choose not to regularly shave your hair or facial hair off, it will keep growing. If you are injured in a battle, you will be scarred. If you choose to learn, you will become wise. All these cause and effects just add more realism to Project Ego, if you aren't already satisfied with the game's tendency to surpass reality visually, that is. Even as the game advances, your character's appearance changes as you age. Wrinkles slowly appear, and hair begins to whiten. Also, it may be possible that speed and agility drop, as well as strength. These natural aging processes that happen to the players also increase the realism of the game drastically, and creates an illusion to fool your senses into believing it's a true, living, breathing environment.
This leads us to our next subject, Graphics. As said earlier, Project Ego was named the most visually stunning and realistic game at E3, and that's nothing short of a fact. This is all thanks to the high level of detail in the environments, as well as in all the character models. The anatomies of the character models are probably the most accurate to those in real life seen so far, and textures on all the objects are clear and not repetitive. Lighting and shadow effects are perfectly placed to hit the surface of every building and person it encounters, and even the smallest things, such as a blade of grass or a strand of hair, waves independently and according to the direction of the breeze that's causing it to move the slightest amount. Though we're told the graphical power of Project Ego is still in the alpha stage (very early stage), and that the visuals will improve 100% by the time it's released, the images displayed so far have surpassed anything ever seen in a video game.
In truth, when it comes to realism, Project Ego pushes the limits.
AI has become a major factor in games today, and the most impressive has got to be Project Ego's. All villagers will respond to your character in a different way depending on how you look, how famous you are, how poor you are, what you're wearing, and if you're a good or bad character. Let's say you stride into village wearing brilliant armor, well groomed hair, and had just returned from a battle victorious; chances are they will look up to you, even bow at your presence, and treat you with respect. On the other hand, if you trample into town a weak, rag-wearing, un-groomed individual, chances are they will look away from you, and maybe even ignore you when try to talk to them. So this also shows, that your outcome as a character will affect everywhere you go.
Another factor that needs to be reviewed to increase realism is time. Time meaning, everything should keep moving along its schedule throughout the game. Such as people living their daily lives with out refrain and day/night transitions should be illustrated through contrasts of the sky. Everything must keep moving in time, to make the environment extremely believable. When you're in one village, another should continue to change, continuously in random ways. Say you enter a village and speak to a boy who had just turned 5 years old, when you return 20 years later, (in-game) that boy would have already become a married adult with seven children. Who knows?
As for storyline, no major details of Ego's plot have been announced; only this brief summary given to us by Big Blue Box is available:
"The land of Albion is a wild, beautiful place. There are bustling market towns where thieves lurk in every shadow. Woodcutters' encampments are nestled on the shores of forest lakes while strange sounds fill the night air. Brave fishermen live out their austere existence in coastal villages wracked by storms. fur-hooded mountain children listen to tales of the demons that lurk in the darkness while wolves howl at the moon. The people who live there are much like the people anywhere. They are thieves and gentlemen, assassins and clergymen, storekeepers and housewives. One day, something comes along which changes their lives forever. You. You are born with the power of the will. Albion will never be the same again."
So what we know from this summary is that it takes place in Albion, a calm beautiful place were only stories of demons and corrupt evil exist, until now. You become the one destined to destroy this new lurking evil and restore Albion, or you can choose to aid those attempting to destroy it. That is what the glory of Project Ego is; the freedom choice. Independence seems to be an important factor in games today, and this is as independent as it gets.
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks