Shattered Horizon - GC 08 Preview
Controls and GameplayControls are obviously the biggest question mark, as the concept of fully free-flying 3D FPS is somewhat new. You can move and rotate freely with the suit's thrusters, but there appears to be an advantage to planting your feet down on something solid as well - the crosshair seemed to change when you are not floating freely. Also, there is a "down" of sorts that you can return to with a single button press in case you become disoriented. The fully 3D play area appears very interesting for setting up ambushes, and will clearly require some new skills as you can be literally attacked from any direction, and everything floating around you that first looked like eye candy may act as cover. Unfortunately the press was kept off the mouse & keyboard - no hands-on testing yet, so this is based on observing a dev team member playing the game. Movement wasn't absolutely "ultra-realistic" - I'm told that's the suit's flight computer keeping things under control for you with automated thruster firings keeping you from spinning out of control - but it looked like a fair compromise between realism and playability. The word is that the team spent three months just to perfect the movement system, and it looks like it's fairly well thought out. DX10 Native! Shattered Horizon developer Jussi Markkanen setting up the the GC 08 demonstration. The team confirmed that Shattered Horizon is currently being developed for Windows and DX10 only. Console versions are currently not under development. The game engine is a native DX10 engine, greatly evolved from the technology developed for 3DMark Vantage. Futuremark Games Studio is also using PhysX (with support for GPU-assisted physics) to spice things up. No word yet what the minimum requirements will be, beyond the fact that you'll need DX10 hardware. Jussi Markkanen, the Lead Programmer of Shattered Horizon, stressed that this is a game and not a benchmark, and while benchmarks are designed to torture hardware to the limit, games are designed to run smoothly and be playable. The stated goal is to get impressive visuals from a wide range of systems. The team was not willing to nail down an exact release date yet. The code that was shown was obviously a very early build with many small details visibly betraying the fact that there is still a lot to be done. As this was the first unveiling of the game, it was bit of a surprise that they already had actual game code running. Early presentations like this in trade shows are often nothing more than a couple of screenshots and a mock-up trailer. Overall, what was on display so far looks very promising, and those expecting shiny visuals won't be disappointed. It's hard to say much about the underlying gameplay yet - the demonstration was fairly brief, and mostly showcased the shiny visuals and the unique setting. It's true that online team-based shooter market is pretty crowded, and you need highly polished gameplay to go with the visuals to make a splash. When asked about this very thing, the producer conceded that they are quite aware of this. Will they manage to pull it off? It's far too early to say as Shattered Horizon is still very much under development, but it's definitely possible.
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