The Gaming Thread (General Gaming Jibba Jabba)

CrippsCorner said:

I've bought Thank Goodness You're Here... not played it yet.

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Bloody brilliant!

I really hope this doesn’t suck, perfect IP for a game. Hell, most of the films you may as well be watching a playthrough of a video game 😂

charltjr said:

I really hope this doesn’t suck, perfect IP for a game. Hell, most of the films you may as well be watching a playthrough of a video game 😂

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Hope I'm wrong but I'll be amazed if it's any good. Like you say definitely seems a good base for a good game. Old school Max Payne vibe.

Back in 1997, there was the Starship Troopers film. In 2005, there was a game of the movie. A game I had the misfortune of working on.

We (the development team) were promised 3 years development time, a healthy budget, and creative control. We ended up seeing the budget reduced by 75%, were given about 14 months, and had to rewrite a perfectly good (and impressive for the time) 3D engine to please the publisher. The game was a mess; a disaster. And I don't think anyone on the team got much pleasure from working on it!

Things were so bad (and tight for time), the game pretty much shipped without testing. We didn't have time to refine the first-pass graphics. We didn't have time to balance the game play (in fact, we didn't have time to implement a proper story as we had originally planned!) All the HUD elements and screens in the game were created by myself as placeholders... and were never replaced. Yup, the game shipped with my placeholder artwork.

On the plus side, it got me a working relationship/contacts with nVidia.

Anyway, I digress. I have just come across some original concept artwork and imagery from the game's development. I've not seen these for YEARS!











👀

@SharkyUK

Would this be it? You had one fan if so.


Actually a few fans


Set them straight mate....

Hey back then they had no way to make it better without reducing the number of Bugs on screen... Then again Serious Sam pulled a similar enemy count years prior so I don't know why they messed up the game

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mace¬ said:

@SharkyUK

Would this be it? You had one fan if so.
View attachment 1777970

Actually a few fans

The 2005 FPS Game :: Starship Troopers: Terran Command Discusiones generales

I'm really looking forward to this game, but I really wish Steam would add the 2005 FPS Starship Troopers game. I absolutely loved that game but unfortunately it hasn't worked for years. Maybe the devs of this game could try to make that happen since they already have the license to the IP?

steamcommunity.com

Set them straight mate....

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Wow - the game did have its fans after all! And it's nice to read the comments about the graphics engine I worked on for the game. I love how they are saying how impressive it was for the time given the number of bugs on screen. They would have creamed themselves if they saw the first engine that we had to rewrite... we had about 2.5x more bugs on screen.

We were originally using something called impostors, which are 2D sprites with lighting information (and viewed from a set of key angles), and these impostors would appear in the far distance. It was part of the LOD (level of detail) system. As the bugs got closer to the player/camera, they would swap for 3D models. We nailed the switch and the transition looked really smooth. It also meant we could have hundreds or thousands of bugs on screen. But no... the publisher wanted 3D only so we had to drop the impostor system and consequently reduce the number of bugs on screen. Damn shame. The swarms in the distance looked incredible, even if just for eye-candy. Alas, lost to time and a publisher's stupid decision.

I feel a little bit better now knowing that there were a few people who got a little bit of enjoyment from the game. 👀

World War Z / Space Marine 2 swarms but 20 years ago 😱