Obi-Wan Disappointment

[StormHammer]

I had high hopes for this game, but after seeing some of the screenshots, I now have deep reservations (could it be a disturbance in the force? )

 

The thing that becomes immediately apparent is that a large part of this game is set during the events of The Phantom Menace. This is an enormous mistake. The reason why JK was so enjoyable was because it expanded on the Star Wars universe, introduced us to new characters, and gave us a well-rounded original story to follow. If Obi-Wan is set during TPM, we already know all the characters and the plot. Do I want to guide Obi-Wan through a story I already know? I don't think so. That's why I didn't even cast a glance at The Phantom Menace game.

 

The other glaring problem with the screenshots is that they clearly indicate this game engine is not a vast improvement over MOTS. It has to be said that there are far better-looking game engines out there capable of some pretty amazing stuff, and I'm not just talking Unreal (although this looks superb in Rune). Anyone seen screenshots of Blade recently? Regardless of whether or not that game will be playable, the engine supports real-time shadows from real-time light-sources, and to my mind this is essential to generate the right atmosphere. We view the real world in contrasts of light and shade. Omitting proper real-time shadows is unforgiveable. The soft shadows around the trees look nice - but are they just static? There are no shadows cast from any of the characters.

 

And this isn't the only problem. Just look at the water. It looks more like a sheet of ice, except it doesn't reflect anything at all. There should be ripples and complex reflections. You'll find that in Blade too. Even Unreal had ripples and some neat particle effects!

 

The low polygon counts on the buildings are glaringly obvious, and the level of detail is simply not what I would expect in the current games market. Check out Wheel Of Time for a lesson in detailed textures, and Quake 3 Arena for a lesson in curves.

 

The trees are very obviously in the Tomb Raider style - is that really necessary now that we have T&L processing built into the GeForce chip? I'm sorry, but I'm not convinced this engine is going to look any better. After all, they had to bring out MOTS due to glaring omissions of coloured lighting in JK. That lightsaber Obi-Wan's holding doesn't even seem to give off any light to affect it's surroundings.

 

The scenes are too bright, too light, and too clean-cut, just like in JK. There is no sense of atmosphere, let alone Menace.

 

I can only begin to wonder if the level design will be as good as JK, and the AI as good as Unreal Tournament, or even Half-Life. There's an old adage: a picture says a thousand words, and these pictures have me worried.

 

As regards third-person and first-person, I agree with the general concensus that we should still have the choice. I still play JK, sometimes in third-person, sometimes in first-person, because it gives a slightly different perspective on the game. What I would like to see are the same moves for Obi-Wan as you can find for Corvus in Heretic 2: back-flips, forward-flips, rolling left and right, even jumping up at a wall and using it as a springboard for a backflip. Heretic 2 has quite intuitive actions via key and mouse movement/button combinations. Does the game Obi-Wan emulate his film counterpart? We shall see.

 

The fact that there has been no word from LEC bodes ill, to my mind. I can only say that I am tremendously disappointed, because a lot of other games in production have at least set up official websites to keep gamers up to date on proceedings. If you visit Lucasarts, you can't even find a reference to Obi-Wan. It looks like LEC has missed a grand opportunity to involve the gaming community in developing a game that everyone wants to play.

 

Will I have to eat my words when the game is finally released? Only time will tell.

[Guest Neumi]

WHAT did you expect?

Everyone knows the game takes place during TPM.

It is a TPM game. I knew it a year ago.

 

graphics:

You know this 5 shots are not from the final graphic engine, don't you?

the sword DOES shine, you see that:

a) in the shot where Obi Wan is under a bridge. The wall shows reflections of Obi Wan's blade and of a blaster shot.

b) In the shot in a cantina on Tatooine. The whole room is lightened by the blade.

 

Trees: Tomb Raider Style? What does that mean? tomb Raier copied it's tecniques from other games. Not everyone has a graphic card with T&L. LEC want to reach a much gamers as possible. The trees in the background look better with textures than with polygons.

 

Buildings: they are not very complex, I agree. but I personally like them.

 

Other game engines: EVERY engine looks good using only dark textures and/or dark levels.

 

particle system: Do you really believe this game hast no particle system? Even IJ5 had one.

 

Brightness: Of course the game ist bright, it's a TPM game.

 

3rd person: You CAN choose the view, I think this is clear in the meantime. If you read other postings, you would know that.

 

words from LEC: LEC had an announcement for OB1 in their last LEC store catalogue.

 

Be patient: Jedi Knight 2 will be coming - sooner or later. But THIS is Obi Wan.

 

 

 

[This message has been edited by Neumi (edited February 24, 2000).]

[StormHammer]

Strange as it may seem, I only stumbled across this forum the night I posted the topic. I DID read many of the other posts (although not all - some of them read like mini-novels ).

 

I stand corrected about the light effects off the lightsaber. I bow to your greater knowledge. I have only seen the two screenshots under the news archive on this website. I haven't seen the screenshots you mentioned. I would be grateful if you could let me know where I CAN view them.

 

I also stand corrected about the announcement in the LEC store catalogue - but my own view also stands that they should have developed a website to focus on this game, and keep people updated on what they are actually doing. I have followed the progress of a number of games via the net - and I wanted to follow the progress of this one. It seems to me, the only real web-presence for Obi-Wan is this forum - and unfortunately, it seems that many of the contributors are as much in the dark as I am.

 

I wish Lucasarts would bite the bullet and give Star Wars Gamers more information, more screenshots, and even an official demo movie. I managed to find more information about Jedi Knight during development than I have about this game.

 

I can only say I hope you're right about Jedi Knight 2 (or should that be Dark Forces III ) being a possibility. Fancy starting a forum on THAT issue?

 

Just a thought

 

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Quote: 'I have a very bad feeling about this.'

[Guest Darth Kurgan]

It's true, we have a marvelous lack of information on this game.. especially official information. So every screenshot that comes out gets blaster, it seems.

 

They'll have to do something with the game, it can't just be another TPM can it? We'll have to wait and see.

 

Just because it's based on the same movie doesn't mean anything. Look at all the games made based on the other SW movies, were they all identical? No. Some were good, some were bad, they were all different.

 

Compare Tomb Raider to MOTS. That's about how different these games will probably be (TPM and ObiWan). Of course they will have familar characters and scenes, but that doesn't mean they'll be boring.

 

Kurgan

[Guest Neumi]

@stormhammer:

There is nothing about "greater knowledge".

I have more or less the same informations as you. I only made other conclusions.

 

You can find the 3 shots I mean at the Obi Wan Network

http://obiwan.jedicore.net/screen/

 

I saw the first animated sequences of Obi Wan more than a year ago (so I had a lot of time to think about).

A german pc games mag showed some scenes from the E3 Video.

The other shots on the page abow are from this movie.

You can download the 10 MB MPG movie at Obi Wan Network, but only some seconds are about OB1, the rest is about other TPM games.

Don't forget, the movie is more than a year old, te graphic engine is far from being finished.

 

You know how LEC works. they never tell us anything about their games.

In fact, european people often have the informations earlier as american players (This german mag has some good connections to LEC).

I HOPE for JK2, there was a rumor about. But I don't know anything confirmed by LEC or THQ/Funsoft (the german publisher of LEC).

 

 

[StormHammer]

Thanks Neumi.

 

I've taken my dried-frog tablets and I feel much better know. Ribbit, ribbit. <g>

[Guest Jedi Master Xai-Qui]

I only thought that the screenshots from jk.net were the only ones.

I have not heard any rumours about jk2, but most of the info posted on this message board are rumours because we have not been told anything official. I am sure this game will be to the standard of most lec games. The screen shots look great. In one of the real screen shots, (not the ones from the preview movie)there is a picture of a round building with arches. That is so much better than anything that could be achieved in JK. I have tried but it comes out all blocky. It looks so smooth and the reflections look great.

I think that because it looks so good it will be uneditable!

 

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The truth?

Even Reality does not exist

 

 

 

[Guest Heidi Clogs]

Because it loks o good it will be uneditable?

Doom looked good for its time but it was editable!

 

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Now you will feel the power of my clogs!

[Guest Argath]

Practically every game in existance can be edited to some extent. Graphics have little to do with the ability to modify a game.

[Guest Jedi Master Xai-Qui]

No you have not got the thread of what I was saying. TPM looked good, new 3d engine, could be complicated to edit.

Obi-wan could be this way....

But I made a small typo and did not say what I meant to say (the reason for this was i forgot what I wanted to say because i was recieving so many icq messages and my modem disconnected twice while i was typing it)

 

TPM is a film and therefore all the characters are copyrighted by Lucas Film.

As we have discussed about 2 months ago Lucas Arts and Lucas Film are two different companies. Lucas Film could say as they probably said about TPM the game. We do not want people editing this game because it does this and that. I am sure we discussed reasons about why the game would not be editable in december. Check on page 3 in the topic thread page.

I maybe did not make myself clear in my last post. I said it might be difficult to edit ut it was not the difficulty I was refering to, I was refering to the licensing and because it looks good and has something to do with the film TPM lucas arts may make it allegal to edit it. I probably should have phrased the sentance differently.

Also we still know next to nothing about this game still, we need more info!

 

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The truth?

Even Reality does not exist

 

 

[This message has been edited by Jedi Master Xai-Qui (edited February 25, 2000).]

 

[This message has been edited by Jedi Master Xai-Qui (edited February 25, 2000).]

[Guest Argath]

Still, graphics have nothing to do with how easy a game is to edit. Some games that look horrible are difficult to modify, and some that have top of the line graphics are simple to edit (Unreal, for example). TPM could have looked exactly like Jedi Knight and still been bound by the same license agreement.

[Guest Darth Kurgan]

True, "hard to edit" is not the same as "impossible to edit."

 

And maybe even if it's hard, you could still make addons, even if they looked crappy. Eventually people would learn to master it and make better ones. As Argath stated in another topic, the tools are available, they just need to be put to good use. Yes, he is also right about their own buggy editors. ; )

 

That is why you often see level editors packaged with games as "unsupported betas" and such, because it takes alot of time and work to get it through QA.

 

I think it's fun to debate about what we think the game will be like, but ultimately, we can only wait, and hope. If their goal is indeed to make "the next Jedi Knight" then I'm sure it will have at least something of the game we all known and love. The question remains, will it be even BETTER than JK, or just a pale imitator?

 

Kurgan

[Guest Dark Jedi]

I have a comment on the screenshots. Yes they usually reflect the graphics engine but about the content, well that shouldn't be commented on about until the game actually comes out. I will take Jedi Knight for an example. PC Gamer released a preview story with a speeder bike in it. One reader complained when Jedi Knight because he never found a speeder. It was scrapped because it would take too long to implementt or would have bad effects. Yet Jedi Knight was a great game although if it worked out I think everyone would agree if there was a speeder in it. So about the actual landscape you never can tell. Another example like this that ended a different way was Quake 3. PC Gamer also posted a article on that saying there might be a grapple hook system and more interesting features which got scrapped. So with features you can't tell although this is probably off topic but unfortuanately the looks are probably going to show up in the game. Alright I am done.

[Guest Dark_JVS]

Hello,

 

Neumi, I have read several articles about Obi-Wan in the magazine PC-Games! [hallo, wie geht's? - nur mal ein wenig Abwechslung zum Englischen!] But the articles always said that the game takes place beside the movie. It's not the same plot. Think about that!

 

JVS

 

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Thr truth is in there!

[Guest Neumi]

Thought about

 

Fact is, also this short previews are not so exact, LEC says nothing about the plot.

 

LEC ex chief said they want to create a TPM game for every game kind.

 

The shot's show Obi Wan at the time of TPM (The trade federation after TPM is defeated, they couldn't take it with the whole republic.

Before TPM they did nothing).

 

ps: Let's write in english. The others don't speak german.

 

 

[This message has been edited by Neumi (edited February 27, 2000).]