“I have this dream sometimes…”
This is too awful not to share… Richard sent me this youtube clip of a play-through of Cyberswine, the first “game” title I ever worked on professionally.
Do not try to watch the whole thing or you will go blind.
Seriously, it is even worse than I remember, and it looks like it’s being rendered with my software engine ca. 1996. What inspired my boss to purchase the rights to such a stupid shitty story and character is beyond me, but sometimes I wonder if the entire enterprise wasn’t some kind of elaborate tax dodge.
This is Cyberswine, a cybernetic pig with the brain of a human policeman.
Makes total sense!
This is the geometrically challenged officer Sara Lee, she is sooooo sexy!
And all that random shit on the walls makes total sense also.
I’ll be writing more about this in the next installment of my Personal Computing History (like, sometime in the next year maybe).
Cyberswine Trivia: The face texture for Sara Lee was originally a picture of Pamela Anderson, I believe.
The voice actor for the “brain in a box” soliloquy was well chosen (even if the accompanying graphics were less than adequate), and the title theme is excellent, but from that point on, it goes straight down the toilet.
Sara Lee is no Ro Laren or Marta Velasquez. The point of such antagonistic characters is to make them highly likeable despite themselves, not to instill a prompt desire to impale a pitchfork through their skull.
Talking about game engines, you played Magic Carpet, right? That represents a pinnacle that has seems to have never been revisited: a world engine that permits you to redefine the landscape at will. Considering how well it worked even on my craptastic 486 PC (it couldn’t even play X-Wing properly) – what is the scope for how much further you could take that with a modern CPU?
I don’t know that I played Magic Carpet except when I saw it running as demo in PC stores selling 486′s. It was impressive to me but I remember the draw distance being atrocious if you wanted a decent frame rate (basically it was like flying through grey fog with very limited visibility)
The draw distance was not configurable, but the sacrifice was worth it for the shadows, reflections, and textured sky, totally freeform levels (hills, mountains, rivers and lakes), alpha-blended HUD and particle modelling. Seeing buildings and people reflected in the moving waves is impressive even by today’s standards. (The reflections followed the water’s motion.)
The real breakthrough was the ability to alter the landscape at will, setting fire to trees (which would spread to neighbouring trees), blowing holes in the ground, rising up volcanoes and casting down chasms. The whole 3D landscape was yours to mould and manipulate at will, and the game would remember every change you made during that level. Its contemporary Descent allowed to you open doors by shooting them: a fusion cannon aimed at pocket doors should blow them to bits, not issue a polite request for them to open.
You should revisit Magic Carpet – press ‘R’ during the game to get the high resolution mode. I forget whether that’s in the manual … *someone* never gave my manual back ;-)