4x4 Evolution Preview

Are you hungry for a good off-road ride similar to Monster Truck Madness 2? You better be, because 4x4 Evolution is almost here. Software company Terminal Reality, who was behind both Monster Truck games, and then released the sim Fly! and the great horror adventure Nocturne, has a lot of reasons to claim that 4x4 Evolution is a quality game, which will place the player behind the wheel of a SUV or light truck vehicle.

Basically, this game is an arcade-style simulation that got me downloading all related screenshots on the Net. They are really juicy, full of detail and initially I thought they are pre-rendered samples. But as I was reading all available data about this game, I gradually let go of my "No way, this is pre-rendered" attitude. You see, 4x4 Evolution engine was built from scratch and initially it was developed for Dreamcast. Later it was ported for two other platforms on which the Evolution saw the virtual light of day: PC and Mac. The differences shouldn't be big. The PC users should be in a small advantage since the versatility of their hardware, in theory, enables a whole set of resolutions, ranging from 640x480 to 1600x1200 in a 16-bit or 32-bit colour depth, as opposed to new generation Sega consoles which use a single hardware configuration (640x480). Also, if you are a PC-man with, with a for example AGP video card, you can look forward to even better textures.

Catch me if you can!

Who are these fools in up there, man?

The terrain on which you drive is totally open. Developers didn't whish to confine or drive the players nuts with a mountain suddenly appearing in front at 89.999 degrees, or fences and similar obstacles that go on for miles, and you cant run them over either(!), and in the worst case scenarios-invisible walls. The real thing about the off-road driving is the total freedom. The worse thing that can happen to the player in this game is to return to the start. To provide a real-time tessellated terrain, the developers had to forget about static polygons, because it would involve rendering and enormous number of them (some 15 000 per frame), which the processor would disagree with, and the graphic card would too, and so would the player. This way, the cyber-drivers (I think I'll use this term from now on, because if you think about it, how many racing fans actually possess a driving licence?) can explore the endless plains and experience different scenarios such as snow covered mountains, terrain composed only of sand and rock, or speed between trees, past houses or tricky marshes.

Engine supports real-time shadows, and beside the cars, all objects in space will cast shadows. When you add weather shifts and day/night cycles and some other spice that the developers claim are unseen before, I'm a little confused with minimal hardware requirements they announced: the modest Pentium 32Mb RAM and the 3D card with 8Mb of texture memory. If they don't intend the max frame rate on these machines to be 5 fps, well then good for them. Anyway, well see... Oh yeah, the Open G1 rendering on GeForce2-based cards users can expect a 50% fps increase.

All the vehicles in the game are based on actual cars. There are some 50 licensed cars (Toyota, Lexus, Nissan, Range Rover...), and depending on the level of detail, each will consist of more than 5000 polys. And not only that, the drivers will be visible behind the transparent windshields and car windows, fighting curves and switching gear, fidgeting and rocking after a crash or sudden turn or break... The 3D artists had a handful copying cars from digital photos with the help of original schematics adjusting the performances of each vehicle. The gravity was on the performances being based on actual features such as mass, dimensions, the wind resistance coefficient, curves, torque, etc. The full-suspension was specially modelled and animated for each vehicle. The cars are crash-prone and depending on how frail or how much attention was given to their safety, you can expect smaller or bigger damage. What the realistic, (non)upgraded car really means will be best experienced by those who dare to boldly indulge themselves in a night ride without protective mesh for the headlights. A crunching sound in the front end of the car, and you will be praying even for a flashlight... Naturally, because of the boring licence agreements, none of the vehicles will have real damage-models (something that exists in Carmageddon, or what is announced that Midtown Madness2 will have where parts of the car get deformed and/or fall off). Instead, the bad thing about going through a 10x5 boulder will manifest itself only on the physics model and the steer ability of the car. You also shouldn't rush for better car parts- because everything is relative. Even if you get enough money for a stronger engine, think good if the increased power will really be helpful on a certain track if the car mass in the same package with steer ability made difficult.