Clive Barker's Undying Preview

Clive Barkers Undying uses a slightly modified UT engine. When asked why the UT engine and not the Quake III for example, producer Brady Bell immediately fired off a couple of principal reasons: the first reason is that a couple of months before they began to work on the project, they where already coding away on a game that utilized the UT engine, so they where familiar with it. The other reason is a great cooperation with Epic in case of "engine trouble". If they would to send an e-mail to Tim Sweeny (lead programmer over at Epic), they would have a reply within hours, and we can all guess that he probably has more pressing matters to attend to. Brady says that developing a game is hard work, and developing it with somebody else's engine is even harder. In the light of this statement, having the support from the guys that developed it makes life a WHOLE LOT easier.

What the hell is wrong with her??

A short break in the open...

As far as the game's eye candy, the first thing you'll notice are the shadows, which are now full real-time, and add to the omnipresent spooky in-game ambience. The next thing Dreamwork programmers worked on is the totally modified Particle system, that gives you more realistic explosion effects. Debris and sparks flying and ricocheting off the walls now exhibit more realistic properties. The developers did a bunch of modifications to the UT's original character animation. We suspect it has something to do with the improved skeletal system, and maybe some other proprietary techniques, but whatever it is, it sure makes the models' movement smooth and natural. Now, you might want to search your memory on how a mutated monster moves "naturally", but let's leave that for some other time...

Undying will bring some novelties to the multi player mode too. The Dreamworks programmers decided not to offer us the standard death match and CTF modes. Instead, when you spawn on some level you will be fully equipped with weapons and magic, as opposed to other FPS games. The only things you can collect on a level will be the ammo, health, magic enhancers and some other "special" items. One of the multi player modes will allow you to determine basic features of your character before the start of the match, such as ratio of magic and weapons, which spells can be upgraded, etc. So if you know, for example, that your opponent prefers a spell called Skull Storm, you can choose the corresponding defensive spell that should protect you from the attacks. So, apart from the action aspect, some importance is given to the tactics as well. We should also add that the gloomy ambient of the single player mode is depicted in the multi player game. It remains to be seen how and if the players take to heart the concept of re-spawning with full arsenal. What is certain is that the game will feature a much faster and more action-packed death match than any before. Another "goodie" in this game is the single and multi player map editor which is supplied with the game, and the developers claim its very user-friendly.

Cive Barker's Undying is a game which is different from all known FPS. A mix of horror and FPS action, based on the story by a famous writer, and powered by the still trendy UT engine. More than promising! The game is to be released in the winter of 2000, and we'll see if it will top the fame of books and movies written by Clive Barker.