One Must Fall: Battlegrounds Preview

The following is a small number of the game's visual features: The renderer boasts many features, including multi-texturing, dynamic lighting, reflections, and shadows. A lot of work has gone into the animation system and the hierarchical animation system, which allows you to re-use one animation with several models and get correct results. The game also has special runtime smoothing algorithms that produce higher-quality animation than most games. Since the game is built for many players and large arenas, meshes are scaleable (different versions are stored for different distances or detail levels). This eliminates fog and prevents objects from "popping in" as the player comes within a certain distance. The engine also includes a versatile particle system used in effects such as explosions, smoke, fire, fog, lens-flare, and projectiles.

Currently, at this stage of development, the game is set to introduce eight battling arenas (City, Blade Pit, Desert, Power Plant, Iceberg, Volcano, Space Station, and Canyon) with eight spicy robot models (Jaguar, Force, Pyros, Mantis, Chronos, Gargoyle, Katana, and Warlord). Battle arenas are going to present huge environments in which the player can move about and engage in combat in any fashion he deems fit. He'll also have to watch his back cause there are a lot of hazards out there waiting to inflict damage (the Blade Pit, for instance, is one of the most dangerous arenas and has huge razor sharp spikes rising from the edges if you get close to them). The best example for robot models is the Jaguar robot, which was modified many times since its initial introduction to the sport, and it still relies on the same attributes - speed, power, and ease of use. Having a lot of lethal attacks like the overhead throw, concussion blast, and multicannon the Jaguar is one of the most efficient killer-robots in the known Universe.

Robot units are controlled using the four standard directional buttons, along with six "action" buttons: Left Punch, Right Punch, Left Kick, Right Kick, Evade, and Jump. Super moves are performed through simple sequences of directions and action buttons. Some of these sequences will be better suited to joystick control, and others will be suited to the keyboard.

I assume that at least some of you gamers out there recollect One Must Fall: 2097 and the variety of hand-to-hand combat it offered. Basically, a lot of different attacks, combos, and special moves. Another great refreshment at the time was the already mentioned 'interactive background' with deadly traps, which could seriously harm to your fighting unit. The combat style in 'Battlegrounds' allows the player to carry out several maneuvers, blocks, ducks, and similar defensive moves, which are, of course, the essence of every fighting game. What's more, after the player uses up all of the strikes and blows to narrow down the enemies energy scale, he can then finish him off in a Mortal Combat fashion (another game characteristic taken from One Must Fall: 2097) and send him straight to the Battleground junkyard.

Anyhoo, why crush & destroy computer controlled robots, when you can enjoy a more exciting multiplayer mode, that will allow to skirmish it out with up to twenty live opponents at the same time (wow, imagine that - twenty enraged bots kicking each other senselessly to their rusty death - yeah!).

The development of One Must Fall: Battlegrounds is still far from completion, and we can expect it out some time in the beginning of next year according to the designers.