fafalada --- your opinion of APEX (Xbox racer)

How about a few good quality gameplay pics;

InGame02.jpg

InGame05.jpg

97.jpg




and some videos;

Sportscar City
Sportscar Racetrack
Roadster Racetrack
Dreamcar Racetrack
Supercar Stadium
Dreamcar Stadium
Dreamcar Mountain

More info and videos can be found at www.apex-game.com

I can't wait for this game, from the descriptions it sounds great. It would be even better if it was on Live.

btw-Milestones website is www.milestone.it
 
Here is some info I found about the game engine at Gamershell;

Features:

* +60000 polygon building with high definition textures, Mental Ray generated light maps; rendering, lighting and special effects based on vertex and pixel shaders, obtaining a realism yet to be seen on any platform.
* 4 main characters the player will be working with at the factory, will have about 8000 polygons each, character skinning based on a very complex skeleton, motion captured movement, facial animations and lypsinc.
* About 4 or 5 other characters will also be working in the factory
* In total there will over 250 motion-captured animations
* More than 12 cars each with up to 10000 polygons, 1Mb of compressed textures and cube environment mapping will present simultaneously in the factory
Tracks (each)
* Up to 500000 static polygons
* Up to 50000 polygons based on bezier patches
* Up to 15 Mb of compressed textures
* Up to 2 Mb of procedural textures
* 3D volumetric textures for light effects and particle effects
* Texture animations
* Mental Ray generated light maps using up to 5 Mb of compressed textures to obtain realistic static shadows and light effects
* Rendering, lighting and special effects based on vertex shaders and pixel shaders
* An impressive 3 Km line of sight
* High polygon count 3D trees and bushes
* Extremely detailed buildings and other tracks objects; buildings made up mainly of just cubes at last are a thing of the past
* Static cube environment mapping on buildings
* A texture detail method, so that you can see the blades of grass, the stones in the asphalt and the grains of sand
* Persistent skid marks left by the cars
* Physics moveable objects such as bales of straw, tires, traffic cones, etc.
* Very realistic water effects, using pixel shaders and particle vapour effects
* Variable environmental sounds


Cars (each) & Handling

* Up to 30000 tristripped polygons and 2 pop-free LODs
* Open and closed cars with a high level of detail.
* Up to 1Mb of compressed textures
* User choose-able car colours
* Dynamic shadows using shadow buffers
* Realistic procedural car deformations based on physics
* Procedural tires with deformation based on the car physics and blur effect
* Breakable parts such as glass and plastic
* Custom illumination model using pixel and vertex shaders
* Driver with +1000 polygons, well defined textures and over 20 motion captured animations
* Dynamic car engine sound effects


Playability - Game experience

* Extremely realistic rigid body simulation implementing realistic suspensions (real spring and damper behaviour)
* Accurate collision detection
* Gaming experience greatly improved by a tire/ground contact force determination
* Slipstream physics, will make the battling on high-speed tracks a breathtaking experience
* Road surface information; oil slicks, manholes, broken road, etc
* Human-like, learning AI; the more they drive the better they get, so they will always be an exciting challenge for the player
* Advanced AI behaviour
* Soft driving learning curve
* Various types of driving aids; gear-changing, steering, counter-steering, acceleration, brakes, etc.


AUDIO

The capabilities of the Xbox audio chip let us to implement very realistic engines sounds, with real crowds and life environment.
In the 3D user interface, each room will have its own ambiance ( music, activity of people machines… ) , and using lipsync, will deliver a very immersive experience when interacting with the player's team.
Support of the Dolby Digital 5.1-channel of the Xbox; the driving experience will be greatly enhanced through the use of it.

General Points :

* FSAA ( antialiasing )to get rid of those annoying "jaggies"
* Quick access times and possibility to save tons of replays, thanks to the hard disk availability
* The game at a smooth 60 fps
 
Mental Ray generated light maps using up to 5 Mb of compressed textures to obtain realistic static shadows and light effects

That sounds odd, using a ray trace render engine for lightmaps, looks good from the screenshots though(did MR add radiosity?).
 
WOW! Very impressive. Now THIS is what the Xbox should be able to do. If it plays as good as the screens..man look out. Especiailly at 60 fps. Who's doing it?
 
Dr.Doom said:
can the xbox really do this without any slow downs?

I think the slowdowns we are used to in games like Halo are just because the devs had been making it for PC and really didnt have time to get a grasp of the Xbox's hardware, I am sure Xbox can handle this game without a big problem..

this game looks amazing, I personally think Xbox should be crowned the new King of Racers,it really has the best of the best, I will take Rallisport over GTA 3 any day.
 
Well all you have to do is look at PGR which was a 1st gen game made in less than 12 months. Now imagine what a 2nd gen game would look like with proper development time ;)

This is a really looking nice game btw and the car selection is good too. This game kinda looks like a souped up version of TD Lemans with more varied cars. That roadster clip with the GT300 MR2 Spyder and Lotus Exige looks really sweet.
 
Sega GT has great gameplay, but piss-poor graphics. It's a liiitle short on the subtance too imo (you can get the best everything save tuneups by the end of season 1 - ~6 hours playtime for me).
 
Awesome looking game! I think the developers have said they had to lock the framerate to 30FPS because it was too inconsistent when all the stuff listed there was enabled.

I personally think Xbox should be crowned the new King of Racers,it really has the best of the best, I will take Rallisport over GTA 3 any day.
I know there is racing in GTA3 but come on ;) Xbox is missing on Burnout 2, which is amazingly fun racer, and has that crappy version of NFS:HP2, though.
 
BS.
That hands-on refers to the PS2 version. As far as I know the development on GC/Xbox versions of Burnout 2 wasn't even started when the PS2 version hit the streets. Devs told me (I work for a european print mag) they will *probably* make a GC/Xbox sometime this year (2003). It depends on the success of the PS2 version.
 
IGN still has it listed as a generic "TBA 2003" as the release date.

To be honest it doesn't phase me either way, I won't be getting it.

These are the same people who told everyone Burnout ran in 720p on the Xbox, when it really only did 480p.

And I think there are many better racers out there than the Burnout series. :) Many.

But hey, you work for a European print mag, allow me to bend over so you can paddle me with your superior knowledge...being a journalist for a euromag and all. :p
 
:p

Pointing out I work for a euromag wasn't a mean to suggest I have "superior knowledge" but just an explaination about how I got in touch with the devs.

Burnout 2 rocks. There are no better arcade racers out there at the moment on any system. Well, at least until Fafalada's one shows up :)
 
Goldni said:
WOW! Very impressive. Now THIS is what the Xbox should be able to do. If it plays as good as the screens..man look out. Especiailly at 60 fps. Who's doing it?

Problem is this game runs and will run at no more than 30fps. Devs admitted it in an interview/preview on an italian website (http://www.nextgame.it/html/articolo.php?id=3205)

Now, I wont translate all of it, but it says the 30fps limit is due to the desire to add anti-aliasing and other cool effects.
 
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