Admin
01-29-2012, 03:07 AM
Posted by Waggler
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-mLfLGvNmfr4/TX2U7cHLB9I/AAAAAAAABhk/g7f3iB08gXw/s1600/Separatortopmain.jpg
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-OU29T78SQ8s/TyPvBWkkcQI/AAAAAAAABwY/MWm-p8_7oiI/s640/Snipers_04.jpg (http://www.iwaggle3d.com/2012/01/introducing-snipers-hydravisions-first.html)
Announced last May (http://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.iwaggle3d.com/2011/05/bigben-interactive-goes-fitness-hunting.html&sa=U&ei=uFYkT92pG4rG-Qba84zXCA&ved=0CAQQFjAA&client=internal-uds-cse&usg=AFQjCNHl_nDlu5uH6NmBkL8r5xas-UbQfg) among a triptych of PlayStation Move compatible products by BigBen Interactive (http://www.bigben-interactive.com/), Snipers is silently approaching its release date. And yet, we know very little about it. What gives? Time to shed some light on the first PlayStation Move compatible shooter of 2012.
Coming from French gaming accessories vendor BigBen Interactive, one would understandably dismiss Snipers as some sort of low-budget bait for the “Sniper Gun” PlayStation Move attachment it will come bundled with. But then again there are a couple of considerations to make that suggest this game might be more than just shovelware.
For instance, Snipers will not be available exclusively along with its dedicated Move attachment. It will also be distributed as a stand alone game at retail. It is not a PlayStation 3 exclusive either, as it will ship for the Xbox 360 and PC as well.
More importantly, tho, Snipers is not the job of some obscure group of underpaid Chinese workers, but rather of Hydravision (http://hydravision.com/), a long time French videogame studio you will probably remember for its rather accomplished Move compatible puzzle-platformer Funky Lab Rat (http://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.iwaggle3d.com/2010/12/funky-lab-rat-video.html&sa=U&ei=CV8kT-zHOsqAOr2m6bgI&ved=0CAQQFjAA&client=internal-uds-cse&usg=AFQjCNG_TLmcbgdE9svBsoFhuTDcEQ5p7A) (released last year exclusively on PSN).
Since its foundation in 1999, Hydravision has shipped more than a dozen games for various platforms, most notably the survival horror series Obscure as well as Alone in The Dark for PS2 and Wii. They are not Naughty Dog by any means, but they are not unworthy of consideration either, especially in the light of the herewith discussed Snipers, their second Move compatible project.
Unpon realizing their involvement with this new BigBen Interactive production, I've decided to contact them in order to learn more about the PlayStation Move implementation they are going for. Hydravision Co-founder and Executive Producer François Potentier was kind enough to share some details.
Snipers in an online multiplayer first person shooter allowing up to 12 players to compete across 10 different maps in 6 gaming modes. As the title suggests, all participants will be snipers, so don't expect this to play like your usual shooter. You'll be equipped with a side arm (a pistol), a knife (for melee), and a limited assortment of grenades, claymores, mines or C4, but you will likely score most of your kills at long range, through the scope of a deadly sniper rifle.
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-HadwNMPkpLM/TyRb5KZAm4I/AAAAAAAABwo/sbTWNma2Jiw/s640/Snipers_10.jpg (http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-HadwNMPkpLM/TyRb5KZAm4I/AAAAAAAABwo/sbTWNma2Jiw/s1600/Snipers_10.jpg)
Thanks to its slightly futuristic setting (it's the year 2024), Snipers will also provide hi-tech gadgets beyond the usual thermal goggles such as motion sensing drones, cloaking devices and even hologram projectors. Nice tools to have when strategy calls for deceiving and stalking manouvers. There is also some sort of grapple gun for easy access to higher ground (check the trailer below to see it in action).
It goes without saying that all of the above, along with various gun and rifle models, will be gradually made available for purchase as you move up through the ranks. Weapons will apparently be customizable as well.
Being an online-focused shooter, Snipers lacks a single player campaign. An offline training mode will be provided tho, teaching how to use your weaponary and explaining the basic game principles within a dedicated stage populated with dummy targets (no AI-driven bots). The same setting will also host a Time Attack mode asking the player to complete the training course as quickly and accurately (headshots yield more points) as possible.
On the technical side of things, Snipers will be powered by the third generation of a proprietary engine originally developed for Obscure in 2004. And will run at 30fps. I know, it looks so COD-ish you'd expect it to run as smoothly as Activision's best seller, but while the engine is allegedly capable of displaying 60 frames per second, the developers settled for half that many in order to ensure frame rate consistency in spite of the “huge particle effects” (such as smoke) and the realtime shadow casting (“with a few offline treatments”) the engine has to deal with. Fine by me as long as those 30fps are rock-solid and the native resolution is actually HD.
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-F3wVk18twFQ/TyRce9aIDMI/AAAAAAAABww/4PIEMe09xXg/s640/Snipers_02.jpg (http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-F3wVk18twFQ/TyRce9aIDMI/AAAAAAAABww/4PIEMe09xXg/s1600/Snipers_02.jpg)
Now that you know Snipers' basics, let's take a look at what matters the most to us: its PlayStation Move implementation.
In normal view (hip fire), the user will control a floating cursor within the familiar borders of an invisible bounding box. Contrary to what you would expect tho, when the cursor reaches the edge of the bounding box and triggers camera rotation, its location gets clamped. So, the camera behaves as usual, its movement speed presumably determined by Move angle, but unlike any other Move shooter released thus far, the cursor doesn't leave the bounding box area when pushed against its margins.
As a consequence of this unusual solution, shrinking the size of the bounding box to zero (an option Snipers will provide) nails the cursor to the center of the screen, your motions directly affecting camera movement speed and direction, just like when using a traditional controller. "It is highly sensitive but it seems that some players enjoy playing this way", says Potentier.
Curiosuly, despite the above remak, it looks like the reticule will always be fixed when aiming through a scope (which is something you'll likely do quite often in Snipers), regardless of the size of the normal view bounding box. To be honest, I'm not totally sure this will be the case. While Potentier says "the scope is not floating: the camera rotates as soon as the player moves the cursor", I find this solution rather curious in the light of the supported Sniper Gun attachment.
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-lE-h1HdXNQU/TyRbdDAxbSI/AAAAAAAABwg/loUdUk07Y7M/s640/Snipers_Bundle.jpg (http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-lE-h1HdXNQU/TyRbdDAxbSI/AAAAAAAABwg/loUdUk07Y7M/s1600/Snipers_Bundle.jpg)
More specifically, I wonder how it's gonna feel like to aim across the screen with the rifle peripheral when the projection of the virtual scope doesn't match its orientation. Unlike the original implementation of scope aim in Resistance 3 (http://www.iwaggle3d.com/search/label/Resistance%203), in fact, it sounds like the camera will rotate "as soon as" the player moves the controller, apparently just like when operating it in normal view upon setting the bounding box size to zero. Anyway, I'll ask for a clarification and update this paragraph when I get one.
As for aim assist, Snipers will provide two separate aids, one for normal view and other one for scope aim. Only the former will be in place when using either the Move or the DS3, and will help tracking moving targets by briefly hooking the on-screen cursor to them while slightly rotating the camera in their direction while strafing (much like in Resistance 3, apparently). As for the scope aim assist, it will be enabled only when using the DS3 and will have the camera slow down a bit whenever the scope reticle makes contact with a target. The Move implementation will not take advantage of this assist because "[Move] is far much more precise than the DS3".
In either case, Hydravision hopes the aids will be subtle enough to enhance accuracy without the players noticing they are being assisted.
By the way, all the players will play together whatever the controller they use. It will be possible to switch controllers on the fly as well.
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-lIX-A8xh56g/TyRd2pCZdfI/AAAAAAAABw4/0Bvz0YAMJ10/s640/Snipers_01.jpg (http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-lIX-A8xh56g/TyRd2pCZdfI/AAAAAAAABw4/0Bvz0YAMJ10/s1600/Snipers_01.jpg)
Finally, there will be an option to tweak the Move sensitivity, one which won't just affect the degree of motion scaling relative to cursor control (as seen in many other Move shooters), but also the two gesture-based actions the game includes: melee via forward thrust and reload via a 90° twist. Thanks to a special filter, in fact, the higher the Move sensitivity you set, the less you will need to thrust or twist the controller to perform the corresponding actions. On this point, it will be interesting to see how gestures will affect camera stability when the cursor is fixed. Hopefully a button-based alternative will be included for those adopting a minimal bounding box.
There aren't many sniper-focused games out there, even less so if we look for online-only ones, so Snipers is definitely a unique addition to the genre in its own right. Add to that its rather atypical Move implementation and you can easily understand why Hydravision's latest is definitely worth attention.
Snipers will go on sale across Europe at the end February for a yet unknown price. BigBen Interactive has no plans for a North America release yet.
Watch this space for a video analysis as soon as possible. In the meantime, you might want to check the official Snipers trailer below.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=teJw2ys1C1E
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-mLfLGvNmfr4/TX2U7cHLB9I/AAAAAAAABhk/g7f3iB08gXw/s1600/Separatortopmain.jpg
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-OU29T78SQ8s/TyPvBWkkcQI/AAAAAAAABwY/MWm-p8_7oiI/s640/Snipers_04.jpg (http://www.iwaggle3d.com/2012/01/introducing-snipers-hydravisions-first.html)
Announced last May (http://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.iwaggle3d.com/2011/05/bigben-interactive-goes-fitness-hunting.html&sa=U&ei=uFYkT92pG4rG-Qba84zXCA&ved=0CAQQFjAA&client=internal-uds-cse&usg=AFQjCNHl_nDlu5uH6NmBkL8r5xas-UbQfg) among a triptych of PlayStation Move compatible products by BigBen Interactive (http://www.bigben-interactive.com/), Snipers is silently approaching its release date. And yet, we know very little about it. What gives? Time to shed some light on the first PlayStation Move compatible shooter of 2012.
Coming from French gaming accessories vendor BigBen Interactive, one would understandably dismiss Snipers as some sort of low-budget bait for the “Sniper Gun” PlayStation Move attachment it will come bundled with. But then again there are a couple of considerations to make that suggest this game might be more than just shovelware.
For instance, Snipers will not be available exclusively along with its dedicated Move attachment. It will also be distributed as a stand alone game at retail. It is not a PlayStation 3 exclusive either, as it will ship for the Xbox 360 and PC as well.
More importantly, tho, Snipers is not the job of some obscure group of underpaid Chinese workers, but rather of Hydravision (http://hydravision.com/), a long time French videogame studio you will probably remember for its rather accomplished Move compatible puzzle-platformer Funky Lab Rat (http://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.iwaggle3d.com/2010/12/funky-lab-rat-video.html&sa=U&ei=CV8kT-zHOsqAOr2m6bgI&ved=0CAQQFjAA&client=internal-uds-cse&usg=AFQjCNG_TLmcbgdE9svBsoFhuTDcEQ5p7A) (released last year exclusively on PSN).
Since its foundation in 1999, Hydravision has shipped more than a dozen games for various platforms, most notably the survival horror series Obscure as well as Alone in The Dark for PS2 and Wii. They are not Naughty Dog by any means, but they are not unworthy of consideration either, especially in the light of the herewith discussed Snipers, their second Move compatible project.
Unpon realizing their involvement with this new BigBen Interactive production, I've decided to contact them in order to learn more about the PlayStation Move implementation they are going for. Hydravision Co-founder and Executive Producer François Potentier was kind enough to share some details.
Snipers in an online multiplayer first person shooter allowing up to 12 players to compete across 10 different maps in 6 gaming modes. As the title suggests, all participants will be snipers, so don't expect this to play like your usual shooter. You'll be equipped with a side arm (a pistol), a knife (for melee), and a limited assortment of grenades, claymores, mines or C4, but you will likely score most of your kills at long range, through the scope of a deadly sniper rifle.
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-HadwNMPkpLM/TyRb5KZAm4I/AAAAAAAABwo/sbTWNma2Jiw/s640/Snipers_10.jpg (http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-HadwNMPkpLM/TyRb5KZAm4I/AAAAAAAABwo/sbTWNma2Jiw/s1600/Snipers_10.jpg)
Thanks to its slightly futuristic setting (it's the year 2024), Snipers will also provide hi-tech gadgets beyond the usual thermal goggles such as motion sensing drones, cloaking devices and even hologram projectors. Nice tools to have when strategy calls for deceiving and stalking manouvers. There is also some sort of grapple gun for easy access to higher ground (check the trailer below to see it in action).
It goes without saying that all of the above, along with various gun and rifle models, will be gradually made available for purchase as you move up through the ranks. Weapons will apparently be customizable as well.
Being an online-focused shooter, Snipers lacks a single player campaign. An offline training mode will be provided tho, teaching how to use your weaponary and explaining the basic game principles within a dedicated stage populated with dummy targets (no AI-driven bots). The same setting will also host a Time Attack mode asking the player to complete the training course as quickly and accurately (headshots yield more points) as possible.
On the technical side of things, Snipers will be powered by the third generation of a proprietary engine originally developed for Obscure in 2004. And will run at 30fps. I know, it looks so COD-ish you'd expect it to run as smoothly as Activision's best seller, but while the engine is allegedly capable of displaying 60 frames per second, the developers settled for half that many in order to ensure frame rate consistency in spite of the “huge particle effects” (such as smoke) and the realtime shadow casting (“with a few offline treatments”) the engine has to deal with. Fine by me as long as those 30fps are rock-solid and the native resolution is actually HD.
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-F3wVk18twFQ/TyRce9aIDMI/AAAAAAAABww/4PIEMe09xXg/s640/Snipers_02.jpg (http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-F3wVk18twFQ/TyRce9aIDMI/AAAAAAAABww/4PIEMe09xXg/s1600/Snipers_02.jpg)
Now that you know Snipers' basics, let's take a look at what matters the most to us: its PlayStation Move implementation.
In normal view (hip fire), the user will control a floating cursor within the familiar borders of an invisible bounding box. Contrary to what you would expect tho, when the cursor reaches the edge of the bounding box and triggers camera rotation, its location gets clamped. So, the camera behaves as usual, its movement speed presumably determined by Move angle, but unlike any other Move shooter released thus far, the cursor doesn't leave the bounding box area when pushed against its margins.
As a consequence of this unusual solution, shrinking the size of the bounding box to zero (an option Snipers will provide) nails the cursor to the center of the screen, your motions directly affecting camera movement speed and direction, just like when using a traditional controller. "It is highly sensitive but it seems that some players enjoy playing this way", says Potentier.
Curiosuly, despite the above remak, it looks like the reticule will always be fixed when aiming through a scope (which is something you'll likely do quite often in Snipers), regardless of the size of the normal view bounding box. To be honest, I'm not totally sure this will be the case. While Potentier says "the scope is not floating: the camera rotates as soon as the player moves the cursor", I find this solution rather curious in the light of the supported Sniper Gun attachment.
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-lE-h1HdXNQU/TyRbdDAxbSI/AAAAAAAABwg/loUdUk07Y7M/s640/Snipers_Bundle.jpg (http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-lE-h1HdXNQU/TyRbdDAxbSI/AAAAAAAABwg/loUdUk07Y7M/s1600/Snipers_Bundle.jpg)
More specifically, I wonder how it's gonna feel like to aim across the screen with the rifle peripheral when the projection of the virtual scope doesn't match its orientation. Unlike the original implementation of scope aim in Resistance 3 (http://www.iwaggle3d.com/search/label/Resistance%203), in fact, it sounds like the camera will rotate "as soon as" the player moves the controller, apparently just like when operating it in normal view upon setting the bounding box size to zero. Anyway, I'll ask for a clarification and update this paragraph when I get one.
As for aim assist, Snipers will provide two separate aids, one for normal view and other one for scope aim. Only the former will be in place when using either the Move or the DS3, and will help tracking moving targets by briefly hooking the on-screen cursor to them while slightly rotating the camera in their direction while strafing (much like in Resistance 3, apparently). As for the scope aim assist, it will be enabled only when using the DS3 and will have the camera slow down a bit whenever the scope reticle makes contact with a target. The Move implementation will not take advantage of this assist because "[Move] is far much more precise than the DS3".
In either case, Hydravision hopes the aids will be subtle enough to enhance accuracy without the players noticing they are being assisted.
By the way, all the players will play together whatever the controller they use. It will be possible to switch controllers on the fly as well.
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-lIX-A8xh56g/TyRd2pCZdfI/AAAAAAAABw4/0Bvz0YAMJ10/s640/Snipers_01.jpg (http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-lIX-A8xh56g/TyRd2pCZdfI/AAAAAAAABw4/0Bvz0YAMJ10/s1600/Snipers_01.jpg)
Finally, there will be an option to tweak the Move sensitivity, one which won't just affect the degree of motion scaling relative to cursor control (as seen in many other Move shooters), but also the two gesture-based actions the game includes: melee via forward thrust and reload via a 90° twist. Thanks to a special filter, in fact, the higher the Move sensitivity you set, the less you will need to thrust or twist the controller to perform the corresponding actions. On this point, it will be interesting to see how gestures will affect camera stability when the cursor is fixed. Hopefully a button-based alternative will be included for those adopting a minimal bounding box.
There aren't many sniper-focused games out there, even less so if we look for online-only ones, so Snipers is definitely a unique addition to the genre in its own right. Add to that its rather atypical Move implementation and you can easily understand why Hydravision's latest is definitely worth attention.
Snipers will go on sale across Europe at the end February for a yet unknown price. BigBen Interactive has no plans for a North America release yet.
Watch this space for a video analysis as soon as possible. In the meantime, you might want to check the official Snipers trailer below.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=teJw2ys1C1E