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[PC] Shattered Horizon

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[PC] Shattered Horizon

Unread postby icycalm » 23 Oct 2009 22:15

http://www.shatteredhorizon.com/

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http://www.gametrailers.com/video/gc-20 ... izon/38528
http://www.gametrailers.com/video/raid- ... izon/57738

http://www.shatteredhorizon.com/details ... itycombat/

Shattered Horizon is a multiplayer shooter played in zero gravity. Join your friends in intense 32 player battles to control hollowed-out asteroids, huge fragments of Moon rock and the ruined remains of the International Space Station.

Familiar and intuitive FPS controls let you take full advantage of these distinctive environments. Use your rocket pack to move freely through space and then land on any surface. Engage enemies in furious firefights, or ambush them from unexpected angles. Zero gravity offers you freedom of movement that cannot be found in any other game.

Attacks can come from any direction so keep your eyes peeled for the telltale signs of enemy movement. With your rifle at the ready you can handle anything the enemy can throw at you. A rapid fire weapon with a generous clip, it is both accurate and deadly at medium range. The stealthier combatant can engage the weapon's scope and prime the chamber with a powerful 10 shot burst, lethal over longer distances. And for those who like to get up close and personal, the rifle's retractable bayonet is a fearsome tool in the right hands.

Fire ICE grenades to provide cover or be more aggressive by using EMP grenades to disable enemy electronics or MPRs to blast enemies out of cover. Your weapon will save your life so hang on to it. If you let go of your gun, chances are you're already dead.


Seems very cool. Steep spec requirements though...

RECOMMENDED REQUIREMENTS
Shattered Horizon requires DirectX 10 on Windows Vista or Windows 7. There is no support for Windows XP or DirectX 9.
CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 / AMD Phenom II X4 940
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260 / ATI Radeon HD 4870
GPU MEMORY: 512MB
HARD DISK SPACE: 1.5GB
RAM: 2GB
SOUND: Windows Vista compatible sound card


http://www.shatteredhorizon.com/support/
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Unread postby MjFrancis » 24 Oct 2009 00:15

Steep requirements is an understatement! I just picked up a new GPU and CPU three months back and they fall just below their recommended specs already. Time to overclock!

Does anyone know if members of Futuremark Game Studios have worked on anything else? This looks like an ambitious starting IP.
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Unread postby obiyer » 24 Oct 2009 00:39

This looks awesome, but too bad about the spec requirements. It got me hooked the moment I saw that a player could walk upside down in an FPS offering 360 degrees of movement. The eerie feeling of not hearing the bullets go off is also pretty cool.

I just meet the minimum requirements minus the OS, too bad though. I'll probably give it a try in a year or so.
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Unread postby icycalm » 24 Oct 2009 13:57

The thing is, that though their engine looks pretty neat, it does not look so much superior, or even superior at all, to all the other engines to justify the increased spec requirements.

They are probably either bad or lazy coders.

And the idea behind the game is not THAT revolutionary either -- see Descent. But it's certainly a step forward in that direction, and the novel type of environments alone should make the game refreshing to play.

I'd like to learn more about the details of the boosting system. And are they not going to have a single player campaign?
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Unread postby Nervicide » 29 Oct 2009 15:40

Futuremark Talk Shattered Horizon

Interview with the lead designer, he answers questions regarding the hardware requirements and gives some info on how the game will play.

We’ve been reading the comments on the forums and people seem to be responding well to the idea of a realistic space game. If anything, they are pushing for even more realism. “No sound!” for example. We heard that a lot in the beta as well but with certain aspects you have to make a choice between making the game realistic and making it fun.

No sound seems like something that would be very cool, but it’s actually very hard to play an FPS without those audio cues. With a nod at maintaining realism our solution was to give the player’s suit “audio simulation”. The idea is that your suit detects the environment around you and intelligently simulates the audio as an essential tool for awareness and self-preservation.

Even so, during the beta the voices asking for a silent mode were pretty loud so we added a “silent running” feature that lets you power down your suit and disable the audio simulation to gain some stealth advantage while sacrificing radar, HUD and maneuverability. Players looking for that ultimate space feeling should definitely give that a try.

I like the sound of that, it takes the Halo radar a bit further. There's no single player campaign, they say it's too difficult for a freshly hatched team. They don't say much about the jetpack either, apart from it being easy to use.

As for the visuals, clearly there are better looking fps games that require less machine power. Even ones that were released almost two years ago like Crysis. These guys made 3DMark and that piece of software was designed to stress your computer, now they have to do the opposite and optimize till they drop under the desk exhausted. Something they don't intend to do unfortunately, the lazy bastards.

A bit of a jump back in the 90's. I know of three cool Zero G shooters with maze levels from that period. Descent was the champ, followed by the hectic Radix with Pyrotechnica dragging on a distant third. Radix was pretty cool considering its engine limitations -- you can't rotate upside down because the engine is 2.5D, but the ability to spam rockets like a lunatic in huge areas makes up for it, vid here. I really like the level design in this one, very wide and uncanny.
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Unread postby icycalm » 29 Oct 2009 21:23

Nervicide wrote:fps


Banned.
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