July 2002

Black Hawk Down Preview....
Posted by [luckee] @ 8:54 AM MDT Sunday, July 28, 2002 [Comment on news]
The boys over at ign.com have written a cool preview for the up coming Blackhawk Down game. here’s a snip:

We've already covered many other aspects of Novalogic's upcoming shooter. This week we interviewed producer Wes Eckhart and the two Subject Matter Experts, consultants who have a connection with the world the game emulates, and they all shared their thoughts on the state of the game. But as they say, the proof is in the playing. Fortunately, the gang at Novalogic were more than happy to put their own deadlines aside for a day and help us get our feet wet in the game's single and multiplayer modes. We also got the chance to head out to the motion capture session and we've got movies of that in our media section.

The day began with a meeting with lead artist Jason Monroe and art director Chris Tamburrino. The pair obviously have a great deal of enthusiasm for what they do and, rather than frustrating with us with a lot of discussion or orientation, they just jumped right into the game and started showing us things that other developers often try only to talk about. Good sports that they are, they even let us try it all out for ourselves.

Jason and Chris began by loading up the first stage in the game's three-part end level, Sweet Irene. It recreates, at least in general terms, the same sort of action featured in the movie and book -- namely, a crashed Black Hawk and the rescue of stranded soldiers. But maybe that's getting too far ahead...even if we are starting by talking about the end of the game.

The mission begins at a Delta Force camp. Transport planes sit parked in nearby hangars while jeeps drive back and forth across the runway. You're instructed to take your place along the skids of a Little Bird parked some distance away. As our soldier ran up to the helicopter, the developers pointed out that his weapon were pointed down at the ground. This is the first of many influences the SMEs have had on the project. None of them would run with their gun in the ready state, especially when that might present danger to civilians or other Delta Force operatives. For added safety therefore, you'll need to hit a key to bring up a weapon, hit it again to raise it and hit it a third time to change the rate of fire.Source:Shacknews.com
You can read the rest here.