Striker : a soccer game by Rage Software.
Rage are about to hit the premier league of football software with the 3do version of its hit Amiga footie game,STRIKER.
The Bootle based development company is headed by Paul Finnigen,who helped found Ocean in the early eighties and comprises a 24 person strong team. But even this core group is coming under pressure, due to the emergence of the new systems over the next year, and is looking to expand by another 10 to 15 members.
"As eveyone knows now the industry has been going through a period of limbo between the 16-bit and future systems.But with the emergence of the 32 and 64 bit systems this year and next, the industry is going to enter a very exciting time" predicts Finnegan.
Striker on the 3DO has been in development for the past six months ,since the arrival of the programming hardware from Japan.
The entire team express enthusiasm for the new CD-ROM based Console as it removes their dependance on chip manufacturers and the economic constraints therein.
"At the end of the day"remarks Paul "Software companies have taken the blame for the price of the chips".
Importantly CD Rom based systems,he suggests,mean great value for money for the all important consumer.
The team is equally excited at the prospect of the increase in power. Striker on 3DO has enabled Rage to create visuals that were just a dream back in the days of the early Amiga and Atari ST.
Essentially the teams desire is to create the gameplay, renowed on the older formats, but with the sense of reality generated by the 3DO`s custom graphic chips. To highlight this point ,the opening sequence consists of a high speed flight into a fully rendered football stadium and arrival in front of the scoreboard to witness FMV footage taken from the FA and BBC Granstand archives.
On the field the graphics are equally impressive combining a pitch looking like it actually is made from grass with scrolling that moves rapidly whilst maintaining essential fluidity.
The playing angle is set moving up field at about 30 feet above ground level but zooms in to capture important action. To generate the player sprites, actors were used against a blue backdrop ,digitised and built up running at about 8 frames a second. Alongside the usual moves,headers and passes additional one touch pass feature has been included to add more pace.
Striker 3DO keeps up with the times by paying close attention to rule changes. In particular tackles from behind are now illegal resulting in an instant frrekick and a yellow card. The issue of defence plays a major role in the game, as for the first time a shielding option is present. A flick of the button allows the player to move around the ball fending off the opposition a gives a striker valuable time to power up that vital shot. When a goal hits the back of the net and the crowd jubilation dies down an action replay in true TV tradition. Covering at present 4 angles, the view is quite spectacular.
After months of programming the team are over the moon about the end result "we are amazed at how lifelike the whole experience looks"says Paul,"with the digitised players, the film clips and the action replay its just like watching TV!
But as we speak the league table is beginning to fill and the playoffs start in the battle for the number one slot. Time doesnt stand still for the Rage team as the future holds more in store on the MegaDrive 32-bit add-on, the Saturn and Sony`s eagerly awaited PlayStation. Although nothing is confirmed at the present rumour has it that a version of Striker will appear on all three with another sports title and a shoot-em up possibly in development for the PS-X.
michel.buffa@essi.fr