Rockstar has partnered with NaturalMotion to use the latter company's euphoria engine in "upcoming next generation" games.
Employed in the recently revealed The Force Unleashed, euphoria simulates the human body and motor nervous system. It means that in-game characters are fully interactive and always react differently to external influences, ultimately leading to a more life-like experience for the player.
Specific reference to how euphoria "uses the processing power of PLAYSTATION 3 and Xbox 360" to simluate the human body and motor nervous system was made in the announcement.
While Rockstar is yet to name games using euphoria, its integration of the tech is well advanced.
I heard someone say a while ago that GTA was in danger of being boring.
If he would have been in the same room, i most surely would have slapped him (twice... three times maybe) with a wet fish pointing furiously.
I p**s my pants at the mere mention of the next-gen version of this, any how, it doesn't need to be next gen - san andreas is an incredible game *strokes chin*.
I have no doubt Rockstar will deliver the goods, (they have yet to let us down), but I feel they will need to implement certain gameplay features to truly make this stand out as a full sandbox title. Recently crackdown showed how the player could make up their own gameplay through experimentation while past GTA games, as fantastic as they were always kept to a rigid mission structure with no real scope for true sandbox gameplay. Hopefully this new euphoria technology will make a huge difference in engrosing the player in the game but I've yet to hear any news on any new directions for gameplay. A couple of new mission, jetskis and helicopters won't cut it in the jump to next gen consoles. I'm expecting something BIG from Rockstar.
I recently said that rockstar were as bad as EA for releasing a regular update of a mediocre game, so perhaps you are remembering me. Perhaps this will add a bit of quality to the series. Don’t count on anything other than an update though, new vehicles a bigger area to explore same clunky controls, crappy graphics. But if they are only just introducing this in GTA, it’s a little worrying as the game is supposed to be ready by the end of the year, which means that the staff will have to get their heads around new tech while they are working on the game. If this is the case then you should expect the game to be delayed into next year, so that they can iron out the bugs. Then again having an absolute ton of bugs in their games doesn’t seem to bother rockstar all that much. Personally I expect the game to be released on time broken or not. oh and how exactly does using someone else's stuff make rockstar genius?
I'm in agreement with android-sheep, the GTA series has appealed to me only in small doses. As far as polish goes the series has been notoriously lacking. I also find the challenges repetitive and devoid of any real mental challenge.
That said I don't think the series is really my style.
I think it's great they are looking into new areas, but they need to look @ the game play of the GTA series, after playing 5 games of, drive to blip on map pick blip up, drive back to blip, shoot some blips.....zzzzzz. it's gotta evolve in other places, & i dont mean working out & eating food!!!!!!
Copyright 2006 - 2009 Future Publishing Limited, Beauford Court, 30 Monmouth Street, Bath, UK BA1 2BW England and Wales company registration number 2008885
