Gfx courtesy of my wife, Frieda Christofides, she rocks!
Updated 6/11/98!
Send me any comments or corrections
Well, since I'm writing this as Freewill, not Jose Miguel Chavez, the slant will obviously be towards Bungie's presence at the Electronic Entertainment Expo. I will also mention Double Aught's new game, Duality. I have a few extras just for laughs. Alot of what I'm writing about is expansion on what I initially sent to the Codex, Voracious Rabbits, and Lophan's Myth websites. If you click on the few links that point to graphic files and not pages, use your browser's back button to get you back here. Anyway, here goes...
Bungie
I've been a big fan of Bungie from way back in the Pathways Into Darkness days. I've seen them at a majority of shows, and I've even joked that I'm their "official expo stalker." Alexander Seropian is a great guy and the few times I've brought my son with me, he wasn't annoyed and actually played with him a bit, which is a better attitude than most exhibitors, trust me.
Anyway, the reason I mention my history with Bungie is to express my joy when I saw that their booth was WAY larger then it ever was before. I asked Doug Zartman and he confirmed it. Way to go Bungie! I'm sure the success of Myth has helped them considerably; their plan to rule the world is definitely on track. I would guess their space was about 40x40 feet. They had 9 machines in banks of 3, 3 more machines than usual all connected via TCP/IP. The centerpiece of the booth was a bank of 16 monitors, 4x4, looping a promo video of Myth:TFL and the new Bungie West project, Oni.
I read on someone else's E3 report that Myth II:Soulblighter was running on Macs. Not from what I saw. They were all Dell PCs outfitted with Creative's new Voodoo2 3D Card. [Macs don't have Voodoo2 cards yet, but RSN] BTW, one difference I've noticed between Mac's and PC's in regards to Myth that no one else seems to bring up is that sound processing is significantly improved on the Mac. Replay a film where Berzerks gang up on some units, and listen for the 'ra-tat-tat-tat' of their broadsword hits overlapping each other. It's quite a thrill. On a PC, I've never heard this effect. I think a Mac has at least 4 channels of sound. I don't know if PC sound cards can handle that, or maybe Bungie couldn't count on such a feature existing on your PC for them to bother incorporating it. Anyway, this is not a call for Platform bashing. If you feel the need to, you can settle it on the battlefield. Heh. [CORRECTION! Samurai Cat sets me straight: one bank of 3 machines were Macs! Gack!]
Back to E3. They had a pamphlet for Myth II:Soulblighter. These are big files, but here they are: Front and back. They were also handing out stickers. This same logo was emblazoned on the shirts the Bungie folks were wearing. To top it off, they had a flag made with the logo. My brother Manny holds it up here. I think the latin has already been translated, probably over at Hamish's Marathon Story page but thanks to Twrch who emailed me the translation: it's the infamous "Don't make us kick your ass!". As an aside, I still say they should hire actors to portray Berzerks, fir'Bolg and dwarves. Wouldn't that be a riot? Heh, maybe I'm alone in this...
As I walked around their open booth, I noticed BIG standups of some Myth characters. I posed next to Soulblighter, and took a picture of a Trow and the new character that we think is now called a Feeb, although when I asked Tuncer Deniz [No pix! Doh!] about it, he said it definitely isn't a Myrkridian and was as yet unnamed.
The only other significant thing at the booth was a wall with reference drawings of the units in Myth II:Soulblighter. [UPDATE: My apoIogies, there was never a sign specifically stating these units are only in Myth II. They might have come from Myth I as well. I'm not sure since I never asked. :(] collected images of the new units here. I apologize for the blurriness of the shots.
FYI, I did take some monitor shots of Myth II:Soulblighter, but my little instamatic's flash ruined each shot with monitor glare. The only decent shot I have is of my brother [known as Asskicker on Bungie.net] playing one of the solo levels. Kicking ass as contractually obligated! I'm going to have to finally bite the bullet and lug a real SLR next time. Yeah, I also promised myself I'd bring a video camera, but that has yet to happen! You know how it is. Two other Myth-ers, Roofus and Joram have a site with much better monitor pix. Click here to go to it.
I had the pleasure of meeting Satan of Son's of Myrgard and Samurai Cat! Satan has the distinction of hosting the first Heavenly Host netgame on Myth II! Unfortunately, I forgot to snap some pictures. Doh! He and I both mentioned that the multiplayer interface now sports a "Ready" button. What I don't think anyone else has mentioned yet is that there's a "Lock Team" button as well! We didn't try it, but I imagine it lets a capt close a team's roster and prevent others from hopping on at the last minute. Clever!
My review of the Myth II:Soulblighter maps shown at E3
So whats my final impression of Myth II:Soulblighter? Well, call my cynical but I get the feeling what we saw at E3 wasn't even close to what we will see at Macworld Expo in the next few months. Why? 2 hints, and they're both from Jason Jones [No pix! Sorry!]: (1) He kept playing Myth I! Solo levels like Across the Ghol and Shadow of the Mountain. I got the impression he wasn't satisfied with Myth II:Soulblighter enough to actually play it. [I'll concede that maybe after nearly a year of development he's so sick of looking at Myth II that Myth I looks fresher to him, but still!] (2) Near the end of the show, I asked him how he thinks Bungie did. To paraphrase his answer: "This show was really for the PR folks. The games here are all fluff." I don't think he was putting down his own game, I just think he didn't think there was enough of substance to really crow about yet. Another clue: Isn't it interesting that all the official screenshots Bungie is releasing don't look at all like what we played at E3? The drawbridge screenshot we've all seen has those heron units. We played with stygian knights. The knights seem to be stronger warriors, not much else. Methinks the Heron units might be a little slicker, but they weren't ready for primetime yet.
My last Jason Jones quote is a biggee! I mentioned to him that last year he and others thought Myth would not attract the level of dissection that Marathon did, and wasn't he surprised at how players could still find stuff in Myth to dissect. His [paraphrased] reply: "This new game I'm working on now has more of a Marathon-like storyline." [BIG GRIN]
Double Aught
The President of Double Aught is Greg Kirkpatrick, who as many of you know (or should know!) was one of the forces behind Bungie's Marathon Infinity as well as having a hand in Marathon 2: Durandal. Chris Geisel [no pix, sorry!] and Dave Longo have also had a hand in Marathon and now work for Double Aught. The fact that such a creative force is at work on their upcoming first-person shooter game Duality has kept my interest piqued. They're based in Brooklyn, as I myself am, but I never had the pleasure of meeting them until now.
The booth was sparse but had a distinct look to it. The game uses a portal-based engine that allows for very organic shapes. In the spirit of that, the booth was itself shaped organically. It was cool. They had a Mac and a PC running a demo film of the game. They had a lone PC with a black monitor running the film up front. They also had a sticker and a brochure. The brochure files are big but since you're hardcore, here they are anyway: front cover, inside, and outside (both front and back) cover.
Needless to say, the game looks mighty impressive! Although there were no playable levels and no monster units being shown, the visual look and feel is very much on the mark. Everything is just so darn eerie! And like the kind of game fright I used to get playing Marathon in the middle of the night with all the lights turned off and my headphones on, this game will offer the same. They were shopping the game around to some publishers and when last I spoke with them they mentioned they had a few interested parties lined up. I wish them well and hope we get to see the game soon! It would be nice to be a Duality vidmaster. Heh!
Miscellaneous
Thrill Kill, one of the sickest, if not the sickest game previewed at E3! Imagine Mortal Kombat 4 on crack and some Viagra chewables with a heroin chaser and you've got a pretty good idea of what to expect of this game. The publisher had a long line of people looking to get a glimpse of what is essentially a 3D fighter game with some very sick combinations. The locale is a corrupt criminally insane mental institution, and your choice of fighters are all inhabitants of this god-forsaken place. One fighter is a nurse, who carries a shock-stick as her weapon. When she shocks you, she pauses as she gets turned on watching you squirm! Another character is a cannibal. His weapon is some poor person's leg! Still another character has a scalpel. One of his combo's is a lightning fast flurry of scalpel cuts to the head. And the last character I saw was a muscle bound freak that would rip your arms off in a single pull or spin you by the legs so fast that you would tear off at the thighs! Yecch! Anyway, as part of their promo, they had some lewd characters show up for photographs. Heh.
Needless to say, this is not my cup of tea! I prefer more gentlemanly pursuits. Even so, some people say I'm attracted to the weirdest things, I don't care though; I tell them its for a higher purpose.
That pretty much wraps up this article, if you would call it that. My thanks to you for reading all the way to the end, and maybe we'll play on Bungie.net one day!
6/5/98 6PM Samurai Cat corrects my claim of there not being any macs in Bungie's booth.
6/11/98 Finally add the rest of the myth unit pics I took. Amend that the units might not be in Myth II only, but could also be from Myth I.
- Freewill
Updates: 6/5/98 Latin translation added. Removed CK from Duality info. Added Jihan Kim. That was embarrassing! :)
