The Codies’ new engine is so real you’ll be picking flies from your teeth...
You have to hand it to the Codemasters, they really know how to make a racing game as is proved by the hugely popular and incredibly successful Colin McRae series.
Well now the next game in the franchise is here and powered by the all new proprietary NEON engine which, say the Codies, will deliver graphics and realism on a scale not seen before. And the first title to take advantage of the NEON engine will be Colin McRae: DIRT, an off-road racing fest that is the hallmark of all the games in the series.
Time for a snippet from the press release, as they do the graphics engine/car engine puns just as well as I ever could...
Neon is a growling powerhouse of a game engine that will drive the next-generation of the series’ impeccable car handling, incredibly detailed vehicles and fantastic living environments. Neon is a multi-platform continuous technical development that’s already been in production for over 18 months with over 30 tech experts on the team. Neon is being used to build Colin McRae: DIRT from the ground up with technology developed exclusively for next-generation formats; there’s no adaptation of previous McRae tech in DIRT.
Neon will ensure that DIRT’s exhilarating mix of off-road race events will be compounded into one adrenaline rush of a video game with playability that’s true to the Colin McRae series. With more than 40 officially licensed vehicles covering 12 car class categories, fans of the McRae series will get their fix of throwing official 2WD, 4WD, Classic and RWD cars, including Colin McRae’s prototype R4 and Travis Pastrana’s X Games-winning Subaru Impreza, around the most challenging and treacherous rally stages around the world.
Click for larger imageSays Gavin Cheshire, Vice President of Codemasters Studios: “Neon delivers an engine that provides us with so much more scope and possibilities than an update of existing tech would have ever allowed. The most obvious result is in the visual detail and physics that produce incredible particle effects. Neon makes it possible to go into seemingly minute detail but will create the most realistic and involving environments in the racing genre.”
The Codemasters say that NEON will allow their developers to model locations and environments as accurately as possible, providing each with a unique look and feel, right down to the effects of the wind. But it’s not just graphical lushness under the bonnet of NEON as there’s also a real-time physics engine which can be used to model air movements, everything will be affected by the wind: exhaust smoke, trees, foliage, trackside flags, rainfall and the vehicles themselves. A car will create an air rush wake that will have an effect on everything it passes and also generate a real-time slipstream.
And it doesn’t just stop at realistic wind and all that... Impact from damage will see metal crumple, glass smash and everything that you collide with in the environment will be destroyed in a realistic way. Small trees snap and bend, grass can be flattened, wood will splinter and stone will be smashed, it’ll even wrap a car around a tree if the crash is serious enough.
Click for larger imageCheck back soon for more on Colin McRae: DIRT which is due for release this year. In the meantime, enjoy the screenies from the PS3 version, more of which are on the next page.
