For Clancyland, a game-to-novel pipeline
Article Abstract:
Red Storm is preparing Tom Clancy's $49.95 Rainbow Six CD-ROM strategy action game for an Aug 1998 release. The PC game for Windows 95 requires players to direct a counterterrorist task force from among 20 skilled international operatives. The object is to eliminate the terrorists, rescue the hostages and escape alive amid an escalating real-time action mode that features numerous technological environments. A straightforward approach requires players to navigate themselves through the environments by relying on strategy and action. Red Storm will release Rainbow Six as part of a multimillion-dollar cross-promotional merchandising campaign which includes a hardback novel of the same title written by Clancy and additional releases scheduled for fall 1998. Movie discussions already have begun, and Red Storm is planning a sequel
Publication Name: The New York Times
Subject: Business, general
ISSN: 0362-4331
Year: 1998
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In toys' micro world, a macro wallop of reality
Article Abstract:
Midway Games's $54.99 Micro Machines V3 for Sony Playstation differs from other racing games by featuring vehicles taking hairpin turns around billiard balls on a giant pool table. The vehicles, based on a real line of Galoob wind-up toys, dodge snails, dragonflies and bumblebees in a computer-generated sandbox. Illusion plays a more viable role in this miniature game because users lack a real-world frame of reference. Objects such as a desk's edge can induce vertigo, and the vehicles can encounter danger throughout the everyday terrain. By comparison, the Newman Haas Racing game for the Playstation requires less imagination for users who have watched Indy car events on television. Immersive games like Micro Machines V3 make the visual information more arbitrary and the medium more forgiving toward changing the scale.
Publication Name: The New York Times
Subject: Business, general
ISSN: 0362-4331
Year: 1998
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Holding the reins of reality
Article Abstract:
GT Interactive's $49.95 Unreal is an interesting action game even if played on a no-frills Pentium 166 machine, but it becomes truly outstanding on a 200MHz computer with a 3-D accelerator card. In spite of its name, under those conditions, Unreal becomes hyperreal: everything seen and heard becomes sharpened. Moreover, the game comes with a construction kit called Unreal Ed, which lets a user build new levels of the game with easy-to-use tools that only require pointing and clicking. A user can start with a three-dimensional grid, import geometric shapes and add properties to them, such as height, radius, reflectiveness or translucency. Shapes can be made solid or not, textures can be added, and various permutations of light.
Publication Name: The New York Times
Subject: Business, general
ISSN: 0362-4331
Year: 1998
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