Must-Have Motorcycle Racing Game for 3D Board Owners Leaves Rivals in the Dust
ATLANTA- (May 28, 1998) E3 Booth #7116-Brace yourself for a desktop motorcycle racing experience that will rattle your teeth, dazzle your eyes and wrap you in more virtual leather than a Hell's Angel! Redline Racer, the arcade-quality motorcycle racing game for the PC developed by Criterion Studios and published by Ubi Soft Entertainment, hits the pavement in August, and it will shatter every standard in the genre.
Designed specifically to exploit the powers of 3D hardware accelerator cards, including the new 3D Accelerated Graphics Port (AGP), Redline Racer offers eye-popping 3D graphics with as many as 12,000 polygons per scene, blistering speeds of 30 to 60 frames per second, and physics-based modeling that allows any bike in the game to handle a curve or grip the gravel like a real motorcycle with an open throttle. Play it solo, or duke it out with up to seven other players via two-computer direct link connections, modem, local LAN or over the Internet.
"There's a you-are-there feeling in this game that will knock your socks off," said Sebastien Provencher, Ubi Soft's Product Manager for Redline Racer. "Today's hardware accelerators make it possible to create a true arcade experience in the home, and Redline Racer cashes in on that technology to give gamers a rip-roaring good time."
Redline Racer features 10 challenging tracks set in six richly rendered 3D environments that include sandy beaches, Alpine mountains, English country lanes and desert canyons. The striking, detail-filled visuals are the product of Criterion's proprietary RenderWare® engine, an achievement that was five years in the making.
A single bike and rider consist of about 2,000 polygons, more than some games have in their whole environments. Each frame contains between 4,000 and 12,000 polygons, depending on graphics settings and levels, delivering a range of detail that is a quantum leap beyond the norm. All of the textures have been created to 24-bit accuracy for killer color. These technical capabilities made it possible for Redline Racer's artists to model game worlds replete with things like complex true 3D bridges, houses and caves as well as realistically winding tracks.
This realism is enhanced with weather conditions like hazardous blizzards, sun glare that actually hinders visibility, and night lighting that forces you to use your headlights. There are also animated objects like helicopters, trains and birds that hover in the background, plus an array of spectacular special effects. Tires trail in the sand, skid marks remain on the road, smoke pours from the bikes' engines, and grit and dust are thrown up by the bikes' wheels in a spray so lifelike that it practically stings. One of the tracks even has an undulating sea that rolls in and out in real time. (Watch out: you might wipe out on the waves!)
Each bike's interaction with the environment is completely natural, eliminating the drive-your-bike-around-the-track syndrome, and the 10 courses require vastly different handling, from periodic braking to full throttle. Thanks to the game's physics-based modeling, each chopper also handles differently according to whether the terrain is dry, wet or icy. You can skid like an ATV on a frozen pond, get thrown off the back of your bike in a wheelie, or crash in a style worthy of a demolition derby.
The game gives you a choice of eight different superbikes, each with different engine and wheel sizes, gear ratios, torque curves, breaking speed, turning angles, grip and so on. There are also six very special hidden vehicles, 16 fully animated male and female characters, three levels of difficulty, and Arcade, Time Trial and Multiplayer modes. As an added bonus, gamers also will be able to download four new bikes and characters at the Ubi Soft Web site (http://www.ubisoft.com) as soon as the game is released. Two more bikes and characters will be made available in the following months.
Minimum system requirements include a Pentium 133MHz with a 3Dfx card (Pentium 166MHz with other 3D accelerator cards), Windows 95 or 98, 16MB RAM, a 4-speed CD-ROM drive and 16-bit sound card. A Pentium 166 MHz with 32MB RAM and a 3Dfx card is recommended. The game also supports force feedback joysticks and Aureal 3D sound.
Ubi Soft Entertainment is a European-based producer, publisher and international distributor of interactive entertainment products. The company has offices in 13 countries including France, the United States, Canada, Germany, England and China, and sells its products in a total of 47 countries. The company is best known in the U.S. for Rayman, a blockbuster action/adventure game for all ages that debuted in 1995, and POD, a revolutionary online multiplayer racing game that enables up to eight players to compete directly over the Internet. Products are available through a nationwide network of resellers and distributors. For more information, call Ubi Soft at 514/490-0886 or 800/UBI-SOFT or visit the company web site at http://www.ubisoft.com.
