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 | Rubicon Volunteers - Arrival | |
| Posted By: Steve Levinson | Date: 6/25/02 3:43 p.m. |
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This is just a teaser of more things to come. Here is the first chapter screen from Rubicon - Arrival:
This is the first of many chapter screens in Rubicon. Notice the fine detail, here. The Rubicon Team obviously invested as much in graphic design as they did in level design - well, maybe that's an exaggeration, but the quality is as professional as anything produced by Bungie. It's interesting that the Rubicon Team chose to use the same name for the first chapter as Bungie did with the first game in the Marathon trilogy. This is clearly a case of de ja vu all over again, so the name is apt. You arrive in the midst of a battle zone in which a UESC ship is under attack by the Pfhor. The situation is not unlike what is encountered when the marine first enters the Marathon, with broken equipment, flickering lights and the enemy everywhere. In addition, the player must deal with new elements not present in the original Marathon level Arrival – deadly drones, sections of the ship under water, copious debris and a lot more territory to cover. Rubicon takes full advantage of the advances seen in M2 and Infinity. Let’s take a closer look at this particular chapter screen. It shows the Marine standing in front of one of the new Rubicon textures that bears a striking resemblance to the original M1 ship, reinforcing the connection to the past. The Marine is standing in a crouched position (too bad the actual game doesn’t support this), holding what would appear to be the new assault rifle. Hmm . . . We’re sent down with only a single magnum, and aren’t supposed to get the AR until the next level. There is the secret path in Honk if You're an Underpaid Cyborg that leads to the AR, but this is late in the level. Keep in mind that this is a chapter screen, however and, trust me, you’ll be spending a lot of time in the first chapter using the AR! Overlaid on the marine is some sort of a diagram. There is what appears to be a scale on the vertical axis with values ranging from 0.65X at the bottom to 0.15X at the top. I’m not sure what these numbers refer to, and would gladly accept opinions from everyone and clarification from Scott or Chris on this. There are also 3 interconnected grid boxes – these could either be some sort of a schematic diagram, some sort of a map, a computer visual analysis of the marine with 3 focus areas (right hand, left leg and the end of the AR), or a targeting grid. There are also some alphanumeric elements here. One of these, in at the upper end of the vertical axis, seems to read
Hmm . . . Another, near the center of the scale, reads
Don’t hold me to these numbers, as they’re small and imprecise. At the bottom of the axis is
Does anyone out there have better eyesight and/or more of an insight into what these mean? One final touch – there is a series of horizontal lines on the left seemingly pointing toward the marine. There are dim, vertical arrows attached to this. My best guess is that this is a computer-generated view of the marine. It most likely represents a Durandal’s eye, Haller’s eye, S’pht’s eye, drone’s eye or, most intriguing of all, Tycho’s eye view of the marine. Anyone else have thoughts on this?
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| Replies: |
| Rubicon Volunteers - Arrival | Steve Levinson | 6/25/02 3:43 p.m. |
| Re: Rubicon Volunteers - Arrival | Inverted Sock Puppet | 6/26/02 12:49 a.m. |
| Re: Rubicon Volunteers - Arrival | Steve Levinson | 6/26/02 7:48 a.m. |
| Re: Rubicon Volunteers - Arrival | Inverted Sock Puppet | 6/27/02 12:31 a.m. |
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