Gettting to grips with the 21st century FPS
S Marine corps officer Steve Fletcher and top-rated mercenary Austin Hawke join up in a battle against international terrorism.
They are Europe's last line of defence, tasked to stop a deadly nuclear package before it reaches its destination, London. The potential of killing hundreds of thousand innocents has become reality.
“The Mark”, a first person shooter for PC, is about the real threat from today – terrorism. The war of the 21st century is now being fought; and it’s here.
1. Firstly, could you introduce yourself to our readers?
Some questions have been answered by Andrzej Wilewski – the manager and lead programmer of the team – and some by Jacek Matuszewski, the QA and test guy.
2. Where did the idea of creating The Mark come about?
It was combination of people’s ideas really. We wanted to create a shooter that would stand out from the rest, especially futuristic and WWII games which are now common place. We wanted to create something that would represent modern day reality, taking into consideration the current political agendas and threats, in a plot that people could relate to.
It actually took far longer than expected to polish out the scenario themes but we are now happy with the story flow and we are finding it more and more exciting as new ideas and unique aspects evolved......
3. We've seen a list of features for The Mark, could you give us more details on these?
The first feature worth raising to the player is that of the two lead characters. The story rolls alongside them both and they contrast well against each other. The first (Fletch) is the die hard marine type, and the other (Hawke) a professional mercenary. The heroes often fight alongside each other, yet certain missions they’re separated and have to play missions on their own. During game-play the player has opportunities to switch the character he plays and see the story from different perspectives (including different missions), so depending on your choice, the game can appear to unravel differently each time you play!
The game’s also very varied. When playing as one of the heroes, you own a plane and so can jump around Europe and the Middle East in order to save the day and enflict your vengeance. Level surroundings, enemies and gameplay differ a lot too offering the player many hours of fun. Still all this has a strong and unique plot, that holds the player tightly and keeps the entrigue button ‘switched on’.
Click for larger image4. What can you tell us about the graphical and physics features?
Due to the different environments, a huge amount of attention has been put into graphics. We tried to make the locations as detailed as possible, with careful texturing and lighting. Obviously the places are based on reality, and adopted for gameplay – we used tons of pictures, even taking trips to places to document them on our own (for instance the in-game castles where we took hundreds of photos for the purpose of texturing alone!). On the other hand we wanted to avoid making the graphics overly drab and dreary, so we made our choice and selected them carefully.
As for the physics – apart from the obvious rigid body physics (realistically moving crates, boxes, cans etc) and rag doll physics (natural physics of dead characters, for instance) present in The Mark, we used physics for more spectacular tasks. Exploding a castle tower or an underground bridge with a huge bulldozer are the first that spring to mind !!
5. What are the current system requirements for The Mark?
Not too big. Pixel shader 2.0 video adapter is minimal, though 3.0 pixel shader video adapter with 256 MB of RAM is recommended for the visual feast. A current P4/2,8GhZ class processor is fine. 512 MB of RAM is sufficient (1GB recommended for fluent play). Of course 3D sound card helps to hear directional sound and network adapter is required for network play.
Click for larger image6. What kind of support do you plan to give once the game is released?
We already have already established a customer support e-mail system. In addition to any general support the publisher offers.
7. Is it likely gamers will get a chance to try out the game before it's released?
This is very probable, although the final decision rests with the Publisher.
Continued...