00:00Having fun? And who are we pretending to be today? Laura? Snake?
00:19And simulation? No, just a journalist on the run from our evil producer.
00:25Touchy. Well, if you're done with your little holographic game of hide and seek, why don't you tell the viewers what's in this issue?
00:31No problem. Hey gang, in this issue, check out Eco. We got the lowdown from the developers in Japan.
00:37Then I flew over to Naughty Dog to hang out with the creators of Jack and Daxter.
00:41For those of you who thought the 360 camera we used at E3 in our last issue was cool, the folks at Enroute showed us how they're using it to give you a head-spinny look at things.
00:51Head-spinning, huh? It's kind of like an exorcist cam. You know, with the head spinning.
00:56Begin simulation. Now, where did I leave that laser?
01:02The PlayStation 2 was released with the potential to create stunning worlds,
01:30with the potential to create stunning worlds that game players have never seen before.
01:34Now, there's a game where that potential has been realized.
01:37ICO is a new game from SEI that puts the player in a wondrous fantasy world
01:41on a quest to save a princess and themselves.
01:45The story of ICO begins in a small village.
01:48Every generation of boys born with horns on his head.
01:51The boys believed to be evil,
01:53and the villagers sacrifice him to cleanse the village of evil spirits.
02:00The boys led away to a castle to be sacrificed.
02:10By sheer accident, he's able to escape.
02:22So now he's roaming the castle and trying to find a way out.
02:30However, and here this game differs from other games.
02:35There's another prisoner in the castle, a girl named Yorda.
02:45ICO meets her, and, hand in hand, the two of them try to escape from the castle.
02:49It's a different kind of story.
02:51Escape will not be easy.
02:55Yorda and ICO must first battle many enemies
02:57and solve a series of mind-bending puzzles to emerge safely from their prison.
03:01The castle is built on the edge of a cliff.
03:14On one side of it, there's a terrace with a majestic window.
03:20On the other side is a vast ocean.
03:22The sea breeze blows in, and the windmill turns.
03:28The castle walls tower above it.
03:30It's an extremely beautiful atmosphere.
03:33The place feels like a famous tourist attraction.
03:41Beyond the amazing scenery, the game is enhanced by the movement of objects,
03:44such as the swaying of hanging chains and the turning of the windmill.
03:47We were sure that this was done using motion capture, but we were wrong.
03:54Well, PlayStation 2 has incredible computing power,
03:57but if you import realistic physics into a game,
04:00you get something that you didn't expect.
04:02It's too realistic.
04:04The key is to present it so it looks believable,
04:07but it is still exciting gameplay.
04:09It took us a tremendous amount of time to master that balance.
04:17We obsessed over the look and feel of the game.
04:45We animated everything by hand to capture our imaginations,
04:50to bring to life what was happening inside our heads.
04:56In the beginning, you've got something that's been clearly and deeply imagined.
05:02We investigated a lot of different methods,
05:04developing different technical approaches to bring it to life on the screen.
05:08We worked really hard at it, and the result is the sort of game that you see.
05:12All of their work paid off.
05:15Eco shows off the graphical power of the PlayStation 2 to its fullest.
05:18Be sure to take a look at this beautiful world for yourself.
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07:17The most interesting thing about Kinetica is that the vehicles are actually kinetic
07:20suits that the riders meld into.
07:22That's giving the rider incredible agility.
07:24In most racing games, the vehicles are kind of boring.
07:27I mean, they're cars.
07:28You know, the wheels turn.
07:29That's really about the only animation that you have on the vehicle.
07:32We have very animated characters.
07:34They're people.
07:35They have wheels attached to the skins.
07:37The entire body moves when they do a turn.
07:39And we had to develop an animation system that allowed us to do that.
07:42But Kinetica isn't just about going fast.
07:45As you're racing, you can perform stunts.
07:47And if you want to win, you'd better get your tricks down.
07:49Because more tricks mean more speed.
07:52Most of the aspects of this game are about speed.
07:54So the stunts, the amount of stunts you do, play a direct role in how much boost you have.
08:03It all depends on the look of the bike.
08:05Each of the bikes have eight unique stunts.
08:08She can do back flips.
08:09There's all sorts of figure skating stunts.
08:11We've used ballet a little bit for some reference material for us.
08:14Triple toe loops.
08:16While you're performing stunts and racing, you'll also need to keep your eyes open for power-ups scattered along the tracks.
08:21We have boost pads throughout the track.
08:24And they're pretty much self-explanatory.
08:27You drive over those and they push up the horsepower of the bikes quite a bit.
08:32You can also siphon boost from the turbo pads.
08:36If you press one of the control buttons while you're driving over a pad, you can suck the turbo into the bike to be used at a later date rather than use it at the same time.
08:44And we also have crystals throughout the track.
08:47And once you pick up five of those, it goes into kind of a slot machine deal.
08:51There are some offensive attacks as well.
08:55You can pick up a burst attack, which allows you to knock other bikes out of the way, spin them out of control.
09:01There's an infinity boost, which basically allows you to just keep pushing it and keep going faster and faster.
09:10Super boost, which ups the speed of the boost even more.
09:13And then we have drafting, which forms a draft cone behind the bikes ahead of you.
09:18And if you can maneuver within that cone, you also get more boosts.
09:23Kinetica has a unique control system.
09:25Why don't you help separate it from the pack of racing games out there?
09:28In order to make the bikes feel very fluid and animated, we're using that sensitivity of the analog stick.
09:36So that if you lean slightly over, the bike will only move slightly.
09:39If you lean the whole way over, the bike will turn very hard.
09:42We're actually using both of the dual shock analog sticks.
09:45The left one for steering and the right one for braking and acceleration.
09:49And then to perform tricks, roll down the R1.
09:53And then at that point, that takes away the control of the bikes maneuvering from the left stick.
09:58And at that point, you do similar to fighting game type moves to perform stunts.
10:03So sweeps and back and forth.
10:05And then at that point, all you have to do is make sure that you finish a stunt and let go of that button before you land it.
10:12With all of this blazingly fast action on the screen, Kinetica takes advantage of all the power of the PlayStation 2.
10:18The PS2 changed the way that we made the game very considerably.
10:22We had to deal with many, many more polygons than we did on PlayStation 1 games.
10:27Kinetica is pushing upwards of 15 million polygons a second.
10:31Our main characters, the bikes in the game, have 10,000 polygons for their highest level of detail.
10:36There are 12 bikes on screen at any one time.
10:38We were throwing more polygons into one bike than we threw into the entire scene on the PlayStation.
10:43Overall, it just made the game look infinitely better.
10:47Kinetica is an amazingly beautiful game with levels that you could never imagine.
11:03We asked Quinn and Tim to tell us about their favorites.
11:06I really like the space station levels. We end up doing this thing where you open up into these pods and you have a lot of alternative paths to get through them.
11:15Kinetica is different than other racing games because of the fact that we've allowed people to drive on walls.
11:22Pretty much go where they feel they want to.
11:25The levels that take place in the power station have some really trippy effects in them.
11:30Very interesting environment to race in. It's very kind of neon and glowing.
11:35It's really, those levels are really nice. I think those are probably my favorites.
11:39Kinetica is a completely original game and we think it will blow you away.
11:43So get ready to strap on your kinetic suit and bust some huge tricks.
12:13The PlayStation 2 is more than just a video game console. It's a complete entertainment system.
12:20Last issue, we featured a new technology that will expand what our PlayStations can do.
12:25This issue, we thought we'd tell you a little more about it.
12:28First person video is a 360 degrees maneuverable video where the viewer can control which direction they would like to see.
12:35Unlike a normal video, it is an active viewing experience.
12:39You're actually put into an environment rather than looking through a window at the environment.
12:49Initially, we created 360 still imagery and it was very interesting.
12:54You know, it actually brought a person to another space, but it was only a moment in space.
13:04Although Enroute designed and built specialized components for the cameras,
13:07panoramic cameras have been a goal of photographers for a long time.
13:10The concept of 360 degree cameras go back to the turn of the century.
13:15So the building of the camera was just refining the technologies and our needs.
13:22But Enroute needs more than amazing cameras to create first person video.
13:25Once the video has been shot, there's still a lot of work to be done.
13:32Then we take, in this case, eight video streams and we run it through our process that seamlessly stitches all the images together into one video.
13:41And then the human operator has to do that last little tweaking and the mind can detect some very small errors.
13:50So he has to sit in there and just give it that final, last little tweak.
13:54And then once he gets that thing set up, then the computer can take over.
14:03When Enroute was looking for a machine to play back their first person videos,
14:06they decided that they needed the power of the PlayStation 2.
14:09Well, initially we were looking for a platform that met several criteria.
14:14And the PS2 had enough horsepower to make this possible.
14:17Our technology is pretty limitless.
14:19It's going to be the consumer that's going to drive the uses of this technology.
14:30I'm looking forward to working with the most creative people we can find to see how far we can push this thing.
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