GUNDAM 0079:
THE WAR
FOR EARTH
Presto Studios
Pippin / Playstation
MOBILE SUIT GUNDAM has become somewhat of an institution in the anime sci-fi genre. It is also one of Bandai's largest franchises, and recently the license was granted to Presto Studios to create a new game. Called "GUNDAM 0079: THE WAR FOR EARTH," it revisits the events of the One Year War in the GUNDAM storyline. The game will be released on the Macintosh, Playstation, and Pippin platforms, and is expected to be released early 1997.
This isn't the first
GUNDAM game to hit the market, though most of
them consist of strategy games released for the Super Famicom. The Sega
Saturn GUNDAM game is a side-scrolling affair,
while the Playstation version is the closest thing to a Gundam simulation.
This time around, Presto and Bandai decided to take a much more cinematic
approach.
A Side-7 Colony.
Presto Studios is best
known for the award-winning JOURNEYMAN
PROJECT,
and their new game has the same "movie" look and feel of their previous
efforts, with a nice rendered introduction, plenty of CG animation, and
live actors spliced in as blue-screen composites. Bandai supplied
several consultants and translators for the project as well as plenty of
reference material, including toys, videos, and storyboards. The early
80's designs were cleaned up and updated for modern sensibilities, in a
fashion similar to what was done for GUNDAM 0083
and the 08th MS Team.
The CG team referred mostly to GUNDAM 0083 for the
lighting effects on
the thrusters and weapons, which were later recreated in Alias 3D, while
the original F91 storyboards were used as reference during the
storywriting.Due to the size of the
pre-rendered scenes, the entire story couldn't
be told, with the game ending in North America (although considering
Buried in Time shipped on 3 CDs, one has to wonder why they had to
limit themselves to one disc). Future sequels are being discussed,
mostly dependant on how well the first game does. Some creative license
was allowed by Bandai during the storywriting; for beginners, YOU become
the Gundam pilot rather than Amuro Rei. Later on, the White Base is
shot down by huge gun called the Thor Cannon, a new addition made to the
game. As a result, the White Base crashlands in Las Vegas (in the
remains of the Luxor hotel!) rather than to land on the East Coast as in
the original story.After the panel ended,
Mark Simmons, GUNDAM guru extraordinaire, walked
up to the panelists to talk with them. The story writer,
Eric Dallaire, recognized his name and volunteered that they had used
the Gundam Project
heavily for reference.
Jion Musai Cruiser.
The bane of most games using live actors is the voice acting; while the faces of the actors looked fairly appropriate for the characters they were playing, the voices seemed somewhat forced (with Char coming across as being too pompous rather than the cool villain he is in the actual show). Fortunately, the 3D modelling is top notch, and the lighting effects are very nice, although the kinks in the motion capture need to be worked out (the movement is often jerkier than what one'd see in the actual animation). There is also some good use of Quicktime VR for the navigation during the Las Vegas scene when the Gundam is maneuvering the streets trying to get out of the city.
A civilian stumbles upon a secret Federation base.
Although it's too
early to comment on actual gameplay, the game looks
very pretty. It may not be in the same league as Wing Commander IV
(though admittedly not everyone has 14 million to spend on a game!), but
the atmosphere of GUNDAM has been brought
across mostly intact. If
Presto Studios pulls this off successfully, I'm sure there will be
plenty of eager GUNDAM fans waiting to buy it
when it's released. Definitely worth checking out.--Keith Rhee
