Comanche 4 Preview
We travel to NovaLogic to test fly the latest game in the company's venerable Comanche series.
Released in 1992, NovaLogic's original Comanche: Maximum Overkill set standards for technological achievement in PC graphics and was one of the first games to successfully blend hard-core flight simulation elements with gameplay that many casual gamers found to be easily approachable. It was also the first time that voxels were used in a PC game, and at the time, the technology was nothing short of wondrous. Comanche's terrain engine allowed for gorgeous hills, mountains, rivers, and valleys to be drawn onscreen with relatively little performance drain on the computer that was running the game. In short, Comanche made NovaLogic an authority on mainstream military games. And even though the Sikorsky RAH-66 still isn't in full service, NovaLogic has released a number of iterations of its venerable Comanche game in the decade since its original release. Some would argue, however, that none have recaptured the essence of the first Comanche. With the recent announcement of Comanche 4, NovaLogic hopes to changes all that. Last month, we dropped by the company's Southern California offices to take a look at this promising flight-sim-action-game hybrid, and now that the game has been officially announced, we have the green light to talk about our visit.
Admittedly, there wasn't much to show of the game, as it was still early in its development cycle. NovaLogic had actually been working on the game for some time, but the company recently decided to scrap the project and start anew. That said, what we first noticed about Comanche 4 were its graphics. Even in its current stage, the game looks amazing and will very easily rival the visuals of Razorworks' eye-pleasing Enemy Engaged. While the final minimum system requirements for the game are still a mystery, producer Wes Eckhart pointed out that our build of the game was T&L only--that is, it would only run on a video card that supported transform and lighting. Obviously, by the time the game hits store shelves during this year's holiday season, the developer will have significantly streamlined Comanche 4's code to run on computer specs that are a little more down to earth. Still, the game looks great. Your chopper casts a realistic shadow that articulates along with the helicopter's movements onto the ground and all the objects below it. Lakes, rivers, and oceans are all transparent to a certain depth, and you can easily make out the wavy effects and real-time reflections on their surfaces. Even the jetwash from the Comanche's rotors will cause water and vegetation to scatter outward. Additionally, objects like bunkers and tanks will obviously deform under the might of your air-to-ground arsenal, and the terrain will be marked with black scars every time it's struck with a stray Hellfire rocket. It's a little ironic, perhaps, that NovaLogic has been able to achieve this level of visual splendor only after it has effectively ditched one of its favorite technological aspects: voxels. Comanche 4 will indeed be the first such game from NovaLogic not to feature any kind of voxel technology--the game is rendered using good-ol'-fashioned polygons. This move is certainly a smart one, since polygon-based terrain looks a lot more realistic than the jagged look of voxel terrain, despite the advancements in that particular technology on NovaLogic's part.
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- GameSpot Score7.7good
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Comanche 4 Movie 12
Flying close to the ground prevents the Comanche from being detected, unless it flies over some ground troops of course.
- Nov 1, 2001
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