MOONING IN 3-D
A Review of Under a Killing Moon
by Grant McCardell
Under A Killing Moon is, without a doubt, the best adventure game
yet made for the PC. Comprising four CD ROMs (2 GB!), this game
is not a mere combination of digitized video clips strung together
by a weak interface as are so many current interactive movies.
Instead, Under A Killing Moon plays much more like a traditional
graphic adventure game: you explore different locations, find
items, talk to characters, etc. in a fully interactive manner.
The locales are not digitized video, but are rendered scenes with
all the richness of either The Seventh Guest or Myst.
There is
an amazing difference, however. In The Seventh Guest one moved
from location to location along fixed paths, seeing the 3-D world
as pre-rendered video. Myst's screens, beautiful as they were,
were all pre-rendered and static: one interacted with a fixed
view. Under A Killing Moon, however, allows fully interactive
movement through the 3-D environment. The screens are rendered
from a first person perspective in REAL-TIME (!) as you walk
around. The feeling one gets from this is that of actually
being there in the same manner as Ultima Underworld or Doom.
Unlike Underworld or Doom, however, the scenes are not merely
ray-cast corridors and rooms, but fully 3-D locations rendered
with the type of detail seen in full fledged raytracing.
If this weren't remarkable enough, it's also done in SVGA (up to
640 x 480).
As a software designer with some knowledge of this subject, I can say that this sort of rendering has not been thought remotely possible to achieve in real-time. Even using Pentium processor speeds, detailed 3-D raytraced scenes can take hours if not days to render. Access has seemingly achieved the impossible. I can only guess at how this has been accomplished: the scenes seem to be rendered by a skillful combination of texture mapped ray-casting, some actual simplified ray-tracing, textured polygon rendering, and scaled sprite superposition of pre-rendered objects. The net effect is nothing short of amazing, and I would not be surprised if Access has developed some patentable rendering algorithms here.
Before you run out to buy this game, however, you should be warned that the hardware recommendations are rather advanced. The listed REQUIRED HARDWARE is not so extreme: a 25MHz 386 with a single speed CD ROM, 4 Mb RAM, an SVGA video card, and a sound card. I suspect, however, that playing this game on such a machine would be like trying to play Microsoft's Flight Sim 5 on a 286 (at least as regards moving around in the 3-D environment -- more on this later). The RECOMMENDED HARDWARE is more intimidating: a 66Mhz 486DX or BETTER (i.e. Pentium), a Double speed CD ROM, 16 Mb of RAM, a local bus SVGA card, and a 16 Bit Sound card. This review is based on game play on a 66MHz Pentium with a 64 Bit PCI local Bus ATI Video Card (which has excellent DOS video speed), 16 Mb of RAM, a 2X CD ROM and an SB16 sound card hooked into professional audio equipment. Even with this equipment, the frame rate is still jerky when displaying the movement aspects of the game in full 640x480 resolution. Fortunately, Access does allow you to tailor the size of the movement screen to the capabilities of your hardware.
For those of you who are wary of these hardware recommendations, Access does offer a CD demo of the game, available for $3-$4, that includes a $5 mail in rebate voucher if you decide to buy the full game. The demo allows you to experience the interactive 3-D movement from one scene and includes all the configuration options of the full game, so you'll know exactly how the game will run on your machine. If you then buy the game you'll even make a $1-$2 profit with the voucher!
Under A Killing Moon is a highly polished piece of software and
great care has been taken with all aspects of the game. This is
not a product that was "pushed out the door" before it was ready.
(Considering the hardware recommendations I wonder if it might
not have been finished early!) I have not experienced a single
lock up or unexpected exit while playing. Even the manual is
well written and intelligently laid out -- a rarity these days.
Installation of the game is straightforward and uses the most flexible and user friendly engine I have yet seen outside of some Windows applications. The save/restore game functions are equally admirable: games are saved based upon player name and then displayed with information telling you the time and location in the game where it was saved, as well as an outside world time/date stamp. The game is also fully reconfigurable while playing: during game play one can change the resolution of various windows, set music and sound options, reconfigure mouse input, etc. The game even lets you use different CD ROM drives (or a multidisk changer) for the four CDs. This will allow you to play the game without having to swap CDs. (Just in case you happen to have four SCSI CD ROMs hooked up to your machine!) If, however, you only have one CD ROM player you needn't worry about buying three more, as CD disk swapping is fairly minimal.
The game uses separate first-person interfaces for movement and
for object/person interaction. Switching between the two is
accomplished easily by right double-clicking the mouse or by
pressing the spacebar. In the movement portion, you walk around
and turn by pushing the mouse around, You look up and down, etc.
by using the keyboard.
If you see something you want to examine,
open, move, pickup, or talk to, double right click and the screen
will freeze allowing you to interact with objects on the screen
using various mouse cursors. Examining and using inventory
items, large scale movement (i.e. a different part of the city),
and game option selection are also accomplished from this screen.
When you're finished, double right click again and you're on your
way walking around again. Mouse control of walking or running
around is a bit awkward at first and takes some getting used to.
(Remember bouncing off the walls when you first tried playing
Ultima Underworld?) With some practice, however, you'll soon
have good control of your movement.
All screens are 640 x 480 SVGA. You can, however, reduce the
display of the movement screen to be less than full screen,
allowing a faster frame rate. (You can also reduce the amount of
detail shown to increase the frame rate.) Some actions and events
lead to cut scenes.
These all combine live actors with the same
rendered locations that you move through. The live actor and
rendered scene integration is done absolutely seamlessly. The
actors seem actually to be in the scene, not just pasted over the
scene. These cuts must have been edited pixel by pixel to achieve
such a smooth look and feel. The acting in the cut scenes is also
quite good and features some known film talent: Margot Kidder,
Brian Keith, Russell Means, and James Earl Jones being the most
notable. Chris Jones, who also designed and directed the game, does
a professional job as the story's central character.
The game's sound is also excellent. This is not surprising considering Access offered digitized speech in games several years ago even if you didn't have a sound card (RealSound.) All conversations, descriptions, etc. feature crystal clear 16 bit digitized speech. The music is also quite good. It is mostly mood type music that changes in accordance with the plot line. The FM synthesis of the MIDI music is particularly good, benefiting in part to the contributions of the Fat Man, whose previous credits include the music for The Seventh Guest.
The game's story line is well and logically thought out. You
play the game as Tex Murphy, a film noire style PI. (The same
character was featured previously in Access's Martian
Memorandum.) Instead of the 1940's, however, the game takes
place in 21st century San Francisco.
The game does a good job of
combining the ordinary and the futuristic to create a believable
and interesting world. You start the game destitute and out of
work. You quickly find yourself involved with an unsolved
burglary case. Cracking this case ends day one and leads you to
begin investigating some more heinous related crimes. As an
adventure game, ground breaking graphics aside, this is a very
good game. The puzzles are challenging, but not overly so.
Unlike Myst, the average adventure player should be able to make
it through the game with few, if any, hints. If you do get
stuck, the game features an integrated hint system that is
similar to the UHS system in that you only get hints as you ask
for them. Getting such hints reduces ones point score by 4
points per hint. (A perfectly finished game gives 1000 points.) It
is, however, a simple matter to preserve ones score by saving a
game, getting a hint, and then restoring the saved game.
In conclusion, Under A Killing Moon has set new game standards that will be difficult to match. If your hardware is up to it, this game will leave you breathless; if not, maybe it's time for that new machine. This game may well be the game to get for 1996, and it's still only 1995.
Gamer's Zone Scorecard
| Product: |
Under a Killing Moon |
| Company: |
Access Software |
| Cost: |
n/a |
System Requirements:
n/a
Breakdown:
Fun Factor 5
Graphics 5
Sound 5
Interface 5
Replayability 5
Overall Score:
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