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GTAIV to use Engine from Table Tennis

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the expressive-thugs dept.

WedgeTalon writes "Joystiq reports that GTAIV will be using the engine that powered Rockstar's Table Tennis — Rockstar Advanced Game Engine (RAGE)." From the article: "I contacted MTV News' Stephen Totilo to see just how definite this was, and he returned, I met with Rockstar publicists and producers for Table Tennis twice prior to the game's release. Both times they volunteered that RAGE would serve as the engine for all next-gen Rockstar games. Including GTA? I asked both times. Including GTA they said both times."

4 of 83 comments (clear)

  1. eureka! by underwhelm · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I've been pounding my palm into my temple, trying to force myself to imagine why in the world Rockstar Games created and published a table tennis simulator.

    It makes perfect sense to me now--it's so obvious! It's just a proof-of-concept of their new GTA engine.

    They didn't make table tennis and think to themselves: "hey, it turns out we've got a great new foundation for our 3d sandbox franchise!" It's been the other way around the whole time. "we need a great new foundation for our 3d sandbox franchise... but let's do something small and simple first to get all the kinks out."

    I wouldn't be surprised if there's a ping-pong minigame in the next GTA.

    --

    I don't need large brains to have a good time.

  2. I knew there was more to it than ping pong by slack-fu · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I knew there was more to it than ping pong, I thought there might have been a secret joke or something that R* would put out a ping pong game, and this is it, their game engine is so advanced that they can take a minigame out of the full game and release it as a full fledged game on its own. At first I thought it just just a throwback to Pong but now I can see the truth, this will be one awesome engine.

  3. The graphics will still be bad by Repugnant_Shit · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Table tennis doesn't have wide expanses of outdoor scenery. Look at the screenshots available at http://screenshots.teamxbox.com/gallery/1427/Rocks tar-Games-Presents-Table-Tennis/p1/. They can't compete with any other modern engine like UT, Doom, or Source.

    For Rockstar, those are good looking screenshots. But why not license something tried and true, something that's good for outdoors. UT comes to mind. Hell, if Bethesda licenses the Oblivion engine, use that.

    --
    Vote for global prefs bug
  4. About Damn Time by ClamIAm · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It sounds like no one else commenting actually played GTA3/VC/SA. The engines in those games, while impressive, were buggy as hell. I only bought SA (I played the others a bit), but I was pissed when I kept getting stuck in the ground and mowed down by rival gangs. It was simply impossible to believe that this was the third game made with this engine, yet they still couldn't get collision detection down.

    And call me crazy, but I'm totally holding out for a Wii port. Smacking your hoes feels much better when done in a natural motion. Hitting X just doesn't cut it.