NEWS - Monday, May 12, 2003
Xbox To Get Argonaut’s Carve
Today, Argonaut Games is delighted to announce Carve, the watercraft based racer for Xbox, featuring intense team-based AI, a mass of extreme tricks and full online racing via Microsoft's Xbox Live Carve harnesses the sheer power of Xbox to create a race experience that mixes thrills and authenticity in equal measures. Each of the twenty-seven levels are visually resplendent with an authentic atmosphere, ensured by the dedicated team jetting off to Thailand, Iceland, Amsterdam and the Grand Canyon on research matters, before channelling their discoveries back into the game. Comic-styled characters have exactly that – character, each animated down to the individual finger bone. But there's nothing comic about the way they do battle with the player, pairing up in teams to deliver one of the freshest racing game AIs ever seen. Its water technology is making waves too, leading to the most attractive recreation of the sloshing wet-stuff yet seen in a game. Highly optimised Environment-Mapped Bump-Mapping (EMBM) technology provides the sparkle and reflections, while physics leads to waves interacting in ways that deliver unique gameplay for every level and floating objects that react in a convincing manner. For subscribers to Xbox Live, Carve features fast and furious racing for up to eight players. Producer Caspar Field enthuses, "Carve offers advances in so many areas: the waves, team AI and trick systems - never mind the online mode –all are fantastic additions to the genre. We're pushing things forwards - for us, that's the point. Anything less would be a waste of time." While the waters in Carve are choppy, its journey so far has been plain sailing, notes Joss Ellis, Argonaut's Chief Operating Officer, "Carve is a truly great title, which demonstrates Argonaut's ability to create top race titles. We're immensely pleased with its speedy progress and look forward to releasing it in the near future".Source: http://www.xboxaddict.com/
