By:
Accolade

March 5th saw the Sharky Extreme E-I-C jet off to the trendy city of San Francisco to the plush (I know I've been to a couple of parties at this venue before?) Capella Center. The reasoning behind the little escapade was plain and simple: to play a networked session of Redline, Accolade's soon to be released 3D combat game.

Some of you may have downloaded the recently released demo or read our first glimpse on the game posted earlier this week. But make no mistake, there's nothing quite like playing across a LAN with the game's creators as a way of gauging just how a prospective game is shaping up. It's also a really good method for a game reviewer to get his rear-end blown to smithereens. Not only was that the case here but I was also mowed down on numerous occasions with vehicles driven by members of the Accolade team.

Redline's major selling point will be the fact that the proprietary 3D engine, developed by Beyond Games, is highly versatile. Not only can one run around on foot the same as in any 3D first person shooter but you'll also be able to jump into stationery gun turrets and moving vehicles, in similar fashion to Carmageddon. Thus Redline could best be described as Carmageddon meets Quake. Accolade's Director of Product Development/Executive Producer, Steven B. Ackrich, told us that the Redline project, which has been in development for over two years, was planned this way from the outset. Accolade obviously feels that the level of immersion within a 3D environment can be significantly enhanced from previous 3D first person shooters and give the overall feel and realism a kick in the right direction.