Shrek Preview

Publisher TDK Mediactive and developer Digital Illusions are bringing this year's hugely successful and humorous computer-animated film Shrek onto Xbox consoles everywhere. The game was first unveiled in May at E3, but both publisher and developer have been relatively quiet regarding this game's development since then. Recently, however, we were invited to take another brief look at Shrek, and while the game is still visibly early in its development, we were nonetheless impressed with the short demo that we were given.

The game takes place after the events of the motion picture, but it does still involve most of the film's memorable cast. You assume the role of the unwilling hero Shrek, and like the movie, you'll have available to you a wide variety of gastrointestinal problems to fend off all sorts of enemies across eight sprawling levels, including Sweetville, an area made entirely of chocolate and candy; Mother Goose Land, an idyllic fairy-tale world replete with a walking Humpty Dumpty; as well as separate levels that model the inside and outside of the movies expansive castle. Also like in the movie, Shrek in the game will replenish his "inventory," so to speak, by finding and eating onions. But breaking wind won't just be used as a weapon in the game. One level requires that you relight five extinguished dragon pots, large cauldronlike fire pits, all the while avoiding archers who are lobbing flaming arrows at you. Shrek can complete his objective by drawing the archers' fire near each dragon pot, passing gas near the arrows' proximity, and letting the laws of chemistry do the rest. Those who prefer a more traditional approach to combat will appreciate Shrek's arsenal of fists and feet, which he can use to punch and kick (respectively, no less). Shrek can also pick up smaller enemies and dropkick them into the distance. This requires a certain level of skill to do accurately, since one level will force you to dropkick a number of hoodlum kids into a bottomless pit from a fixed platform--not an easy task.

Easily the most impressive aspect about the game is its graphical prowess. TDK representatives used all manner of tech phrases like "bump mapping," "real-time specular lighting," "real-time shadows," and "high-poly count" in describing Shrek's visuals. Whatever you want to call it, though, Shrek looks good. The maps that we were shown were all huge but had no pop-up whatsoever. The game renders objects all the way out to your perspective's horizon, meaning that if you manage to get Shrek onto an elevated position, you'll be able to take in the entire level, most of which will offer some truly breathtaking views. In the aforementioned Mother Goose level, Shrek will inadvertently trip a mechanism that changes day to night and night to day every 15 seconds or so, in effect completely changing the dynamic light source of the level with each transition. It's an amazing visual effect to behold, and from what we saw, each level displays the same amount of visual splendor found in this one.

Shrek himself is made up of no fewer than 16,500 polygons, and in creating him on the Xbox, the designers at Digital Illusions used the actual character model and textures that DreamWorks used for the film. Obviously, the Xbox version of Shrek is a technically scaled-down version of the film's green hero, but the resemblance is certainly striking. Using a free-roaming camera, we were able to zoom in on Shrek's face, and we made note of separately modeled eyes and teeth and a face that twists and contorts to believably convey a variety of emotions.

All the portions of the game that were demonstrated to us looked very promising. The only problem we noted was a substandard frame rate. TDK acknowledges this problem and attributes it to the not-yet-final specs of the development kit that Shrek was running, and we were assured that the final game (running on a complete Xbox) will perform flawlessly. As it stands, Shrek is scheduled for a November 2001 launch, and TDK remains cautiously optimistic that the game will be on store shelves in time for the console's launch. Until then, be sure to check back at GameSpot for an updated look at Shrek in the coming months.