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When it starts installing I see it installs maps as ".unr" files - meaning that it's Unreal engine based. This gets me excited - the Unreal games, while never my favorite, kick ass. Once it's done installing I fire it up and it prompts me to select my rendering preference. Huh? Software and Direct3D only? Wither OpenGL or Glide? I mean, these are APIs already built into Unreal, why would you strip them out? Better question - why is Software Rendering selected by default, when it says it was detecting my preferences? I pick "Direct3D" and move on. When I finally get into the game (there's an expository story mode you can't skip) I notice that none of the walls have textures. I fire it up in Software mode and the walls have textures - but of course it all looks like shit. I forgot how bad Software games looked. I read the little readme file and it lists the supported renderers - Voodoo3 isn't listed, but Voodoo5 is.
My best guess is that EA woke up one morning and said "We need a PC version of Harry Potter", so they got on the horn with Epic Games and bought themselves a license for the latest Unreal engine and just code-froze it right there, making the game on top of that version. Why they didn't go with the Quake 3 engine, since they have several titles (including the PS2 port of Quake 3) using it already, is curious at best. Perhaps they enlisted a team that felt better about the Unreal engine. I just think it's ironic and bizzarre that a children's game requires a fairly top of the line system whereas more mainstream fare merely requires what I've got.
In any event perhaps my wife will like the game.
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I'm going to start to write a comprehensive article/summation of Bleem but for now check the one I (finally) finished and published:
The Nintendo 64: A Postmortem.
Oh, and I got Civilization III. I may never come up for air again.