Je me souviens vaguement d'une "preview" de ce jeu, c'était il y a un bon bout de temps. L'auteur de la "preview" avait déjà été super impressionné, par la qualité graphique, mais aussi par l'ambiance globale du niveau de démo. Très certainement un jeu à surveiller de près.

Ok, as promised, here’s the update on Brothers in Arms 3

BIA 3 is in development for the Xbox 360 and the PS3.

- BIA 3 will use the Unreal 3 engine. Gearbox and Epic signed some sort of deal and words like “exclusive something or other” were thrown around, but I didn’t catch the details.

- Sumac (the project name for BIA 3), as hinted earlier has nothing to do with the War on the Australian Front, it’s just the code name for the project. Gearbox names their projects after trees.

- Randy Pitchford started things off with a tech demo.

- We see an untextured 88, and the camera rolls around it.

- We also see an untextured German tank. There are some nice details.

- Then we see the #13 on a green background. The camera zooms out, and we see that it’s a helmet, and in the helmet is our old buddy, Baker. The character models are outstanding. I should say that again for emphasis. The character models are the best seen anywhere to this date. Remember that Alfred Molina as Doc Ock demo from Sony during E3? It’s that quality, at least. It’s a very realistic face, and we see things like glassy eyes with tear ducts, and light through the ears and skin, etc.

Real quote: “BIA 3 is the best looking video game ever, period. Yes, Gears of War, Killzone, and Metal Gear Solid 4 all look good, but BIA 3 looks better. There’s a realism here that you really have to see to believe, and the characters seem so real it’s almost scary.”

Here’s where the fun starts. The video ! By the way, this was all done real time, with the in game engine.

- It starts and the camera is behind Baker, and it sort of zooms into his FPS POV.

- We see him running down an alley in a war torn European City. As he looks down a street, we see the city burning and destroyed in the distance, and it is very, very impressive with a cool sunset.

- He runs, and we see he has a BAR. The weapon models are really nice. The running animations are good.

- He turns from the alley to a cobblestone street. And there is an upturned car and something like a crate. He sees a German in a store window. He fires on him, but some more Germans are there, and Baker has to run for his life, and he runs to take cover behind the box. He does this cool little animation to take cover and he starts firing on the Germans.

- He turns and yells “Get over there.” And we see his team for the first time. The team looks good. He turns back to fire again, but he starts taking heavy fire.

- We see that the box that Baker is behind is taking fire, and it’s not holding up. We see lighting coming through individual bullet holes, and it’s wearing away pretty quickly, wood splinters everywhere (nice particle effects). Baker knows he has to move. He does a little combat step-and-turn manuver to the nearby car, and looks back to see his box pretty much reduced to rubble by the enemy fire. That was really cool to see, and the destructible cover looks to change the gameplay (Shoot through walls, fences, doors, etc).

-We see him yell “Put some fire on ‘em” and we look over to see Hartsock and the fire team shuffle to get behind a car.

- They all begin firing, and man, it is INTENSE. The glass in the shop windows doesn’t just “explode shatter” like we are used to. You see each bullet make contact with the window, and it shatters realistically. This looked really nice. I can’t explain it. Think of a next gen BLACK, perhaps).

- Almost immediately, the Germans are firing back from within the store, Baker iron-sites aims and we can see them trying to maneuver position inside the store. There was something different here about the aiming, but I can’t put my finger on it. More realistic maybe?

- The firefight is so intense, I can’t really describe it. I’ve never been in a war, but I have to imagine it was something like this. Baker knows something must be done…

So, now comes the MOMENT of the trailer (and what I think sets the BIA series above the rest), the human moment.

- During this intensity, the sound sort of drops out a bit, and we see in everything sort of being destroyed around Baker and Hartsock. Baker looks into Hartsock’s eyes, and says something to the effect of “Well, they have to be flanked.” In this moment, you see Hartsock look back at Baker, and I swear, it’s almost photo realistic. We see Hartsock’s grimace sort of turn into a “I know what I have to do.” And just by the looks they exchange, you can tell they are friends that have fought together, and would die for one another. I’m telling you there was real emotion in their faces. Hartsock sort of gives a knowing nod and a grin before the grimace returns.

- The sound pops back in, and in a dramatic moment (think maybe the “Freedom” moment from Braveheart) Baker swings his weapon over the car and he sort of rises to provide covering fire for his friend. It was movie-like.

- We see Hartsock running really fast. The animations look great. And the transition from the run into a “back against the wall” was good. He shimmies around the corner (cool move), and he’s beside the store with the Germans now. We see him ready his Thompson, and he sort of leans out (with one arm) without sticking his body in the line of fire (cool) and fires a clip into the two Germans that were at the window. Death animations (if they’re even animations, it may be all physics related) look really good.

- We then see him sling his used tommy over his shoulder (nice animation), and it was awesome to see that when he put his weapon away, it stayed on his body. It didn’t disappear like we’re used to. He grabbed a grenade from his vest, and we actually see him flick the pin.

- He tosses the grenade at a glass window (there were many on the building). The grenade actually breaks through the glass, and this changes the trajectory of the grenade. It’s almost like he used it to his advantage like a backboard in basketball.

- This was cool. The soldier was actually “smart” enough not to just stand there and take the explosion, or try to pick the grenade up and throw it back. He hauls butt out of there. We see the last German trying to run away, and he almost makes it to the back window, but the explosion goes off. Wow. (Think of the Killzone trailer explosions). The glass is blown away realistically, and the German flies through the window about 10-12 feet, hits the sidewalk, and rolls out onto the street, dead (nice physics). It looked SO great.

- That’s pretty much the end of the trailer. In all it was about 2 minutes, but it felt like 30 seconds because it was happening SO fast. Again, in every review for this game, you are going to see the word intense about 30 times.

General observations:

- Lighting looked great. There was real time specular lighting and self-shadowing. It helped portray that realism. Also, there was other things that added to this that were really subtle, like some “bleaching” in brighter areas, and if you looked directly at the sun and looked away, everything seemed a little darker. You can think of Half-Life 2 High Dynamic Range lighting that hasn’t been released yet (it’s coming in the expansion pack).

- Sound was phenomenal. It was one of the keys to the immersion. BIA series is known for good sound, and that looks to continue. Quote (“The guns sound ‘big.’ There’s a certain rumble that’s intimidating.”). You can hear bullets whizzing by, and each strike made a different sound. Different surfaces reacted differently.

- Death animations was AMAZING. When you kill someone, they don’t just die. They react to EACH bullet strike. When you see it for yourself, you will be impressed. The physics really helped make this real.

- AI in BIA has been strong, and that looks to continue as well.

- I’ve already mentioned how great the character models look, but I’ll say it again. These are the best that have ever been shown. The game looks great. Each brick looks individually modeled, and each cobblestone. It looks great.

- I don’t think there was a film grain effect, but there was something cinematic going on. I can’t put my finger on it. It’s got a certain darkness to it. Remember that scene in Saving Private Ryan where the wall separating the Americans and Germans falls down and everyone is going crazy firing and it is total chaos? That’s the only thing I can think of that compares to this. AWESOME.

Yes, Call of Duty 2 is the best option for next gen WWII gaming, but only until BIA 3 arrives.