Mark McMorris Infinite Air Preview
Have you been waiting for a realistic snowboarding experience? Check out this preview of Mark McMorris Infinite Air from Maximum Games!
Do you spend your days dreaming about cruising down a mountain on a brand new snowboard? Mark McMorris Infinite Air aims to deliver the most authentic snowboarding game to date and it absolutely succeeds.
The first thing you’ll notice when you get dropped into the massive mountain range is that you can go anywhere – and I mean anywhere. By simply summoning a helicopter you are able to search for the perfect place to start your next run. What happens if you can’t find a place to shred that sweet, sweet powder? You can use the incredibly in-depth world editor to remove objects, increase or decrease the elevation, and smooth out the ground. You can then set up rails, ramps, jibs, pipes, buildings, and more. Once your epic run is complete, you can publish it to share it with other members of the Infinite Air community.
Most snowboarding games are all about impossible tricks and getting millions of points. Sure that’s fun, but Infinite Air reinvents the snowboarding genre by delivering realistic physics. The entire game uses the thumbsticks and triggers to perform tricks, but that doesn’t mean that you’re going master Infinite Air in just a few minutes. Once you finally get a solid grasp on the controls, every trick feels like an accomplishment. These mechanics may seem familiar and I think it’s easy to say that Infinite Air is the Skate of snowboarding games.
One of the most impressive aspects of Infinite Air is the amount of tricks. Even though you only use the triggers and thumbsticks, there is a ton of variety. I found myself getting comfortable with a few tricks before moving on to something more difficult. After a while I had a nice collection of tricks memorized that I would use on runs. When it comes to Infinite Air, practice definitely makes perfect.
Infinite Air is the snowboarding game we’ve been waiting for. The possibilities for runs are literally endless. You can spend all day designing mountains, checking out player generated runs, or relaxing in a newly discovered slice of the snowy paradise. There’s no doubt that Infinite Air is the real deal.
Infinite Air will be out on October 25th for PC, Xbox One and PlayStation 4.
Thank you to Maximum Games for providing the code.
Interview with Alexandre Sabourin Red Barrels Senior Technical Artist for Outlast II
I had a wonderful opportunity to talk with Alexandre Sabourin, Red Barrels Senior Technical Artist about Outlast II!
The Gamers Lounge: How does the environment play into the horror genre?
Alexandre: You have to give emotion to the player with so many aspects using lighting. Players are ready to be scared. Jump scares are not always cheap; they have to be setup by using lighting and sound with sound being one of the biggest things you have to have working in the game.
The Gamers Lounge: Do you find inspiration from other horror games and movies or do you try to go off on your own?
Alexandre: Our cofounders are big fans of horror games; there will always be certain aspects of horror games that are the same. We, of course, find inspiration from other games, but there are many ways to attack the horror experience. You have to change it sometimes to avoid players feeling a repetitive pattern. That’s why we watch these movies and play the games as well.
The Gamers Lounge: How do you see the horror genre overall?
Alexandre: The community for horror games is pretty small. The inspiration for the first one was Amensia: Dark Descent. They did a great job creating a very scary game.
The Gamers Lounge: How is it having one of the top games in the horror genre?
Alexandre: Considering the competition, it’s nice to hear that people consider us a top game. We’ve come a long way. The first Outlast only had 9 people, which is not a lot of people at all. We take pride in what we do, and being a small company, we all take part in everything. We work hard and we’re desperate to scare you.
The Gamers Lounge: How big is this compared to the first Outlast?
Alexandre: The story line is much more deep and complex as far as details. The environment has changed with indoors and outdoors, which isn’t as easy as it sounds. Indoors, you have a constant feeling of claustrophobia while walking through corridors, so when the player goes outside we need to make the player feel like they have no options while they’re out there. The game is also going to be longer. There are also going to a lot more crazy things than the first Outlast.
The Gamers Lounge: Is a VR horror game something that you’d like to do?
Alexandre: We have taken a look into it. It’s definitely not something that is going to be in Outlast 2, but we’ve talked about it and we have to try it. It’s a tough medium because of motion sickness.
The Gamers Lounge: With a smaller team how much involvement does each person have?
Alexandre: As much as they want to get involved. We listen to everyone’s idea. A good idea is a good idea no matter who's it’s coming from. Not everyone is involved in the storyline, some people who do art just want to do art. Sometimes people have wild ideas and those are the ones that pay off at the end of the day.
The Gamers Lounge: I’ve noticed that there seems to be more things happening in the environment than the first Outlast. Could you speak on that a little bit?
Alexandre: You’ll notice that there are black blobs that are moving around. That’s actually a simple idea I had one night. You know when you see something that moves and it gives you the chills? I thought I don’t like that and I want that in our game. We made sure that when something like that happens it fits logically in our storyline. It happens where it has to happen.
The Gamers Lounge: How long has Outlast II been in development?
Alexandre: It’s been in development for about 2 1/2 years and is due fall of 2016.