Sierra Spring Break 08: Stay Puff’t confirmed for Ghostbusters, Infernal Engine looks amazing

By Patrick Garratt

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Speaking to videogaming247 at the Sierra Spring Break 08 in Mallorca last week, Terminal Reality confirmed the everybody’s favourite Marshmallow Man, Stay Puff’t, will definitely feature in the upcoming Ghostbusters game, and showed the meltable monster off in a highly impressive Infernal Engine demo.

The first thing we saw in the tech display was 500 metal objects being dropped randomly into the game environment.

“What you can see here is that I can push against the pile [of objects] and the player can interact with physically simulated objects with no jitter, no pushing and no disability problems,” said Mark Randel, Terminal Reality president.

Randel then dropped 1,000 objects onto the screen: we all gaped as the metal boxes rolled across the environment, bouncing off each other and whatever else stood in their way.

Next up was the New York public library and the Infernal Engine’s crowd technology.

“There’s one level in Ghostbusters that takes place on Thanksgiving Day weekend and you’re going to be in the Thanksgiving Day parade,” said Randel. “So having large crowds of people is important to the game.”

He showed hundreds of people running out of the NYC library and into the street in panic, bouncing off each other. Those nearest to your in-game character paying him attention.

“They recognise you and know you could do something,” said Randel.

The crowd fell silent and slowly made a path for you to proceed into the library building. It was impressive stuff.

Finally Mark Randel dropped 1,000 people into the street, “each one individually simulated.”

“See how they walk around me, see how they push and shove each other,” said Randel.

All of a sudden, the Stay Puff’t Marshmallow appeared [YAY – Ed], larger than life, filling the whole screen and taking huge strides in your direction. We noticed how the members of the crowd closest to him reacted first, and how the panic spread through the throng.

And that was that. Don’t fret though, as you’ll be able to see it in action yourselves this October for PS3, 360, Wii, PS2 and DS.

By Mike Bowden

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