By Alec Meer on August 28th, 2012 at 7:00 pm.
Spy Party! Come here. You’re taking far too long about this, and I’ve a mind to give your ear a right old clipping. Oh, what’s that, you’ve been busy working on a brand new, completely overhauled and really rather fetching ‘illustrative’ look? Well, alright, I’ll let you off this time though. Just this once mind, and you’re still going to bed with supper tonight.
Joystiq have the news/shots, and the new look comes courtesy of former Maxis artist/animator John Cimino, who hopefully sensibly turned down a job in the ninth circle of hell at Zynga for the chance to work on Chris Hecker’s long-in-the-making two-player hide and seek/assassination game.
Hecker told Joystiq that “We really wanted the art style to reflect the same level of subtlety that the gameplay has. I didn’t want it to be too realistic or too exaggerated, and I think we hit it on this really nice, call it naturalistic or illustrative – they look like illustrations. I’m super excited.” He’s adamant that the new look shouldn’t/won’t affect the game outside of aesthetics, however.
Looks lovely. Can’t wait to see how it looks in-game. Please be quick. Here’s what it used to look like, for reference:
We might get to see the new look in action come PAX, but in the meantime you can sign up for the paid, old-look beta here.
28/08/2012 at 19:07 AlwaysRight says:
They look great, any ETA on when they’re going to be implemented?
I’m in the beta but whenever I go to the lobby there’s only one or two people there, usually with 300+ wins in both spy and sniper, then I run away like a big scaredy cat.
(I have 0 wins)
28/08/2012 at 20:53 Metronome49 says:
Me too exactly.
28/08/2012 at 21:34 PleasingFungus says:
And with that, we come to the question of when these new characters will go in the game. The short answer is, “not for a while.” These are characters that will eventually go into the game, but they’re currently at the initial stages of the very long production pipeline that comes with doing a high-end 3D game these days. These are high-poly-count models, and these images we’re revealing today are rendered with a non-realtime renderer. They still have to be decimated, and rigged, and textured and normal mapped, and animated, and the game engine needs to be redone to support higher quality characters like these. They are a long way off, sometime next year at least.
29/08/2012 at 03:12 jroger says:
I have to say, I am impressed. When I looked at the pictures, I thought they were concept art, not 3D models. I really like the look, even though I have no clue what Spy Party is. (But I am going to check it out, it sounds very interesting.)
29/08/2012 at 07:44 PopeJamal says:
I’m disappointed that even videogame old ladies need to be portrayed as top heavy cartoon women:
“Grandma Chesty, tell us a story please!”
29/08/2012 at 09:42 Grargh says:
You know, this is exactly how somewhat aged upper-class women try to look when attending their respective parties. It’s probably also the kind of woman upper-class men want to show themselves with, so I guess it’s rather fitting.
29/08/2012 at 10:14 maninahat says:
Must be modelled on Helen Mirren.
29/08/2012 at 14:25 Totally heterosexual says:
Son you need to look up Helen Mirren, stop complaining and masturbate.
29/08/2012 at 09:25 LionsPhil says:
They sort-of-are concept art, what with all that fancy raycast lighting and soft self-shadowing.
Mind you, I guess graphics cards are so stupidly powerful these days that you can fake that well enough real-time with shaders.
28/08/2012 at 22:14 AlwaysRight says:
Update:
I have kills!
A nice 300+ kills player was kind enough to show me the ropes over the in-game chat. The community although small does seem very helpful if you show a genuine interest in learning.
29/08/2012 at 02:32 mivvian194 says:
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28/08/2012 at 19:09 volcano_fl says:
SPYFACE
28/08/2012 at 20:16 jikavak says:
…warparty?
29/08/2012 at 10:01 Rao Dao Zao says:
“Send tea and fourpence, we’re going to a dance.”
28/08/2012 at 19:10 brau says:
YES! i can’t wait to see the visual over haul for this. It’ll be awesome.
28/08/2012 at 19:23 Hodge says:
Wow, that was unexpected. Welcome though, the new character models look great.
28/08/2012 at 19:25 Stardog says:
It reminds me of something like “The Ship”. Looks better now.
28/08/2012 at 20:22 LionsPhil says:
Just a little bit Civ IV/Revs, too.
It’s a nice look.
28/08/2012 at 19:33 fullbleed says:
Morgan Freeman and Helen Mirren?
28/08/2012 at 19:44 Daleof says:
I’m getting more of a Danny Glover in The Royal Tanenbaums kind of vibe.
28/08/2012 at 20:56 Hoaxfish says:
Vincent Price, Sarah Palin, and William Howard Taft
28/08/2012 at 22:00 MSJ says:
Add Bruce WIllis and John Malkovich and the cast is complete.
28/08/2012 at 19:42 moyogo says:
Mmmm, supper in bed.
28/08/2012 at 20:06 beema says:
For an old lady with a huge rack, her boobs sure are perky.
29/08/2012 at 00:27 valentingalea says:
Also check the guys glass-holding hand compared to hers… ginormous!
29/08/2012 at 07:02 caddyB says:
That’s his fapping arm.
29/08/2012 at 08:22 Lars Westergren says:
It’s like a Facehugger is crawling over the glass!
I love the new art direction though. Can’t wait to play this with my friends.
29/08/2012 at 11:14 Zepp says:
Lol so I’m not the only strange one! I would hit her for sure. Hot. :D
28/08/2012 at 20:58 Soolseem says:
I’m in the beta, and sadly it sounds like this won’t be implemented until sometime next year.
28/08/2012 at 21:55 Adventurous Putty says:
The snobbish, vaguely anachronistic look is absolutely perfect. It matches kitsch with high style. Now I’m going to enjoy shooting these people even more.
28/08/2012 at 23:21 Skabooga says:
I didn’t really think about Spy Party needing a graphical/art overhaul, but now that I’ve seen these images, I cannot imagine it any other way.
29/08/2012 at 02:29 Jackablade says:
If we’re guessing which one is the spy, my money is on the one that looks like Mallory Archer.
29/08/2012 at 03:00 RagingLion says:
Saw this earlier today – it really does look great.
Sounds like it will still be a long long wait though. Not before 2013 and you know what, it might even be 2014. It is only a 2 person team though and it sounds like they’re really looking to perfect it to allow proper competitive level play.
29/08/2012 at 03:51 Dozer says:
Any hope the gameplay doesn’t quickly get boring? As I understand it, the Spy has one basic objective: Pretend to be an NPC. And the sniper likewise had only one objective: Detect character who is not an NPC. It boils down to an anti-Turing test, is this an AI or a human pretending to be an AI? I worry that once players are familiar with the game it will be perpetually unbalanced in favour of the sniper or the spy.
29/08/2012 at 07:42 Hypocee says:
Seems to have serious legs. It also seems to be quite tunable by changing the number and type of objectives the Spy needs to do.
(As for the graphics – Oh my.)
29/08/2012 at 05:13 jrodman says:
Has it got a game in it wot I can play wifout ova players?
29/08/2012 at 07:44 Hypocee says:
No. I’m basically SP-only, but in this case even I have to acknowledge that without another mind to match, there’s no point. Can a robot imitate a robot? The answer is yes.
29/08/2012 at 09:14 Dlarit says:
I’ve not read the article yet but from the picture is this Tom Jones the game?
29/08/2012 at 22:44 Josh W says:
Amasing! It never occured to me, but this game has the potential to look really good, given the tiny space you are working with, which is weird, because in my mind this was in the same category as weird roguelikes etc; something you play for the challenge and not the looks. But with good lighting and animation, this could actually have both!