Speedball Arena

[Drake1009]

I don't know if anyone posted this before, and I was too lazy to look for it.

I noticed some time ago that Bitmap brothers seem to have started working on a new speedball game. I remembered having seen the news when I read the name speedball in a post and thought it might be something to post here what with all the classic speedball lovers I'm sure are around here.

http://www.speedballarena.com/ is the homepage, not much there yet though. One screenshot and an animation clip and a short rundown of the features it will have.

What do you think? Will the new game be as fun as the classic in 2D or will it fall flat on it's face?

[Akira]

I think this game was released, and that it sucked? PSX release, IIRC.

[rlake]

I dunno, I'm just getting the hang of the 2D version since acquiring a couple of original CD32 versions recently :cool. I think darkunicornproductions.com philosophy of 3D games may come into play on such a resurrected classic, so I shall just ignore. :D

I just noticed the section on coding "Xenon 2000", associated with PC Format. Does anybody know if this series of articles is any good? I mean, do you have to write your own Bomb da Bass style tunes by the next issue or what, or have I missed the whole lot including DirectX assembly too, and taking the "advanced" PC 2D hardware to the limits? (what, no playfields? ;))

[bippym]

@Akira - you are thinking of Speedball 2000 that was released on PSX and sucked.. Speedball Arena is the new boy and will be released on the PC in 2003 I think. It promises to be as addictive as the original, but we've heard that b4, will have to wait and see :)

[Drake1009]

As far as I could gather from the bottom of the news page where their statement was after the word of the project was leaked they're going to try to keep the old gameplay and incorporate it into full 3D using the Unreal engine.

I hope that at least they will release it in due time, and not go about with something which might be good but at the time of release it's crap compared to other stuff (like Daikatana, the idea of teammates was new at the time they started, graphics were good for the time as well, but it took so long finishing that it was more than outdated and held nothing new when it was released)