Now stop pretending.
Electronic Arts today announced that it has picked the rights to use the Quake III engine for its upcoming spy thriller, The World Is Not Enough. While EA has not officially stated which systems it has planned for this title, it's easy to deduce that PlayStation2, not PlayStation (like we formally believed) is one of them.
The biggest and most convincing reason is RAM. PlayStation has what adds up to 2 MBs RAM. The Quake III engine requires a whopping 64 MB RAM among other demanding system requirements. While PlayStation2 has a system memory of 32 MB (Direct Rambus), the engine is sure to be modified and altered to work brilliantly on PlayStation2.
Need more evidence? Just yesterday, EA's Chairman Larry Probst stated that PlayStation2 is its number one priority for the year 2000, and that EA aims to the be the number one third-party publisher on PlayStation2. Where does that leave The World Is Not Enough?
"We have the rights to the Quake III engine and James Bond's The World Is Not Enough, but we haven't announced anything on that platform yet," said an EA spokesperson today. EA plans on making several future announcements about its PlayStation2 plans in the upcoming months, in addition to showing off loads of new PlayStation2 games at E3 this May.
Whichever system the game goes to, Quake III Arena's blazingly fast engine displays hundreds of textures and multiple surfaces instantly, regardless of the number of characters onscreen. The realistic 3D environments are made up of curved surfaces, volumetric fog effects, and specular lighting. The engine is just short of pure brilliance, and a spy-based first-person shooter using this engine is going to rock the gods from their drunken slumber.
In a former announcement, made last November (EA Buys Up Future Bonds"), Electronic Arts stated its plans to make use of the long-term interactive rights of the James Bond license for multiple platforms. Which means that many more Bond games are planned. The first Bond game to emerge from this deal is based on The World is Not Enough, which EA describes as an "action-packed, spy-inspired adventure true to the James Bond legacy," when it is released in late 2000.