Boss Battles

Following the trend set by George and Dustin in the last post, one of our AI programmers, John, wrote this up about his work on the Colossus Boss.

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For a moment I am Hayden Tenno, trapped in the heart of Lasria, on a mission to kill a fellow agent infected with the Technocyte virus. It was supposed to be simple, a quick, efficient termination of the target. The cold metal creeping up my arm is a stark reminder that I am now also infected. I feel myself evolving, the virus slowly infusing me with great power. The Glaive growing from my hand is crucial to my survival. I am trapped inside a warehouse. The Hazmat teams sent to help me are laying down heavy fire. I am the enemy. I haven’t switched sides, I am on my own, and everyone is out to kill me.

I take cover in the warehouse and dodge the bullets from the troopers firing through the windows all around me. I pick them off one by one with my superior gunplay and their frequent shouts to surrender are silenced by dispatching my Glaive to slice off their heads. The blood starts to flow; each trooper’s termination achieved with a volley of bullets or the slicing of limbs. The fight is almost over when the ground convulses, shaking terror into all of us. The few remaining troopers scream as a giant ape-like creature crashes to the ground and joins the fight.

For a few seconds there is relief as I watch through the shattered glass. Bodies are thrown around and dust fills the air as the creature destroys everything around him. I feel safe inside the warehouse, the creature far too big to get through the locked doors. A moment later my sense of security is gone along with the wall in front of me. Rocks thrown by the creature smash away at the fortress around me before he charges straight through the remains of the building. Anything in his way is pulverized.

I run from the broken warehouse and grab the weapons dropped by the troopers. A tense fight develops with the colossal monster. His skin looks soft. Each bullet producing a spray of Technocyte blood as it pounds into his grotesque skin. My glaive slices into him spraying even more blood. His attacks continue; there is nowhere for me to hide. Any solid object I attempt to cover behind is soon gone, smashed by the flying rocks or his formidable body.

My ammo begins to run low as I bravely fight on. Then a strange shockwave spreads across Lasria causing the creature to run. He disappears into the distance as he jumps across the buildings. I can finally relax but sense that my fight with the Colossus is not yet over…


As the programmer responsible for bringing the Colossus to life I often go through the above experience. My name is John Newton, an AI programmer working on Dark Sector. With the release of the latest Dark Sector videos it was great for me to see the Colossus boss being shown to the public.

I was initially given the task of making an exciting boss fight inside the church. At this point in the game the Colossus had evolved bulletproof metallic skin and could leap around inside the church, jumping between pillars and throwing rocks at Hayden. Somehow Hayden had to find a way to knock the Colossus from the pillars and eventually kill him. It was an exciting character to work on and was great fun playing the completed fight. At the start I was given the basic level design and the great looking Colossus model. I then worked with the talented animators while developing the AI code. We would have regular reviews of the fight to iron out problems and come up with new ideas to make the fight fun. Once I had the Colossus working well, we put a lot of effort into perfecting it by fixing bugs, adding sounds, effects and polishing the church interior. It was a great team effort.

After the church fight was finished we added the Colossus to an earlier mission in the game because he had become such an exciting character to play against. This took some additional work to customize him to a new scenario but it has turned out amazing.

I’ve worked in the games industry for 8 years now on many top selling titles but the Colossus is certainly one of my favorite things to have worked on. I’m glad people can finally see him in action and will soon get to fight him.

41 comments:

Unknown said...

Chase demands "multiplayer" preview!

Anonymous said...

I agree with Chase, but what I demand is...multiplayer footage!

I saw that voice over video...fucking hell, Hayden looks BAD ASS in full mutation!!!

I hope you can turn on and off the mask whenever you want in the game, and I noticed you guys have the same sound from the old concept.

I love that mech in the game as well, reminds me of Metal Gear, awesome that you can pilot it.
I thought it was controlled by AI used by the enemy.

I hope in multiplayer all the players get to have that body.

I am sure there are alot of people wanting to know more and see more of the multiplayer aspect of the game.

Keep up the great work DE!

PS. Any update on that demo!? *cries like a baby* :'(

quickmik said...

i saw the new vid it was cool(not bad ass)but please give us somthing about the multyplayer or maybe somthing about the demo

Anonymous said...

where r people seeing new vids at some1 tell me and we al wont a demo it dosnt have to be a copy of the finel that just makes it more of a supriz

Anonymous said...

Could you guys please release some screenshots and artwork of Hayden in his leveled up armor? It is a bit spoilerific but it could also generate some much needed hype for the game. thanks. :D oh and keep up the great work.

quickmik said...

you can looke for new relesed vids on gametrailers.com
and you can see in the last video which is on the home page ,and in the video you can check out some new things ,like robots new boss battel, and Hayden with full body armor .
right know i want thise game moore then i ever did, please release a demo in europe.

Anonymous said...

i seen the ad on games radar it was fucking all some nice job

Anonymous said...

sorry bout the things i said bout the delay i didnt say it like maikel but didnt know what late Q ment now i do and i feel dumb and it stads for let in the first part of the year

Unknown said...

Huh... I don't think I've heard of a boss being so fun to beat down it deserved another encounter...

Anonymous said...

this game has stole some of the fire from other games from all the sits i viste it is the most tulked about and lots of people have high hopes 4 itand the ads are starting too come up everywhare

quickmik said...

i just came cack from gamespot and the have new preview and vids go chack it out

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Unknown said...

Is it just me, or did Dallas just describe a cutscene? It sounds that way... But if that really is gameplay he described then this aught to be even more awesome than I'm expecting.

quickmik said...

you are soooo locky you got to play a demo of the game
what about us when do we get to play alittle demo to give our impresions of the game

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Unknown said...

Actually, I think I'll save my comments until after the game has been released (I guess it got delayed again..?). Although the scene mentioned above does sound pretty cool...

Anonymous said...

man its been long time sins eney 1 said something i just thout id make some nois no new vids nothing no blogs just lots of ads but its cool if there working on the game

Anonymous said...

by the way im so jelus of the dark sector guys thay get to the game all day

Anonymous said...

wat am i the only 1 that still comes here

Anonymous said...

What happened to the armored guys from the original sci-fi concept? Someone said they're in this version too, but I haven't seen anything of the sort. Where could I find some artwork or screenshots of them?...maybe a render?

Unknown said...

The worse thing that any game can do is keep pushing out the realease date, it almost makes me not want to even play this game since it keeps getting pushed out. I'm was very excited to play this game and now I have to watch more release dates get pushed back. sorry to sound like a jerk but you have lost me as a fan of the game even before i played it.

Anonymous said...

Please, add more maps and modes to the multiplayer....call of duty, halo and gow sold well because you have a respetable multiplayer mode.

Anonymous said...

Can you guys fix one thing for me? Hayden (elite future super solider) looks like a Emo myspace user that just lost his job at Hot Topic, and is now applying for a job at Spencers.

Geoff Crooks is obviously making Hayden in his own image and this is criminal and unjust due to the amount of time I've waited for this game to be released.

Anonymous said...

Hayden has already been dubbed as the bicurious future solider. Please fix Hayden's character model.

Anonymous said...

Hah I saw the topics about Hayden "the bicurious super solider" on GTforums and NeoGaf, hilarious. Hayden really does look like Geoff Crooks, wonder if he is currently melancholy on his myspace.

Anonymous said...

Digital Extremes, I agree with the perosn who said the character design for the online soldiers suck, atleast the ones with the yellow/brown hazmat suit.

You guys should create a cool "special ops" type of soldier class instead and keep the other soldier design still in, would be very cool.

I don't understand why there is only 2 modes though, I thought guys were like elites of the online aspect, whats up?

Anyway, I can't wait to grab the game and play it with surround sound on.

PS. D3 said in X-Play that it is gonna be released this month, can we expect a demo this month?

Anonymous said...

Is there going to be a demo available on XBOX live before the game is released or not?
Digital Extremes has promised a demo last year but it never happened.
And now, DS is coming this month, we still don't get to try it out.
As much as I like the game, I can't be sure whether the game is worth buying or not just by looking at it and reading all those coverage on IGN, GameSpot... etc.

Anonymous said...

Digital Extremes, why did you guys only keep mentioning Nort America release for this month?

How about Europe?
You guys do kno I live in europe right, you should, considering I talked to one of you in private and got those cool SWAG posters ;)

But I hope this game comes out on March 25 as well :/

And yes...demo fo the love of god release a good demo so my massacre of anger can decrease a bit :D

PS. I saw IGNs DS blog...awesome!
I also downloaded the "main theme" for the game, very cool. So far the music Keith Power has done is awesome!
From all the videos I have kept watching the sound especially the music is really great, and hopefully you guys have some sort of a plan on a Collectors Edition for this game if not, a soundtrack release of some sort would be great!

Anonymous said...

launch is soon...no more updates?

Anonymous said...

but what abount the PC???????????i hope that maybe later you guys will have merci and release a PC version

Anonymous said...

"We will for sure release a demo a few days/weeks before the game comes out"...

Hmm, we have yet to see that happening.
Besides, it's not worth giving out a demo now when the game is coming out in North America in like 2-3 days and in Europe this week.

Sure the fans will get it non the less, but considering they expect a demo to be happy with until the full game is out :(

But the rest of thegamers out there will definitely download the demo before their purchase.

Anonymous said...

I really really hope you make a PC version of this game as well. This game looks awesome & the graphics are beautiful, could only imagine what the power of a computer could do for those graphics over the console systems. Please make a PC version!

Anonymous said...

They don't make the pc version. The Dark Sector is a console game.

But the older game, the future, i think better than now :/

Carlos Pollastri said...

Duda, i cant use the SHIFT. I hold de Y button for half an hour and nothing happens. I cant pass the freaking camera.

JaySlacks said...

My name is Jarvis Slacks. I write for the gaming blog Port City Gamers at www.gamers.starnewsonline.com. I was wondering if I could ask you guys a few questions, about the game and some other stuff after it was released. I am a fan, and hope that others could be interested in it as well. Thanks. You can email me at jayslacks@gmail.com. Take care.

Samael/Aciel said...

Single player is nice enough, though short on story and time.

multiplayer is one-dimensional with the stealth kills.

but most importantly, IT NEEDS NEW GAME + option, please.

Anonymous said...

good explanation and I am remembering this as I walk through the game!

Anonymous said...

dont lision 2 inbody els thay just blow throw the game and didnt take no time in it thare is more story then gow thay just tell you 2 kill these guys and thay are called locust ok.dark sector is a masterpice in the making from here it only gets better

madpuppy said...

Reviewers have gave Dark Sector fair ratings, saying that the game is a blast to play but that the story was essentially ignored after the initial introduction of the Hayden Tenno character. I for one look forward to your response on if there were enough sales of the game to
consider franchising the game, placing Hayden in a new environment with his evolved powers, possible giving him a
number of bio-metallic weapons to scroll through besides the glaive. possibly a real glaive, (staff with blade on the end) to fight with, among other things. I think that Hayden and his powers are still very marketable and would love to see him in different venues from around the world. The
great thing about the
character also is that he isn't some exploded mountain of muscle,like G0W and UT, he looks real and believable. anyway thanks for the fun game!

Anonymous said...

Too much hype.

Not enough control options.
Clumsy control.
(Seriously it's as though Dark Sector ripped off Resident Evil... which has always had a terrible control scheme, and the hero has to bust through every door and window with the most faggishly flamboyent acrobatics, finishing with a dramatic pose after each??!?)

Too much focus on one weapon.

No option to turn off passive abilities... such as rifle stealing

Complete lack of a melee system

Finishers lacked variety and didn't satisfy due to complete lack of melee system.

The boss battles were tiresome and the fights against the soldiers was cool at first, but soon devolved into the rudimentary. Throw glaive, pop caps, throw glaive, pop caps, dodge, dodge... throw glaive...

This game loses it's flavor faster than day old chewing gum.
This game lacks any inspiration.

Thank god for rentals.
Whoever designed this game needs to go play games and find out what makes good games good.

Christian said...

Hi, I participate of a forum for translations of games for the Portuguese, and would like an aid so that it can translate this excellent game, you can help me?
Thanks
Sorry for the bad English