As they have had more time to develop the Nintendo GameCube version of Conflict: Desert Storm and the game has significantly benefited from the continuing technology enhancements being developed at Pivotal Games. The core technology group are constantly optimising the game engine and enhancing existing technologies and AI. The direction for the core technology team is influenced by user feedback, game reviews and an internal technology vision. The GameCube version of Conflict: Desert Storm will incorporate many new enhancements over existing versions of Conflict: Desert Storm. Some of these enhancements are detailed below.

GRAPHICAL
All tracer fire has been optimised so it now faster and it looks better. Consequentially we are now displaying twice as much tracer fire than other versions of CDS.

The players inventory now supports smooth scrolling and hot keys which allow the player to quickly navigate its contents. Before, the inventory didn't have an end as it cyclically wrapped which inevitably caused confusion.

Screen shake has been introduced when nearby explosives are detonated or impacts occur. This helps embellish game events and immerses the player in the game world.

Static enemies now show investigative behaviour while static, before static enemies would appear lifeless but they now actually move their heads and look around for the player.

Newly optimised explosion code has allowed us to include more debris trails.

Enemies now come in a variety of different heights and sizes. In previous versions all enemies used the same model but now we can vary the size of the enemy mesh to generate fat, slim, tall and short combinations of characters.

Non player controlled characters would often twitch, rotate or run on the spot before setting off, this has been rectified so there is now a smooth transition between characters waiting and responding to orders.

ARTIFICIAL INTELIGENCE
Enemies now remember where they last saw a player. This means that they will now look for you where you were last seen.

Enemies will not spot player characters as easily if they are partly obscured. If you hide behind a crate with just your head exposed the enemy is now less likely to spot you, before if any part of your character was exposed for the enemy to see the enemy would spot you as easily as if you were out in the open.

Both enemies and non player controlled characters now have the ability to run backwards to avoid incoming grenades and characters, although this was active in earlier versions of Conflict: Desert Storm the characters reaction time was very slow and they normally died before it became apparent that they were backing off.

Enemies can now run backwards and strafe while targeting you, before enemies became confused and their behaviour seemed unrealistic if you got too close to them, they now simply continue to shoot you while backing off.

Enemies can now communicate with each other. If one enemy spots a player character he can inform nearby enemies of your location or just make them aware that there is an intruder in the vicinity which will promote an enemy investigation. In previous versions this was not possible and the player would effectively deal with one enemy at a time, occasionally the player would engage the enemy while surrounding enemies were unaware of any nearby combat.

Enemies are now sentient and can now selectively change targets on the fly, this allows the enemy to consider all visible targets and pick the greatest threat or an easier kill. This has a dramatic effect to game-play where an enemy can switch targets and change tactics on the fly, before the enemy would only swap targets after it had been destroyed and was no-longer a threat.

The enemies now perform guided search patterns and actually hunt you down! This is influenced by memory (where they last saw you), sight and sound. This translates into really engaging game-play as it is now possible for the user to trick or distract the enemy. Previously the enemy would always know where you were and would route directly to you, the enemy will now chase you in and out of buildings and around obstacles!

The enemies now acquire and drop targets much faster than before, this makes the enemy appear much sharper whereas they seemed quite slow and unresponsive before.

When enemies hunt the player they spread out and look in different areas opposed to all looking in the same place, this gives the impression of a thorough organised search party and minimises the effect of a player ambush.

Non player controlled characters now use grenades much more effectively, previously this had to be restricted as they would often blow up their own team mates. This now works really well and the player can often observe his team throwing grenades to take out the enemy.

GAME PLAY
The vision range for the player-controlled character has been reduced in length and is now narrower. This prevents your characters from auto targeting enemies that are not in the immediate view port. Before, your character would quite often be running forwards while tracking an enemy target at 90�.

If the user wanted to restart a game level for any reason, usually because they've lost one of their key characters or wasted valuable weaponry they would have to kill their remaining characters and reload the entire level. It is now possible to instantly restart the current game level from the pause menu.

The player characters strafe has been sped up. Before, the characters strafing was subject to slow acceleration which proved cumbersome and ineffective and actually negated the real need for a strafing movement.

All weapons can now be fired while running. Before certain weapons like the heavy machine gun could only be fired while static, now it is possible to run while giving suppressing fire support.

When in first person mode the amount of scope wobble is dependent on character movement speed. Before the scope just wobbled if your character was moving, this encourages players to choose between remaining static and making an accurate shot whilst being an easy enemy target or shooting inaccurately while on the move and a harder target for the enemy.

A new targeting reticule reflects the players accuracy, when running the player is very inaccurate, when standing they are better but not as good as when they are kneeling, the player is most accurate when prone, this information is indicated by the tightening of the reticule.

The player controlled characters now accelerate and decelerate much quicker for better responsiveness. This eliminates the feeling of 'lag' between moving the game controls and seeing a response on screen. The constant running speed has also been keyed much closer to the animation to reduce 'moon walking' characters.

The Go Loud command has been modified so that the non player controlled characters now only fire if they acquire a target that is a threat, before they would shoot on sight.

PERFORMANCE
The AI has been balanced to use processor time more efficiently, before this was a huge overhead but time has allowed this to be optimised to prevent a loss in frame rate. Also, the AI now uses a consistent % of the machines power opposed to peaks and troughs that have a dramatic effect the frame rate.

Large explosions no longer cause a slow down in frame rate, this was very apparent in previous versions and this code has now been optimised to eliminate this problem.

The routing code has been overhauled and is consequentially much more efficient which results in a much smaller delay before the non player controlled characters set off.

In general much of the engine and game code has been optimised for efficiency, this has allowed us to incorporate a four player co-operative game on the GameCube with a greater draw distance and better frame rate than previous versions.

AUDIO
The GameCube version of Conflict: Desert Storm will support Dolby Surround Pro Logic II.

In all the GameCube version heavily dominates over the other versions, which of course sounds like music to our ears. Please post your thoughts by using our comments option below.