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B.C.
BC was going to be an action-adventure
video game in development for Microsoft's Xbox video game system by
Intrepid Computer Entertainment, a satellite of Lionhead Studios. It
was cancelled in 2004, having been in development for some time; why
is not known though it has been alleged that it was "overly
ambitious."
Set in a Harryhausen-esque prehistoric time period, BC featured the
player having to advance their tribe in a world inhabited by
dinosaurs and other anachronistic creatures. From what is known, the
player would assume the role of a tribal chief who is responsible
for the welfare of his people. It is up to the player/chief to spur
his people's technological development and lead his tribe of cavemen
to a Valley free of predatory dinosaurs and savage ape-man where
they can evlove in peace. Part of that means that the player/chief
would assign various duties to his tribesmen. However, it would also
have been possible to play as any member of the tribe.
Early images at E3 showed extreme clarity and self shading but early
reviews called the artificial intelligence the most impressive
thing. According Gamespot.com's information on the game, the game
would have had a foodchain, like Peter Jackson's King Kong (video
game), in which each thing would have been subject to being eaten by
something higher on the foodchain. In addition the dinosaurs and
other creatures would have been intelligent, interacting with each
other acting independently of player. It would have been possible to
affect the videogame world as a whole, leading some people to
comment on the driving certain species to extinction.
Other things would have included
capturing and training certain animals to use against tribal
enemies. Animals known to exist in the world would have been
Tyrannosaurs, Velociraptors, Pachycephelosaurs, Sabre-Tooth Tigers,
Apatosaurs (or Brontosaurs as the game would have focused on
anachronisms) dodos, ape-men, and others. As part of the
exaggeration, the game, in addition to anachronims in dinosaur ages,
would have featured dinosaurs as larger than they really were. In
one preview, Molyneux was quoted as saying that the Rex seen in
screenshots was a child, a third the size of its parent. the game
was also planned to be very bloody. Gamespot quoted Molyneux as
saying that the dinosaurs will spill "swimming pools full of blood"
when killed.
At the moment, the game has been cancelled, fans believing that it
was too ambitious to be made; indeed, even while the game was still
in production, Molyneux said that he was unsure when he could
release it due to "the ambitious nature of the gameplay and the high
standards the people developing it are pushing for." According to
one article, as of May, 2002, "[the demo build] was roughly 50
percent complete". Its cancellation was announced in late 2004 with
Molyneux saying "The decision to suspend work on any games project
is always a very difficult one, particularly when it is a title with
the potential of BC." However, fans hope that Molyneux will live up
to his suggestion that the game might be revived at a later date
[info from
Wikipedia] |
