Earlier this week, we had a chance to check out the game's progress on both the Xbox and PS2 platforms, and the results are stunning to say the least. More than anything, Mathieu Ferland and his team wanted to innovate, and they went through months and months of research and development in an effort to push both systems to their limits. In many ways, Chaos Theory is an attempt to bridge the gap and transition between the current generation of systems and the next generation, which are still about a year away.
At this point, Chaos Theory is the biggest game in the history of the publisher, in more ways than one. Over 120 people are on the development teams for each platform, and they've been working for almost two years to make sure the games are the best looking ever seen on the two consoles. To reach these goals, the team utilized plenty of cutting edge technology and, in some cases, even created some of their own.
The Xbox version of the game utilizes normal mapping, which offers amazingly detailed textures without sapping too much of the processor's power, allowing the developers to focus more on duties like improved AI and realistic physics. The PS2 version, on the other hand, makes use of a new technology called GeoTexturing, which essentially tricks the graphics processor into thinking that a 3D object is a flat mesh. Without getting too technical (are you lost yet?), this means that surfaces that would normally appear flat on the PS2 will now appear 3D, greatly improving the look and feel of the game.
