Preview: The Insider
The Insider
Developer/Publisher: Index+/Dramaera/Canal+ Multimedia
Projected Release Date: First Quarter 2001
Platform: DVD PlayStation 2
Genre: Adventure/Action
When I look at the main character of The Insider, I am reminded of John Travolta in Pulp Fiction. This game has a much kinder and gentler storyline than that of the film Pulp Fiction, but I find the facial features, hair, and overall body appearance of Simon Blurr to be very similar to that of Vincent Vega. John Travolta (Vincent) had an angular face and collar-length dark hair, and he always wore a dark suit. The hero of The Insider (Simon) has an angular face and collar-length dark hair, and he wears a dark jumpsuit. Enough said … But if The Insider can capture an audience .000001% as large as that of Pulp Fiction, it will be the runaway computer game success of all time.
You will meet your hero in Paris in the early 1920s as he dons the roles of art collector, art thief, and seducer of women. You, the player, will have the rare opportunity to develop Simon’s personality. You will actually become the director of The Insider itself. This is a level of artificial intelligence that I have never played in before, and I think that it sounds like a very exciting opportunity. Dramaera is calling this game and character development tool Narrative Environment. You will not be playing the typical linear adventure here. You will be deeply immersed into the story as if you were a living and breathing inhabitant of the game.
According to Dramaera, Narrative Environment is a particular and very specialized form of virtual world. It has taken the company over two years to research and develop this framework upon which autonomous and semi-autonomous actors, endowed with behavioral intelligence, will play their parts. You will participate as the characters develop their individual sense of values, personality, skill levels, goals, and the role they will play within the story. Simon, the central character, will respond to your prompts, but you will find that he already has feelings, desires, will, knowledge of the difference between good and evil, and a life plan. He is, however, capable of learning, feeling, making choices, and falling in love.
As the story unfolds, you will discover that a man is threatened with death. Only a secret, almost out of reach, can save him. You will search for five missing paintings, face temptation, and meet cruel enemies. You will have the ability to develop into a person of charm, intelligence, humor, and self-control. Overall, the game will be a scenario conducted like that of a film where the hero will play amidst over 20 characters in nine 3D worlds, see the streets of Paris, visit mansions and museums, and perform four different types of combat (fencing, archery, pistol, knife throwing).
The canvas for this game is large and ambitious and may be the beginning of an entirely new and exciting development package for the future of computer games. It is difficult for me to imagine playing a game within a game while directing the entire drama. I am going to assume that Narrative Environment will be the early tip of future technological breakthroughs, and we all should recognize by now that technology grows exponentially. I can only imagine what will be next. Aren’t computers magical?
