New Doctor Who: The Eternity Clock Trailer Highlights Graphics, Split-Screen

Hevva

Shipwrecked, comatose, newsie
Aug 2, 2011
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New Doctor Who: The Eternity Clock Trailer Highlights Graphics, Split-Screen



The Eternity Clock will use Unreal Engine 3 to power all that timey-wimey-running-away-at-speed business.

More details surrounding the upcoming Doctor Who: The Eternity Clock for PC, PS3, and Vita are seeping from the topsoil as we near the game's March 2012 [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/115430-Doctor-Who-The-Eternity-Clock-Trailer-Replete-with-Scary-Monsters] release date. In this trailer we've got a hint of splitscreen co-op, a disarmingly lovely soundtrack, and graphics which showcase the design team's decision to build the game using Epic's Unreal Engine 3.

Describing the team's decision to use Unreal 3, Jonathan Amor, chief technology officer at Eternity Clock studio Supermassive Games, said that, "At Supermassive, we always try to be very pragmatic about our choice of technology and choose the right tool for the job at hand. Our aim for Doctor Who: The Eternity Clock is to match it as closely as possible in aesthetics, tone and sound to the television series."

BBC Worldwide's vice-president of Digital Entertainment, Robert Nashak, is equally pleased. "Doctor Who: The Eternity Clock is the start of a major new gaming development for the Doctor Who brand...Eternity Clock will allow players to experience the action, adventure, and madness of Doctor Who for themselves on an exciting new game platform that we hope will raise the bar for future games to come."

When released, The Eternity Clock will mark the Unreal Engine's first outing on the PlayStation Vita and, although it isn't the most prestigious of honors, I think it's pretty safe to say that this game will be the most complex and best-looking Doctor Who game we've ever seen. There are a few snapshots of what look to be puzzles in the trailer (missing notebook scraps perhaps lost in time?) and that split-screen business looks decently intriguing.

The Eternity Clock has no release date more specific than "March 2012" right now, but we'll keep an eye out for updates in the meantime. (Any hints from TARDIS-owning readers much appreciated. You could even do a pre-emptive review-from-the-end-of-March too! We'd totally publish it.)

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The_Darkness

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Nov 8, 2010
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Hevva said:
(Any hints from TARDIS-owning readers much appreciated. You could even do a pre-emptive review-from-the-end-of-March too! We'd totally publish it.)
Alright, I'll bite :)

***
Side-scrolling madness at its best. Matt Smith and Alex Kingston provide good voice acting, although one gets the impression that they aren't particularly used to voicing without a camera yet. Unfortunately, split screen multiplayer seems to be a dying breed, but it proves its worth here where you don't have to worry about your internet cutting out at the worst possible moment, and end up leaving the Doctor on a cliff-hanger.

The animation is one of the weaker aspects of the game: digital Matt Smith just isn't as... zany as the genuine article, while River's eyes don't quite look right. However, the gameplay more than makes up for it. The mini-games are fun without being tedious, whereas the main game itself provides a good five hours of running away from Daleks, Cybermen, Silence and even a strange potato shaped alien in a monster truck...

Stop here if you want to avoid spoilers, but...

I especially enjoyed the time-travel mechanics that came into play later in the game. That one level where River's timestream is in a complete reverse to the Doctor's, so that your friend can see you do something before you do it yourself? Genious, though I have no idea how they coded it. And as for the gameplay gimick where losing sight of the Silence actually makes YOU forget they were there... On a similar note, if you see a Weeping Angel... Well, I shouldn't need to say it.

All in all, 4 out of 5 Stars from me, and a "Fantastic! I always hoped they do a decent game with me in it!" from the kindly gentleman who let me borrow his blue box...
***
 

Chrono212

Fluttershy has a mean K:DR
May 19, 2009
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"A huge spike of Chrono energy"?

OT: Looks good. Not that the first games were bad, actually.

Why no love for the Xbox?
 

Proverbial Jon

Not evil, just mildly malevolent
Nov 10, 2009
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Chrono212 said:
Why no love for the Xbox?
I feel sure a previous article for this game had the Xbox 360 listed as a possible platform. Unless it was mere wishful thinking on my part.

OT: Looks good, but then again, I'll be buying it whether it's good or not quite frankly. I've been waiting for something like this since the new series started about 7 years ago!

The voice acting still sounds a little wooden in places, but that was a problem the PC adventure games suffered from. I only hope this game has a strong storyline, one that will appeal to young and old, just as the TV series does. Overall, quite excited about this.
 

Scabadus

Wrote Some Words
Jul 16, 2009
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Did that voice at the end sound famillier to anyone else? I'm pretty sure it wasn't Silence and it wasn't quite a Dalek.... was it Davros?!
 

CrazyBlaze

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Jul 12, 2011
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Looks fun. Im finding the graphics a little jarring. For me a game isn't based on its graphics but I guess I've gotten used to better graphics, but the trailer does look beter than the previous one in which it all looked really bad. Other than that I can't wait for the game.