CNN - Interactive games getting wilder

Interactive games getting wilder

May 24, 1996
Web posted at: 7:40 a.m. EDT

From Correspondent Dennis Michael

HOLLYWOOD, California (CNN) -- Last week's Electronic Entertainment Expo, or E3 to those in the know, showcased some of the newest interactive entertainment products in the pipeline. If these products are any indication, interactive entertainment is getting wilder.

For starters, the latest simulated world is soon to be at your command. Even if you've been the mayor of SimCity, and the landlord of SimTower, you may not be ready for "Afterlife." LucasArts Digital is the group behind this new sim game, which presumes that God has gone on vacation and left you in charge.

"Think of yourself as a regional spiritual director where you have to make the best afterlife for your souls, and if your souls don't like your afterlife, they'll go to other afterlives, so you'd better make a good one," said Tom Byron of LucasArts Entertainment.

In the game, your screen presents you with the heavenly and demonic planes. Your job is to start zoning. "You're zoning according to the seven deadly sins in hell, and their respective virtues in heaven," Byron said.

Even the afterlife is prone to disasters. Hell can freeze over, or be attacked by the Disco Inferno, or the dreaded "Heaven Nose." LucasArts Digital plans to release this piece of interactive tongue-in-cheek theology later this summer. Also coming soon from LucasArts: "Jedi Knight," a spectacular new adventures from a galaxy far, far away.

Disney Interactive steers clear of the divine comedy, but the company doesn't mind working with the classics. With "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" on the way to the theaters, the interactive version is in the fine-tuning stage.

"It's got incredible interactivity built in, a 360-degree screen that you can actually go into Cathedral Square and interact with all the characters, play games and sing-alongs, along with 27 other story screens and six other activities," said Disney Interactive's Joe Adney.

Disney is no slouch at corporate synergy, but another of their newest products, "Walt Disney World Explorer," is an example of using one division to help another that may have no parallel.

"Not only is it an opportunity to explore the entire park, but it also has an incredible amount of background information. We have film clips of Walt explaining his original vision," Adney said.

The idea of synergy hasn't been lost on Fox Interactive, either. The company plans on having one of summer's biggest movies with the sci-fi action movie "Independence Day," in which aliens try to take over the planet. The interactive buyer will also have a chance to fight the aliens this summer.

Since Seventh Level's "Monty Python's Complete Waste of Time" sold faster than Spam, with a quarter of a million copies in the marketplace, it was only a matter of time before Monty Python graced another title. The new Python title, based on "Monty Python and the Holy Grail," is headed to the software stores. And later this summer, we're promised that Monty Python will invade the Internet with "Pyth-Online."

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