Who here loves them? I must admit I do. To me it adds more excitement to a game when buildings, cars, boats, planes, walls, etc are blown apart.
Destructible Environments
- Thread starter Lookingglassman
- Start date
I liked digging tunnels with rockets in the original Red Faction. I wish more games let you obliterate the level geometry like that.
Rett Mikhal
Captain
Oh man, did you ever play that multiplayer map in Red Faction where the players started in bunkers overlooking an arena, and the bots fought inside the arena? You were supposed to snipe the bots (and each other), but my friends and I would always attempt to make these super complicated rock tunnels winding back and forth to get to the arena. We succeeded exactly once.
Anyways, yeah, I dig destructable environments. They get kind of addictive when you know items are hidden in barrels. When my nephew and I play X-men Legends we joke the enemy always knows the X-men are coming based on the sounds of destruction coming towards them.
I remember when Max Payne first came out it was a big deal that bullets did different things to different objects; shattering wood, breaking cement, denting metal, making ceramic tiles crumble and fall. It seems common place now, but it was a big deal back then in the stone age of 2003.
Anyways, yeah, I dig destructable environments. They get kind of addictive when you know items are hidden in barrels. When my nephew and I play X-men Legends we joke the enemy always knows the X-men are coming based on the sounds of destruction coming towards them.
I remember when Max Payne first came out it was a big deal that bullets did different things to different objects; shattering wood, breaking cement, denting metal, making ceramic tiles crumble and fall. It seems common place now, but it was a big deal back then in the stone age of 2003.
My only real experience with it is in playing Red Faction Guerilla, which I loved. The ability to destroy buildings wasn't just an aesthetic thing, it changed the gameplay in interesting ways, and the emphasis on destructive weapons made it great fun. The first time I ventured out of the base I got in a firefight with some EDF troops and one of the pipes going over the road was half destroyed, and there was something immensely gratifying about the fact that each time I drove past it, half of it was gone. I have some problems with the game, but after playing it I feel like non-destructible sandbox games are lacking something.
I love the two Mercenaries games because you get to practically destroy everything.
Yup, I was very impressed with Red Faction's engine back in the day, it went very easy on the hardware.
IIRC, it was the first game to allow destruction of level geometry on that scale.
Oh yeah, remember MadOnion's 3DMark 2001? The Matrix-style lobby scene in bullet time? Jaw-droppingly awesome
When I heard that Max Payne was going to be released using that exact same engine, I was sold.
Destructible environments in Red Faction were so much fun 
Need a foxhole? Blow one in the floor. Enemy APC on a bridge? Blow both ends of the bridge off and watch the whole thing blow up, or blow a hole directly in front of it and watch 50+ tonnes of metal cartwheel down the hole
Even little things like blowing up a high section of a wall and rubble falling and injuring people down on the ground. Speaking of multiplayer maps, Rett Mikhal, I remember playing that one too. It was a map me and my friend discovered that rockets actually have a finite range. Fortunately, one could use them like artillery and arc the shots
I have to say that it really adds to the experience when playing Bad Company 2, having the map slowly be levelled, hearing the groan of buildings just before they collapse (scary if you're caught inside and rush to get out). There's something about seeing the damage done to a map after a long game makes it feel like there is a lot of firepower being thrown around.
Need a foxhole? Blow one in the floor. Enemy APC on a bridge? Blow both ends of the bridge off and watch the whole thing blow up, or blow a hole directly in front of it and watch 50+ tonnes of metal cartwheel down the hole Even little things like blowing up a high section of a wall and rubble falling and injuring people down on the ground. Speaking of multiplayer maps, Rett Mikhal, I remember playing that one too. It was a map me and my friend discovered that rockets actually have a finite range. Fortunately, one could use them like artillery and arc the shots
I have to say that it really adds to the experience when playing Bad Company 2, having the map slowly be levelled, hearing the groan of buildings just before they collapse (scary if you're caught inside and rush to get out). There's something about seeing the damage done to a map after a long game makes it feel like there is a lot of firepower being thrown around.
Hell yeah, I love me some destructible environments!
I loved completely wrecking everything in Crysis... A lot of times I would take a jeep with a turret in the back, park it next to a forrest, and completely mow everything down for shits and giggles. I also enjoyed tossing grenades into shacks just to bring them down. All sorts of fun.
Personally I'm still waiting for someone to develop an engine that can handle both destructible terrain and destructible buildings. Now that would really be enormous fun!
Just imagine being able to undermine a building, planting explosives right under the foundations then sitting back and watch the whole thing implode and disappear into a very deep pit.
Just imagine being able to undermine a building, planting explosives right under the foundations then sitting back and watch the whole thing implode and disappear into a very deep pit.
Fracture lets you do that, but unfortunately only in specific places, and not just generally.
The closest experience I've had is with this freeware simulator Rigs of Rods, which uses soft-body physics.
Sadly, the buildings aren't also destructable.
Sadly, the buildings aren't also destructable.
Oh yeah, remember MadOnion's 3DMark 2001? The Matrix-style lobby scene in bullet time? Jaw-droppingly awesome
When I heard that Max Payne was going to be released using that exact same engine, I was sold.
Years later, and Max Payne still looks awesome in slow motion.
The other day I was playing Mass Effect and it occurred to me that part (though not all, of course) of the problem with the Mako wasn't the Mako itself but with the terrain. Wouldn't it have been so much better if the terrain had had some give rather than ann being uniformly granite solid and diamond edged? What if certain parts could behave like actual terrain and have some give, either flatten or get knocked out by the wheels.
Say you're making your way over a series of those horrible tight little ridge lines and instead of the back wheels catching and flipping you, the wheel just ploughs through the loose soil or regolith. Aside from make the experience look much better and more realistic, I think it'd help to effectively smooth out all the hard geometry and give the vehicle some sense of traction. The technology is already there I think in water simulation. A good start might be to apply it to some ofthe topography and fiddle with the values to give the simulate increased viscosity and density.
Not all environment destruction need be about blowing holes in things...but the Mako's cannon should still make a sizeable crater.
Say you're making your way over a series of those horrible tight little ridge lines and instead of the back wheels catching and flipping you, the wheel just ploughs through the loose soil or regolith. Aside from make the experience look much better and more realistic, I think it'd help to effectively smooth out all the hard geometry and give the vehicle some sense of traction. The technology is already there I think in water simulation. A good start might be to apply it to some ofthe topography and fiddle with the values to give the simulate increased viscosity and density.
Not all environment destruction need be about blowing holes in things...but the Mako's cannon should still make a sizeable crater.
It's one of the things that's missing from the GTA series, especially GTA 4. It's just not the same when you can destroy mostly everything else, but the moment you crash into a building or fire on a building with a rocket, the only visible damage that occurs is to cars and the surrounding area.
I'd love to see if they could introduce it to either the next GTA game or a future one.
I'd love to see if they could introduce it to either the next GTA game or a future one.
Oh, definitely. I'm sure it's a nightmare to get it right performance-wise, and particularly with GTAIV it might also have been a problem considering people's sensitivities about damaging or even destroying skyscrapers in a NYC setting.
Rett Mikhal
Captain
There wouldn't be any city left after an hour!
There are also storage issues with retaining modified level geometry from session to session. Plus, it would probably be difficult to complete missions if it turns out you destroyed buildings that are crucial to said missions much earlier in the game. 
Destroy all Humans has a destructible environment and only when you reload that level does the city ever rebuild, so to speak. A command or whatever can be written into games like GTA where whatever buildings you might have destroyed will rebuild after a certain time or distance away from the area.
I think maybe one of the problems here though would be the extra processing time required to rebuild the destruction.
I think maybe one of the problems here though would be the extra processing time required to rebuild the destruction.
Yes! It's the best thing about DICE games like Battlefied 1943 and Bad Company 1 & 2.
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