Sega

DroneZ is a cancelled Dreamcast arcade game about fighting with discs and flying around on neon-lighted platforms. It seems the game was later released on PC as a tech demo for NVidia. As we can read on NVidia’s website:

droneZ transports you to a hostile future that, because of neglect and pollution, has forced people to live immersed in feedback units. These units, which are connected to the V-Space network, are dominated by Artificial Intelligences who forbid people to disconnect.

With the help of a hacker from the real world, an intruder will attempt to hack the AI protected network to take-over the enemy memory locations and destroy their defenses.

You will guide the hero through astonishing bio-technologic environments while fighting against diverse, stunning creatures in your quest to break all barriers. If successful, the hacker will be able unlock all the exits and finally free mankind from the braces of the AIs.

When Zetha gameZ decided to create the first 3D game set in cyberspace, one of the most challenging issues was to create a peculiar illumination model that delivered an appearance of both solid and unreal—one of the key features of their 3D engine, the nGenius II. This custom illumination model was so innovative that, at the time, no video card on the market could support it in hardware—the standard DirectX and OpenGL T&L simply was not powerful enough for this new technology.

Thanks to Ross Sillifant for the scans below with developers’ interview!

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