Introduction:
Mekton was a unusual piece of software: It was part of SGI's line of prototype games to test out the rendering capabilities of the various SGI rendering systems.
SGI produced graphics units that outranked anything else even remotely avalable, sans perhaps Sega Model 3.
Back to Mekton. Unlike most demo's, this actually was more of a game. You pilot a Mech not too far removed from SHOGO: Mobile Armor Division (A 1998 game) through huge open 3D spaces. Being a multiplayer title, Mekton was played after hours by the SGI Team.
Visually, Mekton was creme of the crop, boasting an OpenGL 1.0 rendered game world years before PC catched up.
Details:
- Fully 3D rendered world boasting visuals years ahead in 3D rendering. Think Quake 3 without colored lighting effects. Besides a Indigo 2 can run Quake 3 too.
- Requires a Indigo 2 with HIGH IMPACT graphics at minimum (These were IMPACT cards with hugely expensive TRAM texture modules. The top end was a Maximum IMPACT, this had a whopping 4 MB texture ram.
Additional details:
So how did this came to be? Well, Mekton was produced by Coryphaeus Software, founded in 1989 by ex-NASA space engineers. They produced a range of software for IRIX, including Activation. Activation was perhaps the first fully 3D rendering environment oriented at gamers, born out of their visual simulator software. It included the Activation Engine, a real time modeler, and also a real time player, meaning you could edit the game world in real time and play it, a WYSIWYG environment years ahead. It looked not too dissimilar to the Unreal Editor.
How to play this?
Well, its on various IRIX CD's, but its not emulated at all. You will need an Indigo 2 with HIGH IMPACT Graphics for texturing.
Video:
Screenshots:
Mekton:
Activation:
By comparison, here is Shogo: Mobile Armor Division, a 1998 game:
Links:
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