Euphoria - Coming To a Game Near You

Meet EuphoriaMan (as I've dubbed him). He's awesome. Look at his little eyes. He's the unofficial mascot for Euphoria and appears in their tech-demos to show-off just what Euphoria does. Below is one such tech-demo. Euphoria develops the concept of ragdoll physics by adding natural behaviour patterns to in-game player-characters and non-player-characters (NPCs). Basically, what this means is that when you interact with a Euphoria powered character, they act just like they would in real-life. Beat them about the head and watch, point and laugh as they collapse to the floor holding their bonce. If they fall, they'll try to grab hold of anything near them, including other NPCs, to stop themselves dying. They have self-preservation in spades.

What they also do is react to where about their person they are shot. Shoot them in the arm and they'll drop whatever weapons they're carrying. Shoot them in the leg on a flight of stairs and they'll tumble down just like they would in real-life, trying to stop themselves, but inevitably succumbing to the effects of gravity and a bullet stuck in their femur. None of it is scripted, either, as it uses the CPU dynamically and should therefore make each and every interaction unique.

Brilliantly, the Euphoria engine has been incorporated into GTA IV and will help add that real-life behaviour that creating such a game entails. So, watch the following video and imagine it all occuring within Liberty City, feel your anticipation for the game doubling and then weep because you can't have it for another couple of days. It's also being utilised in Star Wars: The Force Unleashed with seemingly stunning effect.

The question, though, is will Euphoria actually add anything significant to games? It's hard to see why it shouldn't, but what's definite is that it certainly won't detract anything. It also screams of next-gen technology, certainly something not to be scoffed at.