Destruction that will blow your mind (and your space ship)

The folks over at Cloud Imperium Games have detailed the new damage system that will be featured in Star Citizen – the ambitious crowd-funded space sim that continues to defy belief.

If you haven’t seen the clip yet, check it out below.

The game is getting more and more impressive every time I see it, and having raised over $73 million for the project, it’s to be expected!

According to the developers, the idea behind this damage detail is for each ship to tell its own story – carrying the scars from battles, showing exactly what sort of damage has been done, and where.

Burn colour, dents, holes cut through the ship, and exposed underlying metal are all part of the fun.

To achieve this, Cloud Imperium is creating over 200 meshes per ship to cover the ten main parts with 5 damage states each (with 5 simplified meshes to save processing times). That’s no small task.

While the “ship story” is a cool angle, we know why they’re really doing it – Gamers love destruction!

Gaming has always been a playground for the destructive, and many games have, in the past, promised a lot in the ways of that.

Some have promised too much, and delivered very little, while others (like Star Citizen) have delivered quite handsomely.

Here are some of our favourite gaming moments of destruction that really left a crater in our minds and in our hearts.

Carmaggedon

Carmageddon was one of the first games to elicit squeals of glee (and frustration) at the prospect of vehicle damage back in 1997.

Even though it wasn’t the first with destruction – Destruction Derby had this kind of thing down two years prior – it successfully coupled it with maiming innocent pedestrians. Cue the mayhem.

There’s nothing like literally scraping over the finish line in a mangled heap to make you feel like an accomplished racer.

The new version of the title – Carmageddon Reincarnation – has upped its destruction game a bit.

Metal Gear Solid 2

Back in 2001, Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty wowed the gaming world with its minute attention to detail. Sure, you couldn’t blow up entire environments, but you see that cup there? Yeah, if you shoot it at the top it will break at the point you shot it.

Shoot that bag of sand at the bottom and it will leak out. Split that watermelon up as you see fit. Knock that ice bucket over and watch the cubes melt *before your very eyes*. (Check the video from 6:40.)

In the greater scheme of things these small touches are almost irrelevant, but their inclusion shows that attention to destructive detail – no matter how small – can make you feel all squishy inside.

For a more modern Metal Gear take on destruction look at Metal Gear Rising, which features destruction that’s a bit more…personal.

Far Cry 2

We didn’t start the fire, it was always buring since the earth was turning. Except we did start the fire. And it was glorious.

On the wild plains of Africa, Far Cry 2 offers up all that lovely, lovely dry grass that’s just begging for some foolish man to set it ablaze.

Blame the malaria haze, or your general middle-finger attitude towards dry grass.

Thanks to the CryEngine, Crysis 2 also offers some impressive small-scale destruction in its environments. But probably not anything that will…set your world on fire.

Red Faction

Red Faction is basically synonymous with destructible environments.

With the Geomod engine running the show, the first game allowed you to blow massive holes into the environment, and make, like, tunnels and stuff. For no real reason, mind you.

Later games kept the destructive aspect, albeit in a more limited capacity. Still, there’s just something so gratifying watching things blow up and collapse in a way you control.

Minecraft

If you really want everything to be completely destructible, you can’t go wrong with Minecraft (or any of its distant spawn – like Terraria and Starbound).

While Red Faction Guerilla offered up destruction in the environment, Minecraft takes it up a notch (heh) by making the entire world yours for the taking.

In Minecraft – with enough patience and conviction – you can literally shape the world as you see fit by breaking and building and breaking, and breaking. And breaking.

It won’t be pretty, of course, but this is the price you pay for wanting to play God.