I was walking through a local store the other day that is known for it's dirt cheap prices (for nearly everything). I came upon "Midnight Outlaw: Illegal Street Drag" by Valusoft. I have to admit that I have a little thing for Valusoft games and own nearly all of their recent first person shooters (and one rather old one). As bad as the games are, they are mildly entertaining and in most cases worth the $5 i pay for them at this store. The thing that really piqued my interest was that the game was listed on the back as being "Powered By Havok." Did my eyes decieve me? Was Havok not the same physics engine that powered Deus Ex: Invisible War, Max Payne, and Half Life 2? I thought it was odd, but not impossible (Valusoft published a game that used SoundMAX SPX). .. .. Half an hour later, I got home and installed the game. I ran the game, making my way through the clunky interface, finally getting to a race. The entire game consisted of two cars racing each other down a straight piece of track. When playing, I saw absolutely nothing that couldn't be easily simulated from a high school phsysics book. I get the gnawing feeling that they just stuck "Havok" on the box because they figured nobody would notice if they didn't actually use any of Havok's impressive feature set. But if that badge is on the box, they must be paying for it. Why would they pay money to license an engine to do something that could easily by simulated with inline code? The only thing I can think of is that they think that people will recognize it and purchase it thinking it will be impressive. The problem with this is that valusoft's target market would have no clue as to what Havok is (I had to think for a moment as to where i recognized it from). So.. my question.. do they have a valid reason or are they off their rockers? (off their rocker.. you know.. lights are on but nobody's home.. hamster is dead but the wheel is still turning.. few fries short of a happy meal.. fell out of the crazy tree and hit ever branch on the way down.. you get the idea) [edited by - falkone on April 25, 2004 10:38:17 PM]

I expect they had to credit Havok, even though they didn''t use any interesting aspects of the technology as it would be in the licensing agreement. Does sound like the sort of thing Havok would prefer not to be credited with

Dan Marchant
Obscure Productions (www.obscure.co.uk)
Game Development & Design consultant