Daily Archives: January 2, 2008

Space Elevator Computer Games and Bungee jumping…

I’ve posted before about how Space Elevators are occasionally components in video games.  In addition to being in the new version of Halo they were also in Ex Machina (though a commenter said that this wasn’t a video game – I don’t really know) and Civilization IV.  I’ve also posted about how people have speculated / joked about Bungee jumping / skydiving from a Space Elevator (here, here and here).

I’ve now discovered that these two have been combined but, unfortunately, not in a readily-available manner.  On the Nuon platform, a game called Freefall 3050 A.D. was released some years ago.  One of the Amazon reviews summed it up thusly:

“Freefall by Total Arkade Software is one of the most unique titles to be released on any platform in recent memory, indeed, titles this far off the mainstream usually are frowned upon. That being said, TAKS has crafted what can best be described as a 360 degree free-falling joyride. As a member of the jump police of 3050 A.D., it’s your job to keep the skies clear of joyriders and trouble-makers, problem is that there are a lot of lunatics out there. Freefalling at top-speed, you must rotate in 360 degrees while blasting and manuevering, taking out targets to complete missions and ‘persuading’ criminals to see things your way. Dynamic control scheme, ground-breaking gameplay & techno soundtrack all contribute to a game that breaks the action shooter mold in every conceivable way.”

This sounds way-cool.  And, now I find a story about a concept created for another XBOX game, called Freefall/Gemini, with a similar theme.  Unfortunately it never made it off the ground.  If it had, my son and I would be battling for time on his XBOX…

The story links to a short video (here) of this proposed game.  The video, especially the music, ranks very high on my cool-o-meter…

(The picture thumbnails are snapshots of the video – click on them or visit the video for a larger version)