New preview, new shots at Gamespot

Gamespot posted a new preview (a Q&A with Hamilton Chu) which has a good amount of new info and new shots.

The first new shot shows Konoko holding a sniper rifle aiming at an unsuspecting enemy.

The second new shot shows a factory of some sorts with factory workers.

The third new shot shows two TCTF men holding new weapons.

A snippet:

GS: And the obligatory question: When will Oni ship?

HC: The plan is to ship Oni simultaneously for three platforms: Windows, Macintosh, and now, PlayStation2. While we're not specific about dates at the moment, obviously it wouldn't happen before the PS2 becomes available in the US. The expected timeframe for that launch matches our development schedule quite well.

Also included is a clearer picture of the Ninja seen in the Oni Central archives

Thanks to everyone who wrote in and let me know this preview was up.

Oni in EGM

Electronic Gaming Monthly printed a small preview in their latest issue in the PS2 section. You can see a scan here.

Thanks to Nijhazer for the scan!

Interview with Marty O'Donnell

After we read the recent interview with Power of Seven, we got curious about how the various musical tasks for Oni got divided up between Power of Seven and Total Audio. Marty O'Donnell was kind enough to set us straight!

New Oni preview

Kudos to Jeff Campen for giving me the heads up to a new preview over at Actiontrip.com.

Sadly, no new screenshots, but a big batch of info, an interesting snippet:

"There will be occasions where the player must figure out a way to achieve a certain objective, and have several options. For example, they'll need to get into a fortified, mountain compound, and will have several different ways to do it - they can scale the walls, or sneak into the back of a truck entering it, or just run in shooting when the gate is open. Some ways will have better results than others, even if all are possible."

And:

One possible drawback is that Konoko won't be able to use any vehicles; poor little lass will have to walk the whole game through. On the other hand it is not much of a handicap because if the game turns out the way it was planned you won't have much time to think about that.

And quite a bit more new info. Head on over and read it! Oh yeah, be sure to check this picture out. ;)

Official: Oni at E3

Bungie posted a note about E3 on their homepage yesterday:

Bungie will be exhibiting at this year's E3 Expo at the Los Angeles Convention Center, May 11 - 13, 2000. We will be located in Booth #2900 in the West Hall. Get a glimpse of the future with Bungie's industy-shattering 3D action games: the intense anime action thriller ONI and the epic sci-fi combat of HALO.

Oni in PS2 Extreme

Oni is featured in PS2 Extreme, one of the UK's largest PS2 magazines.

(Thanks Hamish)

Cutscenes

Oni will have cutscenes, and what is known at this time is that they will be engine-generated. The new poll asks what you think the cutscenes should be like.

Power of Seven interview

eUniverse posted an exclusive interview with Paul Sebastien, co-founder of Power of Seven, the music/audio team behind the soundtrack for Oni.

A snippet:

What type of feel are you going for with the music in Oni?

Bungie really wanted hard, aggressive, dramatic techno/electronica for much of the in-game music, but then we're also doing some more ambient atmospheric work as well, so it'll be a mix of things. The main thing for us is to accentuate the amazing visuals, storyline and aesthetic of the game, to really give every level of it the impact that it deserves.

Thanks to Jeff Campen for the heads up

Oni at E3

Matt let us know that Oni will be present at E3, Matt also notes "if recent builds are any indication it should look pretty slick. There will be definite and obvious improvements over the build we were showing in January."

How will you play Oni?

The new poll asks how you play Oni, either with keyboard, keyboard and mouse or gamepad. You know where to go.

PC Gamer on Oni's delay with new screenshot

The May 2000 issue of PC Gamer has a small piece on Oni asking where it is now and why the delay. Note one paragraph saying why the game is taking so long to be done:

Losing a lead programmer certainly didn't help, but the real choke point has been in the level design. According to Bungie, while the environments were looking great, the tools to help bring those levels were a bit behind the curve of current technology. So time was spent re-shaping the level design process, and along the way, they worked on better integrating the anime feel into the game. The designers have also added new features such as the ability to disarm opponents in combat, escape moves and two-handed weapons.

Along with this came a new screenshot:

The scan can be found here, many thanks to Noctavis for scanning this in.

New fan art

A cool new desktop joins the other fan art here at Oni Central, this time a very blue Konoko desktop picture by Firecat.

New poll up

Time yet again for a new poll here at Oni Central. Last time I asked how "Oni" is pronounced. The majority of you said it's pronounced "Oh-knee", which I myself think is correct too.

After the new preview with the new screenshots posted 2 days ago, one could assume more Oni news will be coming towards us real soon. So the new poll asks, what kind of Oni news do you want, so go vote!

New German preview, new screenshots

Gamestar, a German game magazine, has a two page preview of Oni in its May 2000 issue, with some cool info and two new screenshots! I translated the article which you can read here.

If you want to view the original article, you need to make sure that you have Adobe Acrobat and its plug-in. Get it here.

The new screenshots:

Special thanks to CyberBob for scanning in the article and shots for me.

That number seven...

Seems like Bungie West has the Tru7h...

(Thanks to Jeff Campen who submitted 2 other webcam grabs which can be found on the webcam grabs page)

Fan art section up

I managed to acquire a couple of images from people who have done Oni art, and thus was able to put up a fan art section in the archives. If you have an image or images that are not up there, be sure to send them in!

Help needed

...In getting a fan art section of the archives sorted out. I sadly do not have all submissions, and in some cases I cannot identify the artist of the ones I do have. So please, everyone who has ever sent in art to this site, please re-send it to me so that I can put up your art and credit you for it.

Thank you.