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Oni 2 (Angel Studios): Difference between revisions

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Oni 2 (Angel Studios) (view source)

Revision as of 16:01, 5 February 2018

1,622 bytes removed ,  5 February 2018
moved emulation info to Running subpage
m (→‎Playing the build: ISO can no longer be found through a Google search, so let's be a little more specific)
(moved emulation info to Running subpage)
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[[Image:Oni 2 - Title screen.jpg|right|300px]]
[[Image:Oni 2 - Title screen.jpg|right|300px]]
:''For instructions on how to run the game, see [[/Running|HERE]].''
'''Oni 2: Death & Taxes''' was a sequel to [[Oni]] which was in development from 2001-2002 before being cancelled. The game was being developed by Angel Studios for the PlayStation 2 under publisher Take-Two Interactive before Angel was acquired by Rockstar and renamed [[wikipedia:Rockstar_San_Diego|Rockstar San Diego]]. An ISO of a late or final development build of the game leaked in 2016. The build was documented by the game preservation YouTube channel PtoPOnline [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZItobLIJJMY here]. The title of the game seen on the main menu was likely a working title or a light-hearted placeholder; the game data internally uses the name '''Oni 2: Rebirth'''.
'''Oni 2: Death & Taxes''' was a sequel to [[Oni]] which was in development from 2001-2002 before being cancelled. The game was being developed by Angel Studios for the PlayStation 2 under publisher Take-Two Interactive before Angel was acquired by Rockstar and renamed [[wikipedia:Rockstar_San_Diego|Rockstar San Diego]]. An ISO of a late or final development build of the game leaked in 2016. The build was documented by the game preservation YouTube channel PtoPOnline [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZItobLIJJMY here]. The title of the game seen on the main menu was likely a working title or a light-hearted placeholder; the game data internally uses the name '''Oni 2: Rebirth'''.


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The game binary contains various strings which demonstrate that it ran on the Angel Game Engine (AGE), the in-house engine used by Angel Studios. Since Angel almost exclusively developed racing games at the time Oni 2 was started, it's difficult to understand why T2 assigned them a third-person brawler with a heavy focus on bipedal animation. It seems likely that Angel had to do a tremendous amount of coding to add support for this type of game to their engine. Interestingly, Angel was apparently bought by Rockstar for their engine, and AGE became RAGE, the [[wikipedia:Rockstar_Advanced_Game_Engine|Rockstar Advanced Game Engine]], which Rockstar has used to power the Grand Theft Auto games from IV onward.
The game binary contains various strings which demonstrate that it ran on the Angel Game Engine (AGE), the in-house engine used by Angel Studios. Since Angel almost exclusively developed racing games at the time Oni 2 was started, it's difficult to understand why T2 assigned them a third-person brawler with a heavy focus on bipedal animation. It seems likely that Angel had to do a tremendous amount of coding to add support for this type of game to their engine. Interestingly, Angel was apparently bought by Rockstar for their engine, and AGE became RAGE, the [[wikipedia:Rockstar_Advanced_Game_Engine|Rockstar Advanced Game Engine]], which Rockstar has used to power the Grand Theft Auto games from IV onward.
==Playing the build==
The ISO can be found on epforums.org (registration required) and is playable on a modded PS2 or in an emulator. The only mature PS2 emulator is PCSX2. Although PCSX2 is available for both Windows and macOS, the Mac version has poor performance and exhibits graphical glitches with this particular game. (Lighting problems occur even when playing on a PS2, so it's likely that graphics code was being worked on when this game build was produced.) Thus, if you are on a Mac, you will ideally want to use Boot Camp to run the game in PCSX2 for Windows. PCSX2 has also been reported to work on Macs running Windows within Parallels Desktop and VMware Fusion; it does not seem to run in Oracle VM VirtualBox, which has problems with 3D acceleration as of v5.1. To prevent glitched shadows when playing Oni 2 in PCSX2, you need to switch the GSdx plugin to Software mode and turn on the "Edge anti-aliasing" setting; this will severely cut performance compared to rendering in Hardware mode.
Once Oni 2 is running, there is only one level available by choosing New Game. Additional levels, however, can be chosen from the Load Game menu. These are documented under "Story and levels" below. Levels can take a long time to load, and some do not have loading screens, instead displaying a gray screen until they're done loading. The only levels that could be considered traditionally "game-like" are levels 1 (The Blast Chambers), 6 (Initial Attack), and 8 (The Rooftops). These were the primary levels used to prototype the game. The other levels were used by the developers to test features or scripting, but some are rather substantial, like level 14 (AI Abilities Test).


==Gameplay==
==Gameplay==
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