City of Villains Powered by AGEIA

Cryptic Studios and AGEIA have announced that the upcoming MMORPG City of Villains will be powered by AGEIA’s NovodeX physics technology.

Upcoming (City of Villains) MMO Game Powered by AGEIA Physics Technology

Cryptic Studios uses AGEIA NovodeX physics software to generate physics-based effects and environments for much-anticipated companion game to City of Heroes

LOS ANGELES, Calif. May 17, 2005 At the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), AGEIAâ„¢ Technologies, Inc., the pioneer in hardware-accelerated physics for games, today announced that Cryptic Studios, Inc. is using AGEIA’s NovodeX physics software to create amazingly realistic effects and interactive environments for its upcoming City of Villainsâ„¢ Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO) Role-Playing Game. The new game release is the result of an ongoing partnership between AGEIA and Cryptic, in which both companies combine their considerable talent and expertise to take games to a new level of interactivity and realism. According to a source code license agreement with AGEIA, Cryptic Studios will be using AGEIA’s NovodeX physics software as their core physics engine for upcoming games such as City of Villains.

Published by NCsoft and scheduled for Fall release, City of Villains has been eagerly anticipated by fans of the award-winning and hugely popular City of Heroes® MMO game. While the two game worlds are interactive, City of Villains is a standalone game offering brand new archetypes with new types of powers, as well as physics-based effects and environments that can be hardware accelerated with the AGEIA PhysX processor. Such effects include large rigid body simulations, fluids, physical particle systems, and other complex physics implementations that are radically accelerated with dedicated physics hardware.

(Cryptic Studios is very excited about AGEIA’s physics technology. Once gamers experience this level of immersion it will quickly become a must-have feature,) said Michael Lewis, CEO of Cryptic Studios.

(City of Villains is a fantastic game experience and a great introduction to the capabilities of AGEIA physics technology,) said Andy Keane, vice president of marketing for AGEIA. (With this powerful technology in the hands of a talented development team such as Cryptic Studios, we’re only beginning to explore the possibilities of physics in next-generation games.)

AGEIA will be demonstrating games using AGEIA PhysX technology at E3. (By appointment only, Kentia hall, booth #7532.)

About Cryptic Studios

Cryptic Studios, Inc., located in Los Gatos, California, was established in July of 2000 and is an independent developer of massively multiplayer online games for the PC and next generation consoles. Its first game, City of Heroes, launched in April 2004. The game takes place in a virtual world where thousands of people play simultaneously, take on the role of super-powered heroes, fight villains and help create a dynamic story in a visually-stunning, 3-D graphical world.

About AGEIA

AGEIAâ„¢ Technologies, Inc. is a fabless semiconductor company and the pioneer of hardware-accelerated physics for games. Its flagship product, the PhysX processor, is the world’s first dedicated physics processing unit a completely new hardware category. The PhysX processor and supporting software deliver the processing horsepower to calculate real-time interactive worlds. Developers can define these worlds to obey the laws of classical physics, or create their own physical laws that make their game a unique, hyper-dimensional experience.

AGEIA seeks to ignite innovation in the games industry by working with leading developers, publishers, add-in board vendors and console manufacturers to deliver the next generation of physically immersive entertainment. Consumer add-in boards and systems equipped with the AGEIA PhysX processor and games that take advantage of the technology will be available in late 2005. For more information visit http://www.ageia.com.

City of Heroes, City of Villains and all associated logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of Cryptic Studios and NCsoft Corporation. NCsoft, the interlocking NC Logo, and all associated NCsoft logos and designs are trademarks or registered trademarks of NCsoft Corporation. AGEIA, PhysX and NovodeX are trademarks of AGEIA Technologies, Inc. All other products are trademarks of their respective companies.