Atomic heads to the Microsoft Xbox room in Sydney for a sneak peak at the games we'll be playing in a few months.
By Ron Osborn
For a look at what's on the horizon for the Xbox in 2005, we took a trip to the Microsoft Xbox room in Sydney. The titles on show were Forza Motorsport, Jade Empire, Conker: Live and Reloaded and Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory. Doom 3 was conspicuous in its absence though when we spoke to Activision we were told that everything is on track for the game's release next week, 7 April. All in all, we were quite impressed with what we saw. The coming months are going to be a fun time for Xbox owners and we're looking forward to taking a proper look at these games as they are released.
The game itself was quite impressive, both in terms of the visuals and driving experience. We took a Dodge Viper for a spin -- literally, as the vehicle reacted to the most subtle of adjustments to the wheel. Damage also plays a large part in the game; trying to take a 90 degree corner at speed proved to be a wall grinding experience that left our car with an affection for veering to the right. Thankfully for the braking impaired, there is an optional racing line overlay for each track that not only shows you the best line but also dynamically changes to green or red to indicate when you should be braking or accelerating.
As you'd expect from a driving sim, there are a lot of customisation options. The claim is that anything you can change in real life, you can change in game. The attention to detail, particularly in the paint and decal department is almost excessive with the ability to have 100 layers of patterns and decals covering your car.
Perhaps the most interesting feature of the game is the driver AI which can be used as a substitute during some of the longer endurance races. While it does seem quite similar to the B-spec mode in GT4, what sets it apart is that the driver AI learns from your driving style, gradually becoming a computer controlled version of yourself. Braking too heavily or turning too soon on those corners? The AI takes on the nuances of your driving, so if your driver isn't winning those races, you've only got yourself to blame.
This looks to be the driving sim that Xbox racing fans have been waiting for. We'll be keen to give the game a full test drive when it comes out in May.
We've been drooling over the videos and screenshots of Bioware's genre crossing, martial arts fest and it was great to finally see it in action. The new graphics engine looks amazing, moving seamlessly between conversing with friendly NPCs to kicking several shades of carp out of bandits in the first level that we played. The game is best described as a real-time action oriented version of KOTOR -- with more ninjas. And more ninjas are never a bad thing.
The controls are intuitive and martial arts moves have been motion captured making character movement fluid. Players choose a character and then are able to allocate points between martial, weapons, and magic fighting styles throughout the game. Much like in KOTOR the player can choose to walk the path of good or evil and ultimately unlock different fighting styles depending on their affiliation.
All NPC dialogue within the game has been voiced and the conversation options we came across included a good assortment of bad mouthing options to help you along the path of evil. The game we played was 95 percent complete and is expected to be on the shelves in May.
The 'Reloaded' part of the title is reference to the single player portion of the game which is actually a remake of Conker's Bad Fur Day on the N64. Though there wasn't anything playable, we did see a demo of this excessively violent squirrel shooter and a video of the new multiplayer component which assumingly makes up the 'live' part of the title. As expected for an Xbox game the graphics look good, though the squirrel carnage from the opening Saving Private Ryan inspired intro bordered on disturbing. The multiplayer video looked promising, if only because the prospect of furry, cuddly animals trying to kill each other seems like fun. The game is set for a June release.
While the single player component of this game is looking good, what got our attention was the new cooperative mode that adds a new dimension to the sneaky-shooter genre. We ran through the co-op mode training which had us becoming a human stepping stone, catapulting a teammate and creating a human ladder -- typical day at the office really. We even got to break into a room mission impossible style, one player lowering the other from a hole in the roof in order to hack into a computer terminal.
There's a great deal of team coordination and communication involved and this happens courtesy of the Xbox Live Communicator, it adds great atmosphere to the game, though if your partner screws up, you'll need to keep the swearing to a minimum as guards are alerted to excessive noise. Four co-op levels will be available at the games launch, each estimated to take an average of an hour to complete. More levels are intended to be added via Xbox Live. The game is in stores now.
Issue: 133 | February, 2012