We get you caught up on all things PAX in this Daily Wrap Up for Day Two at PAX 2010 in Seattle.
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This week we take a look at Batman, Spider-Man, R.U.S.E., HAWX 2, NHL titles, and Kingdom Hearts.
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GameSpot checks in with Square Enix for a demo with Deus Ex: Human Revolution and updates on Final Fantasy XIV Online.
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CEO of Twisted Pixel Michael Wilford gives GameSpot an interview and demo of it’s soon to be released XBLA title Comic Jumper: The Adventures of Captain Smiley.
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GameSpot gets in a demo for Star Wars: The Force Unleashed 2 at PAX 2010 in Seattle.
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4 new shots posted.
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GameSpot editors Tom Magrino and Shaun McInnis team up with Editor-in-Chief Ricardo Torres for a PAX 2010 Day One daily wrap up.
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This mash-up of genres wears its influences on its sleeve, but it’s a very pretty sleeve nonetheless.
PAX may not quite be on par with E3 when it comes to major game announcements, but it’s still hard to get through the weekend without seeing a few new titles in the headlines. One of the more interesting reveals from the show thus far has been Ubisoft’s unveiling of Outland, an artistic platformer from the developer behind Super Stardust HD. Outland combines retro 2D platforming with a number of elements from shoot-em-ups–most noticeably a light-dark dynamic similar to Ikaruga. After hearing about the game yesterday, we took a walk over to the Ubisoft booth, hung a left at HAWX 2, and took a look at the demo being shown for this upcoming downloadable title.
If what they say about first impressions is true, Outland is certainly in good shape. Its slick art design combines stark black platforms with vivid, colorful background scenery. The level we saw had a definite jungle theme to it, with roots curling from the bottom of floating platforms and giant spider creatures skittering along on the ground.
The story diving the game is a simple one: one day you awaken from a strange dream, notice things around you aren’t quite right, and set out on a quest to speak with a shaman who can heal your ills. This sets the stage for a jungle world overrun by mysterious creatures and monsters. Along with the aforementioned spiders, we also saw an imposing boss figure named the Golem. This one-eyed creature towered over the protagonist, wielding a giant club and looking not entirely unlike one of the bosses from Shadow of the Colossus.
What seems like it will ultimately set Outland apart from other pretty 2D platformers is the light-dark dynamic that’s been heavily inspired (to put it politely) by the classic arcade shooter Ikaruga. Essentially, there are enemies, platforms, and hazards in the world that can either be neutral, light, or dark. As the player, you quickly unlock the ability to fully align yourself with either your light side (a pale blue) or dark side (a deep red). In terms of combat, you can only attack enemies of the opposite color (attacking same-colored enemies will wind up hurting you) while absorbing flying projectiles of the same color will heal instead of harm you. The game encourages clever exploration beyond the required path, often making certain moving platforms usable only when you’re aligned with that color.
The shoot-em-up comparisons don’t end at Ikaruga’s light-dark system, either. A lot of areas in the game will unleash what feels very much like a top-down shooter’s idea of ’bullet hell.’ You’ll see waves of flying blips that are actually harmful projectiles. These often come out of the ceiling in semicircles of alternating color, forcing you to both quickly take cover under platforms and rapidly switch sides to keep from getting hurt. Having not played the game, we can’t say how difficult this wind up being in practice, but developer Housemarque assures us that they’re keeping the difficulty accessible for casual players. These bullet hell areas, then, are more an optional challenge for the hardcore players to defeat in order to earn bonus items and collectibles.
All in all, Outland certainly looks like an interesting platformer. It may wear its influences on its sleeve, but the combination of different genres is at least creative in its own right. We’re hoping to get a chance to play it soon to see just how these different elements come together. Keep an eye out for more coverage.
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We kickoff PAX 2010 with the keynote address by Junction Point founder Warren Spector.
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We dive into this futuristic survival-adventure game and use the environment in clever ways to stay alive.
A sinking ship would definitely rank up there as one of the worst places to be left in and have to fight for survival. Usually if you’re fighting aliens, zombies or ghosts, you have some sort of weapon or at least an open area to keep your back against. However in Hydrophobia, we started out with having to scramble to another level just to ensure we have enough air, and when we were faced with terrorists, all we were given was a tiny stun gun. Thankfully, you’re not limited to the stun gun for the rest of the game, but with limited weaponry, you are forced to use the environment to your advantage, which is the purpose of Hydrophobia.
Who’s Making It: The game is being developed by Dark Energy, located in Manchester and Microsoft is publishing the title.
What It Looks Like: Hydrophobia is set 30 years into the future aboard a giant vessel called Queen of the World. Like the Titanic of the future (after it hit the iceberg), you are walking around metal corridors and winding staircases, swimming up elevator shafts that are usually flooded with water. What’s interesting is that you can control how much water you want in your area by keeping certain doors closed or to make things more interesting, open up the floodgates.
What You Do: As the reluctant heroine Kate, you are a system’s engineer who is onboard when the terrorists attack. Your goal is to survive and take out the enemy but you’re not exactly a fighter. The game is designed to highlight more exploration than combat. The ship is massive, and you’ll encounter obstacles that you’ll need to find a way to get past, as your world is crumbling down around you. When you are eventually armed with a weapon, it’s like a third-person shooter with a cover system. We were told that there would be semi-automatic weapons later, but with the stun gun, it was difficult to keep enemies down unless we used the environment to properly dispose of them.
How It Plays: When in combat, you use the right bumper to draw your weapon and the right trigger to fire. A white dot on screen is used to aim, and a red target reticle will appear when there is something that can be shot at, whether it be another person or a box or explosive barrel. What’s convenient is that while you’re maneuvering through water that is almost waist high, there are plenty of barrels to aim your stun gun at to cause an explosion to finish off the terrorists, as well as create a mini tidal wave in a cramped corridor. There is never really a swarm of enemies coming at you from what we’ve seen, but carefully placed oil barrels can easily dispose of a group after they explode.
The cover system allows you to press A to hug one of the nearby walls. It’s not the kind of game that you’d want to run out with guns blazing, so you need to sit back and carefully think about how you want to proceed. To knock out an enemy we had to charge our gun first before firing, otherwise you’re only sending mini shockwaves with the stun gun, which didn’t seem to do much except annoy the enemy. Once you do get them on their back (we were hoping that they’d drown), they’d get right back up again after a few moments, so we had to either fire at some oil barrels or send sparks flying by shooting the electrical switches on the wall.
In our demo we were given mission objectives, such as tracking down a key in order to progress to the next area. It seemed simple enough, but we had to swim through flooded chambers to get to it. You are given a map to help you navigate the enormous ship, and as you’re exploring, you’re playing with the constant flow of water that is spilling in from just about everywhere. You can fire at windows to let more water in, or leave it the way it is and try to handle the situation with the current water level. There are situations where you’ll be swimming through completely flooded halls, so you’ll need to look for patches of light and head up for some air.
What They Say: Hydrophobia is the first game developed using Dark Energy’s revolutionary HydroEngine, the world’s only full computation fluid dynamics engine for games. This incredible technology allows water and other liquids to flow and behave completely realistically, resulting in the most dynamic and dramatic gameplay you’ve ever seen.
What We Say: Mingled with our own fear of drowning, Hydrophobia was an intense experience (and yes, we know it’s called aquaphobia). Between looking for pockets of air to make sure we could make it to the next door, Kate also had to keep an eye out for terrorists, who are armed with much better weapons than we were. The constant flow of water and changing environment was impressive. It forces you to rethink your strategy because you may have fired at an oil barrel and caused it to explode, but now the burning oil is heading toward you. It’s good to see some variety when it comes to survival games so look for Hydrophobia when it is released on September 29.
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