E3 Day 3 Impressions: Day 3 Strikes Back

-- May 15, 2006 by: Chris Remo

SPORE
Developer: Maxis; Publisher: Electronic Arts
PC
Screenshots/videos

Will Wright is one of those designers who just seems to get it, a rare designer who is able to think in terms of a purely elegant gameplay concept rather than a general idea like a story or setting, and then is able to actually construct a complete and fulfilling game out of it. Not every game he's released is among my personal favorites--take The Sims, for example--but it's practically impossible not to have huge respect for the guy and the designs that only he seems able to pull out of thin air. So, of course, when he announced SPORE at Game Developers Conference last year, everybody in the industry took notice. The game starts the player out as a single-cell organism, which evolves into a more complex bacteria, and eventually a basic complex creature, then a fully fledged self-aware life form, then an advanced race which conquers its continent, its planet, and eventually the cosmos. Essentially, it works through billions of years of evolution and beyond. So, a bit ambitious then.

Each major evolutionary step is accompanied by a minigame. Early on in the game, it's basically Pac-Man as you try to survive and grow with your basic needs. By the time you become a wildlife creature, it's a third person action exploration game in which you attempt to propagate your species and win out over the competition. As an intelligent race, you play a real-time strategy game that has you engaging in warfare and diplomacy with other civilizations. Once achieving space flight, it's a space exploration and conquest game, in which contact with other worlds can be made, alliances and trade routes established, and war declared. None of these games is a particularly hardcore example of its genre--you aren't be expected to be an extreme twitchy action gamer one moment, then an accomplished armchair general the next--rather, they try to get to the essence of their respective game types in an accessible and enjoyable way. In a sense, it's Wright's homage to some of his favorite games throughout the years--Populous, the aforementioned Pac-Man, Civilization, his own breakthrough SimCity, and more.

During lengthy closed-doors sessions, Wright demonstrated several segments of the game, starting with the impressive creature editor that's used once your life form reaches land and is competing for food and general survival. All of the game's models are generated procedurally, meaning the designers didn't create them ahead of time; rather, they are being formed and skinned by algorithms based on the designs of the game's players. You can shape your creature, add any number of limbs and other body parts, and add all sorts of textures and colors. The process is incredibly open-ended, with all of the examples Wright shows us looking incredibly different. The animation is all done by the game as well, so a creature with four legs and a very hefty body will walk quite differently than a creature with seven legs and a tall lanky body. Even better, the game seamlessly downloads more species from a central internet database, all of which have been created by other SPORE players; these species are used to populate your planet.

Eventually, you'll build up to a tribe, which you control in a squad-based fashion. This tribe will flower into a budding civilization with its own style of architecture. SPORE's building editor is similar to its creature editor in its flexibility. Eventually you'll have sprawling cities and the game will become a real-time strategy title which has you engaging in war or diplomacy with other cities from other civilizations. As with the creatures, these civilizations are plucked from the computers of other players and scattered throughout the universe.

Speaking of the universe, the scale of this game is absolutely mindblowing. As in the real deep space, there are practically limitless worlds to be found once your race reaches spacefaring status. Each of these can be examined, explored, colonized, or terraformed. Many of them will also be home to their own races, which will be found in any state of technological advancement, some primitive and some more advanced that your own civilizations. You can interact with these civilizations in a simplified version of what you might do in a game like Star Control or Master of Orion, and alliances and trade routes can be forged, or conflicts initiated either deliberately or as a result of poor handling of the situation. Such civilizations can even track you back to your home planet and declare war on your own turf.

SPORE is one of those games you can just talk about forever, due to its mind-boggling scale and breadth of possibilities, but much of its charm also lies in its simplicity and elegance. On that note, I will refrain from further unnecessary recollections from Wright's demo, and continue to wait impatiently for the game's not yet announced day of release.

Crysis
Developer: Crytek; Publisher: Electronic Arts
PC
Screenshots/videos

Far Cry, from little known developer Crytek, was a surprise hit among PC gamers upon its release in 2004. Personally speaking, it was easily one of my favorite first person shooters since Half-Life in 1998. Set on a tropical island paradise filled with hostile mercenaries, the game did pretty much everything that it needed to do right: gorgeous visuals both technically and artistically; huge, amazing environments; well-tuned gameplay that was neither mindless nor boring; and simply a great overall feel. The story and dialogue were head-bashingly absurd, but, really, it's hard to imagine anyone caring that much in this game's case. After Ubisoft's acquisition of the Far Cry license and subsequent development of several Xbox and Xbox 360 reimaginings and sequels, Crytek headed over to new publisher Electronic Arts to begin work on an ambitious sci-fi tale of alien invasion.

First things first: this game looks incredible. You'll be perfectly aware of this if you're seen any screenshots or videos of the game, but it bears repeating. In terms of photorealism, it is very unlikely there is any game, on any platform, that looks this good. Really. I mean, I still think Far Cry looks good, but Crysis is is another league. Unfortunately, at least at this point, that level of graphical fidelity comes at a heavy price. I got some good hands on time with Crysis, and the framerate of the version on display at the show was simply not up to par, staying at unplayable levels as long as anything else was moving around on the screen, at least in the level I was playing. Rumor going around the floor was that Crysis was running on beefy quad video card machines, but they still chugged under the weight of the game's insane rendering engine. Of course, as of now, the release date is scheduled to be anywhere up to a year away, so there's plenty of time for both the game to be tuned, and for consumer hardware specs to catch up. Still, there's a lot of ground to be covered on both ends in that time frame. Hopefully Crytek aims for a high level of scalability to cater to PC gamers of various hardware capability.

Environments in the game are quite varied, much moreso than those of its predecessor. In addition to the Far Cry-esque jungle settings, there is a frozen jungle, where plants and creatures alike have been apparently frozen by the aliens' otherworldly weaponry. There's an aircraft carrier setting, and in a nice bit of parallelism there's are levels that take place within an alien spacecraft. Crytek wasn't showing those levels at E3, but I was informed that they actually take place in zero gravity.

A developer explained to me that along with the greater range of environments, Crytek is working in a greater range of gameplay pacing than was found in Far Cry. There will be the long range sniping tactics many players employed in Far Cry, as well as healthy distribution of medium range combat as well as running and gunning. The game features an intriguing customization system that I unfortunately didn't get much chance to explore, but seems to havea lot of potential. Players can bring up a menu allowing them to shift the power of their combat suit to a particular area: armor, speed, strength or defense, depending on the situation at hand. There's also an on-the-fly weapon management system, allowing players to quickly add or remove attachments to their current gun. Options include things like sniper scopes, silencers, grenade launchers, and different types of ammunition. Presumably, these things are found throughout the game.

It must be reiterated that Crysis really does look amazing in every way. There's no question that Crytek is at the top of the pixel-pushing game. Still, it could do with a significant increase and stabilization of framerates before it makes it into the hands of consumers. If the studio can handle that, gamers should anticipate another great FPS release from the now well known German developer.

Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars
Developer: EA LA; Publisher: Electronic Arts
PC

Earlier this year, Electronic Arts released a collection of classic Command & Conquer games as Command & Conquer: The First Decade, suggesting that the publisher may be interested in reinvigorating the long dormant strategy franchise. This suspicion was confirmed last month when EA announced Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars, the first entry continuing the "main" GDI vs. Nod storyline in almost seven years. The game is still early in development, so it unfortunately was not playable to press at E3, but EA did give a presentation of the anticipated title behind closed doors, consisting mainly of trailers but capped off with a short gameplay demonstration.

The session began with a long and very well-made video explaining everything that has happened in the main C&C universe leading up to the events of Tiberium Wars. Fans of the series will be pleased to know that cutscenes are shot in the classic FMV style that are something of a C&C trademark. This intro movie described Tiberium, the mysterious and otherworldly substance that came to Earth in the early 90s and began slowly consuming the planet by converting everything it touched into Tiberium. After scientists realized that the substance would spread across the entire globe in only 120 years, the Global Defensive Initiative was formed in 1995 to cover up the crisis until effective methods were devised to stop the epidemic. Of course, these plans were sabotaged by the emergence of the Brotherhood of Nod led by the charismatic and fanatical Kane, who saw Tiberium as a powerful energy source and waged guerrilla warfare against GDI. Nod succeeded in exposing GDI's coverup, and the inhabitants of Earth picked sides. Countries in turmoil, of which there were many, frequently sided with the persuasive and extreme Kane and his Brotherhood, creating desolate warzones in areas already destroyed by civil war and political unrest. This is the situation leading into Tiberium Wars. While the developers have not yet revealed the specific events of the upcoming game, they promise that the game will set a new bar for storytelling in the strategy genre. We got a glance at a huge "Tiberium Bible" created purely in-house for developers' use, detailing all of the lore that has been created in the C&C world over the years and serving as a reference point at all stages of development. All of the ways the story will integrate into the story are not yet known, but a developer demoing the game mentioned that even the in-game radio chatter will be giving the players details about what's happening in the world.

There will be three playable campaigns: the traditional GDI and Nod campaigns, as well as one for a currently unannounced faction. EA is working on an "adaptive AI" system that will allow players three styles of gameplay to be employed by the computer, depending on how the player likes his RTS: fast-paced "rushing," drawn-out "turtling," or an option to simply adapt as best as possible to the player's strategies on the fly. Not much gameplay was shown, but what we saw had plenty of familiar elements: trundling Tiberium harvesters, Orca copters, and Mammoth tanks. I was disappointed not to catch any glimpses of those impossibly large and complex structures that manage to self-construct out of a truck bed, but I'm counting on them being in the final game.

Visually, the game is obviously a huge evolution from prior series entries. Polygon counts and texture resolution have been boosted considerably, and buildings blow up in real time and shatter into pieces. As has become fashionable in the RTS genre lately, you'll be able to zoom quite far onto the battlefield to check out the conflict on a close up level. Developers note that each level will have a unique post-processing effect to give the whole thing appropriate atmosphere. For example, the Desert Storm-like conflict being demonstrated, which appeared to be more of a tutorial than a full-fledged level, had a light brown overlay that gave everything a dusty, dinghy quality. There's also liberal use of particle effects, creating a nice "dust blowing in the wind" effect.

There isn't much to go on at the moment regarding Command & Conquer: Tiberium Wars. It really looks like the team has absolutely nailed the classic C&C presentation and improved upon it, but especially in a genre like RTS the proof is in the gameplay. Tiberium Wars isn't due until some time in 2007, but EA noted that we should start getting more hands on impressions of the game later this year.

Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin
Developer: Konami; Publisher: Konami
Nintendo DS
Screenshots

Castlevania producer Koji Igarashi, who has held the reins to the classic action series since 1997's Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (PS1), is outspoken in his desire to keep the series planted in the 2D realm. Critical and fan reaction to various lackluster 3D games in the series have justifed those desires, and last year IGA--as he is known among fans--delivered what is frequently considered the series' best since the landmark Symphony of the Night in the form of Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow (NDS). IGA and his team are returning to the DS with Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin, which he promises will be better than its predecessor in just about every way: gameplay, graphics, music, variety of environments, and sheer size.

This iteration of the series features two playable characters, Jonathan Morris, son of vampire hunter John Morris from Castlevania: Bloodlines (GEN), and the magic-using Charlotte Orlean, who was raised with Jonathan as a child. At any time, the player can switch between either character instantly, or both can be used simultaneously with one controlled by the computer. Though this configuration is significantly more powerful than using only one character at a time, it drains magic power extremely quickly since both characters share the same meter. Jonathan is a hardy whip-wielding character suited well to close combat, whereas Charlotte is not as competent to physical fighting but controls powerful magic. The game ditches the soul-based upgrade system used in Dawn of Sorrow in favor of a more traditional item-based system.

Portrait of Ruin's storyline is similar to that of Bloodlines. While Bloodlines depicted the attempted resurrection of Dracula's Castle against the backdrop of World War I, Portrait of Ruin is set during another resurrection attempt, but during the second World War. Carrying on with the similarities to Bloodlines, this game's music is being composed by fan favorite Michiru Yamane, who in addition to Bloodlines has also handled composition duties on Symphony of the Night as well as on non-Castlevania such as Contra: Hard Corps (GEN).

Like all other modern 2D Castlevania titles, Portrait of Ruin makes use of the Metroid-inspired non-linear world devoid of discrete "levels." However, the IGA promises that, visually, the environments will be much more diverse. Whereas previous games have taken place almost entirely within the castle, this game will have various other settings thanks to a story hook that has the protagonists apparently travelling through mysterious paintings--hence the game's title. There are sand dunes, urban areas, forest graveyards, and other locations not yet revealed. The game also makes use of 3D elements, though all of the actual gameplay is strictly 2D. Some enemies are polygonal rather than sprite-based, and many background buildings are rendered in real-time 3D to more accurately represent perspective.

Some hands on time with the game was enough to tell that Castlevania's rock solid gameplay is still intact. The game is certainly one of the most anticipated games of the year for Nintendo's latest handheld, and with IGA making lofty promises about the game left and right, it's looking like it might end up being one of the biggest and best Castlevanias ever.

Trauma Center: Second Opinion
Developer: Atlus Software; Publisher: Atlus Software
Wii
Screenshots

While niche publisher Atlus was present at the show, its just-announced Trauma Center sequel for Wii was sadly not. Still, I got the chance to meet with a company representative and chat about the current plans for Trauma Center: Second Opinion, which is already far in development. The original game was a fast paced surgery sim for the Nintendo DS and a surprise success for Atlus, but ever since the Wii's controller has been announced it has sounded like a perfect fit for the motion-sensing device. Atlus apparently agrees, and fortunately the company is working hard to get it in stores on the console's launch day.

In line with who they think ended up buying the original game as well as who they think is going to be buying Wii, the character designs for Second Opinion have been redone for a slightly older audience. They've still got that anime look to them, but it's a bit less exaggerated this time around. The operations, however, have not been made more realistic, as on a big screen that might start to become a bit disturbing.

Much more important than the visuals are the new tools, which will make use of the unique controller. Though Atlus doesn't want to spoil too much, the rep did reveal one of those: the defibrillator, which will have players quickly pulsing both the nunchuk and remote components of the controller in an attempt to jumpstart their patients' heartrates.

The game's "Second Opinion," moniker, in addition to suggesting a sequel, corresponds to the addition of a new character in the game, the rival of hero Derek Stiles. This rival has unlockable levels which allow the player to experience operations using different methods and achieve different endings for the game. More exciting is the potential cooperative mode that might be added to the final game, though the game's designers have not yet decided whether to include it.

It's hard to get a real sense for Second Opinion's feel without really seeing it in action, but if the game lives up to its pedigree, it will be a strong addition to the Wii launch lineup.

Rule of Rose
Developer: Punchline; Publisher: Atlus Software
PS2
Screenshots

Atlus had a few surprise game announcements leading up to E3, and one of them was the creepy action/horror title Rule of Rose, previously assumed not to be getting a release outside of Japan. Rule of Rose, from developer Punchline, tells the story of a young girl who finds herself at rather unusual orphanage. Oddly, there are no adults at this orphanage, only a frightening secrety society of girls who call themselves the Aristocracy of the Red Crayon. Amidst arcane rituals and disturbingly crooked smiles, the girls threaten to kill the game's protagonist unless she finds them a series of objects. This exposition is delivered via gorgeous cutscenes scored by Yutaka Minobe, known for his composition on Skies of Arcadia and Panzer Dragoon Saga.

Gameplay is somewhat similar to that of Silent Hill, largely story-driven with the player solving puzzles and finding key items amidst a horror setting. At a certain point into the game you also receive the help of a dog which will follow you around and help you with your objectives. Combat is performed with improvised weapons such as pipes, broken bottles, forks, and so on.

Since the game is so reliant on its story, few concrete details are available for fear of spoiling what makes the game interesting. However, Atlus did note that there is almost an hour of pre-rendered cutscenes, as well as multiple endings depending on the player's actions in the game. Look for Rule of Rose for PS2 this fall.

Contact
Developer: Grasshopper Manufacture; Publisher: Atlus Software
Nintendo DS
Screenshots

Goichi Suda's studio Grasshopper Manufacture seems to have a huge number of things going on at all times considering the studio consists of only a few dozen developers, with projects in the works for PS2, Wii, Nintendo DS, and, farther off, PS3. Suda, known in the West mainly for the exceedingly bizarre Killer 7 (PS2, GCN), has even expressed general interest in the Xbox 360 platform. The next Grasshopper title that will make it to Western shores is Contact, a surreal role-playing game for Nintendo DS.

Contact's most obvious unique feature at first glance is the striking disparity between the top and bottom screens. The top screen is rendered in an exaggerated pixel art style clearly inspired by the SNES cult classic Earthbound, while the bottom screen is presented in a gorgeous, more realistic fashion.

Pretty much everything in Contact is somewhat bizarre, and that certainly extends to the story. The top screen is inhabited by a professor who needs the player's help in collecting parts to get his crash-landed ship working again so he can escape from whoever it is that's chasing him down. This is accomplished by controlling a boy named Terry on the bottom screen, which is the main game world. Inexplicably, the professor is perfectly aware that he exists inside a video game and is speaking to a player to get the help he needs; Terry, on the other hand, is utterly unaware of this fact.

Contact has a few different combat systems. Terry can acquire different outfits that will grant him various combat abilities, but he'll also improve his stats by way of more traditional RPG methods; that is, fighting battles and gaining levels. Particularly powerful attacks come in the form of decals, which are "peeled" off the screen with the stylus and applied to Terry. These have all sorts of effects, including what are essentially "summon" attacks.

Suda seemed determine to use as many of the DS' functions as possible (minus the microphone), so for good measure he's even thrown in an online mode. Through the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection, players can visit the game world of their friends and set up a permanent residence there, though they can't actually control it. Once they've put down roots, that character becomes controlled by the game on that player's cartridge. By connecting to more and more friends, your world becomes more populated and there are various secrets and items to unlock.

As usual, Suda, who frequently goes by the name Suda-51, seems to have little concern about attracting a mainstream market. That said, players looking for a unique and rather odd experience--and what better platform for that than DS?--should keep an eye on Contact for its upcoming release. The game has already shipped in Japan, and is expected to hit North America this July.

Madden NFL 07 Wii
Developer: EA Canada; Publisher: EA Sports
Wii

I know absolutely nothing about how to play a football video game and this game has done nothing to change that.

Okay, seriously, I can describe the Wii-specific motions, but that's about it. To hike the ball, you quickly snap back the controller; to throw it, you select your receiver with either one of the four directions on the d-pad or the A button, then make an actual throwing motion; and to kick, you swing it up, imitating a kicking motion. When you're actually running with the ball using the analog stick, you flick the nunchuk unit left or right to juke, and the remote unit left or right to straight-arm. The controls feel pretty natural once you've done them all a few times. I experimented with them in a variety of different methods--big exaggerated motions, small wrist motions, and so on. In general I found small wrist motions to be easier to control, but if you're getting into the game with your buddies you make want to exaggerate things in a Miyamoto-like way for complete effect. When kicking a field goal, for example, the game will take into account things like wind speed and direction as well as the angle at which you "kick" the ball (ie, the rotation of the controller as you swing). Selecting plays and navigating other menus is done by using the pointer like a 3D mouse, pointing to the desired option.

During the show, I heard several other journos comment that the Madden mechanics actually worked surprisingly well. I must admit that, again, I am utterly the wrong person to comment on this, as I did a horrible job during my demo due to a lack of nuts and bolts knowledge about what I should actually be doing in the game. Still, if nothing else, I was able to pass the football, and I kicked some good field goals.

Marvel: Ultimate Alliance
Developer: Raven Software; Publisher: Activision
PS2, Xbox, GameCube, PS3, Xbox 360, Wii, DS, GBA, PSP, PC
Screenshots

Much of Activision's next-gen lineup was confined to trailers, but Raven Software's Marvel: Ultimate Alliance was at the show running on PlayStation 3 hardware. Four different levels from the game were shown, including a large scale attack by Dr. Doom as well as a boss battle/chase sequence in which an enormous Galactis pursues the Marvel heroes while destroy buildings and walkways. X-Men Legends fans who were disappointed when the X-Men video game reins changed hands after Raven's second entry in the series should be pleased with Ultimate Alliance, which looks to serve as a spiritual successor to those well-received cooperative brawlers. As the name suggests, however, the game features not just X-Men but over 140 different Marvel characters, with some twenty available from the start and others unlockable as the game progresses.

Players will create and name a team of their favorite Marvel heroes to counter the growing threat of Dr. Doom and his newly assembled Masters of Evil. As with the X-Men Legends games, players control a party of four during the game. Each of the four heroes is playable via online co-op. Activision describes this as competitive co-op, in which players work together to complete each level but also compete along the way for the best score.

All of the heroes have their own specific attacks drawn from the comics. Captain America can throw his shield, Thor has a big hammer, Ghost Rider has a big chain, Spider-Man can web guys to the ceiling, and so on. In addition to these sorts of basic attacks, they've all got special power that can be chosen by the player as they are leveled up. There are also special unlockable "comic issues" for each character, solo missions featuring only that character which delve into origin and additional backstory. These serve as introductions for those unfamiliar with the universe and retellings for those who have seen it before. During these missions, co-op players have no Marvel allies to command, so they actually take control of random baddies as they spawn in, which is kind of a nice touch.

Raven's Marvel Ultimate alliance, which will ship on all current- and next-gen home consoles and portables as well as PC, does look to reinvent the formula introduced with X-Men Legends, but should serve as a fitting followup to fans of that series who wish to play with even more heroes than ever. Look for it this fall.