E3 Day 3 Impressions: Still Trucking

Company of Heroes
Developer: Relic; Publisher: THQ
PC

Besides two huge console giants preparing to launch their respective new systems, my personal highlight of this year's E3 was the amount of quality RTS gaming headed to the PC platform. A theme that seems to have oozed from the FPS genre to RTS (and for the better, judging from what I've seen) is World War II. Company of Heroes pits the Axis powers against the Allies once again using sharp graphics and even sharper gameplay. Which side came out on top during my play test? Read on to find out.

It is the artificial intelligence that does the best job of setting CoH apart from the pack. Developed in-house at Relic, the Essence engine allows for every single unit in the game to behave in a pseudo-realistic manner. When I began to move my infantry through enemy territory, they hunched over and peered every which way cautiously, automatically moving into a defensive formation. Sure enough, I began to take heavy fire a few moments later, but since my guys had been on the alert, they dived back and away from a few lobbed grenades. Not all of them survived the attack, but it was the artificial thought that counted. Another great example of Essence AI is when my crew began to take fire from a sniper in a rather high building. My units automatically ran for cover while I went back to my base to gather another contingent that snuck around behind the structure. Once in position, I had one of my guys lob a grenade up through a back window. Instantly, the enemy fire cut off, and I began to imagine the guy panicking and attempting to flee at the sound of the grenade rolling across the floor. A nice touch, considering the endangered unit probably wouldn't even have noticed the threat in most other games. A few seconds later, then... BOOM! Huge chunks of the building exploded and showered the ground below, and the sniper? The sniper was no more.

You may notice that I described the behavior of the units as "pseudo-realistic." This is because the player will have to exert some control over his or her army at some point. A unit will not, for example, automatically choose to take advantage of unique abilities (more on that later) bestowed upon them unless the player specifically commands them to do so. I was relieved to hear this, because when you think about it, there's quite a fine line between having intelligent beings under your control and watching a what would amount to be little more than a movie. After all, if you aren't playing the game, then it's not really a game, is it? So you'll have to deal with giving your troops the more important orders, but hey, at least they won't stand there and look to you for guidance while they're getting their faces shot off. It's a nice balance between not having any control at all and having to deal with annoying micro-management.

Another benefit of the Essence engine is that, in essence, everything in the game is destructible. The building that I had a platoon of guys detonate earlier cannot, according the the Relic rep talking into my ear during my play test, explode the same way twice. There are hundreds of death animations for each unit, explosions for tanks and buildings... the whole works. The way buildings shatter and crumble is especially well done: dirt fountains into the air, spraying stone and dust everywhere as the debris clatters to the ground.

There are three tech trees available to each side. They are completely unique to each other, though Relic assured me that there is no one advantage that either side has to hold over the other. To defeat the Axis powers, I decided to take the Airborne route. First you get the ability to call in paratroopers. The final level is an air raid, and lemme tell you, there was more going on in that screen than a brothel during Mardi Gras. Chaos, pure destruction, anywhere and everywhere. Buildings flew apart, giant craters appeared in the ground, and Axis soldiers flew in all directions. I was tempted to try out the Axis powers next in order to try out their Blitzkrieg specialty, but time did not allow for that to happen.

Speaking of time, it seems to be against me: Company of Heroes is not due out until the always ambiguous "Q3 2006." On the other hand... no, that's all I've got. If you're interested in other RTS games with interesting prospects, look for my Joint Task Force writeup later this week, or check out my analysis of Supreme Commander in the E3 Impressions - Day 2.

Prey
Developer: Human Head; Publisher: 2K Games
PC

Prey tell, what has been one of the most highly anticipated yet almost-vaporware computer games of (nearly) the past decade? Well, yeah, okay, Duke Nukem Forever, but that wasn't even at E3 this year. The answer, of course, is Prey. I was actually quite afraid of what my impressions of the game would be, what with a real release date (well, kind of; a vague "this summer" is all I got) almost upon us. So I skipped checking it out on day 1. So much to see, I thought. I'll come back to it tomorrow. But I didn't. Today being the final day of the Expo, I sucked it up and went over to the 2K Games booth to see if the game I've waited to bloody long for could possibly, maybe, hopefully be worth it. Thankfully, the game was able to defy my rather lofty expectations.

What excites me the most about Prey is that it is, in a way, a "next-generation" game. True, the term "next-gen" is most often used with console hardware, but you can carefully apply it to PCs as well. I've grown up with FPS games (started playing with Catacombs 3-D and Wolfenstein 3-D) and really, there hasn't been too much change along the well-documented road of first-person shooter. Doom changed things a bit, then Duke 3D, then Quake, then Half-Life, but since then... eh. Small things here and there, but for the most part, we've seen marginal improvements made to the same decades-old formula. Prey uses a few seemingly simple yet infinitely cool and strategic gameplay mechanics to officially set the bar for FPS games.

One of these mechanics is the use of anti-gravity sections in the vast majority of the game's maps. While I've known about them for quite a while, I was a bit worried about actually trying out this concept for myself. Would it be too gimmicky? Perhaps disorienting. No and no again. Walking across a stretch of floor that curved up the wall and along the ceiling is a completely seemless experience; I never even noticed the change, and this is a good thing. It really could have been disorienting, I think, even to veterans of the FPS genre, so it was critical that Human Head Studios nail it--and I'm happy to report that they did. It really adds a lot to deathmatching, since you can literally have battles that run across massive lengths of walls, floors, and ceilings. It's just as cool to watch as it is to play.

Teleporting via portals is the second of three nifty features that really made Prey a fun experience for me. The benefits brought to the table by portals are two-fold. Firstly, their strategic importance in battle. Scattered throughout levels are portals that, just as in games such as Quake 3, allow you to scope out what's on the other side. There was an instance where I was hot on the tail of one of my opponents and he managed to leap into a portal. As soon as he disappeared, the portal closed for a moment, rendering me temporarily unable to follow. It also made certain that I couldn't just stand on the outside and fire into the area to kill my foe, which would have been cheap. And of course, if my soon-to-be victim would have lingered on the other side, the tried and true rule of telefragging would have applied in abundance.

The other function the portals provide is the ability to create massive levels, should a map designer choose to do this. In Quake III, portals weren't really used all that often. They were typically provided in order to quickly get from one area to another. In Prey, there are sometimes several portals per level that take you to entirely new areas, giving you the feeling that the level has monstrous scope.

Last but not least, the use of spirit coming into play is a really nifty feature. On the screen, in place of a HUD, you'll see a red body that represents your character's health. A little behind this is a white outline of a body that slowly fills up as you collect tiny wisps of spirit. By using your spirit, you will leave your corporeal form behind and become a fast-moving, fast-killing ghost--or spirit, more appropriately. Your spirit weapon kills far more quickly than any of the regular weapons in the game (more on those in a bit) so you can really rack up your frags if you're able to quickly track down your opponents.

In order to balance the spirit form, your body is made completely vulnerable. You've left it behind, after all. If someone happens upon it, you're dead in 1-2 shots. And that's fair, I think. So the issue of where to properly secrete your body arises quite often, making the use of your spirit form something that requires a bit of forethought. Luckily, happily, it also introduces some cool strategies. Here's one that I used: I tucked my body away behind a corner while my spirit floated off to wreak some havok. One of my opponents started to give chase, so I thought I'd have some fun with him and lure him back to my body. I disappeared around the corner, jumped back into my body, and waited. A moment later, he appears, and I'm holding a gun in his face. Bam. Chalk up another frag for me.

The graphics in Prey have their highs and their lows. On the down side, the levels I got to try out were a mixture of gray, silver, gold, and brown. Not exactly the most dazzling of color palettes. I mean the maps all looked nice, but even so, you know? That color scheme was old in Quake 1. In the plus column, the weapons not only play uniquely, but they're really nice to look at as well. All the weapons have really cool high-tech or alien-ish looks (except for the melee weapon, which is a wrench. I guess even alien technology breaks down every once in a while.) The futuristic guns shine with all sorts of pretty lights, and there was one alien weapon in particular (sorry, no freakin' idea what any of these things were called) had a glossy, slimy coating of some kind of organic alien substance. Coooool.

One graphical decision I am very much in favor of is the fact that there isn't a mile long stretch of HUD along the bottom of the screen. You've got your life and spirit bodies on the left, a bar that increases and depletes as you pick up ammo for your current weapon on the right, and... hmm, that's it, pretty much. Another nifty thing is, as you take damage, your body goes from red to black beginning at the head and moving to your feet. Once you've lost enough life that only your knees and below are red, your eyes will go bloodshot, painting thick, viney red patterns all along the border of the screen. This interferes with your peripheral vision, which is, of course, extremely important in FPS gaming. Get some health, and get it fast.

And yes, as I alluded to, the weapons are all unique from one another. Each has an alternate firing mode that does something the others don't, which is nice, because it gives you the feeling that every piece of weaponry has an actual purpose. Sure, some are stronger than others, and you probably won't use those once you get something better, but it seems to me that there are many games where everyone, no matter their skill level, always/only uses 1-2 weapons out of a selection of a dozen or more.

I had a big silly grin on my face as I left the Prey stations. This is what first-person shooters are all about: fast, frantic, inventive fun. If this is the direction the genre is headed, then I highly recommend you jump aboard, because I don't think too many people will be disappointed.

The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar
Developer: Turbine
PC, Xbox 360

NOTE: this preview contains very minor storyline spoilers. For those of you who like to go in completely fresh, I have placed bold CAUTION tags right above any paragraph that gives away story details. However, most of the info is common knowledge, but all the same, I've taken precautions to keep you safe.

Let me start off by saying that I am not a fan of MMOs. I've put in some time on WoW, listened to the praises concerning Guild Wars, yada yada yada, so on and so on. But I'm just not a fan of the genre. Paying monthly to participate in a game I've already paid full price for? No sir, not for me. And then I got to try out The Lord of the Rings Online. I warmed up to it gradually, to be sure; I'm no easy sell once I've made up my mind about something. But as I played, and before that, as the game was played for me by the demonstrator, I began to realize that this MMO is different from any preceding it, and even others that will arrive after it. I got to experience a massive game that actually made me feel like I was a part of its world, not just some random player. And that was enough to persuade me to really give it a shot.

As mentioned above, what really drew me into LOTRO was the way the game worked to make me feel like an actual, meaningful inhabitant of Middle-Earth. In every other MMO--at least the ones I've been persuaded to try--you're just some player running around, completing quests, and... well... really doing nothing more than existing. In LOTRO, nearly everything that happens occurs for a reason, and the game strives to make the player feel like a part of that reason.

CAUTION Take, for example, the very beginning of the game. After choosing your race (Human, Dwarf [my selection], Hobbit, or Elf) and class (I chose the Guardian, your basic tank MMO character type; it should be noted that not just any race can assume the role of any class. For example, a Hobbit cannot be a Guardian, because think about it: a Hobbit tank? Mmmm... don't think so) you are introduced to a Ranger who is almost immediately stabbed by the cursed sword of a Nazghul. Yes, that's correct: right near the very start of the game, you'll run into characters that are integral parts of the Tolkien universe. Much better than just some random wolves or rats, yes? Anyway, the poor Ranger is spirited away by the Nazghul and, unfortunately, is beginning to become one of them. When next you see him, he is garbed in a red robe, signifying his near immediate transformation into a full-out Dark Rider. What's cool and dramatic about this is, this event happened to a character that you actually knew and worked with for a short time before tragedy struck. It's not just some random NPC you couldn't care less about; the Ranger was an ally, and when I fought him, I couldn't help thinking, "This guy was my friend." It's like I said before: LOTRO works to make the going ons of the world important to you. It's not just a world, it's your world.

The game was designed with two central purposes in mind: to be immediately accessible to both MMO vets and newbies; and for Tokien fans. Exploring the world is just one great example of this. You'll constantly be running across and through territories that will be familiar to you if you've read the books, watched the movies, or both. You can run through the Shire and take a look at the paths that Gandalf and Frodo actually walked. You can scope out Hobbit holes. If you're a Human, you start out in the town of Bree, where Strider (Aragorn's Ranger identity, for those of you not in the know) met up with Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin in The Fellowship of the Ring. It's really cool to actually exist in a world as well thought out and adored as Tolkien's instead of just coming across cities, farms, towns, etc. that are nothing more than locations in a video game.

CAUTION You'll also have plenty of time to interact with important characters from the LOTR trilogy. One of the first missions you're given as a Human has you under the command of Aragorn himself--as Strider. Your mission is to assist in the eradication of a group of bandits plotting to sack a nearby town. As you head toward your objective, the Rangers will work right alongside you, bestowing upon the player a real sense of fellowship. A good word to use, since that's what parties are known as in the game: Fellowships. Once the bandits begin to attack, they'll do things such as set fire to some of the buildings, and you can actually watch the structures burn to the ground. When it's all over--and you've hopefully emerged alive--the citizens of the town will mourn the loss of lives and property, but they'll hail you as a hero. Whenever you're around that territory, you'll be met as the hero of the town, and it really serves to make you feel like you've done something beneficial and significant.

The beginning portion of the game is actually a tutorial in the form of a single player campaign, similar to the upcoming Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventure MMO. Once you complete the tutorial, you leave your race's dwelling and step out into the world where Elves, Dwarves, Hobbits, and Humans can finally mix. It's a neat feeling, because let's say you're a Human and you're the hero of . You'll feel really big and important, but the other races will most likely display an attitude of, "Oh, you saved your town? Well, I don't know you and I don't know your town, so... what do I care?" That struck me as kind of neat, because this kind of thing happens all the time in real life. You're well-known and liked in some circles, but in others, you've still got to pay your dues or live in anonymity.

While much of the game has been designed to be "soloable," (you can handle most quests on your own, should you so desire) there are several quests (especially the high level assignments) that will urge you to form Fellowships in order to achieve victory. That's another cool thing about LOTRO: there is actually a real variety of quests. The standard "FedEx quests," according to the rep I spoke with, are way too trivial for a universe as important as Tolkien's. Oh they're still in there, of course, but they've been spiced up. Take, for example, a quest encountered early on after finishing up the single player portion of the game. You are charged with entering the forest to procure a bucket of water. Simple, right? Nope. See, there are lots of scary critters running through the woods, and while you're carrying the bucket, you won't be able to attack them. You can set it down and then start fighting, but so doing will result in the bucket vanishing and reappearing at its origin. Even so, this quest can be completed alone, but the best way to go about it is to form a Fellowship, have one member carry the bucket, and the rest act as a guard.

Unfortunately, my time playing the demo ended far too soon, but luckily, the Turbine Games seemed to pick up on my Aura of Awesomeness, and I was invited to join the beta after chatting about Tolkien's world with one of the reps I ran into. The beta is expected to launch some time in June, and as far as the full version's release, that's a bit farther off: an obscure "Q4 2006" is all we have to go on for right now. However, from what I got to both see and experience, The Lord of the Rings Online will offer an MMO experience unlike most others, and in a time when seemingly everyone and their dog has an MMO property, a unique experience is something to get excited about.

RUSH
Developer: Midway
PSP

One of my favorite racing games was San Francisco RUSH 2049, which I first played on my beloved Sega Dreamcast (missed out on this game's arcade mayhem). It was fast, it was furious, and the battle mode was a ton of fun to play with groups of friends. It was with this feeling of hopeful nostalgia that I approached Midway's RUSH game for PSP. By the time I finished, all hope had been washed away, leaving me only with the determination to pretend that RUSH was nothing more than an extremely boring, sluggish nightmare.

I had a need for speed that demanded appeasing, and so decided to jump into a Quick Race for my first foray into the game. There was nothing even remotely quick about it, but I'll get to that in a moment. Before you can get going, you must first, as one would expect, select your car of choice. There are 3 attributes common to each vehicle: Speed, Handling, and Acceleration. First of all, these stats are handled by obscure looking icons instead of being at least accompanied by text. After staring at the Speed and Handling icons for a few seconds I was able to determine their representation, but I actually had to ask a nearby rep what the crap the third symbol stood for. But I got over it. The race was loading, and I was ready to get my RUSH on.

Sadly, that never took place. The race started off at a semi-quick pace, but slowed to a crawl from there. It was like attempting to spring through a pool of water: you get the sense that you should be moving a lot faster than you are--but you're just not. At first, I thought it might have been how the car handled. Maybe this vehicle is supposed to allow a snail to out race it, I thought desperately. So I restarted the race and hopped in another set of wheels. Same thing. The flow of the game is just lethargic, and a disgrace to the RUSH name.

Something else I found rather annoying was the tilt of the view. You can press ^ to fiddle with the camera, but there was something off about each and every angle. It's hard to explain, but seeing as how I'm a writer, I'd better give it a shot, right? It was rather like crouching down on the balls of your feet and peering over a kitchen table. You can see some of the surface, but much of it is not viewable until you level your vision a bit. That's how I felt playing RUSH. No matter which angle I used, I could never see enough to know what was coming (or standing stock still, in many cases) and was constantly barreling full tilt into buildings, trees, cars, and anything else you'd think I was trying my hardest to hit. I actually could've gotten past the crawling pace if I could've seen what I was attempting to do. Well, know I couldn't have, but you know what I mean.

Being thoroughly disgusted with the racing aspects of the game, I decided to try the stunt arena, a new addition in RUSH. This mode is meant to be all out craziness. You pick your car--Speed, Handling, and Acceleration are all maxed out, because they don't matter here. Come to think of it, I don't really think they matter at all, but I digress--and head into a large area with corkscrew pipes, ramps, and other stunt-like stuff. I went flying off a ramp and soared through the air quite magnificently (if very slowly). Once in the air, you can use the d-pad or analog stick to twist your car around and do other various tricks. It seemed like it would be a lot of fun, but I really couldn't get past the fact that if the racing sucked, stunt arena was nowhere near enough to save this game.

To be fair, it was an E3 demo, and these problems could be fixed by launch time, which is slated for a September 2006 release. But even so, I don't think I'm prepared to give this version of RUSH much of a chance. I've still got my Dreamcast, as well as Rush 2049, and I think that's good enough for me.

Spy Hunter: Nowhere to Run
Developer: Eden Studios; Publisher: Atari
PS2, Xbox,

I was really looking to playing Spy Hunter: Nowhere To Run. Even though there hasn't been a good game since the NES original, I couldn't help but be excited. I mean, the cars look really sweet, the trailer I watched about a billion times at E3 made the game look fun, and I'm a huge fan of The Rock. So what went wrong? Just about everything that could have. Just about.

Let's get the good stuff out of the way first, since there's really not all that much of it. The driving controls for the demo I played in Midway's arcade-ish area were silky smooth and responded very well. The levels were long and twisty, and it was fortunate that the car responded like a dream to my every touch. You can take corners as fast as you want and still make them, all the way getting a satisfying squeal of tires and burning rubber releasing plumes of smoke into the air. The weapons you have available are an infinite ammo machine gun, which is your general purpose weapon to deal with most of the baddies trying to splatter you along the road way (I don't think I ever let go of the machine gun button, actually; why would I? Infinite ammo!); missiles that lock on based on a handy crosshair that responds based on which way your vehicle is facing (if there's an enemy above you and to the left, just nudge the joystick so you're facing the baddie, and the game will lock on for you, which is a nice touch); and tire spikes that emerge from all four tires after a simple button press and, even better, retract on their own, so you can drive freely while concentrating on using other weaponry. Meanwhile, your tire spikes are shredding everything they touch, no micromanagement required.

The car is almost as important a character as The Rock due to the different forms it can take. For example, one level starts off with Rock in command of a sleek speed boat. When you're not on the water, the boat transforms seamlessly into its car form, so by the time you connect with concrete, you're back to squealing tires and machine gunning everything in sight. The boat's auto lock-on is as nice an addition as the car form's, taking care of the busy work so you can focus on the action at hand.

As for the rest? It sucks. All of it. While I'm rather proud of the fact that I'm not a graphics snob, this game just looks like poo. The smeary, blurry textures reminded me at first of PS1 games, but upon closer examination (which almost brought on a headache; I kid you not) I was forced to amend my thoughts: it was like something out of the N64 era. Now I love the 64. Make no mistake, it was one of my favorite systems. But the fact is, every game looked like someone had run their hand across a fresh canvas covered in paint. The Xbox version of a game should just not look like that, whether you consider graphics important or not.

I also found my experience with Spy Hunter to be rather buggy. I shot down a helicopter and just before it fell to the ground, it vanished. A moment later, it was back in the sky in front of me, like nothing had happened at all.

Fighting is extremely boring, melee or otherwise. Unless you're in the car/boat/Optimus Prime thingie, there's not a lot of fun to be had by owning on the bad guys. There are two types of punches, light and hard, with the former used to string together combos. You can grab guys and throw them into walls, down pits, etc., or pummel them before breaking their backs over your knee. Kinda cool to see the first time it happens, but after that, the same old animations grow bland an repetitive. What's more, the character designs also suffer from the same flaws that affect the overall look of the game. Fingers appear to have been webbed together, and all character bodies are blocky and cardboard-like in appearance.

Spy Hunter: Nowhere to Run will release later this fall on PS2 and Xbox. However, I really don't care. Sorry, Rock: this time, I do not smell what you're cookin'. Hopefully the movie will be decent.