First Post!
Hey another E3 post! Figured I'd throw out today what I'm looking forward to seeing at the show: Crysis, Mass Effect, Prey, UT2007, Enemy Territory: Quake Wars, Hellgate: London, Gears of War, Command & Conquer 3 and anything for the Revolution.
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Ok shack, sorry for the delay but as their office is obviously getting for E3 it reviewing my entirely unofficial exposure to the game was low on the list.
At any rate, as a follow up to my post from yesterday, http://www.shacknews.com/ja.zz?id=12070243 , I'll post the more detailed write up of the actual game in reply.
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*oh yeah, disclaimer: This is not an actual official preview, I was NOT taking notes etc. it was a casual sit down with the game, not an interrogat..er, interview. This game is still early along in development so I wasn't looking for flaws.
So we sat down in front of one of the E3 rigs, with Bill driving of course, and he fired up the game.
Character creation was naturally the first step and as the gf was proclaiming her instant affinity with the Cabalist Bill selected that class and created a character named after her.
The character creation process is pretty straightforward you select from a wide variety of faces, hair and facial hair which, in the case of the Cabalist, manifested with varying facial tattoos etc. Height and Bulk were also sliders available at the time.
With our new character we appeared in the station setting seen in most of the preview material. There were NPC's to talk to for quests/information etc. and naturally exits to the unsafe regions of the game world. After picking up the newbie quest to go and retrieve the lost prosthetic limb of an unfortunate boy we set out to kill some stuff.
From a personal standpoint my mindset is one of hope that this game will feed the addiction that Diablo and later D2 gave me which is largely driver by what I and one of my good friends refer to as 'shiny finding'. It was just something about those games specifically that made me feel like a kid on Christmas morning opening presents. Ok, sort of a macabre Christmas where the presents are trying to kill you and you're trying to remove their outer screamy wrapping to see what's inside but still..I'm betting anyone that played D2 developed a pavlovian response to the sound of jewelry dropping. That's the kind of fix I crave.
Hellgate: London seems to be heading towards fulfilling that hope. As our Cabalist wandered into the burning remains of topside London there were all manner of beasties about. We were in the newbie area so most of the critters we bumped into were junior grade, but hell spawned larval things are not to be trifled with, plus they pop pretty (presents!).
As we wandered the streets past burning cars and rubble we encountered tormented zombies who died in pleasingly random ways. Limbs might be scorched off, random gibbage etc. Occasionally after delivering a torso-ectomy to a zombie you'd get the pleasant surprise of the legs continuing to shamble up to you to tenaciously deliver kicks from hell to your shins.
Eventually we found the resident 'Boss' monster for the area. It looked a lot like the larger malformed demon in the cinematic that has the Temple delivered rapid-weight loss program via broadsword. With the help of a couple of the Cabalists summoned tiny golem critters it was dispatched.
There is currently an innate character ability to instantly 'recall' to the station; however the trip is one way. There are plans for a two way portal skill/device that will allow runs back to the station etc. As Bill was zoning back I asked about multiplayer and whether or not they had announced the player limit yet and he responded that it is not yet final. He did say that the game was being designed so that it could be finished either solo or multiplayer and that this further underscored the planned Class flexibility so that no class will be limited to a primarily support-based role like other games.
As we ventured out into a different area, and yes, I said we. There were two of us watching while Bill played and if any unholy shambling masses were slain due to my backseat coaching then I am absolutely claiming part ownership to the character. As we ventured out Bill would take the time to equip different equipment that dropped, and explained how it currently affects the appearance of the avatar. As it's early on content is still under development so obviously not ever item had accompanying art assets yet, but those that did looked great. My favorites would have to have been the sword that looked like it had been shaped from the spanner of a large, angry mechanic and a specific Cabalist pistol. Remember the scarab beetles from The Mummy? Now imagine an organic pistol that expels a cloud of angry beetles that swarm around and engulf zombies, doing away with them in scarab fashion. Good stuff.
As has been mentioned before in, I'm guessing every single preview, the items will have slots that can accept different mods into them which will change the item attributes. So adding a fire based module to a slot on a sword would make that sword now do both melee and fire damage etc. These modules show up on the weapon equipped by your avatar so you'll be able to visually distinguish the modules on other playerâs weapons. From what I saw this seems to offer a field of customization much wider than we had with gems and runes in D2.
During our zombie slaying Bill pulled up the map and explained the different areas, indicating how certain areas would be completely random and other areas would be randomized yet have similar content, such as quest related areas, i.e. the Boss monster will be around each time but the level will be randomized. They are definitely aiming to inject the randomization elements that gave D2 the legs it has had, not only in the itemization but in the levels as well.
During combat Bill explained a few of elements that bring finesse to the monster slaying experience. In addition to the right and left mouse buttons being mapped to toggle-able attacks the shift key also acts as activation for a temp power, such as sprint. This can also be used for attack powers that switch dynamically based on the game environment.
To demonstrate this Bill used a newly created Templar that he boosted a few levels to quickly demonstrate skills. One of the skills for instance was an overhead chop, a high powered attack that had an energy cost associated. What was new however was the fact that he also had a circle attack power, kind of a mini one-revolution whirlwind attack. What made this new wasn't the attack it was the fact that the power activation didn't need to be micro managed. The same key that activated the overhead chop would activate the circle attack as long as there were at least three baddies nearby, less than three and it would revert back to the overhead chop.
Bill also demonstrated a mini-game concept built in. Weapons and critters in the game have different icons associated with their type, for instance a lightning bolt for a lightning based attack type or some pointy teef for a beast-class monster. In the lower left of the player screen there is a row of faded icons. The mini-game is to light up these icons by either killing something with the certain damage type or killing a monster of a certain type. Upon completing these requirements you will be rewarded with a larger quantity loot drop with a chance for those rarer items (who here DOESN'T want to pick up some new Blues to identify?).
And finally the last tidbit I can think of was when we came across a portal to Hell itself. The effects were still a work in progress, but as it was explained to me these portals will provide a real-time look into their destination. Once we stepped through the portal into Hell I immediately noticed a breath meter appear. Apparently Hells atmosphere is not 'earth normal' go figure. When I asked if you would be able to get equipment to nullify the breath 'timer' Bill explained that most likely the answer was no. The levels were designed as a timed encounter, rush in, kill some demons, get out and catch your breath, then dash in to finish off the job. From the description it would sound like it might be tedious, but it didn't give that feel at all while watching it being played. What was amusing was watching our Cabalist almost die from breath loss because Bill was busy examining the loot screen after we had looted the big bad but were still standing there in Hell.
It's funny. Initially the whole auto-lock feature of the game turned me off a bit. It felt a little too console-like for my tastes and because the perspective we were playing in mostly was FPS it felt 'wrong' to have things being auto locked without a need for finite aiming. This feeling quickly vanished however and was replaced by a feeling of normalcy. After just a bit of exposure the feel of the game absolutely felt comfortable
Like I mentioned previously, it felt exactly like I was visiting over at a friendâs house and watching him play a new game and it left me feeling like driving out to buy a copy after I left. The perspective is different, the play is different, yet it has captured so many of the key elements of its precursors that I don't see how it could disappoint. I seriously can not wait to fire this game up with some friends.