Activate Asia 2008 - Part 3: LucasArts Showcase
By Matt Williams - Wed Sep 10, 2008 6:16pm
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Hosted deep in the bowels of a winery, among the barrels of a finely aged drop, we were welcomed to the presentation by the voice of ‘Proxy’ and audio lead behind The Force Unleashed, David Collins, and Troy Sims, the QA lead on the project.
Star Wars: The Clone Wars
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Ever since the Wii was announced, Star Wars fans have longed for the day when a fully motion controlled lightsaber game would arrive in a format they could play in their loungeroom. Those dreams are set to come true in Star Wars: The Clone Wars. As Troy demonstrated, the control system is both simple and intuitive. You swing the remote left, right, up or down and your actions are represented on screen. If you thrust the remote forward, your character lunges. Pulling the B button on the remote causes your character to block. Once you have these simple moves down, you’re ready to jump in and fight.
The character line up includes the likes of Mace Windu, Asajj Ventress, Obi Wan Kenobi and all the key figures from this year’s animated take on the Star Wars universe. Each character has their own unique combos, initiated by performing specific motions of the Wii remote. You can’t just shake the Wii remote around and hope for the best for once though, as the game will actually begin to tell you off if you just shake the remote around like crazy. When two opponents strike at once then they become entangled in a sabre lock, prompting one of several random mini-games for players to break free and land an attack. Typically these are as simple as striking the remote in a certain direction when you are told. Keeping in line with the cinematic atmosphere, specific character dialogue has been recorded for each conflict, such that a fight between General Grievous and Anakin Skywalker is one of vengeance, whereas a fight between Anakin and his apprentice, Ahsoka Tano, is one of jest and training.
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Levels have been pulled from locations featured in the recent film and also the upcoming television series; each full of life, with plenty of hazards to be wary of. When a round is completed, the action shifts to a new location or else the existing level itself becomes altered, such as the crash landing of a Rebel Gunship in the demonstration we were shown. Beyond lightsabers, a Jedi Master’s other key weapon is the use of the Force, handled by way of the nun-chuck. Levels are littered with debris that can be hurled at an enemy across the screen. Each character has different levels of Force power and for those like General Grievous who don’t dabble in the Force, they will be limited to their brute strength and skill with the sabre.
The ‘Duel’ mode in the Wii version of the Force Unleashed was not on show, but with both games made by local developer Krome Studios, it should be interesting to see how the two compare. Also not on show was the DS version, Star Wars The Clone Wars: Jedi Alliance, due to hit shelves on the same day. Coming from LucasArts’ DS development team in Singapore, this is looking to be similar to the Wii version in name alone, pairing up two characters of your choice to fight through an original story exclusive to DS, with mission based gameplay.
You can catch The Clone Wars film in cinemas now, with the videogame adaptation due on November 17th.
The next game the team took us through was the upcoming original title Fracture. Now I’ll only touch on Fracture lightly, if you want more info check out David Wildgoose’s multiplayer hands on preview and developer interview.Fracture
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Fracture tells of a conflict between the Republic of Pacifican, who believe in the use of mutation, versus the Atlantic Alliance, who rely instead upon cybernetics. What this really boils down to is a bunch of high-tech kick-ass weaponry. The game’s key feature is the terrain-shifting Entrencher gun. The Entrencher allows you to raise and lower the natural terrain roughly 20m, using the right and left bumpers. This tool has the obvious application of overcoming physical obstacles, but it can also be used to throw enemies across the room and crush them into the terrain.
For more physics altering gameplay we were shown a weapon called the Lodestone, which sucks objects to the point to where it was fired, crushing the enemy under a mass of crates and barrels. Another weapon called the Vortex Grenade sucks players into a mini tornado of destruction. Other weapons shown included a hockey puck shooting, remote detonated, explosive launcher called the Catapult, and your stock standard machine gun.
With all this talk of “terrain deformation” and the third person viewpoint, I couldn’t help but make comparisons with Red Faction: Guerrilla originally. Getting my hands on the title, the two couldn’t be further apart. Fracture looks to implement its own unique brand of puzzle solving, using the Entrencher to reach new heights and provide cover in the heat of battle.
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As the only new IP of the event, it will be interesting to see how Fracture fares when it is released this holiday season.
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed
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Set between the events of Episodes III and IV, you exist as Darth Vader’s secret apprentice, tasked with hunting down and eliminating the remaining Jedi. With not a soul to know of your existence, you must leave no witnesses left standing, friend or foe alike. With the backstabbing nature of the Sith though, your story soon becomes one of redemption. With the unlimited powers of the Force on your side, you’re not going down without a fight.
So why now? As Audio Lead on the project, David Collins explains, “the time is right, the technology is right”. It is finally time to allow gamers to go nuts with the Force as they could only imagine. The game’s motto is “kicking ass with the force” and that’s what it’s all about. Starting the game as Darth Vader on the Wookie home-world of Kashyyyk, you are all but unstoppable. It’s a chance to hone your skills and put the much-publicised game engine through its paces, with a planet full of Wookies at your disposal. Having tried the opening level on both the Wii and 360 versions, I can say that the game remains the same at its core structure, but differs greatly between the two versions. The 360 obviously has a graphical advantage over the Wii, with lush forest landscapes, while the Wii naturally sports intuitive motion control the likes of The Clone Wars, but the Wii version is no mere port. The opening level of the Wii version starts out very different; now set at night with its own unique level design. The game looks to bring its own unique gameplay to the Wii, with five exclusive levels and the 1 on 1 lightsaber ‘Duel’ mode.
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In the demonstration, we were also shown a planet called Raxus Prime. Beginning subtly on the back of a downed Star Destroyer, Raxus Prime is a sort of droid junkyard, littered with all manner of hidden nods to Star Wars history. The level of depth in the junkyard was amazing, presenting the perfect opportunity to experiment with the much hyped Digital Molecular Matter engine, or DMM for short. Any piece of junk is at your hands to throw around, as you desire. Some gamers might have been disappointed by the length of the demo released, but that really is just a small part of a larger level. The levels in The Force Unleashed are simply massive.
Appearing almost deceptively easy on the surface, with such an overload of power, The Force Unleashed truly allows you to put ingenuity to the test and just go nuts with the Force. An enemy can be infused with lightning and thrown at his buddies, electrocuting the pack of them in the process. It really prompts some interesting use of the terrain and the combined efforts of the Havok, Euphoria and DMM engines.
Due in stores next week, The Force Unleashed will let Star Wars fans go as nuts as they could imagine.
That’s the LucasArts line up covered from Activate Asia 2008. Come back tomorrow for the low down on the new James Bond title running on the Call of Duty 4 engine, Quantum of Solace. We’ll also take a look at the new kids’ titles, Transformers Animated: The Game and Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa.
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