In the Dark
We head back to Lasria for more glaive-throwing exploration.
Published: January 28, 2008
Digital Extremes is heading into the home stretch with their upcoming blend of Gears of War and Resident Evil 4 (we like to call it Gears of Evil or Resident War, but that's because we're oddly fond of making up stupid sounding titles for games). As we write this (okay, type it), the London, Ontario-based development house is in final submission to both Microsoft and Sony, meaning the game is essentially done and just needs the green light from the console providers to start mass production.
It also means that the build of the game we recently took a peek at is effectively finished, and though we really didn't see too much in the way of new stuff (in fact, we'd seen everything and even a bit more that we sadly have sworn ourselves to secrecy over on penalty of death), but it was a chance to take one last publisher-guided run through the game that we'll have a chance to pass judgment on here very, very soon.
The two stages that were shown off, a dreary trod through the outlying areas of the Lasrian citystate that housed underground storage and experimentation facilities and the first proper boss fight in the game against a hulking ape-like creature first introduced in the introductory stages of the game, weren't terribly different from what we've come to know. We still used our built-in auto-returning bladed glaive to hack up bad guys in between spurts of pumping them full of lead, but the real differences this time were in the minor tweaks the team has made to the game to make it as palatable as possible.
The usual HUD bits and pieces were there (for instance, the interface for kicking off the quad-powered glaive throw that could cleave a guy in two had a slightly more obvious reticule for lining up the shot where little arrows met and turned yellow to signify the throw was more powerful), but things like the interface for interacting with the black market vendors to purchase new weapons or apply the power-ups for things like more ammo, better stopping power or better range was touched up a little, making it more obvious how much new weapons would cost (remember, while you can pick up other enemies' weapons, a lock on them makes the weapon burn out after about 15 seconds).
We also got a final peek at how the game is running, which is to say it's a silky smooth 30 frames a second on the 360 and damn near that on the PS3 -- though we will admit to seeing an odd amount of screen tearing on the Sony version. Still, the Eastern European tale of super powers and sub-human experiments seems to be shaping up to be one of the years more interesting adventures. We'll have a full review soon.
It also means that the build of the game we recently took a peek at is effectively finished, and though we really didn't see too much in the way of new stuff (in fact, we'd seen everything and even a bit more that we sadly have sworn ourselves to secrecy over on penalty of death), but it was a chance to take one last publisher-guided run through the game that we'll have a chance to pass judgment on here very, very soon.
The two stages that were shown off, a dreary trod through the outlying areas of the Lasrian citystate that housed underground storage and experimentation facilities and the first proper boss fight in the game against a hulking ape-like creature first introduced in the introductory stages of the game, weren't terribly different from what we've come to know. We still used our built-in auto-returning bladed glaive to hack up bad guys in between spurts of pumping them full of lead, but the real differences this time were in the minor tweaks the team has made to the game to make it as palatable as possible.
The usual HUD bits and pieces were there (for instance, the interface for kicking off the quad-powered glaive throw that could cleave a guy in two had a slightly more obvious reticule for lining up the shot where little arrows met and turned yellow to signify the throw was more powerful), but things like the interface for interacting with the black market vendors to purchase new weapons or apply the power-ups for things like more ammo, better stopping power or better range was touched up a little, making it more obvious how much new weapons would cost (remember, while you can pick up other enemies' weapons, a lock on them makes the weapon burn out after about 15 seconds).
We also got a final peek at how the game is running, which is to say it's a silky smooth 30 frames a second on the 360 and damn near that on the PS3 -- though we will admit to seeing an odd amount of screen tearing on the Sony version. Still, the Eastern European tale of super powers and sub-human experiments seems to be shaping up to be one of the years more interesting adventures. We'll have a full review soon.