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E3 2003 Games Part IV May 27, 2003 Marcus Yam |
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Summary: More E3 games coming at you! In this trio preview, Marcus will give you a run-down (including screenshots) on:
•Thief
•Legacy of Kain: Defiance
•Deus Ex: Invisible War
 Thief III (read. Thief) | Page:: ( 1 / 8 ) |
The Original MasterThief
Our mission to Eidos was actually a mission to see Ion Storm Austin’s upcoming games Thief III and Deux Ex: Invisible War. Right away, we made a beeline for the Thief III machine, eager to see how this first person sneaker fared outside the Looking Glass. Apparently, the folks at Eidos wanted a fresh start for the series, so there was neither number “3” nor numeral “III” tagged on to the Thief title. Rest assured, though, this game is hoping to be a most worthy sequel to the first two games.
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That guy from Halo may be the MasterChief, but you are the MasterThief. You reprise your role as Garrett, and once again the name of the game is stealth. Thief shares its engine technology with the Deus Ex: Invisible War team, and if you take a look at some of the screenshots you’ll notice that there’s a dynamic lighting system in place. Similar to what we have experienced from Splinter Cell, shadows will play a huge role in the game world. You’ll have to keep constant tabs of the light sources around you, as the AI in the game will be able react to shadows. If there’s a big light source at your back casting a shadow 10 feet ahead of you, guards will be able to spot you – even though you are not in direct line of sight.
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Another page similar to Splinter Cell’s book of tricks is the lock picking system. We were shown the Xbox version of the game, and lock picking worked by slowly rotating the analog thumb sticks until we felt the strongest rumble sensation before hitting the pick button. It may take several of these trials before successfully breaking into a lock. Of course, during this entire time, Garrett is focused on the lock and not on his surroundings. It’s entirely possible that a guard may have wandered into the area while you were so absorbed in feeling the good vibrations. There’s the ability to look around while you’re sitting in front of the lock, but then you’ll be splitting your attention and thus it would take longer to pick the lock. We predict tense situations coming from lock picking puzzles.
SIDEBAR: The first two Thief games were developed by the now-defunct Looking Glass Studios. Since then, several employees have made their way to Ion Storm Austin to work on the new Thief.
| Thief Part Deux | Page:: ( 2 / 8 ) |
Of Mice and Thieves
Some of you PC gamers are probably thinking “what analog sticks? I don’t got no stinkin’ analog sticks!” Well, we asked the very same thing (though not in so many words). The answer from one of the developers was that the PC lock picking interface would differ considerably. They’re currently working on an on-screen display that will use the mouse to help find that sweet lock spot. Unfortunately, the lock picking system is still in development and we were unable to see it in action.
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Garrett has gained some physical skills while he’s been gone. He’s now able to scale walls, which opens up options for both exploration and evasion. Got a guard hot on your trail and you’ve got no place to hide? Pull a Spiderman and climb the castle wall so that you’re out of immediate sight! Other new methods to escape detection are promised, wall climbing is just one example.
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The best parts from the Thief series are the ones where you must sneak around human characters. The previous two games took slight changes in character when it came time to deal with monsters and other creatures. On that note, we asked about the inclusion of creatures in the new Thief. The answer was that creatures such as zombies will be in this new game, though it will have a greater ratio of humans to creatures when compared to Thief II.
All in all, though, this new generation Thief is something fans will definitely want to keep an eye on. Game play length is said to be about the same as Thief II. Look for this one on Xbox and PC this winter after Deus Ex: Invisible War ships.
SIDEBAR:
| Legacy of Kain | Page:: ( 3 / 8 ) |
Vampire May Cry
Before moving over to Ion Storm’s other game, the new Legacy of Kain game from Crystal Dynamics caught our attention. Unlike previous chapters of the series, which were split up between two characters, Legacy of Kain: Defiance features gameplay with both Raziel and Kain.
One of the largest complaints about the last Legacy of Kain game, Blood Omen 2, was that the pacing (among other parts of the game) was flawed. Blood Omen had puzzles in the game where moving boxes were required. C’mon now, you’re this big badass vampire and you’re pushing crates? I don’t think so. Fortunately, the development team behind Legacy of Kain: Defiance (Soul Reaver team) does not think so either.
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This new chapter is all about action. That is not to say that there won’t be any of the classic puzzle elements, but LoK: Defiance will easily be the most action oriented game in the series.
Instead of going on and on about how the combat system works, let’s start with something familiar. If there was one game that we could draw a parallel to, it would be Capcom’s Devil May Cry. We mentioned this observation to LOK: Defiance’s director Amy Hennig to which she replied that the team loved Devil May Cry and tried to take the best from that game to apply it to their own.
SIDEBAR: The original Legacy of Kain was designed by Canadian developer Silicon Knights, now better known for its work on Nintendo’s Eternal Darkness. Silicon Knights is currently working the Metal Gear Solid remake for GameCube.
| More Kain | Page:: ( 4 / 8 ) |
Use the Force
Defiance will feature a ‘telekinesis meter’ that will allow Kain and Raziel to perform feats that you could expect from Jedi Force powers. We saw Kain toss a foe into a statute, causing it to crumble. Many of the environments will be reactive, some of which will give you another way of disposing of your enemies other than just pounding them. For example, using your telekinetic powers to throw your opponents off a bridge will make short work of them.
Hennig also said that LoK: Defiance will excel where DMC fell short – the story. This latest chapter will finally bring Kain and Raziel’s paths together in a meaningful way. Players will get to play certain levels with Kain and others with Raziel, eventually having the two converge.
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Graphically, LoK: Defiance already looks quite polished. That shouldn’t be much of a surprise, however, as it is running on the Soul Reaver 2 engine originally built for the PlayStation 2. Director Amy Hennig said that with Soul Reaver 2, much of the development time was spent on figuring out Sony’s console. Now that much the technology has been established, the team can spend more of its resources on story and gameplay.
We look forward to playing Legacy of Kain: Defiance on PlayStation 2 and Xbox this fall.
SIDEBAR: Maybe I wasn’t attentive enough, but I didn’t see a Lara Croft model this year. Maybe they didn’t want to take away from Angelina Jolie’s upcoming Tomb Raider movie. Trailer here.
| LoK:D Gallery | Page:: ( 5 / 8 ) |
| Deus Ex | Page:: ( 6 / 8 ) |
God From the Machine
After wading through the dankness of the private Eidos booth, we had arrived at one of our most anticipated destinations – Deus Ex: Invisible War. Upon our arrival, we were offered a demonstration of the game running on Xbox by none other than the great head herdsman himself Warren Spector. We then instantly knew it was worth the trip.
The first thing Mr. Spector told us is that Deux Ex: Invisible War is a complete gameplay evolution over the first game. The first Deus Ex was a masterpiece well worthy of our Editor’s Choice award, but it was a very much a PC game. After that, the development team was presented with the challenge of making this very PC-oriented game into a PlayStation 2 title playable with the Dual Shock controller. From their porting experience, the Deus Ex designers were surprised at how they were able to fit all functions of a keyboard and mouse onto a control pad. Warren explained to us that this paved the way for some of the design decisions made for Deus Ex: Invisible War.
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Warren Spector openly admitted that he now feels that the first Deus Ex was overly complicated. He joked that the old inventory management system was a test in spatial reasoning. While such spatial abilities are in-born for the hardcore gamer, Ion Storm wanted to make this game far more accessible to the general gaming public – without losing anything that made Deus Ex great. Spector reaffirmed this by saying that they distilled Deus Ex down to its finest and most pure parts, improved the mixture, and the result is Invisible War.
SIDEBAR: According to MobyGames’ bio, Warren Spector received his BS in Speech from Northwestern University and an MA in Radio-TV-Film from the University of Texas, Austin.
| Invisible War | Page:: ( 7 / 8 ) |
Hydroponic Gameplay
The most enjoyable and stand-out part to Deus Ex (and a couple of Warren Spector’s past projects) was its open-endedness. The game could be played a number of different ways depending on a player’s style. Someone could take the thief or hacker route to avoid confrontations, whereas another player could blast his way through in true Quake/Unreal style. Obviously, this freedom in gameplay will be making it back better than ever for DX: IW.
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Spector revealed to us that many of the open-ended gameplay choices (such as hacking, stealth, brute force) for the original Deus Ex had to be thought out ahead of time and be hard coded into the game. One of the goals for Invisible War is to create a game where such gameplay paths would not have to be coded into the game, but rather “grow” out of the environment. Some paths are still hard-wired into the game, but this time around, the game engine itself will be doing a good chunk of the work. Does this mean that players may possibly find solutions to problems that the developers themselves have yet to discover? Looks like we’ll just have to wait and see on that one. Exciting though, isn’t it?
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Some proof of the ‘purified’ Deus Ex can be seen in the new interface. Out are the tiny text and icons and in is a circular, translucent overlay composed purely of icons. Designed to look like it a nano-implant that could fit in your eye, the left half of the circle serves as your quick-access inventory, and the other half is for your augmentations. Speaking of augmentations, Warren Spector explained that the skills system as we knew it won’t be in Invisible War. Instead, the skills aspect of the game has been combined and built into the bio-modification system. This move was made to remove some of the unnecessary complexity from the first game. More time playing, less time fiddling with skill points.
SIDEBAR: Harvey Smith is the project director on DX: IW. We looked all over for him, but he was nowhere to be found. (Maybe he was checking out Tecmo’s Fashion Show – not that we can blame him.)
So, we had to “settle” for Ion Storm studio director Warren Spector. Yeah, E3 is harsh.
| DX:IW Page 3 | Page:: ( 8 / 8 ) |
Warranty-voiding Aftermarket Upgrade Parts
The result of character upgrades will be more immediate in DX: IW. Previously, an upgrade had to be brought to a robot before it could be implanted and used. For the upcoming game, you’ll be able to activate it right away – no mess, no fuss, no waiting. Err, hold it, there could be some mess and fuss into the mix if you decide to acquire your upgrades ‘creatively.’ In Deus Ex: Invisible War, there is a black market for bio-mods. If you decide to acquire your upgrades from such sources, you risk yourself to adverse side-effects when using your enhancement. Warren Spector gave us the example of an augmentation that heals you. The normal aug would just repair your damage, but a similar mod from the black market may heal you just the same but at the expense of someone else’s energy – sort of like a vampiric effect. We didn’t get any further specifics, but we could imagine situations where the black market product could end up being more useful than the original design – though that’s not going to hold true of all black market acquisitions.
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While the graphics of Deus Ex: Invisible War may not have the same flash as those found in Doom 3, it still features a dynamic lighting system and ample bump mapping to emphasize it. The art direction in DX: IW retains the same ‘artificial’ and ‘clinical’ style found in the first game, which is quite fitting. It may also be interesting to note that the visuals seen in Thief and DX: IW are a result of Ion Storm’s custom renderer, not the Unreal engine. Here’s a quote from Ion Storm’s Kent Hudson with regards to the technology:
“dx2 and t3 arent using unreal any more, other than the editor. we rewrote the renderer (lighting/shadows/normal maps/specular, etc), the sound engine, the physics engine, and all of the game code (properties/weapons/game systems).
not that unreal doesnt look GREAT these days. we're friends with epic and respect them a great deal. but we just have a focused design and felt the need to have an engine tailor-made for the games.”
But really, the reason why we loved the original Thief and Deus Ex games was for the gameplay. It just so happens that both the upcoming sequels feature great graphics to go along with the deep gameplay promised.
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While some of you may worry that Deus Ex: Invisible War is being dumbed down for mainstream gamers, everything we’ve seen thus far points to the sequel we’ve been waiting for.
Too bad Warren said that we’re going to have to wait until October.
SIDEBAR: Deux ex machina means “god from the machine” in Latin. In terms of ancient Greek plays, it referred to an insurmountable problem that was only solvable by the appearance of a god lowered by stage machinery to save the day.
Are you excited about these 3 titles? Can’t wait to sneak around, while stealing souls and fighting in an unseen conflict? Let us hear your reactions!