Report from Igromir: Part Three
It has been a while since the end of "Igromir", and look - the eponymous blog is not stopping its intake of fresh posts. At least, right now you are reading the last, third game report from the exhibition, which contains information on a number of quite interesting projects.
"Street Fighter X Tekken" confidently captured the attention of the audience: hundreds of visitors to "Igromir" happily participated in numerous battles, where legendary fighters from two fighting universes faced off. From the gameplay and graphics perspective, not much has changed - the new "Capcom" project looks and plays just like "Street Fighter IV". "The Lord of the Rings: War in the North" was little surprising. It turned out to be a standard action game, probably strictly for fans of the esteemed Tolkien's books. "Rise of Nightmares", despite its rather loud title, proved to be unpalatable. "Renegade Ops" delighted with stunning physics, a riot of colors, and gameplay. "Inversion" didn't leave us breathless; we have seen it all somewhere before, and the poster for "The Darkness 2" turned out to be unplayable - unfortunately, they didn't bring a demo of this shooter to "Igromir".
Dragon Commander
One of the most intriguing projects presented at the exhibition turned out to be "Dragon Commander" from "Larian Studios", renowned for its RPG series "Divinity". The game's developers came to Moscow to show and tell in detail about the storyline prequel to the RPG series. Specifically, Gamer.ru showcased "Dragon Commander" by Sven Vincke, head of the studio. "This is an early build of the game; we exhibited it at the recent 'Gamescom'," Sven begins. - "Our new project is a mix of various genres: strategy, role-playing, and action. While the main feature of 'Dragon Commander' will be aerial battles, players will find plenty to occupy themselves with during their downtime from fighting."
The scenario of "DC" is based on a story that began long before the events of the "Divinity" series. We will find ourselves in an era when dragons ruled the skies, and foot battles resembled ordinary street fights. As expected, the whole world is engulfed in wars, in which we will take an active role. Not only as a fighter but also as a commander.
The demo begins with a demonstration of our "captain-ship", a large command vessel that incorporates the functions of a home, conference room, barracks, and military headquarters. "On the ship, the player can make strategic decisions using the global map, purchase troops, discuss political and economic issues with their advisors, build, um, relationships with their princess, and much more. Yes, it resembles 'Starcraft 2' or 'Wing Commander', if you will," Sven continues. As Sven speaks, we need to consult with our advisor about our beloved. He is unhappy with her appearance and, as it turns out, the reason lies not in her fiery character or manners, though there is room for improvement there too. The nuance is that the main character literally fell in love with a skeleton - the princess turned out to be undead.
"Umm, look, the love of our life really wants to fulfill her marital duty," Sven laughs, demonstrating the dialogue between the main hero and the princess. - "We, of course, cannot do that, the girl is a natural skeleton! So we comfort her and ask what she said to the military advisor. It turns out our beloved wants to gain control over one of the provinces and establish a small kingdom of the undead in that territory. Let's not rush to decide, and better listen to what Edmont has to say about this - a sort of know-it-all advisor." A couple of clicks on the gamepad, and now we’re in a dialogue with a goblin sage. It turns out that if we give the province to our "dead" princess, we must drive out the dwarves from the territory, which will, in turn, affect the speed of technological research and the quality of armor on the dragon (in simple terms - upgrades). However, we cannot deny the love of our life, so we agree to the princess's proposal and in return receive a special card that allows us to recruit an army of skeletons.
"And this is the global map, from which the player will feel like a commander and arbiter of destinies." Although thoughts of the "Total War" series come to mind, there are very few common features in this regard. Armies move only "symbolically", by icons, and in one turn we can participate in only one battle. Activating the card with bonuses (received from our beloved), we naturally hurry to engage in combat to see for ourselves the thrill of flying on fire-breathing beasts.
"As you can see, a special jetpack is installed on our dragon's back," Sven explains. - "It allows us to perform not only such maneuvers but also to accelerate. Yes, the maps in 'Dragon Commander' are quite large, but there are boundaries beyond which the player cannot cross." Upon first entering the battlefield, one experiences genuine shock - it's something new. A hundred units are flying in the air, "spitting" projectiles at each other, explosions everywhere, and complete chaos, and we, as commanders, will need to organize our troops and destroy the enemy base so that the province comes under our control. It slightly resembles "Drakan: Order of the Flame", except we won't be allowed to walk on the ground and roast defenseless humans with napalm.
"In our hands is a combat machine with power, speed, and excellent mobility. Let's use it!" Sven directs his dragon right into the fray, noting once again that this build of "Dragon Commander" is far from final and is very raw, so closer to the release, the game will become even better, more perfect, and more spectacular. Honestly, the fight looks really cool, reminiscent of even the cosmic skirmishes from "Star Wars". The only problem is that throughout the presentation, there was a lingering feeling that the player is far from the center of the universe, causing all interesting events to happen as if somewhere off-screen. "Call of Duty" made us fall in love with scripts, and we are used to helicopters falling just a meter from the player, bullets passing a centimeter from the temple, and random shots magically landing a headshot. In "Dragon Commander", it’s far from that: bloodthirsty, predatory dragons do not attack the captain's "bird", enemy pilots do not attempt to throw us off the saddle, and all those projectiles aimed at the main hero always seem to pass by - there’s no sense of the dragon being hit, that it suffered damage.
Because of this, the presentation didn’t have the desired wow-effect: it looks good but plays without much excitement. "I often get asked, what is 'Dragon Commander' anyway? And I answer that it’s both a strategy, a role-playing game, and intense action, and... oh, damn, I don't even know," Sven laughs. Well, there’s plenty of time to polish this promising idea (especially during the absence of so-called "fire-breathing dragon simulators") - the release of the multiplatform "Dragon Commander" is scheduled for September-October 2012.
Royal Quest
The developers of "Royal Quest" - the gentlemen from "Katauri Interactive" - for a long time fed everyone interested with rather "watery" information. It seemed that "Royal Quest" was no revolution in the genre, and that the end result would be a mix of major MMORPG features with some of the developers' own ideas.
And indeed, it is. A somewhat trivial setup about the impending danger to the world of Aura wraps itself in one cone with beautiful game design and the mechanics of "Ragnarok Online" which many have yearned for. Thus, the game features a "Diablo-esque" camera, and character progression somewhat resembles the aforementioned Korean MMO. Upon reaching the twentieth level, the player will need to choose the further developmental path for their character. A simple swordsman, for example, after gaining the required amount of experience, will be able to reclassify either into a crusader or a dark knight. There is no division into light or dark sides in "Royal Quest", so the word "dark" does not characterize the character’s mentality at all. Different development branches entail learning various capabilities and skills - both passive and active. Therefore, before deciding who to become in this lifetime, one will have to rack their brains quite a bit. And read guides, of course.
"We wanted to convey the true spirit of adventure in our game," say the "Katauri" folks, "in contemporary multiplayer games, gamers often face red dots on the map. It's immediately clear that there are enemies and they can be ground down in groups of twenty. That’s not the case with us. While traversing locations, you can't predict who or what is lurking behind that rock or bush. A monster can attack your character even from underground! We are sure that this will add drive to the gameplay." Drive is one thing, but the beauty around can indeed cause one to lose focus, and then, completely unexpectedly, receive a blow. "There won't be any copy-pasted locations. Instead, we will offer players manually drawn levels, each of which is essentially unique."
Any multiplayer project needs a well-thought-out scheme for player interaction. After all, now "Katauri" is making an online game, and they understand this very well. Thus, players will inevitably encounter numerous instances (the developers promised almost complete freedom of action, but let’s face it, no character can survive without instances with their loot-rich bosses), meticulously placed by the authors all over Aura. Various caves and other, not-so-friendly establishments are planned in different sizes, so they will be designed for different groups of players. High-level players, by the way, will often have to run in low-level locales, because that’s where the spots with large, clever, and very painful bosses will be located. This way, the developers hope to attract newcomers, saying: look at the experienced player, how colorful he is in epic armor. Want to be like him? Keep playing in "Royal Quest"!"
One of the main features of "Royal Quest" is castle wars. The differences from the same "Ragnarok" lie in the mechanics that literally make levels transform before your eyes. Castle defense is divided into three stages: in the first two, teams of players wishing to seize such a large trophy strive to eliminate their direct competitors. In the first stage, players find themselves in a room with polygonal platforms, arranged at different heights. Approaching the edge of the platform will cause it to lift or lower a neighboring hex. The whole trick is, as long as an enemy is on a neighboring figure, there’s no escaping - that’s the law of mechanics. Right now, this notion may seem somewhat strange, as it does not rule out the possibility of players endlessly running away from each other.
But it wouldn’t be that simple. To move on to the next stage of the castle capture, teams must battle for coveted keys hidden in the bags of strong mob guardians. Not only will these mobs need to be killed, but the keys will also need to be brought directly to the portal. Here’s where the running begins: the player who captures the key must skillfully calculate their route to the portal, lest an enemy reach the neighboring platform first. Otherwise, a fierce battle will ensue.
The second stage of the castle capture involves pure PvP, before which the winning teams better balance their strengths, i.e., their classes. After all the battles are fought, only the best of the best will survive, and that’s exactly who will face off against the castle defenders.
"The essence of castles lies in the advantages they grant their owners. This includes instances designed solely for the defenders and their own ‘monster meadow’. Later, we plan to provide players with their own NPCs, who will be able to cast various buffs and improvements on the castle owners. Outsiders will have the chance to see through magical gates all that happens inside and drool from envy." This is how "Katauri" intends to encourage fighters towards overthrowing and revolutions.
World of Planes
If you read various previews dedicated to "World of Warplanes" - a new MMO project from "Wargaming.net", you will easily imagine the mechanics of "World of Planes" from "Gaijin Entertainment" - a company that has already made quite a mark in game development. Here, I’d recommend recalling Moscow studio projects like "Wings of Prey" and "Apache: Air Assault".
Most players who respect hardcore in flight simulators view "World of Planes" with skepticism today. They trust only the guys from Minsk, who with their "World of Tanks" managed to prove to everyone who the real leader in the genre of simulators is. It just so happened that soon gamers will have to choose which "World of ..." to play.
At first glance, judging by videos, screenshots, and the information available, these multiplayer games do not differ from each other. Each features hundreds of aircraft of varying "caliber", dozens of scenarios, realistic physics models, weather conditions, in-game currency, upgrades for both aircraft and their crew, and much more. Upon a second glance... the projects still do not differ from each other.
"Realism settings can be set quite varied," the developer explains to me, "newbies will have the opportunity to disable control over many functions of the aircraft. This will somewhat ease their management. On the other hand, hardcore pilots will be able to execute the most intricate maneuvers with the technique, thus securing an advantage over gamers who prefer arcade control modes."
Steering a lightweight fighter is, of course, much easier using a joystick. Greedy players, for whom one keyboard will suffice for comfortable gaming, are recommended to check out heavy bombers, incapable of performing any acrobatics in the air. Here, basically, just fly forward, occasionally firing sideways, and when approaching the target (in the scenario, the target could be an enemy airfield), drop bombs directly onto the enemy.
In addition to standard scenarios, massive wars for territories are promised, which can last up to three months! Among several opposing sides, only one will emerge victorious. Its pilots will receive new ranks, trophies, and experience. Then war in these areas will flare up again.
While "Gaijin" finishes balancing and optimizing, you still have time to sign up for the beta testing of "World of Planes". Hurry, as dozens and dozens of tank fans will soon send their enthusiastic feedback and messages that they feel a bit cramped on land.
Resident Evil:
Operation Raccoon City
The new "Resident Evil" is nothing like previous installments of the series, not even close. After releasing a limited run of the "Resident Evil HD Collection" in Japan, the publisher "Capcom" decided to send a team shooter to Europe, set in a world familiar to players.
"Raccoon City" does not claim the number "6" in its title. This project is no reimagining of the series, but a regular spin-off; the developers - the "Clant Six" team - focused all their attention on team shootouts. Operators of the Umbrella Corporation, wishing to eliminate all who survived the zombie invasion, are fighting to the death against American special forces tasked with stopping the crimes of "USS".
So, two teams land on the streets of the city. The players' task is to score as many points as possible within the allotted time. The challenge lies in the fact that, alongside the living soldiers, hungry corpses roam the level, eager to tear apart a fresh piece of meat. As expected, killing a living fighter will yield more points for the team, while the horde of corpses may be useful for, let’s suppose, some tactical maneuvers. For instance, zombies are attracted to human blood, and if a player from the enemy team gets injured, it’s quite possible to redirect the undead’s attention to their opponent.
The gameplay resembles that of the old, good "Left4Dead", except in "Raccoon City" one constantly has to switch their focus to living players and then to a dozen or so undead. It’s dynamic, somewhat fresh and original. The main thing is for the spin-off not to suffer the bitter fate of the sequel to "Lost Planet", which ruined its intriguing gameplay with brutal monotony.
Dark Souls
The strangest game of the exhibition for me turned out to be "Dark Souls". At one point, I skipped the "demonic" part of the series, so I hoped to experience all the gameplay hardcoreness with a gamepad in hand and the "Dark Souls" disk in the drive. I knew in advance that the game was designed for quite a narrow audience of gamers, which is why I prepared to give it due leeway. But it turned out just as my friends predicted - the demo of "Dark Souls" confuses and brings more bad thoughts than good. Quite poor graphics coexist with a complex, initially even incomprehensible, combat system. One gets the impression that the hero moves somewhat incorrectly and that the character animations could have been made much more realistic. Deciding not to clutter my mind with unnecessary information, I simply handed the gamepad to a neighbor. The controller didn't last a minute in the newly minted player's hands.