Showing posts with label Activision. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Activision. Show all posts

Hands-on Preview of ‘Sleeping Dogs’ Game Shows Lots of Promise

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Video game publisher Square Enix held an exclusive preview of its forthcoming title Sleeping Dogs in San Francisco this week, giving Mashable a hands-on look at one of this summer’s most anticipated open-world games.

Basically, Sleeping Dogs looks awesome.

Here’s the basic premise of the game: Players operate as Asian-American detective Wei Shen, who is assigned to infiltrate and take down a violent Triad crime ring in Hong Kong. It’s a nice setup because it allows players to be the good guy while still doing lots of bad guy dirt. Sleeping Dogs is slated for release on Windows, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 this August.

While Square Enix is publishing the game, it’s being developed by United Front Games (UFG). UFG executive producer Stephen Van Der Mescht said his team watched and re-watched Hong Kong action films for inspiration and ideas. That shows in the entertaining plot line of Sleeping Dogs. The interstitial scenes that move the story forward between gameplay sequences are shot like a film and feature fun noir dialogue. Coupled with the game’s excellent graphics, the bits that we saw could have passed as the outline of a decent cartoon TV show.

Van Der Mescht said in an interview that making Sleeping Dogs the first open-world game set in Hong Kong was an easy choice.

“In open-world games, the city is often your central character, it’s what you interact with most, and Hong Kong offers so much variety,” he said. “It’s also perfect for an open-world game because it’s an island, so it has a natural border.”

The hands-on gameplay was loads of fun as well, even for this very casual (at best) gamer. Despite its open-world format, the game was easily navigable with signposts, reminders and distance meters to move the action along. The controls are all straightforward and pretty intuitive. One feature straight out of an action flick is how props such as dumpsters and gates glow red to indicate especially gruesome ways to dispatch enemies.

Another cool thing is how different parts of the game have completely different feels and create their own experiences. Kung fu sequences feel almost like a different game from the parts where Shen picks up a gun and sprays bullets. A street race sequence introduces even more unique variety.

That combination of quality and diversity will be key to Sleeping Dogs succeeding in the competitive open-world genre once the game hits the market.

“I think each of the core pillars are going to be competitive or exceed people’s expectations,” Lee Singleton, general manager of Square Enix London Studios, told Mashable.

Sleeping Dogs actually had a bumpy road to Square Enix. It was originally titled True Crime: Hong Kong, as a third installment of the True Crime Los Angeles and New York editions, and set for publication by Activision. But Activision dropped the game a year ago, reportedly because they thought it was “just not good enough” to compete in the open-world genre. Square Enix picked up the rights in August.

But from what we saw this week, Sleeping Dogs will bring gamers plenty of outstanding action and storytelling, even if it goes a little light on the online and social options with just simple leaderboards. Whether that all translates to financial success is tougher to predict.keep up with the newest technologies and contemplate about how these will be used in the future. On this blog I'll share my thoughts about the future of technology, based on the high Tech Road Show Blog inventions of today.

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Inside the First Missions of Prototype 2

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Prototype 2 Screenshot

The new protagonist, Sgt. James Heller.

The opening scenes of Prototype 2 have got a lot of blood in them. The sequel to Radical Entertainment’s open-world, anti-superhero video game, Prototype, promise to improve on the first game with more skills, features and a much-deserved Mature rating.

Mashable got a chance to try out the first couple missions of the game and experiment with a fully-powered main character as part of a special demo from Activision, the game’s producer.

The Story

[No major spoilers were shown save for some background info on the main character]

Prototype 2 takes place 14 months after the first game and the threat of a bio-weapon virus has racked New York (now called “New York Zero”). The hero from the first game, Alex Mercer, is the new bad guy. Infected with a virus, he was given strange superpowers like the ability to glide through the air, shoot organic tendrils from his body or even consume other humans to assume their appearance.

Mercer is blamed for a new outbreak of the same virus and New York has been broken up into three zones: Green (government lockdown), Yellow (medical quarantine) and Red (total f-cking chaos).

The player is thrown into the Red zone as Sgt. James Heller and the virus has run rampant with bodies and bio-mutations growing over the buildings. Heller and his military squad are attacked by Mercer who infects Heller and leaves him for dead. Heller is recovered by the government and turned into a bio-weapon against his will after showing an unnatural ability to fight the virus.

Mercer helps break Heller out of the medical facility and tries to convince him that the whole virus is a government plot. Fair enough, but Heller also blames Mercer for the death of his wife and kid who were both killed by an attack from infected civilians.

The game is all about Heller’s quest for revenge as he tries to figure out exactly who — Mercer, the government, or something else — is to blame.

New Features

prototype 2 image

The player assumes control of Heller as he’s wandering through the Yellow zone coming to grips with his new bio-powers and avoiding government and military patrols looking to take him in. All of the game’s powers return, such as the ability to consume enemies for health, new costumes and even plot points (absorbing certain enemies grants you their memories). Players can also turn their hands into giant blades or hardened fists, shoot tendrils from their bodies like webbing, or even cause bio-spikes to shoot up from the ground.

Players can now assign two of these powers to hot buttons allowing them to chain together bio powers with standard kicks, punches and picked up items such as guns. This adds another layer to combat and lets players fight in their own way (range vs. brute force, etc.). Emphasis has been put on special moves and finishers as opposed to exhaustive move lists and complex button inputs. The skills and powers can be leveled up throughout the game.

The team also wanted Heller to feel more like a hunter, preying on targets. To wit, the character as a sonar-like ability that allows him to track down key enemies and goals by sending out a biological pulse, of sorts.

Gameplay

We had a chance to test out some of Prototype 2‘s new powers and moves as a fully-evolved Heller fighting all manner of militia. The game’s combat feels similar to that of Batman: Arkham City: Moves have an appropriate heft and weight from punching out guards to ripping cannons off of tanks. The game can feel like button mashing thanks to the streamlined controls but variety comes in mixing and matching special abilities and powers to adjust to situations. The combat is surprisingly deep and rewarding regardless of your ability.

Non-combat sections focus more on surveying your surroundings and blending in then the high-wire parkour of the first game. It’s clear the team took some notes from the Assassin’s Creed series but the game still feels all its own.

Verdict (So Far)

It’s too early to tell if the game can keep up the tension and narrative pace through the whole experience. The opening missions give a promising look at the new face of Prototype and the combat feels good. The game didn’t blow us away but its clear Radical Entertainment is swinging for the fences.

Is Prototype 2 going to hit it out of the park or does it sound like just more of the same? Let us know in the comments below.

keep up with the newest technologies and contemplate about how these will be used in the future. On this blog I'll share my thoughts about the future of technology, based on the high Tech Road Show Blog inventions of today.
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