Day One In The E3 House

We've just returned from day one of E3 proper, our feet are sore, our shoulders ache, and our heads are swimming with information. Through it all, in spite of the pain and exhaustion, we can't wait to get back. We've been in and out of "behind closed doors" showings all day long and while we've seen more than our fair share of worthwhile titles, there are always a few creamier bits that rise to the top in our minds. So without further ado SPOnG proudly presents the winners (not really) of the coveted "things we saw that looked really tops today" awards.

Our winner for "most anticipated showing that didn't disappoint at all" is Atari's rather stunning looking Alone in the Dark for 360, PS3, and PC. For those of you that have seen the trailer and images floating about the net for the past week or two you're more than well aware of how stunning the game looks, but just in case you hadn't seen it we can easily assure you that the whole thing is presented spectacularly.

The development team has actually taken the time to develop a special tool set that allows them to tweak the lighting and effects systems in the game in real time. This gives them an unprecedented amount of control of the "photographic" aspects of the game. From volumetric fog filtering the light to the depth of focus, all aspects of the games aesthetics can be manipulated to great effect on the fly.

The culmination of this is nothing short of breathtaking. The demo we saw showed the opening of the game where you the player awaken, in a first person perspective, unaware of your surroundings. Having been unconscious for a while you are actually in control of the movement and blinking of your own eyes, allowing them to gradually adjust to the brightness of your surroundings. The amount of tension this leads to, even very early on in the game, cannot be understated.

Of course, graphics aside, the main concern for SPOnG is every gamer's fundamental question - how does it play? Atari gives a wonderfully heart warming spiel about how since Alone in the Dark is technically the game that defined what the survival horror genre is, they feel it should now redefine what we expect from the genre. While this may sound like a bit of a load, they do seem to have some very clever ideas for how to make it happen. First off is the fact that it takes place in a giant outdoor environment (Central Park NYC) that the player can wonder around freely through the whole game.

On top of that they have focused heavily on the level of interaction with environmental objects that the player has. One of the examples we saw seemed like a fairly straightforward game cliche at first. Character approaches car, presses button to enter, and presto, your playing a shoddy racing game circa 1995. But not in AITD. The first person camera is resumed in the cockpit (most of the game is played in the 3rd person) at which point the player is the able to literally fiddle with every switch and button in reach. Windshield fogs up, you have to turn on the defrost. Car has a CB, you can scan frequencies looking for any contacts or distress calls.

The most interesting bit shown was probably a bit of a mini game thing for hotwiring a car that you don't have keys to. Each of the player's hands holds a cluster of three wires that can be cycled through and the analogue sticks are used to control the hands themselves, allowing you to rub any combination of wires together until you find the right set. While this may seem like a rather simple gameplay mechanism in itself, it's the way that it functions within the game world that really makes it intriguing. The example given to us was if you hit the wrong combination of wires together you might accidentally flash the headlights or beep the horn, which could draw some very unwanted attention your way. Trying to fiddle with a bunch of wires to start a car while a herd of monsters pounds on your window seemed just so delightfully horrible to us.

Next up is our winner of the highly coveted "completely unexpected original surprise award" which goes to "The Club" from Bizzare Creations, published by our good friends at SEGA. Whilst we were repeatedly assured that the graphics we saw were nowhere near final (running on a stock 360) and that they would be polished to a high gloss before the game is released next year (this is the makers of PGR3 we're talking about after all), it can easily be said that even at this early stage the game looks pretty frikkin peachy creamy.

Of course it's not the graphics that really piqued our interest. It was the overall concept and play mechanics that really make this title stand out in our minds. In what can best be described as "a racing game with guns" (no it's not Full Auto 2, thank goodness!) the player is given control of a contestant in an underground game of sorts wherein ridiculously wealthy men pay average folks to try and kill each other for sport. This concept is really not much more than a loose idea to justify the gameplay as far as we can tell and we can happily say that's one hundred percent fine by us.

The game itself is sort of an amalgam of modern day action shooters and classic arcade blasters like Space Invaders. Basically you just run through a level (usually not for more than 5 minutes, similar to the time it takes to do a race in PGR) and kill every other combatant without dying. Sounds easy? The twist, however, is in the multiplayer powered scoring that feels an awful lot like the kudos system from the PGR series. When an enemy is taken out a timer appears in the corner of the screen and begins counting down. Kill another opponent and a bonus based on the time between deaths is added.

Kill two or more men at once and it kicks up even further. The idea being that the enemies will always be in the same place doing the same thing so that the player, rather than strategizing on the fly, will instead play through each of the many (we are told its going to be a lot) levels over and over again, refining their methods, taking out opponents in different ways and orders and continually striving for the highest score possible. Combined with the worldwide leader-boards on Xbox Live and the very popular achievements system, this really seems like a recipe for many a lost hour of productivity come next year, and we simply can't wait to give it a go for ourselves.

Last and absolutely not least is our highest honour of the day known as the "game that as of right now we think will be our game of the show come Friday award." The game is called BIOSHOCK, the developer Irrational Games, and the pedigree? Perhaps you've heard of System Shock 2? Hailed by many as the best PC game of 1999? BIOSHOCK is "the spiritual successor" to what many still consider to be one of the top 10 PC titles of all time.

First, the obligatory drooling. The game is simply stunning. Really and truthfully stunning. Whether or not there are more polygons or texture effects or whatnot than any other game on the showfloor, or behind those 'closed doors' we couldn't (yet) say. But what we can say is that this game is a testament to the importance of good art direction. Based in a 1950's underwater capitalist utopia (no, we didn't know they had those in the 50's either) that has suffered a tragic and mysterious downfall. You enter the world not knowing why things are the way they are and wanting to firstly figure out what the heck happened and secondly get the hell out alive.

A lot of the characters in the game will actually go about their own business if you choose to leave them alone, as most of them are not monsters in the typical sense, but rather once-normal people who have simply gone mad in very strange and deeply unsettling ways. One of the best examples was an enormous hulking man in an old fashioned porthole-over-the-face style diving suit who plods around watching out for his "little sister". These young girls are the only ones capable of finding and harvesting the much needed "adam" from corpses and non coprses alike.

These two have a very creepy but believable symbiotic relationship that can be exploited in many fun and interesting ways. One of the main points of the game, and something that Irrational has tried very hard to carry forward from SS2, is the players ability to really use the tools available to them to solve problems in a limitless number of ways. One of the many examples we saw entailed the player needing to get into a record store that is being guarded by what are reffered to as "ceiling hangers" (which look a bit like the creepy crawlers from Condemned:Criminal Origins).

If the player is patient enough, a little sister and her guardian will eventually wonder into the vicinity of said ceiling hanger and search about for their much needed "adam". It was at this point that our demonstrator used a can of "rage enhancement" and shot it at the massive, diving-suited fellow. Upon impact the nearby ceiling swinger goes absolutly ballistic and lunges for the big dude in the dive suit, leaving our destination unguarded and easily accessible.

This was of course only one of many, many possible solutions to one problem in a game that promises to be totally epic in scope. Character designs, spot on. Level Design, perfection. Overall it looks like it's going to be an absolute joy to play when it comes out next year and we can't stand the wait till we get to give it a go ourselves.

This concludes today's made-up list of non-official awards that we invented up to suit a bunch of games we think will be great a year from now. Tune in tomorrow to read a story that is basically the same but hopefully with three different - and equally as good - games instead. In the meantime let us know what you think of our choices and thoughts in the forums below.