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E3 2002: Age of Mythology
We opened the day up with a look at the premiere of the opening cinematic. It's cool. It's really cool. I wish we had a copy of it and I can guarantee we're going to try to get a copy to post, even if Steve has to give some "favors" for us to do it. Basically it shows some raging battles between regular army folk and some really brutish creatures in full CG. The animation and pace was superb and anyone that gets the game will be in store for an extra little treat. Now to the actual game. The mighty Bruce Shelly himself was there to give the demo of the single player game. One thing that you'll get from the single player experience in this game that will be much different from past projects, like Age of Empires, is the deep story experience. You'll follow exploits of heroes from the three different areas of the world through one long campaign that takes you to the lands of the hairy and belligerent Norsemen, the heroic Greeks, and the slightly sun dried Egyptians. Each of the scenarios you'll battle through will come complete with cinematics powered by the in-game engine when you start and when you finish. These will serve as briefing screens used to so you never have to really leave the game. Judging by the one that we saw, those cutscenes won't just be thrown together. They'll tell the story well and in style. Interesting camera work along with good heroes, villains, and action will propel you through the game. Sound hasn't been forgotten either, great attention is being paid to the voice work, which sounded very well done from the little I heard. Unfortunately, you can really only demo and play so much in a half hour, and while I begged and cried and slobbered all over Bruce's shoes, I still didn't get anything. Go figure. But at least they let me lay my hands on the controls as I selected units and asked questions about some of the things that were in the playable level they brought to the show. Apparently, a god has been split into four pieces. Oops. That's a careless god. Your task is to gather the pieces, which are scattered around the map to wake the ancient Egyptian god to smite your enemies. I had the chance to fool around with some of the god powers bestowed upon me and found one that I hadn't ever seen before. It works a lot like a raise dead spell, so if you're in the middle of a giant battle and find the tides turning against you, strike down with the Ancestors power and you'll suddenly find all of the fallen warriors coming back to help you in your time of need. Also like raise dead sorts of spells, the effect will only last for a short amount of time. But really, I just have to talk about the graphics again. It's really pretty. I think it's really pretty. You like really pretty things? You'll like this game. From the units that change visually with upgrades to the water to the amazing as freaking amazing god powers like tornado and meteor shower. Oooh the meteor shower! I've seen it a million times, but it never ever gets old. They still won't tell us when they're going to pony up the beta copies of that game, but you can imagine that we'll have some serious in depth previews when we finally break their will and force them to give us a copy. |
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