By Jim Rossignol on August 22nd, 2008 at 8:27 am.
That’s short for “Underwater Wars“, you see. It’s Far Cry mostly-under-the-sea (sadly not pictured), with dudes in fancy scuba gear making war in the year 2025. It’s NATO versus terrorist organisation “Golden Hawk” in a shooter which has at least some fights at the bottom of the ocean. Exciting no? Okay, well just watch the video.
For some reason, that video gave me horrible flashbacks from the first Turtles game (NES), the swimming levels.
Anyways, the game looks pretty odd, but gotta give them credit for trying something different.
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Remember seeing this in the GC business center.
Hmm… For an underwater shooter, the diving physics don’t reallly look that convincing. The character looks much too heavy to float and he doesn’t move like somebody underwater. Maybe it’s a special highly advanced, automatic diving suit. But in this case it would be nice to see jets of water, air or whatever coming out of it.
All in all, this trailer is the same like a demo for an action driving game without wheel animations and cars that turn on the spot.
Still, I like the idea and it’s probably a very early prototype, so there’s still hope.
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Swimming around with no swim animation and dust explosions underwater make this seem really stupid
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The complete lack of movement on the main guy when he swims forward looks really wonky.
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Yeah, the player has no momentum, it’s like he’s no-clipping through the water. It’s strange that they’d show a game in such an early state as I doubt what we can see here is going to get anyone’s heart pumping.
Also, does anyone else feel really frustrated while watching gameplay video when the person playing it is slow or bad at the game? When the guy stops and slowly aims his reticule at the enemies I just want to snatch the controller out of the players hand and take control!
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Hmmmmm. The 4/10 rating on gametrailers told me not to watch it there, but you guys just HAD to make me watch it here didn’t you?
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@dartt: this game wasn’t shown at the gc’s main floor, but in the business center. Which is basically like the red light district in Amsterdam, but with game developers instead of whores. They all have little booths there, show their wares and lounge around until a customer shows some interest in their wares.
A lot of the stuff you see there is in a very rough and unfinished state, often just proofs of concepts and really early demo versions.
This stuff is usually only shown to publishers, the press or random drunken people (me, for example) walking past. A demo like this is enough to show a publisher, that (a) yes, you can indeed make graphics and code and might be able to create a full game and (b) what you see as the USP of your game and why they should give you their money.
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While I’m sure that any animation misshaps are due to it being pre-whatever code, it doesn’t change the fact that all FPS/3rd person action held in underwater and zero-g arenas is stilted, awkward, and ultimately unsatisfying.
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…well least the music is alright, Its failed to excite me. The lack of swimming or motion animations and the simple fact that the video had freaking low framerates in places.
Give me echo the dolphin on dreamcast or even Sub Culture 2 instead of this.
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Wooo…
Early or not, that’s not too convincing at all.
Slide forward, rotate on the spot and shoot?
Wasn’t that a control mechanism that went out of date with the Atari?
If they wanted to demo the engine they should have at least shown some kind of character control.
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You should really check out the Underwater Wars website for some hilarious English translations. For instance, from the “About Characters” page:
If you’ll excuse me, I have some noncommittal acquaintances to strike up.
edit: Okay, can’t stop. One more:
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How can he fire an assault rifle underwater anyhow?
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Someone was either aiming with a controller or the worst shooter player ever.
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@dracko
“How can he fire an assault rifle underwater anyhow?”
easily via compressed gas recoil
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Relatively original idea, and it’s still early yet. I’d say it still has a lot of potential. One to keep a vaguely interested eye out for, at least.
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cullnean: Still seems like a dumb idea if he’s supposed to be a specialised operative. Especially considering that’s considered a highly dangerous move.
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It’s sort of disappointing that all they’re doing with the gameplay concept is a generic, Gears-of-Duty shooter. I’ll openly admit that I’m a bit of a whore for aesthetics, but there are so many more visually interesting places you could take an underwater action game. Like a Jules Verne, sci-fi place. Or even a cold war, Russian frogmen kind of place.
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I hope people are right about it being very unfinished because it did look a little dodge. But I’m excited about this! It’s different!
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Shouldn’t the explosion particles (or whatever that was) move slower seeing as this is underwater?
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“It’s strange that they’d show a game in such an early state as I doubt what we can see here is going to get anyone’s heart pumping.”
Publishers will often demand absolutely ludicrous things — one of them being videos long before a game is ready to show.
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