Rock, Paper, Shotgun

I probably should have linked my Brief History of Videogame Jetpacks up here at some point, a quick survey of the personal flight system which ends on an optimistic note: there are loads of jetpacks in games coming up in the near future, and the jetpack’s heyday is by no means behind us. There’s one in Red Faction Guerilla, many in Section 8, and yet more to arrive after Christmas in Dark Void. The Capcom sci-fi shooter has now slipped to 2010, and that’s reportedly all about getting the jetpack just so. Previously the had been more about jet-jumping and flying, as I understand it, but now you’ll be able to hang in the air “indefinitely” thanks to the hover-mode implemented during the extra development time. This is probably a case of a very necessary change to a game system that was fundamental and not-quite-right, so I’m glad it’s slipped in this case. This footage makes it look a little Gears Of War-with-jetpacks, but I’m holding out hope that this will be one of the all-time rockbelt experiences.
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The other Capcom game that has been confirmed for PC is Dark Void. The jet-pack-happy science fiction shooter is being developed by previously successful air-combat game developers, Airtight Games. They produced Crimson Skies: High Road To Revenge on the OldenXbox. What we know at the moment is that the game is set in a dimension on the far side of the Bermuda Triangle, has Nikola Tesla in it, and features both hoverpacks and jetpacks, for aerial combat. The trailer (below) isn’t much more illuminating about all that, but the game does look both aerial, and pretty (I’ve posted a couple of new images below) with its Unreal Engine 3.0 environments. Possibly one to keep an eye on.
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