OMG la version du XO5 était seulement à 40% du jeu final

Since I’m a games journalist writing for a Scandinavian games magazine, I was invited to the MS showroom in Oslo. The games that where available was Perfect Dark, Kameo, DoA4 and PGR3. I played all games on 32” and 40“ Toshiba HD TV’s and with full surround sound of course.

My expectations where sky-high, since I’m a next-gen freak . For that reason it’s a pleasure to tell you guys (who haven’t played it) that the next generation console is awesome! The controller felt right at home, and the surround sound thundered as the green and white X360 logo animation showed its appearance for the first time. Let’s start with the game:

Project Gotham was the first game I tried. Although I was impressed with the graphics, there isn’t really much to say that have not been said before. It plays like PGR2 with greatly improved visuals. Same thing about Doa4, so I wont go in to details about those games. You played it on Xbox. It’s the same game with next-gen visuals.

The game I spent most time with was Perfect Dark. I’ve noticed all the expectations and hype for this game, and also criticism from a lot of games journalists. I personally was really exited about this one, and I loved it. The build I played was the same as in Amsterdam, and the MS press executive said the build was 40% complete. The game featured two demo levels; Rooftop and Subway (I played true both). The graphics was impressive with a little overdone (I like it) mapping (gives the game a lot of glare and shine). The artistic style of the visuals felt like a combination of a comic book style and photo-realism. Pretty exiting!

The Game was very precise (in aiming), and actually hard to play. Now this I have to focus on because I have a theory why a lot of people don’t like the game. You have probably seen in the videos of Perfect Dark that some “bad guys” takes a lot of shots to kill (body-armour etc). Because of this you basically always aim for the head, and this requires some skill. A lot of peoples had a hard time playing Halo at the time of release, and believe me, PDZ is much harder. If you miss the head with one centimetre you will miss it. It is no auto aim. You only like a game when you feel some sort of satisfaction for the ability to manage the game (my girlfriend studies psychology). If you don’t have those feelings, you wont like the game. I on the other hand loved the game. I love when the game is accurate, and I am convinced this game will get the balance right when it’s released. To me the game actually looked very polished already. The game felt a lot like goldeneye, and did not remind me a bit of Halo. The visuals has some of the best particle-effects I’ve ever seen, and a lot of time I had to stop and look at the spectacular lightning and awesome visuals. I am confident Rare will deliver.

The most amazing game of the show was Kameo. The game had the ingredients of Lord of the Rings, Shrek and Zelda mixed together in a magic soup, and it tastes absolutely wonderful. Once people see this game they want it. If they play it, they must have it. This is a system seller, and it is my most anticipated game for the release. The atmosphere, the innovative gameplay, the visuals and particle-effects, the massive battles it’s a totally new gameplay experience. Believe me when I say “the next-generation of adventure games comes with the release of X360”. You’ll see, once you on that horse, riding thru badlands.

I’ll be happy to answer any questions…

To be honest I don’t really know why they said it was 40% done. I think the game looked polished. I don’t know how they can estimate how much “done” a game is.

Her is what might have happened:

1. The guy who told me doesn’t know what he was talking about.
2. He could try to build hype by marketing the game as; “it’s only 40% done! Think how good it would be at 100%!
3. The guy doesn’t know what he was talking about.

He also said it was the same build as in Amsterdam. Anybody know how much done that build was?


“Why would ms show a 40% done build when the game will be released in little more than three weeks"

Because Rare is probably very busy at the moment focusing on the retail game, rather than making playable codes for game journalists.