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"What's really frightening, however, is how instantly playable this new re-envisioned game is. The robotic machine we call Vectorman is now a fully 3D character living in a massive 3D environment, replete with a flurry of activity: Flying vehicles, enemy AI roaming the new-age streets and fix-it bots busily rebuilding vital structures. The world of Gamma 6 is redrawn, re-created and vast. There are layers of buildings, several stories, ramps and underground passages. And it's been remade with the Orbs' sense of design and style.
Vectorman also has been rebuilt from the ground up with a new design and set of mechanics. He looks and moves differently. Devastated in some past skirmish, Vectorman was sadly defeated and turned to scrap iron. Yet somebody remembered his power and gallant goals, and the secret person rebuilt and brought him back to life. (Sega wants to keep the story a secret until a more strategic time in the near future, so bear with us.) Now reconstructed, he's no longer a bouncing set of green spheres held together by magnets (or secret arcade juice or whatever it was), instead he's a powerful warrior-machine, capable of numerous abilities, attacks, and he's armed with a progressively growing arsenal of overwhelming weaponry.
Pseudo has re-built Vectorman with a sense of reverence and awe, but the development team has, with Sega's approval, drastically altered his visage. Re-created as a third-person shooter capable of strafing, shooting and attacking in up-close melee, Vectorman is a veritable one-robot army. He's bulkier, build up, and strapped with a rocket pack. He does resemble the Vectorman of old, but not by much.
Already in this early stage (it's not due until Q1 2004) the game instantly satisfies. Just like with the best arcade games, anyone who's touched a controller can get to grips with this. Equipped with unlimited ammo, players can rip into enemies and structures alike with un-reigned abandon. You see with any gun in your Vectorman hand, you can blast enemies into parts, the same way Vectorman of old would explode into bits. And 80% of the environments are destructible. That's right, you can simply shoot out the city, blowing up walls, ramps, structures of any kind with the kind of old-school charm Vectorman brought to life on the Genesis. Or blow enemies into chunks. "At first, the demo we saw was more of a platformer with shooter aspects, but we have evolved it over time into a shooter with platformer elements," says Smith. "Now it's 80% shooter, 20% platformer. The demo we show at E3 will be a test of sorts."
Just like in Halo, players can use a gun in one hand and carry a grenade in the other. Switching back and forth from weapon to weapon is easy, with L1. There are loads of guns too, ranging from simple guns, flame throwers, chain guns, grenades, grenade launchers, rocket launchers, and the Force Hammer. This special weapon creates an invisible force that thrusts enemies away. It's great for narrow ledges. The Force Hammer doesn't actually do any damage to enemies, but their impact on other surfaces does. It's especially good for large groups of opponents.
Something that doesn't show up well in the screenshots is the game's incredibly sophisticated physics. For those who have played Sucker Punch's Sly Cooper (or even earlier, Rocket), everything in those worlds bounced, rolled and delivered a unique style of realistic movement. In the world of Gamma 6, players can see and feel a very visceral sense of physics. Shoot an enemy and watch him fly backward in response (you CAN see that in the screens). Watch as boxes get kicked and slowly lose force as they bounce and spin to a stop. Vectorman can pick up huge structures, which, when thrown, will break apart. Each part will crumble and/or fall away with forces equal to their size and mass. Enhanced by this excellent programming, the game's sense of 3D space doubles or triples, and it gives players something to play with and inevitably feel. "We want to create a living breathing world with tons of bots and creatures moving around, with ships flying in mid-air (that you can shoot) and repair bots that rebuild structures," enthuses Smith.
Due in Q1 2004 on PlayStation, Sega's Vectorman is being created exclusively for PlayStation 2. Check back at E3 for more concrete details, movies and more
Well I'll be damned... I'm going to suspend further judgement now til I get to play it.