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E3 2000 Wrap-Up
Page 7/11
A look at Sega's showing at E3 - By BenT and Fragmaster
Konami
Nightmare Creatures 2
Nightmare Creatures 2 puts you in the shoes and straitjacket of Herbert Wallace, certified looney and pissed off test subject of Dr. Adam Crowley. Crowley is looking to invoke the spirit of an ancestor to endow himself with untold power, and it's up to Wallace to escape his asylum and chop Crowley into little tiny bits. The game looks ok, but Konami could clearly do better. The framerate is smooth until one encounters a fight, at which point there are bits of jerkiness here and there. The characters could look better, and are a bit lacking in animations. Worse, combat seems like a rather dry, simple affair. Sure, enemies get dismembered and squirt gallons of blood, but it gets old pretty quick. At least the enemy designs are suitably bizarre. Eh. While it's not terrible by any means, I can't say I'm looking forward to playing more of Nightmare Creatures 2.
Mattel Interactive
Billabong Pro Surfer
That's right, a surfing game. Looked really rough, especially graphically. The gameplay wasn't very fun. Don't have high hopes for this one.
Max Steel
Max Steel is a mediocre third person action game, where you play space-age superhero.. Max Steel. Bad control, ugly characters, and boring gameplay. We'll pass.
Prince of Persia
An average conversion of the average PC title. The enemy AI is absolutely stupid, as you can crouch in front of a guard and they'll slash over your head all day. I must admit, I couldn't figure out how to draw my sword, so I never did get past the first guard. (He eventually got me when I got bored of crouching.) From what I saw, the models look pretty lame, and the environment was very low poly. I can't say this franchise does much for me.
Metro 3D
Armada 2
It looks like the surprisingly good shooter/asteroids/RPG hybrid Armada is getting a sequel. The version at E3 allowed for simple space battles, but a number of graphical improvements were already visible. The starfield effects in the background looked much more interesting than the first game's, and a variety of new ship designs could be seen. The action appeared largely similar to Armada's, so I can't comment on any possible gameplay innovations yet. The big news here is that the game will have online multiplayer through the "Metroplay" service, which I'm guessing is a fancy way to say "Internet". You might recall that the first Armada was to have online play as well, so it's nice to see the feature finally materialize, albeit in the sequel. The one thing I'm really hoping for is that the game drops its use of Windows CE, as the moderate frame dropping and slowdown seen in the first game was just not necessary on the Dreamcast. Don't take the easy way out this time, Metro 3D.
Next: Midway, Namco, Red Storm, and Ripcord
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