News

[icycalm]

TGS 2008 trailer (44 MB)

Japanese Gears of War copycat with zero inspiration by Tecmo. Reminds me of Vampire Rain (Japanese Splinter Cell copycat with zero inspiration by Artoon), which I bought at one point but have yet to play.

[icycalm]

Screens 4 and 5 are straight out of Gears. I bet the controls will also be very similar. I would hope for some Japanese-style innovation à la Breakdown (a very neat FPS by Namco for the Xbox, for those who've never heard of it), but nothing I've seen so far suggests that.

[Evo]

I wish people using the Unreal Engine 3 would break away from the dark black and grey urban landscapes as settings.

It's a pretty cool engine and there are all sorts of things that should be possible, but all they do is black, grey and brown...

[icycalm]

Well the setting here definitely isn't urban. And there's a touch more color than in Gears, for sure. I don't know how much more you could inject in there without having the game look ridiculous. FPSes/TPSes have traditionally had darker colors than, say, platformers, because of the theme issue. I mean you COULD make one in a Mushroom Kingdom-like world, but it'd be an exception, and there's a good reason for this.

But how do you know it uses the Unreal Engine 3?

[Jedah]

I'd say the architecture/setting resembles Devil May Cry more than Gears of War.

[Evo]

But how do you know it uses the Unreal Engine 3?

That's the problem with not doing your reading and watching first... I was wrong -- this article suggests that UE3 has nothing to do with it:

The final round in Tecmo's barrel was the one that made people sit up and look. Led by Keisuke Kikuchi's recently-dubbed "Team Tachyon," Quantum Theory (not to be confused with Quantum of Solace) has been brewing for over a year now in various stages of concept and development. Today was the first time Kikuchi's "Ninja Gaiden-killer" was unveiled to the public. Once described to me by Kikuchi as a game that could go head to head with Ninja Gaiden, the game's main character is named Sid, and wields both a gun and a sword. While I initially envisioned it as something of a Devil May Cry wannabe, the trailer shown today was of extremely high quality. Imagine Devil May Cry type action, wrapped in Gears of War-meets-Japan style graphics and you're halfway there. Running at a brisk 60 frames-per-second, this CG trailer almost looked like it could have been using the Unreal engine -- with high-contrast lighting, self-shadowing and lavish use of bump-mapping. But upon meeting the one-time Team Ninja staff member who created this cinematic over the past two months, he assured me that it was not Gears of War tech, and that it was not game-engine. Of course Tecmo are striving to approach the level of quality displayed in the trailer, but if the game's hero Sid, and his female partner, Felina, can even approach half the visual fidelity of what was shown, gamers should be in for a real, graphical treat. Scheduled for release in 2009, Quantum Theory is that rapidly dwindling rarity: a PlayStation 3 exclusive.

http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3170509

I think the first part of the video counts as urban though.

[bullethell]

Storyline bits below.

The tower "侵蝕" (DIABOROSHISU) is a threat to the mankind and must be destroyed. To do it so the hero must go to the last floor of it. The DIABOROSHISU tower is a living tower and it is trying to morph itself into another shape. There is also another tower called FIRENA where the hero met the girl of the game.

source: http://www.4gamer.net/games/074/G007451/20090603053/

[MjFrancis]

E3 09 video

http://www.gametrailers.com/video/e3-09 ... eory/50180

Using cover doesn't seem important until you confront a boss, so even if the controls mimic Gears of War the mechanics are watered down. Enemy A.I. appears horrid. The Devil May Cry comparisons are quite fitting, assuming we are comparing this to the second iteration.

[icycalm]

http://forums.selectbutton.net/viewtopi ... 241#811241

So, how does that Quantum Theory demo play?

Like Gears of War with padded gloves.

In screenshots it looks nice and detailed, but in practice it feels...lifeless. The environments are static backdrops, the movement and shooting are loose, and nothing has any impact. It tries a few things (team-up attacks, melee combos), but they don't save the demo as a whole, which is surprisingly dull. You can soak up enough damage to wade into packs of enemies, but both you and them control/move so slowly that there's a good chance neither of you will hit each other.

As for impact, here's the contrast:

In Gears of War you shoot enemies and they grunt, recoil, and bleed copiously. Gunfire eventually shreds them into little, meaty bits.

In Quantum Theory you shoot enemies and they twitch a bit and release [s]Tang sparks[/s] spritzes of orange blood(?). Gunfire eventually causes them to pause for a moment, groan, then pop.