KEY POINTS:
LucasArts - games developer of Star Wars and Indiana Jones fame (to name but a few) - is working on a major next-gen futuristic sci-fi war game called Fracture for PS3 and Xbox360 due to be released next March.
Development partner Day 1 studio wants it to be groundbreaking and promises that players will reshape the battlefields in a futuristic conflict with global implications. This epic war fought on American soil pits cybernetically enhanced soldiers against warriors who are augmented by the benefits of advanced genetic engineering.
Amidst a backdrop of worldwide ecological and seismological chaos in the mid-2100s, the United States has been split in two by the "Great Flood". As a result of the polar ice cap melting, the Mississippi River has destroyed the central portion of the United States, causing an ill-equipped Federal Government to fail and literally cutting the country in half. These two halves are left to fend for themselves in the devastation and aftermath.
The East, now known as the Atlantic Alliance, symbolic of their union with Europe, puts its faith in surviving this new world in cybernetics. An established and yet evolving technology now more than 150 years old. On the other side of the flooded continent, the Western states, now called the Republic of Pacifica and having allied with Asia, resort to solving their problems at the genetic level, effectively restructuring the DNA of its inhabitants -- a method the Atlantic Alliance finds morally reprehensible.
By 2161, it only takes a hint of unauthorized military preparation in Pacifica for the newly restored president to order a strike in the heart of Pacifican territory -- an outpost in the now dry San Francisco Bay. This strike leads to the unthinkable: an epic conflict with global implications fought on US soil.
Players set foot on the frontlines of this epic conflict in the role of Mason Briggs, a demolitions expert fighting for the Atlantic Alliance, the side that relies upon cybernetic enhancement and up against the genetically enhanced soldiers of the Pacifican army. You are equipped with an arsenal of futuristic weaponry to strategically reshape the surroundings on the fly. Every action reshapes the face of the earth and of the battle.
This is how it works. When Briggs throws a tectonic grenade on a level battlefield, the ground blasts upward to provide access to an otherwise unreachable area. Moving on, when he comes across what appears to be an impenetrable structure, Briggs utilizes the alt-fire functionality on his rocket launcher to create enormous craters to burrow underneath the wall. Surrounded on all sides by enemies, Briggs heaves a vortex grenade, creating a swirling tornado-like mass of boulder, dirt and debris to dispatch his foes.
Lucas has a rather gloomy vision of the future suggesting such is "plausible future conflict" especially "as stem cell research continues to proliferate and spirals out of control."
Let's hope they're wrong.
It seems an awesome game - I wonder if vocal star Temuera Morrison will appear as a leading part and if that's where the Pacifican Army will get their enhanced genetic code from. :)
What I'm playing this weekend:
Shadowrun (from Microsoft/FASA studio) on Xbox360.
This is a multiplayer first person shooter based on the pen-and-paper RPG franchise. The story: After a 5000-year absence, magic has returned to the world of 2021 and a global corporate is battling a relentless ancient order to harness this reawakened power. You can either be part of the corporation bringing profit (and order) to a world of chaos or join the "lineage" to keep magic wild and free at all costs.
There's an interesting twist to the multiplayer. PC and console gamers are used to living worlds apart even if playing an adaptation of the same game.
This is Microsoft's first cross-platform multiplayer meaning that Xbox 360 players will be able to battle Windows Vista players online. I haven't got Vista so will be using 360 to take them on. Will my console control be faster than their mouse/keyboard action?
The studio made Mech Warrior and Crimson Skies.
