GC Asia 2007: AU Show Wrap-up

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The Games

As I've already pointed out, EA's stand was one of the few worth spending time at, and was actually staffed by people who worked on the games. Thus, I'm not going to waste time telling you all about this new title called Wii Sports, instead I'll just run through a few of the more interesting - and yet to be released - titles on show. Many of which are from EA.

'What about all the kooky Asian-developed titles?', you're probably thinking. 'Where are they?' Frankly, I asked myself the same question. Japanese developers were conspicuous by their absence, and of the more region-specific games on display, most of them were already out... with several million people across the region already playing them on their PCs or mobiles.

While it was a valiant first attempt, GC Asia 07 just didn't have much oomph. Oh well, on to the games.

Burnout Paradise
Developer: Criterion
System(s): PS3, Xbox 360

Criterion hasn't let down its legion of Burnout fans yet, and it's not going to start with Paradise - the most adventurous sequel to date. As you probably know, Paradise moves the series from essentially shooting you down "a tube", as Nick Channon, the game's Senior Producer put it, to giving you complete freedom to explore a large city and its surrounding areas. It's a massive change of focus, giving the player complete control over what he or she wants to do at all times. Want to kick off an event? There's one available (via L1 + R1) at every junction in the game - that's 120 all up, across 65 streets that take you all the way from the city, up into the mountains, and along freeways and rail lines. Once you've started a race, it's up to you to get to the end point any way you want, which means if you've learnt the city layout and its many shortcuts, you're going to have a big advantage. In fact, the road map that's displayed while driving around in 'Free Burn' mode is taken away once you enter a race event - you have to know the streets. Thankfully, however, there are only eight finishing points in the city, all distinctly placed, so you'll quickly learn which point you're heading for in each race.

Online play is seamlessly built in too - no lobbies, just invite up to seven friends in from within the game world. And while you're waiting for the stragglers there are any number of challenges to keep you occupied. Do a long drift, for instance, and the distance will pop up as a challenge to beat on everyone else's screen. Or you could pose a record for: flat spins, power parking (hand braking into parking spots), air time, distance in the air, near misses, oncoming traffic distance or consecutive burnouts. Even when you're not racing with friends, you can bring up a news ticker displaying the best times and achievements of people on your friends list.

The build at GC Asia 07 we played was on PS3 and flew along at 60 frames per second (which has been a prerequisite for every Burnout game), as will the 360 version. It's going to be great.

Battlefield: Bad Company
Developer: DICE
System(s): PS3, Xbox 360

Disappointingly, the behind closed doors demo for Bad Company is the same one we've reported on a couple of times already. Still, it serves as a pretty cool introduction to the game's single player campaign, showing off an open village area that you can assault any way you wish. And that includes creating your own access points into buildings via a grenade launcher. Yes, the environmental destruction really is impressive, and it's definitely about more than just blowing stuff up. It adds another level of immersion to the world, and thankfully, another level to the gameplay too.

We asked the Producer, Patrick Bach about how completely destructible environments change the game design process, and he told us that: "Most [destruction in other games] has been pre-defined... What we're doing here is something fundamentally different; that's why we call it 'tactical destruction' - tactical as in, 'you can actually use it', it's not only a visual treat. The game is also being built from a different angle, it's a very open, sandbox game. You don't build it - as most games are built - as a tunnel, or maybe even a big tunnel, but it's still a tunnel. This game is being built by designing it from the defence, rather than from the attack. So if you're the player, you're attacking, but you can attack from any angle, and you can destroy things as you move along. Therefore, we can't design the game from your angle, because then you would have to design 20, 30, 40 different angles. So instead we're designing it from the defensive position. So, 'how would I defend this area'? And that works really well. The reason why is that everything is based on the same rock, paper, scissors fundament. So the AI uses the same rules that you're using - we just try to keep it down a bit so it doesn't shoot you in the head all the time. They're using destruction in the same way that you're using it. If they're hiding behind something and you shoot it, they will have to move away from it; the covers are dynamically updated in real-time. And if you're hiding behind something that is destroyable, they will destroy it, so it's the added dimension on rock, paper, scissors."

Of course, you can imagine how much destructible environments are going to fundamentally change multiplayer play, and according to Patrick, development focus is split evenly between single and multiplayer. The reason they haven't shown the latter yet? "We've proven that we can do multiplayer before, so we don't really have to say that again. What is new and cool, is that we're doing a single player adventure, and we're doing it on the next-gen consoles, so that is the more important thing."

Patrick also confirmed that the Frostbite engine is being built to use across future PS3, 360 and PC games, so it looks like as far as DICE is concerned, environmental destruction is here to stay.

Everybody's Golf 5
Developer: Clap Hanz
System(s): PS3

Effortlessly charming this one, just like previous games in the series. While the fact that the code was in Japanese obscured some of the finer points of the mechanics, it also led to an amusing encounter with one of the Singaporean locals Sony had hired to staff their stand, who wasn't able to tell me how to do something because "the game's in Japanese". Yep, that's my problem too.

In any case, Everybody's Golf 5 is truly pick up and play, with a resolutely old school three press swing system for driving (although without the usual power bar - now you're watching the movement of the club) and an intuitive system to read the greens, backed up by the depth you'd expect - adding spin to shots, taking into account the wind, height differentials and terrain. It only took me a few minutes to get into the 'swing' of the game, and I imagine that like previous EG titles, there'll be a host of unlockable courses, characters and other goodies to keep you in for the long haul. And let's not forget online play! It looks great too - the characters are exaggerated and cartoony, with neck-snappingly large heads, while the courses are incredibly crisp and detailed.

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