E3 2005 @ Home: 3 Adventurous Actioneers

Written by Troy Matsumiya  on May 25, 2005

Specials: Proof the Xbox isn't going quietly into the night.

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With everyone's focus on the phenomenal Xbox 360, it's easy to forget about the original Xbox we all know and love. Fortunately, game developers have not forgotten and are continuing to show strong support the big black box with quality titles, ensuring that there will still be life for the old guy long after the spiffy new kid hits the market.

Don't believe me? Check out these upcoming action titles eager to give you and your Xbox a heart-pounding good time.

Prince of Persia 3: Kindred Blades

The Prince returns in this third and final chapter of the story that began with Sands of Time (note that only the story is concluding; rest assured that the profitable franchise will still continue). Just as the Prince tries to settle down in Babylon with his honey bunny Kaileena, he discovers the city in flames and his own people turned against him. He is captured and rather than hire a high-priced lawyer, Kaileena figures the only way to free him is to sacrifice herself and release the sands of time. It works, but the Prince quickly discovers two disturbing things: first, he cannot travel back in time anymore, and second, all of his previous fiddlings with time travel have somehow created a dark twin of himself Ц just like in that old Star Trek episode where William Shatner's acting goes where no ham has gone before.

Needless to say, the Prince will have his work cut out for him: not only does he have to save his nation and restore himself to the throne, but also save his love, fix the damn timeline, and work with a white-haired grumpy version of himself.

The cool thing is you will be able to play as both the Prince and the Dark Prince. Each will have their own unique abilities, with the Prince specializing in acrobatics and the Dark Prince specializing in killing. The Dark Prince is armed with the daggertail, a whip with a nasty hook blade on the end of it that can be used to disarm enemies or pull them closer like Scorpion's spear.

Another new addition is a semi-stealth option to handling situations. Although the game uses some of the same AI routines found in Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, don't expect to be a Babylonian version of Sam Fisher; being УstealthyФ essentially will mean killing enemies quickly before they can alert their buddies Ц and it looks pretty cool. For example, the Prince can wall run and jump at an enemy and snap his neck while still in the air; in another instance, the Prince can hang upside down from a ladder and grab an enemy Sam Fisher style and give him a permanent chiropractic adjustment. When the Dark Prince is being sneaky, he can use his daggertail to strangle enemies, or simply cut their throats.

The game itself will be a blend of Sands of Time and Warrior Within. The levels will be open and free roaming, with the WW style free-form fighting and action/platforming/puzzle solving pacing. The controversial music and voice acting from WW is toast and will instead be more like SoT.

One brand new feature is the chariot races. Not much information has been released about this, but the prospect of going Ben Hur on some bad guys sounds pretty darn exciting indeed.

The action fan's favorite Prince is looking great, so get ready for his return in the last quarter of this year.

Kingdom Under Fire: Heroes

Okay, technically this is a real-time strategy game but unlike the previous edition, KUF: Crusaders, where gameplay was split roughly 60/40 between RTS and action elements, Heroes will be the exact opposite with a greater emphasis on action. You got to love the sound of that.

Heroes is actually a prequel, taking place five years before the first game and takes you through the events that lead up to Crusaders. This time around, you will be playing as the secondary characters that appeared in Crusaders, while the main characters in the first game will be secondary NPCs in Heroes. Overall, you will be able to play seven characters, including Ellen and Rupert (who were loyal NPCs to Gerald in the first game), and the sexy but deadly Morene. Each character will have unique abilities, such as Rupert's warhammer baseball move Ц where he can throw a person up into the air and then smack him on the way down Ц and Morene's Bone Blades which she can use to hook onto enemies and swing them around to bash other bad guys, or to launch herself into the air to slam and slash her way through a crowd. Morene also has the supernatural ability to keep from falling out of her impossibly skimpy leather bikini Ц apparently a fashionable choice of clothing to wear in battles filled with swords and spears.

Gameplay-wise, Heroes is more of an evolution than a revolution over the previous edition. Combat controls are virtually the same but the troop management system has been significantly improved to make things easier, along with a new camera system that allows you to pull back and get a better strategic view of the battlefield. This is definitely good news, considering that five new troop-types have been added for a total of 40 characters assigned to your main character. The maps are also bigger and use terrain to affect strategy and tactics. For example, troops on high terrain will deal more damage compared with those below them.

In fact, everything about the game is bigger. The number of missions has increased to over 50, providing about 30-50 hours of gameplay. Two additional difficulty settings have been added, for a total of five. The battles will be massive, with 200 characters onscreen at any one time and 3000 individual troops simultaneously duking it out off-screen.

Heroes can support up to six players over Xbox Live, up from only two in Crusaders. There will be three multiplayer modes: Troop Battle, where you take your Hero and troops to fight against others; Hero Battle, where you just take your Hero for some good old fashioned hack and slash deathmatches; and Invasion Battle, where a team of three people work together to fight against huge waves of enemies.

Heroes may not contain any radical changes from Crusaders, but the tweaks, improvements and enhancements seem like they are adding up to increase the fun factor substantially. If you liked the first, you should definitely mark your calendar for the release of Heroes in November.

Tomb Raider: Legend

Although Core created the buxom Lara Croft and almost single-handedly vaulted Eidos to the upper echelons of the gaming industry, they also managed to ruin the franchise (and drag Eidos' stock down) with the buggy and thoroughly unimpressive Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness. Realizing a radical change had to be made in order to save the franchise, Eidos turned the reins over to Crystal Dynamics, developer of the Legacy of Kain series. And from the looks of it so far, the change has been good for the bouncy lass.

Not much has been said about the story, which has something to do with a previous adventure in the Himalayas and explains why Lara became the Tomb Raider. One thing's for sure; the clunky stealth elements and city levels in Angel of Darkness are gone. Crystal is going back to Lara's adventure roots and will have her doing what she does best: leaping, climbing, shooting and solving puzzles in underground tombs in exotic locations like Africa, Bolivia, Peru, Russia, and of course, the Himalayas.

Lara's acrobatic moves have been improved dramatically, with more realistic, fluid animation and more responsive controls. She will also help you find your way; for example, if you are stuck on a ledge with no idea where to go, her head will turn and look towards the proper ledge to leap onto. You can also forget about the frustrations you had with the previous camera system; instead, the camera tries to put itself in the best position for the situation Ц but if you still don't like the angle, you will have full freedom to use the right stick to position it wherever you please (gee, I wonder what the most popular camera angle will be?).

Lara's equipment has also been enhanced. No, not that УequipmentФ Ц I'm talking about her two big guns. Perv.

Anyway, in addition to her trusty dual pistols, Lara will have binoculars, a magnetic grappling device that allows her to grab distant objects, and a shoulder-mounted flashlight. She can also carry grenades and one rifle at a time. She can pick up and use any weapon and will lock onto enemies in gun battles. You will also be able to shoot destructible objects like explosive barrels, which will be highlighted with a button floating above them. Hit the button on your controller and you can shoot the object while still maintaining the target lock on your enemy. If you don't feel like wasting a bullet, you will be able to smack enemies around with your melee attack.

Like the artifacts she hunts, Lara herself seems to have been pulled from a dank, dark cave of obscurity and back into the spotlight. Will Crystal be able to revive the famed franchise and create a new era for the curvaceous adventurer? We'll find out this winter.

Other Actioneers

Other upcoming action-adventure games to watch out for include Advent Rising, Aeon Flux, Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks and Ninja Gaiden Black, a repackaging of the 2004 hit with the two Hurricane Packs, bonus content, new difficulty levels and cutscenes, and the original Ninja Gaiden arcade game, also known as Ninja Ryukenden.