E3 09: High Voltage announces The Grinder @ Gaming Target

Written by John Scalzo on May 27, 2009

News: A pseudo A-Team versus vampires, werwolves and something called The Slasher. Count me in.

As promised, IGN has revealed the second new Wii project from High Voltage Software, the team behind the Wii-exclusive shooter The Conduit. Originally scheduled to be revealed at this year's E3 expo, the company instead unveiled The Grinder with a four-page preview at IGN.

The Grinder is a first person shooter for the Wii powered by the company's famed Quantum3 Engine. The game will similar to Left 4 Dead in that it will feature four characters working together to take down a horrific horde of monsters. Instead of zombies, the players will be hunting vampires, werewolves and something called The Slasher.

But unlike Left 4 Dead, there's been no zombie apocalypse and the four characters, Hector (a bounty hunter), Doc (a doctor), AJ (a college student), and Miko (an assassin with a sword), are a sort of supernatural A-Team. High Voltage chief creative officer Eric Nofsinger had this to say in the article:

Eric [Nofsinger]: I don't want to give too much away right now, but the game takes place in a world we've imagined where monsters are real. Vampires, werewolves, and undead are all a part of everyday life and this world has adapted to their presence. Our group of heroes is a sort of the cryptobiological A-Team of going into areas with infestations and killing everything that moves. We've definitely been influenced by lots of great horror movies and the grindhouse style is something we've tried to incorporate into our characters and storyline.

The game's story mode will be playable in both singleplayer and four-player online cooperative play (which will include WiiSpeak support). Players will get a chance to take out the ghouls with a variety of weapons including pistols, shotguns, AK-47s and a Wii MotionPlus-controlled sword if they play as Miko.

The Grinder is currently set for a late 2010 release (although it is currently without a publisher) and High Voltage has said the finished product will be heavily inspired by the worlds of From Dusk Til Dawn and John Carpenter's Vampires (a truly underrated vampire flick).

High Voltage will have the game on hand at their E3 booth and be sure and check out the IGN preview as it has plenty of horror-filled screenshots.